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 HOW TO LIVE A NEW LIFE

2 Thessalonians 3:5

“May the Lord lead your hearts into a full understanding and expression of the love of God and the patient endurance that comes from Christ.”

In John 15:5 Jesus says that He is the Vine and we are the branches. Thinking with any degree of clear logic, you can see that the sap or “life” in the branch is coming from the singular Source of the Vine. That is why the “fruit” produced in the believer is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the character and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself. We are destined to be conformed to the Image of Christ Jesus by the will of God. It’s not by human strength or initiative, but by the grace and power of God that is utterly trustworthy and eternally true.

So, if you belong to Jesus Christ and are one of His followers, the Life being lived in you, the Life flowing in you is simply and none other than His Life within you. The Holy Spirit has united you to Jesus’ death where your sin, not in part but the whole, has been atoned for and removed from you by God’s grace as far as the East is from the West. The Holy Spirit has also united you to the Resurrection of Jesus delivering you out of the kingdom of darkness and translating you into the Kingdom of God.

The Word of God is crystal clear that if anyone is IN Christ Jesus, they are a new creation. Old things have passed away, and, behold, all things have become new. And this is all from God who reconciled you to Himself through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That new life working in you is not something you know how to live innately by any stretch of the imagination. In John 15:5 Jesus goes onto to say, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” Life in the Kingdom of God is either lived by the Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit uniting the believer to the Life of God, or its not lived at all.

This new Life is the greatest adventure any human being can begin to live into. It is the transformation and restoration of a person out of death and into Life, out of darkness and into Light. God has united the believer to Himself, made that follower a join-heir with the Lord Jesus Christ. We are not able to lead ourselves into what God has prepared for us to live, to walk in. St. Paul prays for the young Greek Church in Thessaloniki that the Lord would lead them into a full understanding and expression of the Love of God and the patient endurance that comes from Christ. God’s will for us unfolds as we follow Him in faith and surrender. Patience, we need!

Insight from God’s Word is never given simply for the cataloging of spiritual information. It is given for living in complete dependance upon the One Who has given us His Word. St. Paul states that no matter how many promises God has given they ALL find their “YES!” in Christ Jesus, so that we can say, “AMEN!” to the glory of God as it is He Who works His salvation in us from start to finish.

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