GOD IS FOR US
14/12/24 08:20
We need to know what Christianity is for us – what it means for our daily lives and what it means for our eternal life. Christianity as distinct from all other religions is based on union with God. Contrary to what many think the essence of Christianity is not refraining from bad and doing good. The essence is being the expression of Father as the daughters and son of God.
All real life, real Godliness is Christ come in our flesh. This is all of grace, holistic righteousness and comprehensive virtue. This is ours in Christ.
LIVE YOUR ONENESS
“Reconciliation is not a truth which revelation makes known to us; reconciliation is the truth of God himself who grants himself freely to us in his revelation. God who is the mighty, holy, eternal God, gave himself to us who are so impotent, so unholy, and mortal. Revelation is reconciliation, as certainly as it is God himself: God with us, God beside us, and chiefly and decisively God for us.” (1)
YOU – A MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST
The Lord’s Table is the reminder of the nature and basis of our life in Christ. Just as the bread and wine become us, so Christ becomes us as we live incarnated with Him. By His Spirit come in our flesh we partake of His oneness with God and express His nature as Mary, Jane, Bill and Steve.
IT’S PARTICIPATING IN GOD’S LIFE
Danielle Shroyer writes, “The gospel is not a story of us being separated by sin from God. It’s the story of a God who is so faithfully for us and intent on being with us that God became human to help us embody the wholeness and fullness of life we’ve been made for. It’s not a story of separation. It’s a story of invitation and participation.” (2) She is onto something here. Kingdom Life is not about ‘sin management’. It’s about coming alive in Christ’s life.
LIFE-GIVING MISSION AGENCY BEGINS IN ONENESS WITH CHRIST
Berating sinners is not only not the Gospel of Jesus and the apostles. It misses the truth that Kingdom Life is about participating in Christ’s life. For this reason Jesus urges, ‘On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you’ John 14.20. When we realise this we have moved from religion to spirit and life and Kingdom authority because Jesus has come in our flesh. Faith and obedience is not doing things to earn Christ. It’s agreeing with what is, in Jesus. Real life as a Kingdom Believer is living included in all that is Chris’s.
WE CANNOT EARN IT
There is a way of living with peace and joy in Christ. This is not ‘earning Christ,’ ‘keeping close to Jesus’ or making the correct ‘steps to Chris’. It’s not working of an assumed debt to Christ by a stint of mission work. It starts from the Mary position of union with Jesus.
Speaking to a man who was striving to ‘be received by Christ’ the pastor said. “What you have to learn is to do nothing at all! . . . When Christ said on the cross ‘It is finished,’ he was saying ‘I have done everything for your salvation. There is nothing left for you to do. Your salvation is complete and assured. The only thing left for you to do is simply to say Thank You! And then go on saying Thank You!’” This “Liberated this man from his own efforts so that he could freely and joyfully offer himself back to God.” (3)
It’s a joyful, adventurous and holy life, offering yourself back to God.
(1) Karl Barth in Thomas F. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) (p. 33). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
(2) Danielle Shroyer. Original Sin. Into x.
(3) Radcliff, Alexandra S.. The Claim of Humanity in Christ: Salvation and Sanctification in the Theology of T. F. and J. B. Torrance (Princeton Theological Monograph Series Book 222) (p. 5). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.