The Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
Observation
There is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ. The power of the Spirit of God has freed us from sin and death. In Christ’s body, God declared an end to sin’s reign.
Those who are dominated by sin think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. The sinful nature is hostile to God, so people who are under the reign of sin cannot please God.
When we come to Christ, the Spirit of God comes in to us to live in us and to bring us eternal life. This is the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead, and will give life to us in the same way.
Application
The Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead and He will certainly bring life to our bodies. The Spirit is like a guarantee that we will be saved.
Christians can rise above the despair of our culture by affirming that we will live for ever. Life is more than 70 or so years of meaningless existence. We were made for eternity.
The Holy Spirit assures us that we are destined for eternal life. We have been set free from the law of sin and death. We have been given a new nature, a nature that is being equipped for heaven.
The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead now lives in me, and will in the same way raise me from death also.
For christians, death is not the last word. Death has been defeated by Christ, and it no longer has a hold on us.
Prayer
Hallelujah! Father, I thank you that through your Son you have conquered death, and through your Spirit you assure me of eternal life. Amen.
I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a save to the sin that is still within me.
Observation
There is nothing good in our sinful nature. We want to do what is right, but we can’t do it. Regardless of what we intend, we end up doing the wrong thing.
Paul says he loves God’s law with all his heart, but even so, he is captive to another power at work in him. There seems to be no way out.
But praise God! The answer is in Jesus Christ. He supplies the answer to the dilemma.
Application
As a zealous Pharisee, Paul was passionate about God’s law. Before he came to Christ, he thought that the law of God was the answer to sin.
All christians, including Paul, have been given forgiveness and righteousness from God through Christ.
But still sin has a hold over us. We can let our old sinful nature dominate our lifestyle to the point that people around us cannot see any difference in our lives.
The law cannot fix this problem. No kind of legalism can solve the dilemma. Only surrendering ourselves to Christ will make us truly righteous.
When christians sin in one part of our lives, it is a sign that we not really handed that part of our lives over to Christ. We are still controlled in that area by our sinful nature.
To be set free from sin, we must continually yield our mind, body and soul to God. We are called to be holy to the Lord, set apart for His purposes. That means every part of our lives is to be holy.
It is not my efforts or striving that brings this into being. No, it is the power of God in me.
Prayer
Thank you Lord for setting me free from sin. Please help me to surrender every part of my life over to you to be used for your glory. Amen.
Sin took advantage of these commands and deceived me; it used the command to kill me. But still the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good.
Observation
Paul is not saying that the law of God is itself sinful. No, the law shows us our sin. We didn’t know it was wrong to covet until God’s law told us so,
But when we know coveting is wrong, sin immediately causes us to do the wrong thing. The law’s commands bring life, but sin uses the same command to kill us. The law itself is holy, righteous and good.
Application
It is the nature of sin to take what is good and turn it to evil. Although Paul is talking about the Jewish Law here, it is true of any good gift from God.
Sex is God’s good gift, bringing babies into the world and deepening the connection between husband and wife. Sin takes this life-giving thing and uses it to wreak havoc in society through babies born to single mothers, adultery, pornography, prostitution, child trafficking- the toll of human suffering goes on and on.
Drugs, used correctly, are a gift from God for healing, pain relief and many other positive things. But misuse of them causes addiction and health issues, even death, as well as crime and corruption.
Every good gift from God has the potential to be twisted by sin so that what is meant to bring us joy and life brings instead misery and death.
So I need to constantly examine my heart. Do I bring life to myself and others, or do I bring death? Am I walking in the ways of God’s goodness, or am I seeking my own benefit?
Prayer
Lord, I am so aware of the tendency of sin, of my sin, to hurt others and myself. Please help me to live in submission to you. Amen.
But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.
Observation
The law only constrains us while a person is living. So a married woman does not commit adultery if her husband dies and she then remarries.
We have died to the power of God’s law because we died in Christ. We are no longer controlled by our old nature, and the law is no longer stirring up evil desires. Now we are free to serve God in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Application
One of the problems of legalism is that it stirs up our fascination with sin. If somebody had not told me not to covet my neighbour’s wife, it is quite possible that it would never occur to me to do that, much less commit adultery.
The problem with the law is that sin is not about our actions but our motivations. We see this at work in the recent lock down and curfew in Victoria. When a curfew was announced, the internet lit up with questions like “Can I stay at my girlfriend’s house?” and “Can the lawn mowing contractor still come?”
It is not surprising that hundreds of people have lied on their cross-border permit applications. When a Government first restricts access it seems that most people’s first thought is not, “That’s a sensible precaution at this time”, but” I’ve got to go there, now, at any cost.”
So God’s law was never about controlling behaviour but addressing sinful desire.
