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May the Lord bless you out of Zion; And may you see the peace, the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. It is the promise of the loving and gracious God, whose blessing becomes yours by His calling, even as Abraham was called by Him to be blessed and fruitful. He who has called you is holy, and He is a faithful God who will make you holy. And God targets your being, for true believing affects your being. The blessing of God is a transformation, which is to become more and more like Him, as you share in His holiness. [Hebrews 12:10] You can be holy because He is holy. And- [Psalms 128:5]
He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness,but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewal of the Holy Spirit. [Titus 3:5] Salvation is not about impressing God with your good acts. It can never be earned, for, your good deeds are simply not good enough. You are not saved by good works, but for good works, already prepared by Him. It is not about ‘you’, being at the center of it all, but all about God, and –
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And the wages of sin is death. It is what you and I rightly deserve, but for the mercy and grace of God. You are saved, by His mercy that has withheld the punishment for sin, from coming upon you, to bestow His salvation, by His grace, that finds you receiving what you do not deserve – His goodness, compassion and mercy, as you are born again.
It is the truth that the Lord spoke to Nicodemus, that applies equally to you and I too. Christianity does not subscribe to the belief in a cycle of repeated physical births. You are born once, and after that the judgement is the truth of the scriptures. And having been born in sin, in the image of the fallen man, you need to be born again in order to experience a new start, and a new life that comes by being raised together with Christ into the washing of regeneration.
And regeneration, or a new life, a new start, becomes your experience through Jesus Christ, who became the atoning sacrifice for your sins and mine on the Cross, and rose again on the third day, having paid the ransom for it, and destroying death, and the evil one who had the power over death. And it was all about unadulterated, unconditional love. For, God so loved the world, that He gave His Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish but have eternal life. [John 3:16] And you love Him, because He first loved you.
And the same God who gave you a new start, will also give you a new way of living. It becomes necessary, for sin is more powerful than the power of your will. Your free will is certainly not free at all. It is why Paul, highly intellectual though he was, had to accept his inability regarding over- coming the sin principle that was still at work in him. But he also knew that on receiving Jesus as his Lord and Savior, he now had the empowering solution to it, to be able to say, ‘Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord’. And God saying, ‘ I will work on your will; and you will’, is the truth that it conveys. For, but for the strength of God, you cannot do His will.
And in an imagery that signifies the word, and the Spirit, God has spoken His will for you, through the prophet Ezekiel – I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean, from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. [Ezekiel 36:25] He Himself will cleanse you. It is His will. And He [Christ] Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not only for our sins, but for those of the whole world. [1 John 2:2] But then, there is always the person who thinks he can manage to do it without the help of God. About him, it is written, Who can say ‘I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin?’ [Proverbs 20:9] For man’s perception of holiness is in itself corrupted and flawed. Who am I to judge myself concerning my own holiness, is how the apostle Paul describes being clean in his own eyes. Indeed there can be many blind spots in your being and behavior that are very plainly obvious to everyone around you, about which you are personally oblivious!
It is a holy God who can rightly define holiness, and also when you willingly submit to Him, proceed to demonstrate it in your life, as His blessing of a holy calling. He will make you holy. But it also sadly true that even as it was in biblical times, in every generation there would be the people who in having a lofty estimate of themselves, deceive themselves into thinking they can be clean in their own strength. [Proverbs 30:12] But, If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. [1 John 1:8]
For, even after you have been saved, and born again, and you are a christian in the true sense of the word, the sin principle is still present in you. But there is also the spirit of regeneration that is higher. Therefore, it is true that you can still sin; but you do not have to. And also, we are all saints, but for the opportunity, it has been said about saved, born again Christians. For a desire that is not according to the will of God when combined with opportunity can give birth to sin. But Lord Jesus has demonstrated for your edification and mine that it can be overcome. His hunger after fasting for forty days and forty nights was real and not wrong, for He became man, and was fully human.And being fully God, being the Son of God, he had the power to turn stones into bread, as the devil tempted Him to. But the Lord overcame it by declaring ‘It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God’. [Matthew 4:4]
And in your life today, when tempted to sin, what you cannot do in your own strength, you can do by the Spirit’s power, to overcome it. You need to depend on His grace and strength. When a problem with sin arises, the moment you think you can manage it yourself, is when you mismanage it, sowing the seed for your own defeat. Self deception is deception at it’s worst.Turn to God, when it is still a small ripple, without waiting for it to become a storm that engulfs you. He is waiting to help you. The Holy Spirit is your ever present Helper.
You need not persist in sinning , for it primarily harms only you, to also affect your family, and the wider circle that is the society. And God graciously forgives, but taking His grace for granted, makes you insensitive to His voice,that leads you in paths of righteousness. God cannot be mocked, and you reap what you sow. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [1 John 1:9] As you come to Him, trusting in His grace and His strength, not trying in your own strength and miserably failing – He forgives your sins, and, He cleanses you of all unrighteousness, that you may not fall back into the sinful problem. It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. And you need His help to then stay free, that He may counsel you, revealing to you a new way of living, to take you where He wants you to be. May you offer your life to Him, in willing submission, that it may be all for Him, and His glory, as you pray Father, We thank thee for the awesome work of Your Son, Jesus Christ, on the Cross of Calvary, the redemption, the forgiveness of sins by His Blood. We thank Thee, Holy Spirit in us, that we are sealed by Thee, as a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. We come in humility, acknowledging our need for your help, that You may cleanse us, sanctify us, to lead us in the way everlasting, righteous and true. In the Name of Christ Jesus Amen.
