Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Learning To Live Our Freedom In Jesus Christ


For if the inheritance is of the law,
it is no longer of promise come
but God gave it to Abraham by promise.
What purpose in does the law served?
It was added because of transgressions,
till the Seed should come to whom
the promise was made; and it was
appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator.
Now a mediator in does not mediate for one only,
but God is one.
Is the law against the promises of God?
Certainly not!
For if there had been a law given which
could have given life, truly righteousness
would have been by the law.  But the Scripture
ask and find all under sin, that the promise by faith
in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Galatians 3: 18 -- 22

            When one takes time to investigate the promises of God, he or she will find other than those promises made for the future filled as promised.  God is a promise God.  This promise given to Abraham extended to the Hebrew people and to any, and all who would come into the covenant of the Jewish religion to Yahweh the God of the universe.  If anything should settle the question and increase your faith is that God keeps His promises.  As the old saying goes: "you can take that to the bank."  Paul has taken time to pursue this argument diligently for he foresaw in the spirit, that this mischief, speaking of the Judaizers, and other heathen people would enter into the church and attempt in every way to confound the word of God.  There are those who enter our present-day churches with the simple thought of confounding the word of God and lead people into false teaching making it sound as though what they teach is true, when in fact, it is false.  The promise if it is mingled with the wall would be utterly lost, for when the promises mingled with the law, it is made nothing else but law: and there is where the legalism has its foundation.  How to combat this?  Allow Jesus Christ to always be before you and is a sheer summary of all arguments for the defense of your faith, against the righteousness of the flesh, against the law, against works and merits.  To fall back into legalism, and joining God's promises with the law is to make null and void what Jesus cries spoke: "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed" (John: 8 36).  If you have converted to the Lord Jesus Christ, you are free!  By being a free person there remains no remnant of individuality which breeds conceit.  Your personality simply absorbs, as this is the way that we are built, and that is we are built by God's design with a great capacity for Him.  We speak of legalism as though it is simply another form of Christianity, but it is not, it is keeping you from getting at God because it allows sin and your individuality to get in the way.  Through the Lord Jesus Christ God has delivered you from sin.  Now you have a responsibility: and that responsibility is that you must deliver yourself from your individuality, and this means to present your natural life to God and sacrifice until it is transformed into a spiritual life by obedience.  Don't sit around and wait for God to do it for you: HE WON'T!  God runs right across our natural life and we must come to see that we are to aid and abet God, not stand against Him.  God will chastise you: God will not discipline you!  You must discipline yourself!  God will not bring every thought and imagination into captivity: HE WON'T!  You and I must do it!  Don't sit back and say "O Lord, I suffer from wandering thoughts!"  Are you suffering from those kind of thoughts that are simply wandering thoughts? Stop to those thoughts for they are of the tyranny of your individuality, and get emancipated out into personality.  Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God has made you free.  Don't make the mistake: which is, substituting ‘Savior’ for ‘Son.’  You are set free from sin by means of the Savior in this freedom of being set free is by the Son.  Earlier we read this in Galatians: "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" (Galatians 2:20).  Christ died for you!  You have been crucified with Jesus Christ, therefore, break free from your natural individuality, and allowed your personality to be united with Jesus Christ, not merged, rather, united.  Don't insist on energy, instead be energized into identification with Jesus.  This argument set forth by Paul in regards to the promises made to Abraham and the other fathers, is of great efficacy for confirming the doctrine of justification by faith.  God promises eternal life for all of His children and that eternal life with Him has already begun.  You don't have to wait for it, you have to live this fact, and you show this by being obedient to the commands of God and be converted to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Nothing else will do, nothing less, nothing more, only yourself standing upon the promises in His word and applying the word "seed to that" to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Do not be fooled by those who come with legalism in an attempt to make you godly.  He godly, and do this by the truth of God's Word.  You are free, don't fall under legalism or any doctrine that requires works.  Live your freedom in Jesus Christ and live life.

A fool has no delight in understanding,
but in expressing his own heart.
Proverbs 18: 2

You are free in Jesus Christ!

Richard L. Crumb 

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