Hi Everyone
Continuing on Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, here are the notes and the link to the audio.
Pray it blesses you!
Chris
Good Friday – Our Sins were Paid For
On Good Friday – price of sin was paid
Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, (NKJV)
Galatians 4:3 Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. 4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. (NKJV)
2 Corinthians 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (NKJV)
Righteousness of God = As right and as good as God, made in His image. Not just forgiven, but made into His nature. A new creation, no more a cockroach! Not a cockroach trying to be human or worse, a human who thinks he is a cockroach and trying to be like a human! A transformed being, a change of identity; not a changed life but an exchanged one.
If our Christian life stops here at forgiveness, we will be stuck in Good Friday only. Yes, we will go to Heaven, but we will miss much of what God has planned between our salvation and our glorification at death or when Jesus returns!
Resurrection Sunday – Grace
Romans 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (NKJV)
We’ve been justified, now we have access by FAITH into His GRACE and REJOICE in the hope of GLORY. We have the GLORY of God in us and there is HOPE in manifesting this!
All sounds good, but for many Christians, quite honestly we are not much different from those outside. Little wonder it holds precious little attraction.
After the Resurrection, We Have the Right to Victory
Resurrection, Pentecost and beyond – Jesus comes to live in us.
1 John 4:4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. (NKJV)
How does this come to pass? Why doesn't it seem to be that way for many of us? When we understand this, we understand victorious living in Christ.
We Need to Receive His Grace
He has (past tense) already given us all things pertaining to life and godliness:
2 Peter 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, (NKJV)
Romans 5:17 For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) (NKJV)
We need to receive the abundance of grace – if we don’t, we won’t reign! We must believe that these are true, even if our senses tell us otherwise.
Peter walked on water for a while before he began to sink. If he had based his doctrine on his experience, he would have stopped believing in miracles, or conclude that these weren’t always the case. No, this man continued to believe and went on to do mighty wonders for the Lord.
Truth Must Reign in Our Lives
We now have the right to live in Victory. Everyone wants the victory, but the flesh gets in the way. We must let go of the flesh as it is no longer part of our make up.
Galatians 5:16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. (NKJV)
Spirit is truth – flesh is all about lies. Knowing the truth sets us free - we become convinced enough to let go!
Love one another, love your enemy, give and it will be given, telling someone off, speaking your mind to defend yourself – every area we determine to be more like God requires us to die to our five senses, our human thinking, which scream for us to do just the opposite. We must let go of these. Any reason we give ourselves for being less than the image of God that we hold onto must die in the presence of the truth that speaks otherwise. (“That’s just the way I am/I was brought up that way/It’s because of my past/my spouse/my boss” any other excuse.) We are new creations, we must forget the past and press on to the future. We must guard our hearts against what was told to us, against what we hold onto as true if it contradicts scriptures, against false thoughts perpetrated by any other sources.
Truths of His grace, His goodness, must replace our fleshly thinking. It is a ratio – he must increase, I must decrease. Without the Holy Spirit in us, letting go is not possible – it only opens us up to more demonic presence (Matt 12:45).
Flesh and living in the promises of God are on opposite ends.
The Word is Spirit (John 6:63) – we have to believe the Word AT THE EXPENSE of our flesh
The Old Has Gone
This is truly living a victorious life, dead to sin and flesh, alive to Christ. Old things have gone – sin nature is gone:
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (NKJV)
Romans 6:11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NKJV)
We have died to sins – the question now is whether we choose to believe this.
1 Peter 2:24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness— by whose stripes you were healed. (NKJV)
Choosing Life by Dying
Every area that I die to myself in is another area I trust in God in His Word in. Without His life in me, I cannot choose life. The choice to die to myself is my right. Any area I choose not to die in, the promises of God I won’t receive. Dying is giving up our trust in the flesh and deciding to trust in the promises of God in His Word.
Matthew 10:39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. (NKJV)
Matthew 16:25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? (NKJV)
Gaining the whole world or appearing to gain the whole world - feeding the ego and feeling good for a while but losing out on true eternal life.
That’s why the Christian life sometimes seems so hard – we are like the cockroaches made into humans trying hard to succeed as a cockroach again! These are not compatible!
Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (NKJV)
Take the Word and in every area of your life
- Know He loves you
- Have faith that what He says is true
- Let go of what your senses are telling you
If we don’t do this, our lives as Christians will be miserable. I am not telling you this from the position of having achieved, but like Paul:
Philippians 3:12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. 16 Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind. (NKJV)
We must press in for everything that He died for. That’s why we count it all joy, because trials force you to either stand on the Word or go by your own senses.
James 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. (NKJV)
No trials, no need to choose, no need to die. Each victory we win is another area we grow in.
Go After All He Rose to Give
Everything that Jesus died to recover, we must hunger for. We can be restored, transformed more and more into His image
2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. (NKJV)
Be hungry to go after it all, like Jacob. If we don’t hunger, we don’t receive.
Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (NKJV)
Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God. (NKJV)
Pure – single minded in your heart’s pursuit.
We grow from faith to faith. Things don’t always happen according to what the Word says not because it is not true, but because we waver. We must determine in our hearts that the Word says IS true. Indeed we are blessed with every spiritual blessing. (Eph 1:3)
Ephesians 5:18 says to be filled with the spirit. We can have the spirit but not be filled with Him. We are filled when we know His love (Eph 3:19). Yearn for things of the Spirit to manifest in your life.
Be hungry for what His love bought us. If we really understand His love for us, we will be full of Him, in awe of what He is to us and willing to let go of all that is here.
Then we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
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