The Freedom to NOT Sin

Gwin (my wife) and I spoke at a small group recently, and the theme was Freedom in Christ.

One of the freedoms Gwin discussed was "freedom from sin" or "freedom to not sin".  That second one sounds a little strange since God told us to not sin in the first place. So how can freedom to not sin be an option?

Sin, once it entered into the world, into man, was stuck there until Christ.  All the sacrifices and law (Torah) keeping and such, will not do us a bit of good outside of our relationship in the Trinity.  Sin has kept us prisoners and any attempt to do otherwise will only cause us to be "sinless" outside of God (Trinity).  And any attempt at that is a sin.

 Yes.   That is a sin.  Sin is living our lives outside of who and what we are as God created us. Once man chose that path, all that he does is tainted with sin.  Our works are tainted with sin, our prayers, our fastings, our sacrifices and traditions are all tainted with sin. Even our repentance has a sin attached to it like a virus or a "Trojan horse" in an email.

 The story of what we call "The Prodigal Son" (though the story was about the Father) showed our sinful state inside the repentance.  The young man didn't truly repent until after he met up again with the Father.  The son went back because though he knew he did wrong, came back because he could get three meals a day, a clean place to live and a bath once in a while!  Think about this: If he had these things while slopping hogs, would  he have really returned?  Maybe, maybe not. Most likely not.  His "repentance" was to get him into a better place.  But he still would have accepted the position of a servant and relinquished his right as a son!  But the Father would not have that!  He did not even hear his request, his prayer (ever feel like God is not hearing your prayer?) He grabbed his son while his son was trying to give his little penance of a prayer, again, tainted with more sin of being other than who he is, and grabbed him in his filthy, dirty, pig smelling state and thew his own coat of authority as well as the family ring of authority on him and demanded a party for him!   THAT is what this story is all about!  It's about the Father and how MUCH he Love us!  How much He LOVES YOU!!!

The young man lived in sin because that is what he was in Adam! How could he be otherwise?

BUT....that was BEFORE Christ. What Churches today don't get is that Christ forgave that Sin of Adam, man.  He took humanity BACK into the realm of his Kingdom and righteousness "while we were yet sinners", or slopping hogs so to speak.  That doesn't mean we don't sin, nor does it mean we don't need to repent.  Of course we do. But NOW...we have an opportunity to live righteous lives, NOT because we did good stuff and God forgave us when we did these good works, but because of JESUS (Yeshua) who gave himself for our sins!  We are no longer stuck in the post Adamic/pre Christ world of Sin.   We are freed from that prison! Death no longer has us in it's grip unless we allow it!  We are freed from that Sin of Adam!

The belief and repentance factor comes in when we realize that and come to understand our freedom to live and rejoice inside the Trinity!  To dance in the Trinity. Just as the young man who came home didn't fully know the Father or what he would do until the Father showed him and took him unto himself. That was when repentance had it's full affect!  Forgiveness was there before the young man repented (while we were still in our sins)!  We come to the Father, not because we did good stuff to get there, but because of the goodness of Jesus Christ that brought us to repentance before the Father in His train of glory!

But if you don't believe, you will still be in the trinity, but miserable because you insist on trying to be someone you are not.  Like being at a wedding party and refusing to enjoy it because you hate the groom!  You are still at the party,  you are still free to choose either to rejoice or to be miserable. Or it's like being in prison, or hell itself, and refusing to come out. You lock the gates of hell from the inside.

You have FREEDOM, not TO sin, but to actually NOT sin!  Before, in Adam, you had no choice. No matter what you did, you were a sinner, you were under the curse of Adam, under the law, the curse of the Law.  But NOW, in the Second Adam, Jesus Christ, you are FREE from that curse, you are FREE from that world of Adamic Sin, you are FREE to actually live a life of no sin!  Why? Because of  the works of  Jesus, not our good works!

Rejoice in the LORD, Rejoice because you ARE in freedom of the LORD!
Blessings and Freedom to all!

Boyd Merriman

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One To Rule Them All

One Father to rule them all
One Christ to find them
One spirit to bring them all
and in the light, bind them.

Boyd Merriman

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I Love You Too

I was thinking this morning about God's love for humanity.  Yes, humanity, not just you and me.
Then when I say "I love you Lord", what am I expecting? For the Lord to say "I love you too"?  Well, yes, but why?

As humans, we tend to look for reassurance, confirmation, a sign; a reciprocated response.  We say "I love you", not just because we love someone, but in hopes that they will return that "I love you" so we can feel confirmed and accepted; loved.  We expectantly wait for "I love you too".

So what are we expecting from God?  Are we still looking for God's love towards us?  Considering the fact that John 3:16 has already told us that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, should tell us that God loved us before Jesus existed as flesh.  But is that enough?  OK, it is also written that God loved us before time, before we were created, and has already had plans of sending Jesus, long before we were created, let alone sinned.


