“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. ”
God enables our faith. It is described in Hebrews 11 as evidence of something not yet part of our tangible experience. Our finite minds require proof to believe and redwoods are evidence, opening doors for faith.
“Now faith is the assurance (or proof) of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
God grows faith through grace. Once we are born into His care, we become part of God’s grace culture. This unique system of living is sourced in God Himself. Every circumstance of our life reaches into His personal nerve center because we have been bought and brought back into God’s personal family becoming children of God. His loving response to His children, who are in Christ, is an ability gifted to each believer according to God’s purposes and our need. This is called grace.
Our faith is joined to grace and has divine purposes. We grow in Christ through our faith by His grace. Growing in Him is preparation, while in our flesh, for ruling with Him during His earthly millennium kingdom and then reigning with Him eternally.
Our faith trains us to love God and participate in His will. This is the test of our maturity. The Holy Spirit is centering us in God’s love. This is the object of our Spiritual training. God’s grace and our faith are bringing us into the fullness of God’s love. Faith is God’s centering tool bringing us into unity with His body, Christ Jesus being the head. This is only possible when we are born again of God.
Being “born again” is an extraordinary event not understood by most church attending evangelicals. If we understood our identity in Christ we would be less concerned about problems and more concerned about love for our Savior and His soon coming! Contrary to our inclinations, it is not about us, it is about Him. We are made for God!
When we are born of God the old passes away and everything becomes new, 2Corinthinas 5:17. This means our previous faith source of self becomes the opposite of what it now is in Jesus the Christ.
Like biblical faith, secular faith is complete trust and belief without proof but rooted in relative truth rather than the absolute Truth of our eternal Creator. Absolute Truth leads to absolute righteous judgment and the consequential destruction of relativism. Satan and His billions will be banished from God’s coming millennium kingdom. It is going to be a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living, righteous God but this is exactly the fate of the ungodly. This is secular faith.
Spiritual faith differs in several ways. First, the object of our faith changes from self to another person thereby creating a relationship. Second, the other person, being holy, pure and righteous, sets an absolute standard of Truth. Our new faith partner is also THE Creator, so, thirdly, as an absolute eternal person He is totally out of our league.
These incompatible differences are counteracted by a profuse profound love reaching into our very nature, changing our center into His. Faith in Jesus centers us into God’s righteous character preparing us eternally for a marriage, a kingdom rule and a kingdom reign.
This unique and unlikely relationship of faith in our resurrected Jesus has effects totally outside natural borders. It is a border buster! It is a limit buster!
Earthly culture is influenced by social values conditioning our growth. We naturally adopt carnal dominated interests but a born again relationship of grace and faith is a divine insertion. A new creation in Christ is an inclusion of resurrection power into our flesh through the union of our spirit with His Spirit, Phil. 3:10, 1Corinthians 6:17. Paul put it this way, “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you,” Romans 8:9.
Our natural culture uses boundaries as tools for living. Our natural culture works within a framework of time. Our natural culture requires personally defined rules determining who we are and what we do. Our natural culture requires assessments and discipline of self that becomes our character hallmark. We live in a self-deceived, self-dominated container if we are without our Jesus.
In Christ our temporal soul and body is introduced to an unseen culture with very different rules because we are born of God. Our grace-faith relationship teaches us how to recognize and respond to His Love and Truth. Jesus repeatedly said, “He that hath ears, let him hear.” Walking in the redwoods is a wakeup call reminding us to listen and focus on our Creator God, our Life source.
Being in Christ is a game changer. We become “babes” and weaned into a place where we breathe eternal air. Reason and temporal knowledge is subjugated to grace and faith. Love looms dominate and drives the train rather than being the caboose pulling up the rear.
It is such a privilege and joy to be trained in grace before being raptured into eternal “space!” Seeing clearly our identity in Christ aids our understanding of our Spiritual grace culture. Lets use our natural culture to train our soul’s submission into God’s culture of grace so we can be who we are in Christ! It is a fragrant offering well pleasing to Him with Whom we have to do, Ephesians 5:2, 2Corinthians 2:14-16, Hebrews 4:12-13.
A song that captures some the joy and emotion of what Jesus can bring into a believers soul and life was made popular some years ago by Sandi Patti and Larnelle Harris. Here are the words to More than Wonderful. Read them over and then listen to the song on the youtube link below.
He promised us that He would be a counselor
A Mighty God and the Prince of Peace
He promised us that He would be a Father
And that He would love us with a love that would not cease.
Well, I tried Him and I found His promises are true
He's everything He said that He would be.
The finest words I know could not begin to tell
Just what Jesus really means to me.
I stand amazed when I think that the King of glory
Should come to dwell within the heart of man
I marvel just to know He really loves me
When I think of who He is, and who I am.
