Over the next couple of blogs I am going to break down some of the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection as it pertains to our lives as believers. I pray that it brings you encouragement and hope. I am going to use the Amplified Bible for the Scriptures I reference as it gives an expanded explanation of the verses.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law!
Galatians 3:13 “Christ purchased our freedom [redeeming us] from the curse (doom) of the Law [and its condemnation] by [Himself] becoming a curse for us, for it is written [in the Scriptures], Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (is crucified);
For years I felt that somehow I didn’t measure up and that God was displeased with me because I couldn’t keep from sinning. I tried everything I could to keep the letter of the Law and live a righteous life. This only led me to feeling defeated and angry at myself for being so weak and sinful. I beat myself up mentally and worked at pleasing God even more. When I read this passage, everything changed! Here I was trying to accomplish something that was impossible and something that Christ had already done for me! A burden was lifted that day and I became free from the guilt and condemnation that had consumed my mind over the years.
My focus began to be on gaining an understanding of what it meant to be a new creation in Christ and what his death and resurrection meant for me personally. It was as if the blinders I had worn for so many years had been taken from my eyes and I was beginning to see the truth of God’s Word more clearly. The result of this was I began to live an empowered life that had the evidence of the fruit of the Spirit operating in my life, not because I was trying to have it, but because I allowed Christ to live through me and the only thing He knows to live is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control! What a relief it was to come to this understanding.
Jesus became sin that I could be made the righteous of God in Christ Jesus!
2 Corinthians 5:21 “For our sake He made Christ [virtually] to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in and through Him we might become [endued with, viewed as being in, and examples of] the righteousness of God [what we ought to be, approved and acceptable and in right relationship with Him, by His goodness].”
You have no idea how many years I spent trying to be righteous, do righteous deeds, speak righteous words, and have righteous actions. Then I read Isaiah 64:6, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” When I understood that right standing with God comes through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone a huge burden lifted off my shoulders. I could accept that I could not be righteous on my own, have faith in Christ to be righteous for me, and seek an intimate relationship with God that was not hindered by my feelings of inadequacy and shame. I then realized that because I live in a fallen world I will always sin but the beauty of Christ taking on sin at the cross is that sin no longer has a hold on me when I understand and walk in the truth of Christ’s resurrection. When thoughts come that remind me of my sin, I just say, “return to sender, address unknown” and I am set free from guilt and condemnation that satan and my own mind try to trap me in.
The word sin means “missing the mark” and when I discovered this it made life so much easier. People miss the mark all of the time but somehow the word sin always had caused me deep rooted anxiety as if I had murdered a friend and needed to cover it up. When I reframed the word sin to “missing the mark” then it made it so much easier to regroup my thoughts and turn away from the sin whenever I did sin. This is when the truth finally set me free from the bondage and captivity I had lived in for years in the area of sin! I was able to accept my righteousness through my relationship with Christ Jesus!
Christ became poverty that I could become rich!
1 Corinthians 8:9 “For you are becoming progressively acquainted with and recognizing more strongly and clearly the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ (His kindness, His gracious generosity, His undeserved favor and spiritual blessing), [in] that though He was [so very] rich, yet for your sakes He became [so very] poor, in order that by His poverty you might become enriched (abundantly supplied).
Over the years I have heard many teachings on money and the question of whether it is God’s will for the Christian to be wealthy or not. Most teachings I have heard sway to the side of belief that says we should not be rich because money is the root of all evil.
1 Timothy 6:10 “For the love of money is a root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have been led astray and have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves through with many acute [mental] pangs.”
God says we are to have no other Gods before him and the pursuit of money is a God. But if people put God first then money can be the root of blessing if it is used to sow seeds into the kingdom of God. We have to rightly divide the Word of God so that we can walk in truth and in God’s blessing. I have come to understand that it is never God’s desire for us to live in poverty. Jesus became poor so that we could be made rich and use the money to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God can’t contradict Himself so He can’t say one thing and then do another. We do that not Him! The Christian world is full of people plagued with a poverty mentality because satan has blinded them from the truth and skewed their view so that they don’t walk in the abundance that God has for them. As a result they are trapped by the chains of debt, addictions, lack, etc. and they don’t walk in financial abundance. It is time for us to turn the Word of God on satan as Jesus did in the desert and gain victory over the attacks of satan on our financial lives. Jesus won the victory of the war at the cross and we have to fight from a stance of victory if we are going to win the battle of the mind daily!
Jesus became sickness so I could be healed!
Isaiah 53:5 “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole.” (Bold Type added)
1 Peter 2:24b “By His wounds you have been healed.”
It is difficult sometimes for me to wrap my mind around this truth because I suffer sickness and watch others suffer from it as well. I see people who are sick and never recover. Our earthly reality is completely the opposite of this Scriptural truth and yet God says we are healed since Jesus took on sickness at the cross. I have seen the dead raised, the blind eyes opened, the deaf hear, and the lame walk, and yet my mind still questions if this is possible whenever I am sick or those I love are sick if we can be healed. This dampers my prayers and my faith whenever I do this. Then when I pray or I hear people pray I hear this, “God if it is your will, please heal me or heal them.”
Do you know how crazy that sounds now that I know the truth of the Word? As if God’s will is that I would not be healed! What is the will of God? His will is His Word and His word says that by His stripes we are healed. We live in a fallen world and sickness and death are a reality but that does not mean it is God’s will for us to be sick and die. We have to get to a place where we stand on God’s Word and use it as a weapon to fight satan when he attacks our minds with doubt in regards to this truth. We have to stand and fight until we see our reality catch up to His truth. Since this is such a hard concept to understand I am going to go into detail about this subject in my next blog and then I will continue the series on the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection.
To be continued……………………………………………………
No comments:
Post a Comment