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Wednesday,
January 9, 2008
Alive and Well
Luke 20:38 For he is not a God of the
dead, but of the living: for all live unto him. (KJV)
When a person is born again or born a new
into the realm of the Spirit you realize that in order to maintain this
life you need to hear how to continue in it so that you can grow strong in
the Lord and maintain an intimate relationship with Him. Our Father is a
God of the now and not the past. It is of utmost importance that one
realizes that when you become a new creation in Christ old things are
passed away, dead, and all things should now become new. You should be
viewing your life now from a spiritual viewpoint and able to rightly divide
the difference between what is right and wrong, not according to mans
standards, but God’s. You should be experiencing a new life of peace and
joy based now on your inward vision and not what the outward would try to
dictate.
Hebrews 10:18-22 Now where remission of
these is, there is no more offering for sin. (19) Having therefore,
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, (20) By
a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil,
that is to say, his flesh; (21) And having an high priest over the house of
God; (22) Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed
with pure water. (KJV)
There is a new and living way to serve a
living God and it has been available for roughly the last 2000 years
because of the offering of Jesus Christ. Instead of waiting for a priest to
enter into the holy realm for us once a year according to the old law, we
now have access anytime at anyplace we choose to call upon the name of the
Lord. With this opportunity afforded us by a living mediator who is able to
cleanse our hearts with pure living waters, why would anyone settle for
less and keep old dead rituals, carnal washings (water baptisms), which
look good to the outward but do nothing for our inward? If you desire to
serve the living God, His word says the just shall live by faith; and Church
it is just that simple, because without faith it is impossible to please
God. Jesus Christ is the only way, the only truth, and the only life that
will lead you to your heavenly inheritance.
Hebrews 8:10-13 For this is the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord;
I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I
will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: (11) And they
shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying,
Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. (12)
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their
iniquities will I remember no more. (13) In that he saith, A new covenant,
he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready
to vanish away. (KJV)
Why do God’s people or those that claim
to be serving Him still hang onto old laws and rituals that are dead and
decaying? If you had an old car that was falling apart and not worth fixing
again, you wouldn’t waste your time and money with it. If you had access to
a brand new vehicle free of charge, would you not take the deal in a
heartbeat? So why do so many people go around with a bunch of broken down
rusted out jalopies rather than jump into a brand new vehicle every day and
take a ride that leads us to our Father?
Matthew 9:16-17 No man putteth a piece of
new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up
taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse. (17) Neither do men
put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth
out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and
both are preserved. (KJV)
You ever hear the term ‘trying to drive a
square peg into a round hole’? It doesn’t fit, nor was it meant to fit. And
the more you try the more you will end up throwing a fit and be
discouraged. The same holds true with God, when you try and put the new
back into the old it doesn’t work. In fact as verse 16 says it actually
ends up worse, to the point that it will end up perishing as verse 17 makes
reference to. So remember Church, our God is a God of the living, not
anything dead or perishing. The more one is surrounded by dead things the
less attractive it is; in fact it becomes quite unhealthy if not buried.
The same holds true in the spiritual realm; and the more one hangs onto
dead things, eventually they end up dead to.
2 Corinthians 3:7-12 But if the
ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so
that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses
for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: (8) How
shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? (9) For if the
ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of
righteousness exceed in glory. (10) For even that which was made glorious
had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. (11)
For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth
is glorious. (12) Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great
plainness of speech: (KJV)
Having access to a law of faith that
excels above and beyond the old law which is done away, why would someone
keep going back to the graveyard to find something living? Using as simple
and plainness of speech as possible, if you wish to remain in good standing
with our Father, it can only be done by the new and living way, not in some
has- been worn out dead, died and forgotten works of the law which will not
bring new life.
Williams reference for Romans
7:1-6
1.
Do you not know, brothers -- for I speak to those who are acquainted
with the law -- that the law can press its claim over a man only so long as
he lives?
2. For
a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her
husband dies, she is freed from the marriage bond.
3.
So if she marries another man while her husband is living, she is
called an adulteress, but if he dies, she is free from that marriage bond,
so that she will not be an adulteress though later married to another man.
4.
So, my brothers, you too in the body of Christ have ended your
relation to the law, so that you may be married to another husband, to Him
who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
5.
For when we were living in accordance with our lower nature, the
sinful passions that were aroused by the law were operating in the parts of
our bodies to make us bear fruit that leads to death.
6. But now we have been freed from our
relation to the law; we have ended our relation to that by which we once
were held in bonds, so that we may serve in a new spiritual way and not in
the old literalistic way.
Romans 7:1-6 Know ye not, brethren, (for
I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a
man as long as he liveth? (2) For the woman which hath an husband is bound
by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead,
she is loosed from the law of her husband. (3) So then if, while her
husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an
adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that
she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. (4) Wherefore,
my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that
ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead,
that we should bring forth fruit unto God. (5) For when we were in the
flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members
to bring forth fruit unto death. (6) But now we are delivered from the law,
that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of
spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. (KJV)
Under the old covenant the law was in
play for that time and so in order to have a relationship with God it was
done according to the works of it. You need to realize that once this was
done away, dead died and buried by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, you are
now free to engage in a new life of liberty and freedom apart from the law
so that you can now partake of living waters which will bring forth the
fruit of the Spirit within you. Now being delivered from death, it is time
to go to the well of life so that you can continue to be alive and well in
the newness of the Spirit and not the oldness of the letter of the law
which is a killer.
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