Skip to main content

 

OUR CONFIDENCE

Philippians 3:3-4

“For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort” 

Circumcision was given to Abraham as a physical sign in the body of a spiritual and eternal covenant given by grace to Abraham and his progeny. It was given long before the Law was given to Israel at Mount Sinai. The covenant God gave to Abraham had nothing to do with Abraham’s efforts or achievements. It was never based on what Abraham would ever do, but on what God would do.

Salvation, the restoration, and transformation of human life from slavery to sin and self could only be accomplished by what God would do. Those in true covenant with God are in that covenant because they have believed in what God has done in and through Jesus Christ; that plus nothing.

Human pedigree, human accomplishment, or ability count for nothing, for we could never, ever change the true life-condition of our hearts from being dead in sin to being fully human and finally alive. Only Jesus’ death and resurrection could achieve for us forgiveness and restoration to God. God would give us new hearts, a new nature, eternal life. God brings us into His Life, into an eternal relationship with Himself. It’s not our inviting Him into our lives, but God inviting us into His life and making that possible by grace through faith for us to surrender our whole lives to Him. Our turning to Him shows that He has moved us to see the Truth and has given us the grace to say “Yes” to God as Abraham did.

Followers of Jesus Christ have no grounds for any kind of arrogance or superiority in relation to any other human being.  We rely solely and simply on what Christ Jesus has done for us and what he has promised to bring to competition in us.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

 THE FOLLY OF IDOLATRY Martin Luther said that the human heart is an idol factory. The truth is that we were created to know and live by the gracious rule of and in the Presence of God who created us. Our peace, our understanding of meaning and purpose can only be truly grounded in God who created us for that meaning and purpose. The rebellion of Adam and Eve, their decision to do the opposite of what God said would make for life, resulted in spiritual and ultimately physical death. They chose to believe they needed something more than what God had provided. Their doomed attempt to try and live life without reference to God as the ground of meaning and purpose did not make life fuller, but emptied it. They wanted to decide what was good and what was evil without God and the disintegration of human life was the consequence. Rather than living in the Presence of God and by the gracious rule of God all around them, they turned from wholeness to brokenness, from fulfilment to scarc...
Post a Comment
Read more
  WORKING AGAINST ALL HUMANITY 1 Thessalonians 2:15-16 “They fail to please God and WORK AGAINST ALL HUMANITY   as they try to keep us from preaching the Good News of salvation to the Gentiles. By doing this, they continue to pile up their sins.” WOW! What a startling statement! St. Paul is making it crystal clear that those who oppose and work to prevent the proclamation of the Gospel are actually “working against ALL HUMANITY.” Why would he write that? It is because the only means of the restoration, reclamation and salvation of humanity is what God has done for all people through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is the essence of the Gospel: Jesus Christ. To oppose and try to silence the presentation of the Gospel is to work against the reclamation of all humanity. Who would want to work against ALL humanity? Satan is the name by which he is known. He hates ALL humanity because every human being still bears the image of God, albeit that ima...
Post a Comment
Read more
  TIMING Years ago, I head an old preacher say, “The right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing.” That statement is an offense to the culture being worshipped world-wide today. There is a lust for the immediate, as a line from an old movie stated, “Immediate gratification takes too long!” We want faster internet, immediate responses to our texts, mobile orders at the ready when we walk into Starbucks. What we want, we demand to have NOW. We are masters at justifying ourselves. “Well, we’re engaged already and we’re going to get married anyway, so what’s wrong with us living together and being sexually intimate now?” God’s timing in human relationship is not arbitrary, it is protective and covering. Sad to say, even some who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ choose to justify their living in sexual sin now, because they promise that they will one day get married. The context where sexual intimacy finds its true meaning and purpose is in the covenant of marriage. ...
Post a Comment
Read more