Michael continues: Through the trials of life,
God will teach us patience, hope and love. Battles are opportunities to stand
in His strength alone. A man and woman of God is not people of God because they
have their act together. They are people of God because of what God has
made them in Christ. A man of God is God's man. A woman of God is God's woman.
It's not about us, it's about Him. "Man of God" and “Woman of
God” means you are not your own. You
have been bought with a price. The price was the precious payment of God’s
only begotten son. For Jesus
Christ, who was without sin, became the perfect sacrifice for sin on our behalf
that we may be made the righteousness of God in Him.
Jesus said, "Unless you forsake father, mother, sister,
and brother, you cannot be my disciple." What's the cost of
following the Lord? It's not about the cost, it's about the
value. What is it that you value most; the things of God or the things of
this world? Jesus said, "Treasure
not treasures upon earth where moth, rust and vermin eat away, but instead
treasure treasures in heaven. For where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also." Serious business taken lightly is mockery and in the
case of our treasures, it is idolatry.
When Jesus sent out the
seventy to prepare the way before God’s promised Messiah, He gave them power to
heal the sick, cast out Devils, and to preach the Word. When they finished
their assignment Jesus met them. They were celebrating and rejoicing
because they had "seen Satan fall like lightning from
heaven." Jesus said to them, "Don't rejoice because Satan fell from heaven like lightning, but
rejoice because your names are written in heaven." Keep the main
thing, the main thing and focus.
We cannot approach God's
throne of grace on our own terms. Salvation is on His terms not ours.
Repentance means, "I surrender." Repentance is to turn from
myself and from my sin and to the Lord and Savoir Jesus Chris. Surrender
is to yield to the power, control or possession of another. To confess
Jesus is Lord, means that I’m no longer my owner, he is. Grammatically
speaking, the term "Man of God" and “woman of God” is the genitive of
possession. It means God's man and God’s woman. Christianity is not about who
we are but whose we are.
Jesus said, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men."
Peter, Andrew, James, and John we're professional fishermen. They knew what it
meant to be fishers of fish. However, they did not understand what it meant to
be fishers of men until they received the gift of the Holy Spirit, God's power
from on high at the day of Pentecost.
According to 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins He is
faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
When we're saved, Jesus paid the price for our sins and our sin nature. Our
sins past, present and future have already been paid in full by Jesus Christ's
innocent blood in exchange for our guilty blood. Even though we're saved
and counted righteous in Christ, the sinful nature we inherited from Adam will
separate us from fellowship with God because all sin is ultimately against our
Creator God. When we fall from fellowship and it is a broken relationship,
if we confess our sin, he is faithful to forgive our sin of breaking fellowship
and restore us back to an upright position in fellowship with Him. We get off
the wide road of rebellious and destructive sin, and onto the straight and
narrow path of righteousness with the Lord.
It's not the threat of
condemnation, judgment and punishment that calls a man and woman to
repentance. Rather, it's the goodness of God, His loving kindness and
tender mercy, that calls us to turn from ourselves and unto Him. To rise
up as men and women of God, we need to understand that even while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. As people of God, we're no longer
our own. We are His and He is our God. For I was crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I but
Christ liveth in me and the life that I now live, I live by faith in the son of
God who loved me and gave himself for me.
God has reconciled us unto
himself through the supreme sacrifice of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. For there is one God and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. According to 1
Corinthians 3:23, "You are Christ's and Christ is God's.
Therefore, give heart and soul and mind and strength to serve the King of
Kings.
May we ever “rise up” and live
to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael
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