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Post Title.

9/30/2011

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                                        A “CSI” Approach to Sanctification
        Warning, this is a bit "graphic".  But sin is sin and we need to see it for what it is--DEATH!

    Here is a very important consideration in our wrestling with sin. "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Rom 7:24  We must first understand that all sin is merely symptomatic of the real disease. The foundational disease is separation from God. Man was designed to live in continual, constant, dependent relationship with the Triune God. This was the only conceivable union and connection with Eternal Life which is God, upon which all normal function of humanity depends. The fall severed that relationship, and just as God promised, "you shall surely die". Consider that sin in its myraid manifestations is the decaying of a cadaver in which life no longer exists. What humanity now calls life is nothing more than an animated death. Life cannot be restored by aspirin! Taming the flesh by the flesh is like embalming the cadaver with a more palatable embalming fluid. The cadaver is still dead but may for a time smells a bit better, but in the end, its nose is going to fall off and the stench will be horrible. Witness the many "christian leaders" that supposedly "fall into sin" to great scandal. My comment is that they were merely embalmed in what ever self help system they were teaching but eventually their nose fell off and people saw the worms that had been inside all along!
     99% of most contemporary views of sanctification are Galatianism--"are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh". God did not save us so we could help ourselves. That is Catholicism. It teaches that Christ died to make our works meritorious. It is fascinating to me that most protestant thinking, has become a form of that lie.  In Philippians 3:2, Paul warns us to beware of the mutilation (NKJV).  His point is that legalism, circumcision in the flesh, mutilates the body of Christ, which is all of grace, and only grows through the operation of the Holy Spirit, and is to have NO CONFIDENCE IN THE FLESH.  Flesh is the only level upon which legalism operates.
     The Biblical method of sanctification is a growing passionate relationship with the Heavenly Father, the restoration of the Life Giving and Life Sustaining Relationship. Sanctification is no different in its operation than our Justification. Both have exactly the same Focus--our Lord Jesus Christ. Both are dependent on the exact same Holy Spirit to mediate grace to the desired end. Both have exactly the same goal--"no man comes to the Father but by Me." The distinction is that our Justification is signed, sealed, and delivered by the finished work of Our Lord Jesus.  Sanctification is the work of the Spirit, the Down Payment of that finished work, that increases our faith in that original finished work, our Justification, and that causes us to grow into a more intimate love relationship with our Redeemer/Creator and in so doing have complete boldness in our Father's Presence. And the Spirit’s working is assured by the continual Intercession of our Eternal High Priest.  The Spirit is “outworking” the finished work of the Son through the Son’s Eternal presentation of His perfect work and Person before the Father for us!!  You see, Biblical Sanctification attacks the cancerous disease--separation from our Glorious Triune God. Only as that relationship grows is the Life in us strengthened, (we become separated unto God) for it is God Who works in us to do His will. 
    Infants drool and slobber and fall down all the time. It's cute for a while. But if 20 year olds are still drooling ,slobbering, and falling down all the time, it is not pretty! But it is normal growth through proper nourishment and parental love and care that keeps them from killing themselves and that enables infants to grow. Feasting on the Lord Jesus is the nourishment that grows us out of drooling, slobbering, falling down all the time! Remember John 6:53-57? "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day, for My flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him. As the Living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me." Verse 35 tells how we are to feed on Him--"He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst." Coming and believing, the operations of grace in our soul, nourishes us to growth. Satan wants us to look at the drool and the slobbers, to cry because of the skinned knee. But we are to get back up and look at the Father in the face of Jesus(II Cor 4:6) as we toddle toward Him, and we do that by believing in Him Whom He has sent. (Jn 6:29)
      That is why I stress the book of Hebrews. It unveils our Lovely Jesus in such a glorious way. I am praying that our eyes will become riveted so much upon Him that we can't help but feast on Him continually. I have said before, "the only cure for addiction is a Greater Addiction." Jesus must become your addiction! Just cry out to Him--"Dear Jesus, I don't just want to know stuff about you, I Want To KNOW YOU!" He loves to answer that prayer.


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Post Title.

9/27/2011

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                                              THIS DO IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME

          We do a disservice to the Lord's Table if we focus solely on our Lord's death, burial & resurrection.  That sounds almost heretical, I know.  That is the climax of our remembering, to be sure, but we must begin at the point of awe in the emblems.  We are told to eat his body and to drink his blood. (I Cor. 11:24-25; John 6:53-58)  This command led to charges of cannibalism leveled at the early church, charges that the Roman Catholic Church justifies to this day.  This command, so misunderstood by the natural man, contains the mystery & miracle which is the only hope of mankind.

