Believe Right!

Believers, 1 Peter 2:24 says of Christ: "He personally carried our sins in His body on the cross [willingly offering Himself on it, as on an altar of sacrifice], so that we might die to sin [becoming immune from the penalty and power of sin] and live for righteousness; for by His wounds you [who believe] have been healed." See the Contemporary English Version: "Christ carried the burden of our sins. He was nailed to the cross, so that we would stop sinning and start living right. By His cuts and bruises you are healed." Christ was nailed to the cross SO THAT we would stop sinning and start living right. But like the early Christians in Galatia, many are still looking to their own arm of flesh (human effort) to attain righteousness before God and are trying to stop sinning by human effort. It is not uncommon to hear this lie in many places of worship: "Now that you are born-again, you have to do your best to obey the law in order to remain godly and saved an...

Believers, believe right. Due to false teaching, many among us, after receiving Christ, are still depending on our own ability to obey the Ten Commandments and human effort at doing right to remain right with God, receive from Him and be Rapture-worthy. This is great folly, as the reason why we are not committing particular sins is because we have not been tempted beyond what we can bear in those areas. No matter how hard a weightlifter trains or his experience and dedication, he cannot carry a weight that is designed to crush him 100 times over. Bear in mind that we are not all of the same size so what is crushing for you might be nothing to another. Plus, life does not consider weight, stature, resources or level of preparedness before throwing weights (trials and temptations) at anybody. Sometimes, we catch ourselves saying of others: " how could he do such an evil thing" or " how could she be so careless with her child" or " I can never do that." Pe...

Many of us believers in Christ think that being caught up with our Saviour Jesus Christ when He returns for His saints (the Rapture) depends on our ability to keep the Ten Commandments, "how good we are" here on earth or even what we are doing at the time of His coming. Not so! Just a quick intro before we see why not and what the word of the Lord says is the condition for being caught up with Christ at His coming. The bible says in Ephesians 2:8-10- "For it was only through this wonderful grace that we believed in Him. Nothing we did could ever earn this salvation, for it was the gracious gift from God that brought us to Christ! 9 So no one will ever be able to boast, for salvation is never a reward for good works or human striving. 10 We have become His poetry, a re-created people that will fulfill the destiny He has given each of us, for we are joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. Even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny and the good works we wou...

Believers, in the midst of our glaring deficiencies and imperfections in our thoughts, words and deeds, God sees us as righteous because we are in Christ. How is this possible? We see how in 2 Corinthians 5:21- " For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." In the midst of Christ's absolute righteousness, loveliness and perfection, He became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Christ did not become sin by doing sin. All of the pain, suffering and God's rejection that He went through was not for His own sins. He had/has none. He died for our sins. Likewise, in Him, we did not become or remain righteous in God's sight by doing righteous deeds or by obeying the law but by receiving the gift of righteousness that He died that we might have. We GET TO live right by His gift of righteousness. See 1 Peter 2:24- " He personally carried our sins in His body on the cross [...

Believers, with Christ as our righteousness, even during those times when we have really messed things up and are feeling distant from Him because we sinned or for whatever reason, He is with us. He came to save us from those very sins and will never condemn anyone that believes. Don’t let anyone deceive you into believing differently. In Christ, our access into God’s presence - the Holy of Holies- isn’t dependent on our own ability to fast, sow seed, do right or obey the Ten Commandments. We boldly enter the Holiest through Jesus Christ and no one/nothing else. See Hebrews 10: 19 “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and having a 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.” God wants us to draw nea...

Believers, the sign that we are growing in Christ (Grace-personified) is not found in our ability to live right or do good things by human effort. Even unbelievers do good things and can say no to sin given the right circumstances. The sign of our growing in grace is found in the size of our revelation of how much we are loved and forgiven in Christ, how we are/can do nothing without Him, how powerless we are against sin on our own and how bogged down and entrenched in sin we would be were it not for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. See Paul's own revelation as he grew in grace, the first step being from his description of himself as "the least of the apostles" in 1 Corinthians 15- "For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me....

Believers, the letter kills. Galatians 3:10 says: " Those who depend on obeying the Law live under a curse. For the scripture says, “Whoever does not always obey everything that is written in the book of the Law is under God's curse!”" No one can obey everything. No one is righteous of themselves. The law does not understand "I did my best so God will see that I have tried and consider me." It's keep all or be cursed and die and no one can keep all. The law condemns all those who are trying to get right with God by doing what it says. All have sinned and the wages of sin is death. We were all doomed for this death. Hence God's love and justice executed at the cross and expressed in John 3: " 16 God loved the world this way: He gave His only Son so that everyone who believes in Him will not die but will have eternal life. 17 God sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but to save the world. 18 Those who believe in Him won’t be cond...

Believers, when Jesus said in Matthew 7:13- “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." - He was talking to Jews who were all about obeying the law of Moses and saw even the well-behaved and honest among the Gentiles as unclean. The verse is a part of the Sermon on the Mount which begins with Matthew 5: 1 "One day Jesus saw a vast crowd of people gathering to hear Him, so He went up the slope of a hill and sat down. With His followers and disciples spread over the hillside, 2 Jesus began to teach them: 3 “What wealth is offered to you when you feel your spiritual poverty! For there is no charge to enter the realm of heaven’s kingdom." Jesus was teaching religious people who wanted to " enter the realm of heaven's kingdom ." These were not people who took the issue of sin ligh...

Believers, consider Romans 9: 30 "What does all this mean? Even though the Gentiles were not trying to follow God’s standards, they were made right with God. And it was by faith that this took place. 31 But the people of Israel, who tried so hard to get right with God by keeping the law, never succeeded. 32 Why not? Because they were trying to get right with God by keeping the law instead of by trusting in Him. They stumbled over the great rock in their path. 33 God warned them of this in the Scriptures when He said, “I am placing a stone in Jerusalem that makes people stumble,     a rock that makes them fall. But anyone who trusts in Him     will never be disgraced.”" Believers, let's not be like these "people of Israel" that Paul was talking about here. These people who rejected Christ as their righteousness (this is the stumbling stone) were not people who wanted to go out and commit sin. God's word says they " tried so hard to get right wi...