Yet here we are waiting for a response of "I love you too" as if we were talking to another person we have been relating to for years. Do we do that with our spouse?  Of course they love us, why would they put up with us for so long?  Yet, we are still waiting for "I love you too" as if by chance, maybe they did stop loving us?  Is it possible that God stopped loving us?  Will we ever get that response of "I love you too" from God?




Yes, we should say "I love you" to our spouse, our family, our friends and neighbors, and we should say "I love you" to God as well, but from the heart, from the love we truly have towards that person.  But if we are expecting a response to our "I love you", then are we baiting? Are we feeling a need to be reassured, confirmed?  Are we sending out signals that we are feeling alone and in need of something?  Do we need that response so we can go on a few more steps?

Yet, maybe that is what God is waiting for from us.  Not out of need for our love or for reassurance.  God loved us and has told us that and has never stopped telling us that from the beginning of time.  So maybe our response shouldn't just be "I love you Lord", but "I love you too".  Out of response to God's already loving us the whole time.

Lord, I love you too.

Boyd Merriman

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The Ultimate Sacrifice

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There is no doubt in any Christians mind that what Jesus did while on the cross was a pivotal point in history.  We stand in awe of our Creator God, who was willing to hang on a cross after a severe beating, until dead.  He even went so far as to forgive his tormentors and murders while they were still mocking him and spitting at him.

We call that the Ultimate Sacrifice. And we all benefited from that history changing sacrifice.

But was that The Ultimate Sacrifice?  It is written that he died once for our sins, so we can only assume that if there was another sacrifice, it wasn’t one of death.  It would have been one of a physical life.

John 1:1-10 tells us that Jesus was the Word that was with God from the beginning. Jesus was the God of the Old Testament that spoke to the prophets and spoke the universe and all that was in it, into existence.  When God spoke, it happened.

For Jesus to become human, he first had to come up with that idea, to think it through, and then be willing to strip him self of the glory he had from eternity, and become not only human, but a helpless child in a womb of a very young and inexperienced mother who was still a card carrying member of the broken human family.

Of course, the Holy Spirit, God, was with him the whole time. There was never a time Jesus was not in constant communion with the Father.  But to allow him self to be divested of all things God, that was a sacrifice for humanity of galactic and biblical proportions!  It was unheard of, never before attempted! Knowing he will die by the hands of humanity, he still allowed him self to be “down graded” to human, to a fetus, to be carried and born a child of a poor family.  From a being who owned it all, literally, to owning nothing.

So what does that mean to you and me?  Everything!  We praise God left and right for his sacrifice on the cross, and he should be praised!  But with Christmas coming up, I think there is a lot more to his first coming as God/Man than we first see.  It’s a sacrifice worth paying attention to!

If Jesus had not become fully man, we would never have a God that came down all the way, and he would not have died on the cross. So he had to become fully man, he had to die on the cross.  Death had already called his name the day we sinned. Actually, earlier than that if you read Revelation 13:8: “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (or cosmos).”  He decided to become flesh and die, so we can put on immortality and live.

Now why do I call it The Ultimate sacrifice?  It is true that he made that death sacrifice on the cross, but the ultimate one? Is death the ultimate one?  As a human being, we see death as permanent, so we think of it as an ultimate sacrifice (if we made that sacrifice).  Or in some cases, we call it a “permanent solution to a temporary problem” we have trouble facing.

What makes it ultimate to God? After all, death was not permanent, but a beginning to eternal life!  Resurrection was just a few days away!  He was to become immortal again; back to his old glory he had once before! Then what was so “ultimate” and for that matter, “sacrifice” about that?

And what is so ultimate about his becoming humanity?  Because, though he died, he did live again, with more glory, but when he became human…

Pay attention now….

Read this carefully…

Ready??...

HE NEVER STOPPED BEING HUMAN!

That’s right!!  Though he was resurrected back to glory, he was still human even after he was raised again!

WHAT?

Remember, he told the disciples and specifically to Thomas in Luke 24:39 “Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

The Message bible says it this way:  “Don't be upset, and don't let all these doubting questions take over. Look at my hands; look at my feet—it's really me. Touch me. Look me over from head to toe. A ghost doesn't have muscle and bone like this." As he said this, he showed them his hands and feet.”


Muscle and bone? Flesh? Jesus, with what we would consider as "corruptible" flesh? Apparently so. Jesus' flesh is, of course, incorruptible, and we will share in that incorruptibly of Jesus at his coming!

