Morning Moments

It has been some time since I wrote my last blog.  The last I wrote, I informed my readers that I was taking a needed Sabbatical and that I have done.  NOW, I am just back from three weeks in India, back to the good old peanut dust of Lower Alabama and getting over Bronchitis.  So, I am good to go once more and pray that God will use me as an instrument of encouraging, edifying, equipping, and establishing the saints.

I would like to begin with a look at "the flesh," which I am convinced more than ever is the order of the day for much of Christian Ministry.  I realize it sounds like a bit of a negative start, but I want to share my thoughts in hopefully a positive way.  Let me start by taking a text out of its context.  If I tell you I am doing this, it becomes somewhat permissible to do it.  The text is found in John 3:6:

"That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of Spirit is spirit."

In this text Jesus is speaking to a man who was steeped in religious training.  In fact,  the writer calls him a "ruler, prince, leader" of the Jews.  THAT is significant in regards to our subject matter.  May I put this in the vernacular?  This guy has graduated Bible School and Seminary and is now a professor.  Now honestly, wouldn't you think that a credentialed man would be able to distinguish the difference between a literal birth and a spiritual birth?

Now allow me to make a transition from this text to another text which speaks of the "flesh" in a different way:  Galatians 5:24 says, "And they that are Christ's HAVE crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts."  Here Paul is referring to that nature within us that is after the image of Adam.  It is sinful, selfish, soulish, and always suspect.  It is that part of us that may be knowledgable, but can NEVER be spiritual.  It can NEVER be satisfied, edified, or magnified, but can only be Crucified!

The question then, is, How can this be done?  The answer is simple, yet so profound - It has been done!  Allow me to explain!  All that God has done for us, He has done for us "IN CHRIST"!  So when one comes to faith in Christ, ALL that God says about that person IS true, and it is our personal faith, which is actually the gift of God by grace that enables us to "agree with" what God has said about us, regardless of how we actually may feel or even think, because it is THAT faith, which is "the faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us," according to Galatians 2:20, begins the process of changing what we think and how we feel.

So to make all of this clear and simple, our entire salvation experience in not based in any way upon us but upon HIM!  Hence, Jesus is the Savior!  We are "saved" simple because we have "agreed with God that we were lost and abandoned ourselves to the saving grace of Jesus Christ?  That's it!  We may or may not have cried, we may or may not have been in a "church service," we may or may not have felt a tingle up and down our spine, BUT WE DID TAKE GOD AT HIS WORD!

If that is how we all get saved, by taking God at His Word (agreeing with what He has said), then we MUST understand that the SAME FAITH, the SAME willingness to TAKE HIM AT HIS WORD (agree with what He says),  agrees when HE says "we are dead and our life is hid with Christ in God..."  We MUST agree when HE says that we "ARE dead to sin, but alive unto God."  It doesn't take lots of faith, just a grain of mustard seed size to discover how GREAT a thing CHRIST did for us, in us, and with us.  We MUST STOP agreeing with the devil who wants us to doubt and AGREE with God who wants us to believe when HE says, "the flesh shall no longer have dominion over you."

BLESSINGS!