God with a Plan!
Why does the gospel include leaving us with the presence and indwelling of the Holy Spirit as a follower of Jesus?
This bible verse intrigues me greatly…
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”
“Why would God put His Spirit in us? Why not just keep things the same, with animal sacrifices or something similar. God completed His plan for salvation in Jesus, But salvation with Jesus went further than an amazing sacrifice! Salvation not only forgave our sins, it brought His Spirit into us.”
God goes so far as to begin the process of internal change.
Not only did He not want us to sin, but he wanted nothing to get in the way of our love and appreciation of Him. To love anything more than God is misleading to the soul that seeks to cling to something that will satisfy it. Will we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength?
The great commandment is key here!
“And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
Love. It is a wonderfully simple and complex thing.
I don’t pretend to fully know it, or give it. I don’t understand why it is so important to the human soul, except that it seems that God made us to need it and to function because of it.
But the problem is that we are a distracted people. And if we are distracted, we cannot love the way we need to. Yes, we love family, jobs, money, fun, and such. But God asks us to love Him, with all we have and all we are!
Who are we? Are we capable of love? God’s love?
This is a major question of how we see ourselves. It’s an identity issue. And if I don’t see myself as capable of loving, I will struggle with it.
If you are anything like me, you probably have trouble liking yourself. If your like some others you might love yourself too much. Either way, there is a love problem.
How do we fix this inner problem?
We cannot! Only God can!
However in our search for God, we find numerous important things that we seek to draw love from. We may get married so we get the love we so desire. Maybe we have kids so someone will love and accept us no matter what we do.
Maybe we work so that we feel irreplaceable and important. Maybe we try to be good at everything we do, so that people will like us more.
All of this points to a need for love and acceptance! Sin takes advantage of this need and perverts all the gifts and blessings of God and turns them into mini gods in and of themselves.
The unintended consequence is that these “loves” begin to shape and form us, leaving behind a wake of spiritual damage in our souls that is very difficult to overcome.
What is that damage?
An sense of self in which we provide for ourselves rather than recieving the gifts of God with thanksgiving!
That sense of self is identity. Identity is what we let control our view of ourselves in our how we think, feel and act about ourselves, God, others and the world around us.
Our identity is probably, at some level, based on fear. Fear of not being loved, accepted, or having a purpose. So much of life is about avoiding rejection, and managing our fears.
The point is we all have these self-made identities that get us through life no matter what. We want to prove to the world that we are able to be the kind of person worthy of someones, anyones, approval. And perhaps even God too!
If we can’t fix things, then what?
God has a plan!
For God so loved….
God’s gospel is built upon the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son, and it is critical. We tend to go to that knowledge when thinking about salvation from sin and getting to heaven. But we need to look to him for daily living as well.
Remember the encouragement and command to love God with all our heart, soul and mind! This is our mandate as God’s people to love Him and walk in His ways! This is the perfect expression of being the people of God, the Children of God!
Our salvation is all about an identity change that God does for us and we need to walk in it. Notice a couple of bible verses to get us thinking…
Jesus started it in the gospel of John with…
“Jesus said this… “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.””
The apostle Paul addressed this issue by saying…
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” ”
Why would we need to be born again?
Why would we need to be new creations attached to and in union with Jesus?
Identity!
Life flows from how we see ourselves. Salvation from sin is the beginning of that process in which we see God at work to restore the image of God in us from the time of Creation!
When we get saved, we are to walk in newness of life…. or in other words we should…
Live resurrected!
Encouraging a life found "in Christ" is what the purpose of the Xchange is all about. We need to Xchange the self-driven life for the Christ-driven life. No more self-made individuals, but a family of new creations called the children of God. Christ is our new nature; yes, it is time to live resurrected!