The Nature of Reconciliation

October 07, 2010

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him —2 Corinthians 5:21

Sin is a fundamental relationship— it is not wrong doing, but wrong being— it is deliberate and determined independence from God. The Christian faith bases everything on the extreme, self-confident nature of sin. Other faiths deal with sins— the Bible alone deals with sin. The first thing Jesus Christ confronted in people was the heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the gospel that the message of the gospel has lost its sting and its explosive power.

The revealed truth of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took on Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took on Himself the heredity of sin that no man can even touch. God made His own Son “to be sin” that He might make the sinner into a saint. It is revealed throughout the Bible that our Lord took on Himself the sin of the world through identification with us, not through sympathy for us. He deliberately took on His own shoulders, and endured in His own body, the complete, cumulative sin of the human race. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. . .” and by so doing He placed salvation for the entire human race solely on the basis of redemption. Jesus Christ reconciled the human race, putting it back to where God designed it to be.

And now anyone can experience that reconciliation, being brought into oneness with God, on the basis of what our Lord has done on the cross.

A man cannot redeem himself— redemption is the work of God, and is absolutely finished and complete. And its application to individual people is a matter of their own individual action or response to it. A distinction must always be made between the revealed truth of redemption and the actual conscious experience of salvation in a person’s life.

_____________________________________________

October 7, 2010

Journal Entry for Today

Last night in Bible study, the question was asked,”How do we stay close to God so that we know His voice and His will for our lives, especially when life is being very good for us? We seem to turn to God when life is full of trials and challenges, but we seem to become very independent of God as we live the abundant life. How can we avoid this pattern of behavior?”

I replied that the only way I know to stay connected to God is to be in constant fellowship and connection through daily prayer and Bible study, like CO2, where we are also accountable to a brother. I asked if anyone knew any other way to stay connected on a daily basis and no one could think of another answer.

And God says…”Acknowledge the Lord in all your ways and He will make your paths straight. When you come to Me in prayer and search out My truths in My word, you are rewarded. Knock and the door will be opened, seek and you will find. When you pray in secret I will answer your prayers openly for all to see. When you seek My Spirit for your daily life, you will be rewarded. You will not need to seek My will; you will be living My will. You will not need to seek connection with Me; you will be living the connection and commitment.”

“When you seek Me daily, and look into My word, you are transformed and we are connected. It is here that I touch your heart and mind and you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am the Lord your God. When you live like this, you live your days in certain, knowing Me.”

The Nature of Regeneration

Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned . . . —Romans 5:12

The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man’s sin, but that the nature of sin, namely, my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race through one man.

But it also says that another Man took upon Himself the sin of the human race and put it away— an infinitely more profound revelation (see Hebrews 9:26).The nature of sin is not immorality and wrongdoing, but the nature of self-realization which leads us to say, “I am my own god.” This nature may exhibit itself in proper morality or in improper immorality, but it always has a common basis— my claim to my right to myself. When our Lord faced either people with all the forces of evil in them, or people who were clean-living, moral, and upright,

He paid no attention to the moral degradation of one, nor any attention to the moral attainment of the other.

He looked at something we do not see, namely, the nature of man (see John 2:25).

Sin is something I am born with and cannot touch— only God touches sin through redemption. It is through the Cross of Christ that God redeemed the entire human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a person responsible for having the heredity of sin, and does not condemn anyone because of it.Condemnation comes when I realize that Jesus Christ came to deliver me from this heredity of sin, and yet I refuse to let Him do so. From that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. “This is the condemnation [and the critical moment], that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light . . . ” (John 3:19).

_________________________________________

October 5, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

I do not think I have fully grasped the idea that I have no right to myself. If that was and is the original and all encompassing sin….holding on to my rights to myself; my ideas of right and wrong, of what is mine and what belongs to God, then I suspect that I continually overlook a critical element. I overlook the fact that I am only responsible for surrendering my life; failures, successes, strengths and weaknesses and circumstances. I cannot seek or claim victory in my right choices nor His covering and help in what appears to be my wrong ones. I am only to claim Jesus, in all things.

And God says…..”And you know that all things work together for good…..I predestined you, justify you and will glorify My Son through you by using everything that occurs in your life to help conform and transform you into the likeness of Jesus. It is not that I will pull you through difficult times, I already have pulled you through difficult times, you need only trust and obey and stay connected to Jesus.”

“You have no right to yourself in any circumstance or outcome. It is not you that helps your brother, it is not you that helped your brother come to know Jesus and it is not you that offered that prayer and offering. It is the very Spirit of God living inside of you. And it is the Spirit of God that pulls you through even when you believe it has something to do with your own good works and committed and good intentions…….it does not.”

“Trust in the Lord in all your ways and do not rely on anything that comes from you, and He will make your paths straight. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart……….and you know that all things work together for your good….and your victory is already assured.”

1 Corinthians 1:2   To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:

Thank God for being able to see all that you have not yet been. You have had the vision, but you are not yet to the reality of it by any means. It is when we are in the valley, where we prove whether we will be the choice ones, that most of us turn back. We are not quite prepared for the bumps and bruises that must come if we are going to be turned into the shape of the vision. We have seen what we are not, and what God wants us to be, but are we willing to be battered into the shape of the vision to be used by God? The beatings will always come in the most common, everyday ways and through common, everyday people

There are times when we do know what God’s purpose is; whether we will let the vision be turned into actual character depends on us, not on God. If we prefer to relax on the mountaintop and live in the memory of the vision, then we will be of no real use in the ordinary things of which human life is made. We have to learn to live in reliance upon what we saw in the vision, not simply live in ecstatic delight and conscious reflection upon God. This means living the realities of our lives in the light of the vision until the truth of the vision is actually realized in us. Every bit of our training is in that direction. Learn to thank God for making His demands known.

Our little “I am” always sulks and pouts when God says do. Let your little “I am” be shriveled up in God’s wrath and indignation–”I AM WHO I AM . . . has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14). He must dominate. Isn’t it piercing to realize that God not only knows where we live, but also knows the gutters into which we crawl! He will hunt us down as fast as a flash of lightning. No human being knows human beings as God does.

Journal DJR Oct 4, 2010

Good Morning Lord,  I really related to what Oswald was saying about having seen the vision from the mountain top but of how I struggle and fail to live it out in the dark valleys.   In fact, the problem may be that I see too

many visions of too many good possibilities.  With you all things are possible.  And I want to do a lot of them.

Yes, you get distracted and diluted.  Stay connected with me and focus on the ONE THING that I have for you to focus on at a time.    And do it with excellence.   … as unto Me, not men,  you know, Phil 4:13.

OK,  It’s a good word for sure,  But I tend to fowl up at that……

Of course you will keep working toward it,   Just know that perfection is not part of your goal over there.  Strive for connection and excellence.  Perfection is my part of the deal.   Perfection in Christ because of my Son’s sacrifice … and Perfection when you get here.