Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Alive In Jesus Christ By The Power Of God


Far above all principality and power
and might and dominion, and every name
that is named, not only in this age
but also in that which is to come.
And He can put all things under His feet,
and gave Him to be head over all things
to the church, which is His body,
the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
Ephesians 1: 21 -- 23

            Paul speaking previously and this with fluency and with copiousness of expression desire to express the exceeding greatness of God almighty power.  It is this power that God exerts towards His people, it is by this almighty power that God could raise Jesus Christ from the dead.  Now, there are those who want to separate Jesus Christ from God the Father as being to separate individuals one God, and the other a God, and even go so far to say that the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is not God, but rather a god, and this is true there ignorance of Greek Scriptures and grammar for Paul in writing to Titus uses and it is this: when the Greek word "καί" and in English this means "and" in its place between two anarthrous nouns, that is nouns without the definite article "a" making both nouns refer to one single thing and here is a quote by Paul to Titus" "looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13).  The God  does not have the article "a" in front nor in front of Jesus Christ and Greek grammar demands that when this occurs both nouns speak of one single thing or attribute and in this case our great God and our Savior Jesus Christ is one.  There are many other examples that could be used to put this blog does not allow for that but for those examples but am willing if asked to do so.  Let us think about redemption for the moment for this is the time., Christmas, that we celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ as a baby into this earth, being incarnated God.  Reality is redemption, it is not your experience of redemption; for redemption has no meaning for anyone in it till it speaks the language of your conscious life.  What does this mean?  It is by the power of God that anything exists in and it is by this power of God that he freely gives gifts: "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know that things that have been freely given to us by God" (1 Corinthians 2: 12).  Redemption is the reality given to you by the death on the cross by Jesus Christ who gave Himself for you.  To be born again, and this by the Spirit of God giving you the free gift of grace so that you can buy your will choose to convert to Him.  It is not by experiences that this is true for God takes you right out of your self, and then identifies you do with Jesus Christ.  You no longer pay attention to your experiences, for those experiences are not worth anything and less than those experiences keep you identified an associated with the source Who is Jesus Christ.  To try to produce experiences, as some churches teach people to do, is simply to produce that which is subject to a ham this will not take you back to the historic Jesus Christ who died to give Himself for you.  If you do attempt to make your experiences of a God when in fact they are only your subjective experience for does not have God as its source and does not have faith in God as a result and this means that those experiences are and tight Christian, no matter what visions you may have or had.  The Father put all things under the feet of Jesus Christ and made Jesus Christ to be that had over all things to the church.  You cannot damn up the Holy Spirit to produce subjective experiences for only Jesus Christ who is the head of the church can produce anything in you that is to be produced.  Jesus Christ must be the Lord over any of your experiences or you will be trying to Lord yourself over Him.  But church, which comes from the Greek word means to be called out or the assembly, is the body of Jesus Christ therefore you who have converted to the Lord Jesus Christ all our the body of Jesus Christ and all will fullness of Jesus Christ will fill you and you do not need subjective experiences to make you feel godly.  Here's what required of a person who is converted to the Lord Jesus Christ: you must be ruthless with yourself and not spend so much time talking about the experiences you may have had.  Faith that is assured of itself is not faith for the only faith that its crew is that your faith of God and there is no other faith than that.
            Without the power of God who came to earth to be in incarnated, that is to call himself with a human body of man so that he could pay the debt that was owed to Himself and be able to give you the benefit of that payment is the same power that has now made you alive and this life is not in this temporal world but you are made alive for eternal life.  Paul said under inspiration: "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, a spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others" (Ephesians 2: 1 -- 3).  There must be a surrendering of your will and you must deliberately commit yourself to Jesus Christ.  And this means you will transact everything on what He says.
            Two days from now Christmas day will be here and once again we have this special opportunity to be reminded of why we celebrate Christmas and it is not for some sort of joyous experience by receiving gifts even though it is a joy to receive gifts, and it is not just a joy of being around friends and family, and that is very good, rather it is because we are celebrating the coming of God incarnate to save His children.  This coming of Jesus is to be celebrated.  Spend time, special time, on that day to remind yourself in all why we celebrate Christmas and the power of God that has made to alive for eternity.

Praise the LORD!
            Praise God in His sanctuary;
Praise Him in His mighty firmament!
            Praise Him for His mighty acts;
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!
                        Psalm 150: 1 -- 2

Praise the Lord who made you alive

Richard L. Crumb

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