Now Jesus has set us free from the power and the penalty of sin, so we do not have to follow a written law to find favour with God. Rather, we serve God by living our lives in surrender to the Holy Spirit.
Over time, the Holy Spirit changes our desires and our attitudes. I no longer need to worry about a law that says, “Do not steal.” The Holy Spirit is teaching me to trust in His provision and to share what I already have with my neighbours in need.
Prayer
Thank you Father for the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. Thank you that I don’t need to learn a set of rules to please you, but instead I can hear the still small voice of your Spirit at any time. Amen.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Observation
Grace has set us free from the demands of the Law, but that does not mean we should keep on sinning. We are slaves to what we choose to obey, whether that is sin or God.
We were slaves to sin, but now we must become slaves to righteous living in order to become holy.
Sin pays its wages, that is, death. Eternal life is God’s free gift to us.
Application
The wages of sin is death. Your wage is what you deserve after you have worked. If it comes for free then it is not a wage but a gift.
The result of sin is death – firstly natural death but then also spiritual death. If we indulge in sin, we will surely go to eternal desolation in hell. It is the law of cause and effect, work and wages.
God created us for life not death, for heaven not hell. So He sent Jesus into the world to reap the total wages for every person. Now we can know that our punishment has been taken for us.
If the wages of sin is death, then the gift of God is eternal life through Christ.
Eternal life comes to us as a gift. We cannot earn it, we cannot pay for it. We might as well try to jump to the moon.
What we cannot do for ourselves, Christ has done for us. That is why it is a gift. It is like someone works overtime to pay a debt you could not pay off yourself.
The ting about a gift is that it must be received. If someone offers me a present but I refuse it, then it has not fulfilled its purpose to be given.
It is like this with salvation. God makes the offer to us through Christ Jesus. We can have eternal life with God, but we must receive it as a gift from God.
Prayer
Thank you Father for giving me forgiveness and salvation through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.
Here is my commentary on Ephesians 3:1. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site, http://www.new-life.org.au
Ephesians 3:1
“For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles…”
Paul now describes himself as a prisoner of Christ for the Gentiles.
This particular verse seems to be difficult for translators, who generally put the dash at the end and start a new sentence hoping you won’t notice something. There is no primary verb here or in the subsequent verse.
since the verb to be is optional in Greek, it seems to make sense to write this as “ I Paul am a prisoner of Christ.” The lack of punctuation in the original text does complicate things somewhat so we don’t know if this verse was meant to be a sentence by itself.
overlooking the grammatical difficulties, we can look at what the verse has to say to us now.
Paul describes himself as a prisoner of Christ “for this reason.” We have to look back at the part that went before this verse to find the reason. Previously Paul had talked about how God was building the church – household, a temple, a dwelling place. In this project He determines where each person, indeed each faith community, should fit in the overall scheme of things.
for this reason, Paul is a prisoner of Christ. He is in prison because of his particular role in the Body of Christ, which is to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. There is no regret for Paul because he knows exactly what the purpose of his suffering is, and it is all a part of God’s plan for his life and ministry.
paul is a prisoner of Christ. Even though the Romans hold him physically, it is Christ who is using the experience to build the church, especially in respect of the gentile christians .
we might expect Paul to describe himself as a prisoner for Christ, but he is definitely here that he is a prisoner of Christ.
to be a prisoner of Christ is one of those phrases that can be interpreted in many ways
• As stated before, he is a prisoner because Christ is building the church, and this is essential to Paul’s role • although the Romans hold the building, it is Christ who holds the key • he is captivated by Christ’s love and by the calling on his life • in other places Paul describes himself as a slave for Christ. This is a similar kind of analogy
In all these interpretations, we need to remember that Paul is a voluntary captive. Paul has given his heart to the Lord, and it is in that sense that he is a prisoner of Christ. If he wished, he could gain the freedom to not be a prisoner anymore. He could renounce Christ and walk away back to the bondage of the Jewish law and of sin.
if Paul is a prisoner of Christ, he’s a prisoner for a particular purpose. He’s a prisoner for the Gentiles.
Paul became convinced very early in his Christian life that salvation was for the Gentiles and not just for the Jews. He also became convinced that his calling was to take the good news to the Gentiles. Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles.
Hence Paul’s imprisonment, part of his mission to the Gentiles, was for the Genttiles. Paul knew that if God had decided he needed to be in prison, then it was part of the mission, part of the calling to take the gospel to the Gentiles .
this is an incredible insight and the source of great strength. Prison time was not wasted time for Paul. He wasn’t sitting on the sidelines missing all the action. For some reason, this was the action; this was the mission.
regardless of whether there was an outcome that he could see, Paul knew that he was a prisoner of Christ for the sake of the Gentiles .