For He's more wonderful than my mind can conceive
He's more wonderful than my heart can believe
He goes beyond my highest hopes and fondest dreams.
He's everything that my soul ever longed for
Everything He's promised and so much more
More than amazing, more than marvelous,
More than miraculous could ever be
He's more than wonderful, that's what Jesus is to me.
For He's more wonderful than my mind can conceive
He's more wonderful than my heart can believe
He goes beyond my highest hopes and fondest dreams.
He's everything that my soul ever longed for
Everything He's promised and so much more
More than amazing, more than marvelous,
More than miraculous could ever be
He's more than wonderful, that's what Jesus is to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRTwUvZG5a0
Two different Greek words are used in Genesis for God’s creation. The word used for creating something out of nothing in Genesis 1 is different than the one used for “creating” or shaping man in Genesis 2. The first one is the same used in 2Corinthians 5:17 where God created what is out of nothing. The second used for “creating” man is a word for forming out of what has already been created to be what God intends.
When we are born of God we are created righteous in Christ Jesus. It is out of this righteous creation within us that He forms us into the shape or image of Christ. This is His workmanship referred to in our Ephesians 2 passage above. We are created in Christ then all things become new.
Our 2Cor. 5:17 creation is Spiritual joining our spirit to His Spirit, 1Corinthians 6:17. Out of this new creation Jesus begins a new work which is not completed until we actually see Jesus, Phil. 1:6. It is our privilege to put to death in our soul and body what Jesus has already put to death on our cross. Our faith participation in God’s grace uses His resurrection power to live His life, 2Cor. 4:7, everything from God, nothing from us!
We received the Spirit who is from God. The flesh becomes dead, that is, it no longer controls and dominates. This is clearly what the scriptures declare as the Truth about who we are in Christ. Read carefully Romans 5 and then Romans 8. Also note in verses 9 and 10 of chapter five the Greek uses the preposition “in” so that it is proper to translate verse 10 that we are saved “in His life” instead of “by” His life. “By” is not translated incorrectly but clearly the emphasis being made is, we are saved “in” His life both verses 9 and 10. After reading chapters 5 and 8, then, go back and read chapters 6 and 7 within the context of 5 and 8. We are to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, Romans 6:11.
Another distinction that might be helpful is our consideration of “positional” justification. This term is intended to explain our righteousness in Christ while still living in sinful souls and bodies. Theologians explain we are made righteous “positionally” so God sees us clothed in Christ’s righteousness rather than the sin we experience. Scripture clearly supports this view but the argument wears too thin where it erodes our faith leaves the story incomplete.
We could call it the asbestos effect. Asbestos was a miracle fiber with amazing tensile strength. It made many commercial products extremely durable. Dressed in an asbestos suit a person could walk through fire without being harmed. But these externals did not tell the whole story about this indestructible fiber. When you inhaled this invisible fiber internally it was also indestructible. If your body did not flush it out, it could insulate the inside of your lung inhibiting your breathing function. It could kill you!
When we rely upon Christ’s righteousness to protect us “positionally” we tend to become spiritually passive and not consume God’s grace provisioned for our Spiritual growth. It can be lethal to Spiritual life.
We are to grow in faith by consuming grace. Growing in grace and knowledge produces deeper faith which in turn produces love. This is Christ’s workmanship within us, producing who He is in us. As He is at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, John tells us, so are we in this world, 1John 4:17. His righteousness in us is positional but it is much more, it is also reigning in life, Romans 5:17.
John wrote his gospel so that mankind might believe AND have life in His name. The living water Jesus offered the woman at the well, in John 4, bubbling up within her is His eternal righteousness and love. We are His workmanship! His righteousness is dwelling (μεταοικος) in us actually and positionally!
We are “born of God” and created righteous just as He is righteous. This is who we become in Christ. There are arguments about the “old nature” sounding very persuasive but they are empty in the greater context of who we are in Christ Jesus. We are “created” righteous literally. Can God begat evil or create something not pure and holy like Himself? This is both our identity and condition when we are born new of God, “not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,” John1:13.
Love becomes the dominate theme defining our character and controlling our circumstances. We have been adopted into God’s own family. Grace is God’s school to administer growth of His life within us. Faith is the path we walk leading us into the fullness of God. Knowing love that surpasses knowledge so that we can be filled with the fullness of God is Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians. This should be our prayer as well as those in the body of Christ. It is His love we are privileged to share with Him and others.
Redwoods are a poor artifact for such a great treasure. But it is something we have on earth made by God for us to look at in awe and wonder. It is a tangible provision of His grace we are able touch and remember how wonderful it is to have our Creator God love us enough to make us a temple for His own dwelling.
“I stand amazed when I think that the King of glory
Should come to dwell within the heart of man.
I marvel just to know He really loves me
When I think of who He is, and who I am.”