Life #27 - Toward Life and Incorruption: To Gain is a Work of Faith (2 of 3)

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Christians will say we received our salvation as a free gift; we did not work for it. Yes, that is true! To “receive” is a free gift, which salvation is. But, to “gain Christ” is a work that accompanies faith (James 2:17)!

• But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him (1 John 2:5 NKJV).

To keep his “word” takes effort on our part until by incremental adjustments, God’s love is perfected in us. Thus we know we are “in him”.

• And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him (1 John 3:5, 6 NKJV).

To abide “in him” takes staying power on our behalf so that we do not sin—because he has no sin—then are we able to see and know him.

• If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him (1 John 2: 29 NIV).

Do we do what is right? That sounds like work on our part.

If we continue to keep “his word”, abide “in him”, and do what is right, then we no longer sin because the inherent truth that Christ in us has no sin is gradually revealed in us.

To “gain Christ” is to gain life.

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Scripture quotations from New King James Version (NKJV) unless otherwise noted; excerpts from our book to be released next year.

Life #26 - Toward Life and Incorruption: Are We Born of God? (1 of 3)



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• No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God (1 John 3:9 NIV).

Christians have great difficulty applying this truth personally. We are doubtful that a time will ever come when we will stop sinning and admit to it. Why?—because there are counter-scriptures that appear to support us in our very doubts!

• “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John l: 8).
• “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10).

No Christian would ever knowingly want to be deceived, or make God out to be a liar. Therefore, you won’t hear us saying “we have no sin”. Instead, we safely admit to sin…after sin… after sin…after—.

Then do we continue to ignore the Scripture that says “we cannot go on sinning”? No. If God’s seed remains in us, then we cannot continue to sin. We share in the Apostle Paul’s desire to count on Jesus to complete our salvation:

• “…that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ” (Phil. 3: 8, 9 NIV).

We are to “gain” Christ through faith in him and in his completed work.

Scripture quotations from New King James Version (NKJV) unless otherwise noted; excerpts from our book to be released next year.

Life #25 - Learning to Hear God's Voice through Sound and Meaning

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               Scripture says there are many voices in the world and they all carry meaning (1 Cor. 14:10 KJV). The Greek word for “voice” is phōnē, fo-nay’ which means a sound or a tone. Mothers learn to recognize their baby’s sound or tone, as well as the meaning behind it: “That cry sounds like he’s hungry; that one like she’s ready for a nap.”

Christians must learn to recognize God’s sound and the meaning behind it. Additionally, we also learn to differentiate God’s Voice from among other voices, who also have sounds and meanings of their own:

·         The devil’s sound is temptation, aimed at our ego, meant to use us to frustrate God’s power, purpose, and sovereignty (Matt. 4:3, 6, 9).

·         The world strikes a tone of pleasure, aimed at our lusts, meant to make Christians enemies of God (James 4:1-4; 1 John 2:15, 16).

·         The stranger’s voice is the letter of the law, aimed at the sheep, and is meant to steal, to kill, or to destroy the sheep (John 9:14-16; 28; 10:5, 10; Mark 2:24, 27).

Otherwise, God’s Voice is a sound of change, aimed at the incorruptible seed within us, meant to grow us up into Christ Jesus.

Yes. God’s voice sounds like our voice, our thoughts, and our feelings.

Let’s spend time with God and get acquainted with his sound and meaning, especially so we can hear the Voice of life.

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Scripture quotations from New King James Version (NKJV) unless otherwise noted; Greek definitions from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible: Voice #5456, phōnē, fo-nay’; a tone:—noise, sound, voice. And from Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (1981): “voice” - “a sound”.

In John (Chapters 9 & 10), Jesus alluded to the Pharisees as strangers, thieves, robbers, and hirelings.

Life #24 - An Immortal Destiny

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“In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will…“ (Eph. 1:11 NIV).

Jesus invited us to follow him. Eventually, our journey stops in a Garden containing the winepress of God. Here, the strength of our will has an opportunity to die to all of its limitations and fears, even of betrayal and abandonment. Jesus experienced betrayal by one of his disciples; and ultimately, abandonment by his God, as he cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Afterwards, he was raised in glory!

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve chose their will over God’s. Are we going to do the same, or, choose the way Jesus did? “Not my will but yours be done”.  If we follow Jesus even in this, then our will—like his—conforms to God’s will. Now, God “works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” so that we might “be for the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:11 NIV)!

