What does it mean to you…

 

                         “…seated with him in heavenly place in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6)

To be seated with Christ in Heavenly places can be unimaginable, but for the Christian it is a promise. First, one must look to see where they are; “Abide in me (Jesus) and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me" (John 15:4).

We must above all else be abiding in Him, and when we find ourselves abiding in Christ, it means we have been given new life, we have been purified, washed, and cleanse from our sins. It is through the blood that we have been justified, we have received this atonement as we are raised from a death of sin to a life of righteousness.  Also, we must hold fast our faith and a good conscience; and let no trials turn us aside from the truth. “And I will abide in you”—ye shall receive every help and influence from me (Christ) that your souls may require, in order to preserve and save them to eternal life.   These two things are absolutely, necessary to our salvation:

1. we must continually be closely united to Christ by faith and love, and live in and to him

2. As we continually receive from him the power to do good; for as the branch, however good in itself, cannot bear fruit from itself, through its own juice, which it has already derived from the tree, and can be no longer supported; than it continues in union with the parent stock, neither can ye, unless ye abide in me. As the branch partakes of the nature of the tree, it is nourished by its juice, and lives by its life, so ye must be made partakers of my Divine nature, be wise in my wisdom, powerful in my might, and pure through my holiness.
[Adam Clarke's Commentary] 

If we are abiding in Christ, we have the vital nutrients being supplied to us continuously each and every day. He is our source of strength in every storm, He is where our fruitfulness flows from, His Divine nature gives us access to all that He is. And because we abide in Him, we have the privilege of being called Children of God.

To be raised up, we must have been raised from death to life when we received Christ as Savior. So close is our connection with Him that His resurrection made ours certain as heirs. “And made us sit together…”

“and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him” (Rom. 8:17 (NASB)

So close is our connection with Him, that we shall partake of His glory. 

“In heavenly places…”

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,” (Ephesians 1:3 (NASB)

The meaning is, that he has gone to the heavenly world as our Head and Representative. His entrance there is a pledge, a promise that we shall also enter there. Even here we have the anticipation of glory, and are admitted to exalted honors, as if we sat in heavenly places, in virtue of our connection with him.  With the pure doctrines of the Gospel, and the abundant gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost, justifying, sanctifying, and building us up on our most holy faith.
(Adam Clarke's Commentary)

In Christ Jesus - It is our connection with him that we are therefore exalted, and thus filled with joy and peace. The meaning of the whole is,” We are united to Christ. We die with him, and live with him. We share his sufferings, and we share his joys. We become dead to the world, to the flesh and we become alive unto God in virtue of his resurrection. On earth we are exalted to honor, peace, and hope, in virtue of his resurrection; in heaven we shall share his, glory and partake of his triumphs.”

“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” Galatians 2:20 (NKJV)

So, here you have it. Because of our connection to Christ as our Savior and the fact that in order to live we must die, God has granted us the privilege of sitting with Christ in heavenly places even while we are still here on earth.  Now this privilege does not entitle us to walk in a prideful or arrogant way and neither does it allow us to look down on someone. As Christ had walk when He was here so must we.  And how did he walk? He walked in love, peace, truthfully, prayerfully, faithfully and with great humility. Let His ways be the example that we look too and that each of us strive to imitate. Since we abide in Him, and since He is our perfect example to follow, we do not walk this journey alone:

“that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me” (John 17:21 (NKJV)

Heavenly Father, thank you for the faithfulness of Christ, how He was true to you and a perfect example of your Love to us. May we always abide in Him and may our walk be pleasing in your eyes. Thank you, Father for adopting us into your family and giving us the rights and privileges as your natural Son.  Lord Jesus you have given your life for us, you have saved us from an eternal death and you have cleans us from all our sins and iniquity. There are not enough words in any language to say how grateful we are, I thank you my Lord and Savior as I give you my life. therefore, I will abide in you always for I know that I can do nothing without you. in the blessed name of Jesus Christ, I ask and pray, amen.

  Chosen2Prayer

Obedient Faith...

Faith is that one virtue that we say we have but when push comes to shove you find that strong faith has suddenly become weaken. Because of many situations our faith weakens and we frantically search for hope, then we have those moments when we try to pass on our strong faith to others and we really aren't that convince about what we are saying; it’s as though we’re trying to convince ourselves. None of this mean we are bad Christians, on the contrary, it only means we must check our faith with God, we must compare it to the Word to see why we have falter in the battle. We must renew our strength and faith in God’s Word.

There is nothing that we can do in or of our own selves, we must look to God who has blessed and anointed His Word which comes alive within our Spirits as we read it and apply it to our lives.  The Word of God is the “Living Word” and it has all the characteristics of God Himself. The Word gives us strength, healing, hope, trust, faith, guidance, instruction, discipline and most of all love.  We have to spend time seeking God, asking Him to direct us, to enlighten our understanding and to take us deep into His Word.  Seeking God requires dedication, commitment and a willingness to spend time with Him. Just as we see family and friends on a daily basis, we MUST dedicate daily quality time with God.

