THE OLD HAS GONE AND NEW HAS COME

I love analogies.  Of course they are not perfect and will break down at some point, but this one helps to understand  our NEW CREATION in Christ.

Jesus handed me keys to a brand new car with a tank full of gas. He gave me a life- time credit card for gasoline and any repairs.  He took my old car keys and threw them away saying  "These old keys will do you no good. You move over and let me show you how to operate this new car. I designed it perfectly for you. You sit back and rest and leave the driving to Me. I know exactly where I am going and the way to get there.  You have to let the old car go.  It is nothing like the new one."

Wow. what an exchange for my old car.  (Born in Adam; dead in trespasses and sin and exchanged for a new life in Christ.  Jesus has given to us the keys of the Kingdom.                                       
                                                              
The OLD has gone and NEW has come.  This is Amazing Grace.

A CHANGE OF HEART

                                                                         

 "Lord Jesus, how can the Holy Spirit come and live in a heart, that the Word of God says is ' deceitful, above of things, and desperately sick.?" ( Jeremiah 17:9)

For years this questions troubled me.  I wanted an answer. Then one day the Lord whispered in my ear, "Why are you trying so hard to clean a heart of sin? I took your heart of sin and nailed it to the cross. (Colossians 2:6-17). You need a new heart, a heart transplant."

Days later while  I was reading in Ezekiel 36:25-27, my eyes were  opened to the miracle that happened when I was born again,. "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness, and from all your idols, I will cleanse you.  And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give a NEW heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules" 

The light went on!  The Lord Himself had created a new heart in me.  No wonder I felt condemned and discouraged trying to change myself. It was impossible. 


  I am so grateful for the power of the cross and how it has liberated me from the power of sin. May the Name of the Lord be praised forever and ever.  

THE POWER OF THE RESURRECTION

        The Power of the Resurrection

Jesus is alive!  The reason that I know that  He is alive is because He told His disciples, 
"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you....Because I live, you also will live. I am in My Father and you in Me and I in you." (John 14:18-20) 

At the last supper Jesus was preparing His disciples for His going away.  Of course they did not understand.  But He said to them, "It is to your advantage that I go away; if I go away I will send to you the Helper (Holy Spirit). He will lead and guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare what is to come.  He will glorify Me, for He will take what is mine and declare it you"(John 16:7-15). 

Think about this?  When did the disciples receive the Holy Spirit?  Many say it was at Pentecost, but let's look again at the beautiful Word of God. "On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, peace be with you,When he had said this, He showed them His hands and his side......"Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, eve so I am sending you." And when He had said this He breathed on them and said,"Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of anyone they are forgiven: and if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld." (John 20:19-23)

The disciples first received the Holy Spirit before Pentecost  They were born again but without power.

This question is still relevant today. Many are born again by faith, but were is the power?  Why was it first given at Pentecost?

I would like to suggest that even though the Holy Spirit had been breathed into the disciples by Jesus, they were still powerless to be His witnesses of His RESURRECTION. 

Jesus fulfilled His promise by releasing upon them the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  When this happened the seed of the Holy Spirit that Jesus had breathed into them was ignited. They were then anointed with power to proclaim the gospel with signs and wonders following. 

Some people call it the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Whatever it is, it is the power given first to the early disciples to be continued from generation to generation to testify that Jesus is alive in the believer  

Because He lives, we live also. The Holy Spirit is the grace or power of God given to us, that will transform us into the image and likeness of His Son. 

Do you believe that the power of the Holy Spirit?  If so, is He released to testify that Jesus is alive in you? Not only with the fruit of His Spirit, but with signs and wonders following?

Jesus said,"Truly, truly I say to you,whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do because I go to my Father."John 14:12  

How can this be?  We walk by faith and not by sight. God said it and I believe it.

The Death of a Moralist

 I was raised from childhood to read my bible. I memorized the 10 commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the 23rd Psalm when in grammar school. I loved the Christmas and Easter story and believed that Jesus was a very unusual and a different kind of person, who once lived and taught mankind how to govern themselves. I remember many of the sayings from scripture that my mother tried to teach me, like "turn your other cheek" or "do unto others as you would have them do to you."  Honestly, I didn't understand either one.  Who wanted to turn their cheek?  You could get hurt!  Of course I thought I was a Christian.  I had to be. I went to church every Sunday, and lived in a Christian Nation, the United States, right? WRONG! I was a CHRISTIAN MORALIST.

I was raised to think that Christianity was all about being good, following the ten commandments, which I failed many times, and being like Jesus.  He was a very moral person.  He didn't argue with His mother or Father, or fight with His siblings.  He was forgiving and kind and went to synagogue every Saturday.  Jesus was my good example to follow.  I survived through grade school and high school until I entered college.  College was a different world. I found it hard to be good!  There was drinking, swearing, dating, and cheating on exams all around me.  I had a big problem with my Christian worldview.  My faith was challenged.  I soon found out that my faith was in a RELIGION call Christianity.  I didn't know that Jesus wasn't religious and that I could have a personal relationship with Him.

After one year of  college, my Christian faith was shaken to its roots. Fortunately, I was dating a "christian moralist" and he asked me to marry him.  Knowing what I know today, "It was a God thing". We kept each other on the straight and narrow path. We have been married now for 54 years and the eyes of our understanding have been enlightened to see that Jesus is not religious or a moralist. He is God,  resurrected, alive, and living His life through His body the church by the person of the Holy Spirit.. 

Once the Holy Spirit started to open my eyes to the Living Word of God, the bible took on a whole new dimension.   The Gospel of John became my favorite book and later the book of Romans . John Chapter 16:12-15  says "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak of His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak and He will declare  to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you.  All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that He will take what is mine and declare it to you."  WOW, I never realized until then the importance of the Holy Spirit and that He was a person, not just a spirit floating in the clouds.

As I continued to read the bible,  it was as if God was speaking to me personally for the first time.  Growing up, I had never heard  anything about the person of the Holy Spirit.  He was the missing link. I now realize that without the Holy Spirit, it is impossible to understand or to interpret the Word of God.  The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity and a very important person of the Godhead.  I never want to quench Him because He is the one who continues to reveal the  Risen Lord Jesus Christ to me. He is not an "IT". He is a person, who has come to replace Jesus on earth.  The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin and opens our eyes to see our need for a Savoir and to bring us safely home to the Father, as the bride of His son Jesus.  THE RELIGIOUS MORALIST HAS DIED IN JESUS CHRIST and NO LONGER LIVES.
 
" I have been crucified with Christ Jesus.  It is no longer I that live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Galatians 2:19,20,