So we have the good news that Jesus is still human, still flesh, yet he is still fully God.  God has always been with us the whole time!  (Emanuel, God with us)  Look at the humanity around you. Do you now see a different humanity? You should.  Jesus became human for our sake, made that Ultimate Sacrifice, making a permanent solution to an eternal problem.  He brought humanity; flesh, to sit at the right hand of the Father.  And the Father is sitting right next to Humanity in Jesus’ humanity!

Wow!

When the Father looks at Jesus (His son in whom he is well pleased) he sees humanity. And when he sees humanity, he sees Jesus!

Now what do you see in the manger?  Jesus? God? Humanity? Yes, all three.

Now that does not mean we are God of course, but what a wonderful position humanity has been put in to!  The moment Jesus became human; all of humanity had a physical connection to God, the Creator of the universe! In fact, all of creation now has a connection!

So believe that. Take seriously the part in your connection to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for Jesus has overcome the world! The whole world! When Jesus as man did not sin, Man (in Jesus) did not sin!  Though we (man) do sin, Jesus became that Man for us, in our stead, to be a sinless being.  That is why God does not hold sin against man, because Man (The Second Adam; Jesus) did not sin for God to hold it against him! 2 Cor. 5:19 “that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them.”  Notice, reconciling was to the world, not to just certain men.

Because of The Ultimate Sacrifice, all I can say now is:

“Merry Christmas to all of humanity, and to all of humanity, good night”

Boyd Merriman

Round and Round We Go

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One of the things we need to question in our evangelical quest to “save as many souls as possible before all hell breaks loose" is, who, how and why.

But I keep going back to what Jesus Christ said about himself and the Father.  “That is why I said that people can’t come to me unless the Father gives them to me.”  John 6:65.

Well, that’s fine and dandy, except, what if the Father never calls this person?  What do we do then?  I suppose we tell them “Tough luck kid, I guess you’re going to be punished in hell for the next zillion years even though you didn’t have a chance to begin with!”

That doesn’t seem to be fair, especially from a loving God and for such a short, miserable life this person had. And how would we ever know if God is calling them later or not?  Should we give up? Try to save them ourselves?  Wait on the Lord as some would say? (Waiting is not a bad idea by the way)

But we are still in panic mode trying our best and hope to God all these otherwise nice people don’t go to hell.

What work we do! What love for these people we must have!  What commitment, zeal…and full of ourselves!  What a waste of time! And God seems to be doing absolutely nothing unless we act!

Seems foolish to me, considering how weak and broken I am.  So I am reminded of the foolishness of God which is still far wiser than mans wisdom. 1Cor. 1:25  Maybe we are missing something here.

Because yet another verse, which seems to contradict the first one, says, “No one can come unto the Father except through [Jesus]”.  John 14:6

Stop the car! Pull over! Let’s pull this map out and read it again!  First, we can’t go to Jesus unless the Father draws us to him, and we cannot go to the Father except through Jesus, whom we cannot go to unless the Father, (which we cannot access without Jesus) draws us to Jesus!! What gives?

If the only way we can access the Father is through Jesus and the only way we can access Jesus is from the Father invitation, then we can only assume we are already in contact with both, Father and Son!  How?  By the Holy Spirit that was sent by the Father through the Son!!  NOW we see the connection!   Because the Holy Spirit was sent to earth (and by default, to humanity) by Jesus, we are complete in Jesus if you understand that the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity as God, (Emanuel; God with us).  This was done already a long time ago!  There is nothing we can do!  If we try to save people thinking they have no access, then we are bypassing what Jesus AND the Father AND the Holy Spirit has done already!  We were not told that we can come to Jesus through evangelism, though by evangelism, we come into the knowledge of our existence in Christ.

Either we are already in Jesus because of what they did, or there is absolutely no hope for humanity: saints and sinners!

Now what is the evangelist to do? Or have we misunderstood what we are to do?  We think we are called to save souls.  Well, to a certain limit, yes, but for what, and for whom?  It isn’t a matter of saving people from, but for.  Isn’t our main priority to announce the Good News of God’s Kingdom which, if I’m not too far mistaken, Jesus is King of right now?  If Jesus is the King of a Kingdom, then we can only assume there are subjects (citizens) of that Kingdom. And Jesus’ Kingdom includes all of humanity. So the real question is, what are we “saving” them, or better yet, leading to them understanding, for? 

All we are called to do is to announce the Good News of this Kingdom and teaching all nations (peoples, who are already a part of this Kingdom) to observe and learn their role in this Kingdom! And to help people see who Jesus is, who they are in Jesus, and to help them receive (not get) the understanding (via Holy Spirit) and accept the “already done” into their daily lives.

Either we are going round and round trying to save people (just in case Jesus missed a few), or God has already resolved this circular puzzle.

May this circle be unbroken.

“Lord, please open our eyes to your Kingdom already at hand”

Boyd Merriman

 




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