The Bible gives us many, good examples of warriors of faith, who was given a Word from God and they all believed and with unwavering trust and obedience they accomplished the impossible. Their confidence in the faithfulness of God brought about a loving and obedient heart. Take Noah for example, (Gen. 6-9), he lived in a time when sin and iniquity was abounding, but In verse 6:8 it says "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord."  God found in Noah something that the world did not have and Noah found favor in God’s eyes.

Noah was considered perfect in his generation, he was consistent in character, he did not turn from the truth (this in itself is a monumental feat at that time) and he walked with God. Even though the world was so wicked it did not persuade Noah nor influence him to walk according to the flesh; he remained faithful. As you read the sixth chapter of Genesis you will see that God was angry with the people of the world: "And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth" (Gen. 6:12).   Much like today, “…the wickedness of man was great…every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually…” (Gen.6:5).

   You might ask what has this to do with walking by faith.  Well, I see Noah as an ordinary person who loved God, who conducted his life as close to God as possible. Noah was no different from you or me only that: “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” (Gen. 6:8). And he obeyed the Word that came from God, “Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so die he.? (Gen 6:22).

 We who believe have we found grace/favor in the eyes of God? Are we trying to walk with the world and with God? And are we standing strong in our faith in our belief against the evils of this world?  Finally, are we being lights in this dark and evil world or are we turning off the light?

I’m sure the battles were raging all around Noah, he was persecuted, ridiculed and mocked by many. But Noah kept his faith in God, he continued doing what God had instructed him, no matter the amount of persecution.  We are all fighting some kind of battle, and no matter what we face, we must find strengthen in our daily walk with God. We must believe without any doubt or wavering that God is in the midst and that He promised never to leave us or forsake us. We need to have strong faith as we are going through persecution, ridicule and taunts from the enemy, for it is when we are in the midst that our faith should arise and nothing will be impossible.

Be bless…

NJ, Chosen4God

Stuck between a rock and a hard place…

When I found this picture it brought back memories where I had found myself at times of my life, either by my doing or my choices.  We all have been “stuck between a rock and hard place” at one time or another and I’m sure many of you have heard this saying before of “being stuck between a rock and a hard place” right? What exactly does this mean? And how does it pertain to our Walking with God?  Well let’s say you have a choice that must be made and if you make the wrong choice the consequences could be more devastating than if you made no decision at all and the decision will affect more than just you. Of course this is just an example but we have all at one time found ourselves in this position. 

When we find ourselves in a situation that requires us to change directions we need to take heed to the path that God is directing us to.  But in our stubbornness and self-will,  for some of the paths we have chosen have lead us where we wish we hadn’t gone because we have made the grand decision to forge our own way.  The Bible tells us that "Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein" (Jer 6:16 KJV). We have opted out from the tried and true path to be different, to be unique or to “to be me”.  What we have done then is we have chosen the flesh part of life; we have gone with our own mind set, and remember “…the carnal mind is enmity against God... they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7-8). How successful has those choices been?

The Word of God is very clear when we choose our own paths, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." (Jam 4:4 KJV).  When we are walking with God it should be a time of exhilaration, it should be a time of fulfilling what was commission to us by Christ, to go and heal the sick, to raise the dead, to preach the Word.  Nevertheless the path that we have chosen has been of our own making and choice and the consequences of this are ours to receive.

One thing for sure life has a way of challenging us and forcing us to take a good look at ourselves and as we start to get older our perspective about life changes and choices we’ve made come to mind and we begin to re-evaluate our lives, going back over some of the choices we did make and seeing where we shoulda, coulda and woulda made better choices had we known what we know now.  You must realize now that the past is the past and we can’t reach back to change it or erase it, there are no excuses we can give for the choices of the past.  What we must do now is “press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14). 

God is calling us higher, our destiny is not here in this world if you look at Israel they were God’s chosen people and nation, "For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth." (Deut. 14:2 KJV) yet He never gave up on them even though they tried His patience many times with their idolatrous beliefs, unbelief, their rebellion and stubbornness.  It is imperative to understand that as long as we walk in obedience to His Word, obey His commands and remain humble before Him we, who are called by His name, will reach our eternal home; if we do not faint on the journey we are now on. Getting past the past means knowing that we have been made “…kings and priest and we will reign on earth” (Rev. 5:19) with Christ on day, and even Paul tells us that we are “…heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ” (Rom.8:17).  Knowing all this we must let the past have no affect on our future neither upon what God says in His Word.

Walking with God means you do not walk alone on this path. You have the blessed Holy Spirit who will be with you forever because Jesus is your Savior.  Whatever the problems we find ourselves facing we can now take them to God in prayer. If you have a minimal prayer life or near non-existent one, you will most definitely develop a stronger and deeper prayer life that will become as easy as breathing.  Your faith level will be tested, your walk will be tried, you will have to deal with detours, roadblocks, stumbling blocks and yes, the enemy himself will be the one behind all of this, but don’t despair or become fearful for you have the “ELOHIM” the God of all creation is with you and He knows already what each of us will face and the victories that will be won in Jesus name.  We will not pass every test but remain faithful and true to God and you will find that your dependence on God will become stronger than a three-fold cord.

Chosen4God