Practically Speaking – Part 3 of 3

The Apostle Paul was really great at laying the foundation of the gospel and the Christian life – God’s love and grace, the blood of Jesus, His finished work, our solid identity in Him, etc. All of this is not only the foundation, but it is woven into every aspect of life in Christ. Paul told the Corinthians that he “determined to know nothing among them except Christ and Him crucified.” Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ, and the life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God…” He was very careful to make sure his readers knew that the Christian life was about faith in God, and in the very life of Christ in them, and not about their own fleshly works that they could conjure up.

His epistles, of course, included much more than simply straight identity doctrine. In the very same epistles, Paul also included some very practical words about how it all looked when it was lived out. Grace and identity was, of course, inextricably woven into all of it. He was not giving “rules for Christian living” or any such thing, but rather was giving some very wonderful, practical words of wisdom. All of this has the potential to be taken in the wrong, legalistic way, of course. All of these things have the potential to be used in manipulative and controlling ways. But as people who love one another and have great grace towards one another, as Paul did with those he wrote to, this can all be a very wonderful part of the Christian life.

For example I don’t believe Paul was being legalistic or going beyond grace or looking to something other than grace or trying to balance anything with grace when he said, “flee sexual immorality.” That can (has the potential to) be taken as a legalistic command or rule, but in this (and other words of Paul), I think it's an exhortation that can help a Christian live as who they truly are. This also has the potential to be taken as words that we try to keep through the efforts of our flesh. May that never be!!!

I don’t live my life by looking at the Bible for principles for how to live my life. But what can happen is that at the proper times, God can speak things through people that help me, by His grace, to live like who I am. For example, God can speak to me through someone the words, “husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church” and that can be the instigator that changes my behavior… from the inside out. It can help, by God's grace, to change how I treat my wife. It’s not a rule and it’s not a law that I apply. It’s simply Christ speaking some good words through somebody else to me that helps me to outwardly be more of who I am inwardly. It’s the same with so many of the other things that Paul and the New Testament writers mentioned… and it’s by no means limited to the various exhortations in the NT.

I can think of many examples of how this has played out in my life. One example is Paul’s words, “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry” (Eph 4:26). What this has done, is it has caused me and my wife to do all our fighting during daylight hours! Just kidding! But seriously, as a husband and as a daddy who sometimes messes up and walks after the flesh, simply thinking about these words has brought me back to the reality of who I am and it’s led me to going and making amends with either my wife or my kids. It’s not a rule that I’ve followed. It’s not a law. It’s simply something that can be a good thing for the heart and mind to consider and it can really help to change a person’s attitude and actions to match who they truly are in Christ - again by the Spirit and by His grace, not by my own fleshly attempts at living it out.

As a child, when my sisters and I were squabbling and fighting, I remember my mom often saying, “don’t return evil for evil” (Rom 12:17, 1 Thess 5:15, 1 Peter 3:9). As I got older and began to truly understand what that really meant, it began to take root in me… especially because I saw it lived out by both my parents. I never heard them talking bad about others, and I know that they were hurt by others at times, and they always responded graciously, at least from what I saw.

Again, these are just a few examples of what I’m talking about. It is a “grace-full” thing to speak to one another in ways such as these. It’s not adding to grace, it’s not lowering the value of grace, it’s not balancing grace with anything. Our words to one another can stimulate one another into action. Our words to one another can work together with Christ’s life in us to bring about a change of mind and direction… to make conscious decisions or choices and that can help to spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Not words of conviction, not words of guilt, not words of condemnation… but words of exhortation, admonition, encouragement.

I welcome your thoughts, whether you wholeheartedly agree with me or wholeheartedly disagree with me or anywhere in between. It’s me… JOEL! You can agree or disagree with me and I still hold you in the highest of regards!

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

What was against us and contrary to us has been wiped out and made obsolete!

This post, and the post to follow, are not posts that are meant to turn your head a little. They're not simply "double-take" posts. These are absolute all-out in-your-face posts! I might even make some enemies with these posts, and I'm willing to take that risk. But my ultimate hope is that the words in these posts will be used to set people free.

For too long the Church of Jesus Christ has been involved in an atrocious, yet all too widely accepted, form of Christianity that continues to include within it various forms of the very thing that Christ came to set us free from! Actually, this has been going on for 2,000 years. Certain early Christians, such as the people in the churches of Galatia, were so involved in this atrocity that the Apostle Paul, in a strong rebuke, called them foolish and he asked them who had bewitched them that they would turn back to such things!

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free," Paul said (Galatians 5:1), but yet there are still many Christians living today who are in bondage to the very thing that Christ set us free from! It should not be this way! So what is this terrible, heinous form of slavery that Christians are involved in, through the preaching and teaching of it, and through the daily yoking of themselves together with it?

The LAW. God's Law. God's holy Law. I'll be specific: The Ten Commandments (and any and all other of God's 600+ laws and ordinances in the Bible). This is what Christians, to their detriment, are misguidedly teaching and preaching as the way of the Christian life. The paradox here is that God's good, holy law... is not good for us! It was against us and contrary to us (Colossians 2:14). It was bondage to us (Galatians 4:24). See, God's good and holy Law has this itsy bitsy little shortcoming when it comes to sinful man: It can make no one perfect or holy or good! (See Hebrews 7:18-19 and Romans 8:3). So what God did through Christ was not to enable us to live according to the standards of His Law, but rather He took the Law out of the way by nailing it to the cross with Christ! (See again Colossians 2:14). And so with the Law nailed to the cross and our sin taken away, we were freed from our bondage and made close to God by His grace. We now live, not by God's Law, but by the Life of Christ that has come to indwell us.

So why the obsession with the Law in Christianity??? Do we not get that it was against us and that we had to die to it in order to belong to Christ? (Galatians 2:19-20, Romans 7:4). Jesus
said He didn't come to destroy the Law. He came to fullfil it. And guess what? At the cross, all was fulfilled!!! When Jesus died, God's Last Will and Testament (the New Covenant) was executed. When all was fullfilled, and the New Covenant came to be, God made the first covenant "obsolete" (Hebrews 8:13)! We can't miss the fact that Jesus, "after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God" (Hebrews 10:12). Jesus sat down, signifying that the work was complete and sufficient and finished forever!!! What the Law could never have done, Christ did once and for all.

Thank GOD that what was against us and contrary to us (God's Law) has been wiped out and nailed to the cross and made obsolete! Because of this, we are truly FREE!

It's not "me." It's "Christ in me!"

In Christ, I am righteous, I am holy (set apart), I am justified, and I am a whole lot more as well!

Why is it that I'm righteous, holy and justified, and a whole lot more?

Because it's not just "me." It's Christ in me! The old "me" died and I am now a new "me." Literally. I'm not an "improved" me, or a "better person."

I'm a brand new creation. The old me has not simply been "improved" upon. The old me is dead and gone. I've now been made alive together with Christ.

I just realized I've written about this before. Check out "New, or Improved?" from a year ago.

I don't live by faith in myself, or in becoming a better person. I live by faith in the Person who indwells me!

Gal 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

2 Cor 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Col 3:2-4
Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

I don't live a life that is separate from Christ... ever! It's not a matter of "my" life sometimes and "my life in Christ" other times. My life is Christ in me, all the time!