I just want to praise God right off the bat. He is so good, he is the Great I AM, He is Jehovah' Rophe, Jehovah' M' Kaddesh, Jehovah' Nissi, He is the beginning and the End, He is the everlasting Father, and He is the all consuming fire. I just want to say first that God is pressing in harder and harder here in Myrtle beach. I am feeling his overwhelming Grace day after day. I have been learning so much about the character of God and how truly sovereign and Holy He is. I will get back to this in a little bit but right now i want to hit on some cool things that im learning out of John and also Ephesians....
In John 7,8, and 9 i have been completely hit with a Grace bomb, as well as learning about God's sovereignty, and Jesus fulfillment. Some cool things that have paralleled with the Taste and See i talked about last week is out of John 7:37-38 when Jesus says "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." We are all thirsty and will continue to search for something to satisfy us until somehow we receive a water that leaves us fulfilled. And again if you go back to last week I talked about John 4 and the Samaritan Woman at the well continuously going back to a well that is going to continue to make her thirsty again , but Jesus has this living water that wells up a spring inside of us that will never make us thirst again. So instead of being thirsty and searching for more to drink, in John 7, those who have received this living water will now be having living water pouring out of us. I hope yall are following me on this. The cool thing about what Jesus said was that He said it on the Last day of the Feast of Tabernacles which is a Jewish holiday. and if you can put yourself in that time period you can imagine some of the Jews reactions to this. obviously they were upset because some guy came into this feast saying He is the one that is the Son of Man and has eternal living water to offer people. Where you see God's grace and sovereignty in this is at the end of John 7, in verse 44... "Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him." If God's hand wasn't orchestrating this event then they would have killed/ arrested Jesus. God's will is always going to be done! He is so good and we all play a part in that will, its crazy!!! If i can go back to 7:38 and bring in some cool cross references i want yall to check out Isaiah 12:3 it talks about a well of salvation and that we will, with JOY, draw water from it (Living Water!). So some cool things I got out of this passage for interpretation and application is this, that you and me cant force a a spring of living water to flow it only comes through a submission to Jesus, another thing is that in order to allow for a spring to flow inside of you through your submission you must create room for it (i.e. get rid of the idols that consume the space in your heart). So for me to start making room i really need to start communing a lot more with Jesus (i.e. walking with him, being still and listening, staying in his word, and talking to him).
Okay next is John 8, mostly everyone should know the story of the woman caught in adultery and the Jews are saying that she needs to be stoned according to the Law and Jesus says "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her" and they all eventually leave because they all sin. and Jesus says to the woman "Woman where are they? has no one condemned you?" and she say "no one sir" and then the coolest is that Jesus says this "Then neither do I condemn you, go now and leave your life of sin." So if you were to just study this surface level you would say "okay so Jesus says I dont condemn you and now you have eternal life so live for me", but if you look deeper what is Jesus really saying to her? he isnt saying "I dont condemn you go and live a life trying not to sin." No! Jesus is saying, "You didnt have the power to live righteously, but now i'm giving you my power." So Jesus is empowering her to walk in His Spirit. Its so powerful that God gives us the Holy Spirit to walk righteously in. If you look at Ephesians 1:13-14 we know when we are a brother or sister to Christ and a son or daughter of God. in 13 it says "In him (Jesus) you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of salvation, and believed in him, WERE SEALED WITH THE PROMISED HOLY SPIRIT" It is almost as if it is a down payment to our inheritance. God gives us the Holy Spirit as a seal on our entering into His family and it cant be taken away. Its amazing and overwhelming. If you look in Esther 8 you see an example of a seal. The kings ring was used as a seal for any promise or command back in the Old testament and in esther 8:8 it says "for an edict written in the name of the king and sealed with the king's ring CANNOT BE REVOKED." That is so cool if you look at the king as being God, and the ring that stamps the promise or command as the Holy Spirit. We have been sealed by the King with the seal of the Holy Spirit. It's so great to think about it. We are apart of the family, we have already been won, we are victorious and we need not live in condemnation anylonger. So like Jesus says "Go now and leave your life of sin" Live a life of conviction and not condemnation. Condemnation is what draws us away from God because that means there is a punishment waiting for us and now that we are sealed with the Spirit there is no Wrath to be poured out on us. So live in conviction, becuase conviction is a Godly sorrow within us, and we understand that we have a greater truth, convinced that there is richer living, that we can come back in freedom and not come back from sin with duty. This is what the Spirit does for us, it draws us closer. And remember God's grace in all of this, Romans 5:20-21 says "Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." We now walk in the newness of life through the death and resurrection of Jesus because we were crucified with Christ, died with Christ, and are risen in Christ. So like the woman who was caught in adultery we are to leave our lives of sin because we do walk in this newness with Christ. Paul in Galatians 2:19-21 is saying that he died to the law so he can live in God. "I have been crucified WITH Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who LOVED me and GAVE himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose." Through the belief in Jesus we died to our sins and are now resurrected into his righteousness.
I hope all this made sense because I know that it is a lot. I have so much I can still share but I will share that at a later date. So continue to taste and see that God is good, see His sovereignty and grace, know He is made stronger in our weaknesses, and I will update soon. Love Yall
Wow. I've heard it said that while we are sinners, we can't do anything but sin, but when we are in Christ, we no longer have to sin, but I never made the connection between that and Jesus' command to "go and sin no more." Jesus said "Go now and leave your life of sin" with the same authority He used when He told the leper, "Be clean" (Luke 5:13), and when He told the woman with internal bleeding, "Be freed from your suffering" (Mark 5:34). He spoke righteousness into being, just like He spoke light into being in the beginning. "For God, who said, ' Let light shine out of darkness,' made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ." ~ 2 Corinthians 4:6. That's really cool! Thanks, I needed that!
ReplyDeleteYES Michael! Its so good. and no thanks needed man i havnt done a thing. All the praise goes to the Father.
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