Key points in this verse
• Paul was the Prisoner of Christ, not of the Romans • his life was devoted to serving Christ, regardless of the location or situation • Paul was a prisoner for the Gentiles • prison time was not wasted time because even this was the mission Christ had set for him
When we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin.
Observation
Since God’s grace is demonstrated when we sin, it might be argued that we should sin all the more so that God’s grace can be increased. This is nonsense. When we were joined to Christ in baptism, we died and were buried with Him.
When we died in Christ we died to sin. Since we died with Christ, we will also rise to life in Him. Because He died to break the power of sin and rose for the glory of God, we must likewise consider ourselves dead to sin and alive in God.
We should not allow our bodies to become instruments for sin. Our whole bodies should be instruments for righteousness to glorify the Lord.
Application
Too often we see the story of salvation as being just about getting our sins forgiven. It is about forgiveness, but it is also about dying to our old nature and allowing God to raise us to a new life as His children.
He does forgive sins, but He also gives us the ability to live free from sin.
We have a part to play in this. We have to determine that we have died to our old nature. We have to want the righteousness, the holiness, that God has promised us. We have to decide to receive this new nature and put it on every day of the week.
When we face temptation, it is not a matter of saying, “I will not do that,” but rather, “I am a child of God, and this has no part of my new life in Christ.” We focus on our calling in Christ, not on the thing to be avoided.
None of us is perfectly conformed to God’s will all the time! This is a process of growing in grace. The Holy Spirit confronts us with our sinful desires and thoughts, and we confess them to God, and we grow in grace to overcome them.
Prayer
Lord, I thank you that I died with Christ, and that sin no longer has any power over me. Please help me to live in the strength of this reality. Amen.
Apparently the “Black Lives Matter” group is now burning Bibles in the US. It sohuld be clear to everyone that this is just a front for Marxism using anti-racism as a cover. Any christians sympathetic to this group need to repent- now.
From Mario Murillo:
BURNING BIBLES IN PORTLAND SHOWS THEIR TRUE COLORS
Black Lives Matter has started burning Bibles. They knelt with their Black Lives Matter signs leaning against them, and burned a pile of Bibles.
Writing to you about this feels so inadequate. I wish I could sit across a table and look you right in the eye to see your reaction. I desperately need to get through to you. Do you have any idea what this means?
In ten years at Berkeley during the height of riots and demonstrations, I never saw a Bible burned.
Ask yourself: What does burning copies of the Word of God have to do with black lives? Answer: It has to do with black lives about as much as Black Lives Matter does. Absolutely nothing. This is something evil and so dangerous that we must prepare for the fight of our lives.
Here’s what Ian Cheong, a Twitter user, who posted the video said: “Left-wing activists bring a stack of Bibles to burn in front of the federal courthouse in Portland.”
Later in the Twitter thread, Cheong pointed out that the violent and chaotic nature of these protestors has no correlation with “protesting against police brutality.”
“I don’t know what burning the Bible has to do with protesting against police brutality. Do not be under the illusion that these protests and riots are anything but an attempt to dismantle all of Western Civilization and upend centuries of tradition and freedom of religion,” he continued.
But many Christians are still under that very illusion. I believe that the patience of heaven is wearing thin toward American Christians who are still on the fence.
It is not a coincidence that as communist agitators grow bolder in the U.S., China is intensifying a crackdown on Christian congregations in Beijing and various provinces. They are destroying crosses. And, like their counterparts here, they too are burning Bibles!
And the other things China is currently doing, such as closing churches and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith, is the next part of the Left’s plan for America.
The similarities between BLM/ Antifa agitators in the United States and the Chinese Communist Party continue to grow as the two groups come together over their goal of removing President Trump from office in November, and forcing the United States into irredeemable decline.
The silence in the media, the total lack of coverage about this Bible burning, will tell you all you need to know about the Democrat Party. Joe Biden will not mention it, let alone condemn it. You will also hear absolutely nothing about this from the press.
That silence—that tacit approval—is why these looters, rioters and thugs believe they can operate with impunity. Tucker Carlson said it best: “they are the armed militia of the Democrat Party.”
There can be no question in your mind why we must vote every Democrat out of office. This is no longer a political party. It is a shill for violent revolution.
And book burning is darker than you may realize. Heinrich Heine, the German poet, said in 1820, “Where They Have Burned Books, They Will End Up Burning People.” His chillingly prophetic statement that where books had been burnt, people would eventually be burnt, came true at the infamous May 10, 1933 book burning of more than 25,000 volumes in Berlin’s Opera Square, which was presided over by the most intellectual of the Nazi leaders, Dr. Joseph Goebbels. They later built ovens to incinerate Jews, “undesirables,” and dissidents.
