If Jesus Christ is going to regenerate me, what is the problem He faces? It is simply this— I have a heredity in which I had no say or decision; I am not holy, nor am I likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is tell me that I must be holy, His teaching only causes me to despair. But if Jesus Christ is truly a regenerator, someone who can put His own heredity of holiness into me, then I can begin to see what He means when He says that I have to be holy. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into anyone the hereditary nature that was in Himself, and all the standards He gives us are based on that nature— His teaching is meant to be applied to the life which He puts within us. The proper action on my part is simply to agree with God’s verdict on sin as judged on the Cross of Christ.

The New Testament teaching about regeneration is that when a person is hit by his own sense of need, God will put the Holy Spirit into his spirit, and his personal spirit will be energized by the Spirit of the Son of God— “. . . until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). The moral miracle of redemption is that God can put a new nature into me through which I can live a totally new life. When I finally reach the edge of my need and know my own limitations, then Jesus says, “Blessed are you . . .” (Matthew 5:11). But I must get to that point. God cannot put into me, the responsible moral person that I am, the nature that was in Jesus Christ unless I am aware of my need for it.

And very often God uses the trials and circumstances of this life to make us acutely  aware of our need for the nature of Jesus Christ.-JDV

Just as the nature of sin entered into the human race through one man, the Holy Spirit entered into the human race through another Man (see Romans 5:12-19). And redemption means that I can be delivered from the heredity of sin, and that through Jesus Christ I can receive a pure and spotless heredity, namely, the Holy Spirit.

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October 6, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Sometimes I think I understand the trials and challenges of life and the velocity with which they come at me. Early in my life as a believer it seemed to me that I did not face as many challenges and life was not as difficult and challenging. Could it be that God is using the challenges of life, and assaults of the enemy to my own advantage? Just like the death of His Son?

Can my regeneration be found in the trials and challenges of life?

And God says….”I use the very obstacles and challenges of your life to give you new life. How will your old nature be crucified if you can overcome life’s challenges with your own skills and with your nature intact?  If you are competent and strong in yourself, you will need trial after trial after trial to become broken enough to let go of your old nature. When you are weak I can be strong in your life, when the challenges of life seem overwhelming and you need miracles I can live through you. You are My child and I will deliver you and bless you as you let go of your own strength and depend on Mine.”