          The mystery & miracle of which I am speaking, is that we are talking about God's body & blood.  Apart from Divine revelation & creation, that is the oxymoron of oxymorons.  God cannot have a body, & yet He does have one in Jesus Christ.  God cannot be born, & yet He was in that stable so long ago.  God cannot dwell in temples made with hands, yet He condescended to physically purge the defiled temple in Jerusalem.  God cannot die, & yet He did so long ago on that awful tree on Calvary.  And here is the wonderful shift in our story—Man cannot arise from the dead, and yet Jesus rose from the dead on the third day.  Death is fatal to man, but not to Jesus.  He is the firstborn among many brethren for whom death is no longer the final chapter.  Man can't go to heaven, the place of perfect spirits, and yet Jesus ascended into heaven, to sit at the right hand of the Father, ever living in intercession  for us. (Heb. 12:22-24)

          This is what it means to remember Him, to remember that the Sovereign of the universe, the creator of all things, wedded Himself inseparably in His Son to a new creation, the God/man, that He might redeem His beloved man-creature from death & sin, & that all who are found in Him by faith (Phil. 3:9-11) might attain to the eternal resurrection from the dead and dwell forever in His glory.  When we partake of this bread & this cup, we are proclaiming the redemptive work of this Marvelous God/Man until He comes again. By drinking this cup and eating this bread, we are testifying that he partook of our flesh and blood so that we might be inseparably united to Him in His glorified body, that body which can no more spill the blood of our mortality.  He is the Victor, the dragon slayer, the head crusher, the grave robber, the firstborn from the dead, the One to whom we owe our praise forever and forever, Amen!!

           

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Post Title.

9/2/2011

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Isaac Ambrose   1604-1644
    The incarnation of Christ is the foundation of all other actings of God for us:  it is the very hinge, on which all turn; it is the cabinet (treasure chest) wherein all the designs of God do lie.  Oh what a sweet object of faith is this.  I know there are some other things in Christ which are more proper for some acts of faith, as Christ dying is most proper of the pardon of actual sin, and Christ rising from the dead for the evidencing of our justification; but the strongest and purest acts of faith are those which take in Christ as such a person, laid out in all His Glory.  Christ's incarnation is more general than Christ's passion, or Christ's resurrection , and, as some would have it, includes all.  Christ's incarnation holds forth in some sort Christ in His fullness, and so it is the full and complete subject of our faith.  Come, poor soul, thy eyes are running to and fro, to find comfort and happiness on earth.  O cast thy eyes back, and see heaven and earth in one Object!  Look fixedly on Christ incarnate; there is more in this than all the variety of this world, or of that world to come.  Here is an object of faith, and love, and joy, and delight; a compendium of all glories.
    We are indeed to believe on God, but we cannot come to God but through a Mediator, and hence faith must directly go to Christ, as God in our flesh.  O the infinite condescension of God in Christ!  God takes up our nature, and joins Himself as one person, and lays that before our faith:  so that here is God, and God suited to the particular state and condition of the sinner.  Now with what boldness may our souls draw nigh to God?  Why art thou estranged, poor soul?  Why standest thou afar off, as if it were death to draw nigh?  Of Whom art thou afraid?  Is God come down amongst men, and canst thou not see Him, lest thou die and perish?  Oh, look once more, and be not discouraged.  See, God is not come down in fire, in the armor of justice and everlasting burning.  No, He is clothed with the garments of flesh, HE DESIRES TO CONVERSE WITH THEE AFTER THINE OWN FORM.  He is come down to beseech thee, to see with thine own eyes thy eternal happiness.
    Oh, that ever there should ba a heart of unbelief after these sensible demonstrations of Divine Glory and Love.  Tell me, what would thou have God do more?  Can He maninfest Himself in a more suitable way to thy condition?  Is there anything below flesh wherin the great God can humble Himself for thy good?  It is sad to see believers shy in their approaches to God, or doubtful of their acceptance with Him, WHEN GOD HIMSELF STOOPS FIRST, AND IS SO IN LOVE WITH OUR ACQUAINTANCE THAT HE WILL BE OF THE SAME NATURE THAT WE ARE!
   
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    While I have been a pastor and Christian bookstore owner for 30 years, my only credentials are that of an old saint who followed his signature with S.S., Sinner Saved!

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