The act of burning Bibles in Portland is not innocent or harmless. There is something evil unfolding in our nation. Our stance toward the Left must change. We must raise our voices if we wish God to honor us as a people that He can bless with continued freedom.
So long as we ignore the clear signs of tyranny—the overreach of leftist governors in the pandemic—the censorship of social media and news media—the calculated brainwashing of Christians to turn them away from their moral duty—we risk a dark and evil world for our children and grandchildren.
We have nothing to fear but complacency, tolerance, and apathy—the cancers the modern church is prone to. Fear of being called a racist is right behind this unholy trio as the sickness of our generation of believers.
Heaven is not surprised by any of these threats. Hell has created a weapon of mass damnation and it is in full vigor before our eyes. But again, heaven is not passive. God saw this coming and forged a weapon for this specific evil. He yearns for someone to rise up in the Name of Jesus, take up that specific weapon and thrust it into the very heart of darkness. Let it be you!
Isaiah 6:8, “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me!”
For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this one man, Jesus Christ.
Observation
Adam’s sin brought death to everyone because we all sin. People sinned before the law was given and everyone died.
Adam is a representative of Jesus Christ. Adam’s sin brought death to many. But Christ’s death brings life and forgiveness of sin. Through Adam’s sin we are all condemned, but through Christ’s obedience we are all made righteous.
God’s law is given to make us see the reality and the extent of our sin. As people sinned, God’s grace abounded in forgiving their sins.
Application
Everyone sins. It doesn’t matter how good we are in human terms, the fact is that we are all sinners.
Our DNA is corrupted by the sin of Adam. Sin is our inheritance and our heritage.
Sin separates us from God who is the source of life. So our bodies wear out and die. This is not how it was meant to be.
Just as Adam’s one act of sin brought death to all people, so Christ’s one act of obedience brought life to all people. God sees the sacrifice of Jesus as a suitable payment for our disobedience and He grants us forgiveness.
When we are forgiven by God, we can once again draw near to Him and receive eternal life.
Ultimately, the choice is ours. Do we want to remain rebellious sinners headed for the torment of hell? Or do we want to receive the free gift of life through Christ and ensure that we will go to eternal joy in heaven?
Prayer
Lord, you lay out a stark choice for us with no shades of grey. Thank you for setting me free from sin and for the promise of eternal life. Amen.
Here is my commentary on Ephesians 2:22. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site, http://www.new-life.org.au
Ephesians 2:22
And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit
God is building something from the believers. it is described as a household, then a temple, now a dwelling place for God.
The word “you” here is plural, that is all of the believers not just one. All the believers in Ephesus of being built together in this project of God .
This is a big project. Sometimes the project might contain modules or parts which first have to be constructed from smaller components. A cupboard might come as a flat pack, and first must be built from its component parts. Only then can it take its place in the house.
The church is being built into a temple or a dwelling place for God. Our individual congregations are being designed to take their place in the church.
So we are being built together. The module is being constructed so that it can be slotted into its correct place .
We have to play our part by being community. We are being built together. For this to happen, I must learn to get on with, and to love unconditionally, those other people in the congregation.
We cannot claim to love one another if there are people we cannot talk to or we dislike. Being built together means that we have to learn to love. Being built together means that I have to learn to make room in my life for the bumps and irregularities in the lives of those around me, accommodating people who are different .
The outcome of this is a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit.
Most of us are accustomed to the idea that, as individuals, we are vessels of the Holy Spirit. When I first gave my heart to the Lord, the Holy Spirit came into me. I became a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit .
Paul is saying that we together are meant to be a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. Together we are the Temple of God. This is something much bigger .
The concept of synergy is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You are worth more then the basic chemicals that comprise your body. Your house is much more than a pile of bricks and timber stacked on a plot of ground .
In the same way, the church is more than a collection of believers. God is building a dwelling place, a place where He can abide and stay.
As all the individual Christians- bearers of the Holy Spirit- take up their rightful place in the church, God makes it something much greater. Whereas one person could not hold the glory of God, perhaps one billion can. While one person can carry a simple expression of God’s majesty, a billion can carry that many and more expressions of God’ majesty.
God’s plan was never to just redeem individual sinners. His plan was always to build those sinners into something greater- a tabernacle, a temple, a dwelling place.
God is dwelling with his people, in his people, among his people. He is not up there, out there, or any other place than right here where the people of God are right now.
If my prayers rise up to cover my household, then the prayers of christians in my town cover the city, and the prayers of believers in all the world cover the globe. The prayers of Gods people construct a net or tent of God’s presence. As we come together in Christ, the presence of God transforms the world as it transforms us.
The world becomes the Lord’s footstool by the prayers and worship of Gods people together.
New Life Narrabri 