It is Christ in us, “the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). Only “in him” are we predestined according to God’s plan. The result is that we who live, no longer live for ourselves, but for him (2 Cor. 5:15 NIV).

Our destiny is an immortal one because of whose image we are predestined to transform into (2 Cor. 3:18). We are, after all, saved through his life (Rom. 5:10 NIV).

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Scripture quotations from New King James Version (NKJV) unless otherwise noted; excerpts from our book to be released next year.  

Life #23 - To Live "Now" is to Hear His Voice

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Children are taught, or threatened, to listen.  By the time they grow up, they’ve managed to construct an inner schematic that shuts out, or mutes, aggravating noises—mostly adult voices. This selective hearing is the type of schematic Christians erect within ourselves that prevents us from hearing God.

How did we do that? Churched Christians have a difficult time distinguishing God’s voice apart from the church’s voice. Often we convince ourselves that when we do what our church says to do, we’re hearing God’s voice. In the process, we neglect our family’s needs and we negate our own thoughts and feelings, which is Christ in us, until we’ve erroneously muted the voice of God. As a result, our witness of Jesus suffers within our own families and within our own psyches.

Scripture says there are many voices in the world and they all carry meaning (1 Cor. 14:10 KJV). However, Christians have only one Voice we should be listening to because the meaning from that Voice holds significance:

“Most assuredly I say to you,  the hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live” (John 5:25).

If churched Christians are dead because we cannot hear the voice that “now is”—so that we can live today—then how can we expect to hear that same voice at the resurrection, so we can live again?

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Scripture quotations from New King James Version (NKJV) unless otherwise noted; excerpts from our book to be released next year.  

Life #22 - Life on Faith's Terms

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A dear friend and brother-in-Christ fell asleep last month. He had thought about Jesus’ promise, “…whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:26 NIV), but the process to mĕtamŏrphŏō into the Lord’s image and to transform his mind (2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 12:2) was going to take time, which our friend did not have. For the rest of us, however, there is still time.

God’s promises come by faith to each of us (Romans 4:16 NIV). And although Jesus gave us the promise of life, like Abraham we receive the promise by works of faith—for faith without works is dead faith (James 2:17). Thus corruption—in the forms of aging, disease, and death—will continue to assault our mortal bodies until the promise of unending life becomes our reality, our Isaac.

Our works of faith are to participate in the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:3, 4 NIV) and—because of Jesus’ life and godliness—to live by, and keep in step with, the Spirit of God (Galatians 5:13-25 NIV). That’s how we escape the world’s corruption!

Corruption took at least 900+ years to gain the victory over Methuselah (Genesis5:27), but for us the reverse should not take so long. In fact, the mĕtamŏrphŏō process completes itself within our lifetime—all because Jesus abolished death and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel (2 Timothy 1:10).

So why aren’t Christians receiving Jesus’ promise that we "will never die"?

Perhaps our hearts are slow to believe.

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Scripture quotations from New King James Version (NKJV) unless otherwise noted; excerpts from our book to be released next year.  

Life #21 - A Promise of Life in Two Timelines

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If we are to apprehend life, then we are wise to apprehend all those things that pertain to life. The bible informs us that holiness and righteousness are characteristics that lead to life. A third characteristic is godliness.

“…godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come” (1 Timothy 4:8 KJV).

Yes, godliness holds a promise of life in two timelines.

The first timeline is the present. Zōē-life believers partake of the promise of life “that now is”. We are few, but we’re here. The world laughs at our holiness and derides our godliness, but these characteristics qualify us to boldly apprehend zōē-life "today", "now", "currently", "in the present"—while we are alive—so that whoever lives and believes in Jesus will never die (John 11: 26 NIV).

The second timeline is for the future. The majority of Christians will die because we live to partake of the promise of the life “which is to come”. This means “later”, “not now”, and “in the future”. We all know the promise of that life, called the resurrection of the dead.

Although God is a generous God, much of our Christian walk depends upon how we choose to appropriate faith to access his generosity. Our faith-choice determines the timeline we end up in: to live now and not die; or, to die now and live later.

Godliness holds the promise of life for now or for the future.

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Scripture quotations from New King James Version (NKJV) unless otherwise noted; excerpts from our book to be released next year.