I am having a great time teaching through a series of messages called "DNA: the makeup and origin of faith." Yesterday we talked about forgiveness. About getting in on it and giving it away. Two awesome points that will change our lives greatly.
God has forgiven us, yet so often we can not get that or forgive ourselves. Jesus did everything that has to be done to get us to heaven, to make us right and ready for God. All we have to do is accept it. It is almost like God gave us an insider's road into Christianity. That's the fact.
I like the way Eugene Peterson's The Message helps our thoughts on this:
Colossians 2:11-15 (msg) --- Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It's not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you're already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it's an initiation ritual you're after, you've already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ's cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.
At the end of August, we are going to celebrate baptism for the first time in the life of The Community Fellowship. Please don't understand the passage above to say that baptism has to happen before you are saved. Yet God desires our path to be toward Him and our walk to be with Him. It is that easy.
That about what an insider is. They get in the club first. They are the first to trade and make big money... they understand because they are a part or even in the loop. What does it mean to be an insider with God?
We are part of His family!
John 1:12 (nlt) --- But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.
We are forgiven completely!
1 John 2:12 (nlt) --- I am writing to you who are God's children because your sins have been forgiven through Jesus.
There is so much, so much more. Fact is, we are on the inside. We are insiders. All because God worked in our lives before we knew anything. That is awesome!
God has forgiven us, yet so often we can not get that or forgive ourselves. Jesus did everything that has to be done to get us to heaven, to make us right and ready for God. All we have to do is accept it. It is almost like God gave us an insider's road into Christianity. That's the fact.
I like the way Eugene Peterson's The Message helps our thoughts on this:
Colossians 2:11-15 (msg) --- Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It's not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you're already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it's an initiation ritual you're after, you've already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ's cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.
At the end of August, we are going to celebrate baptism for the first time in the life of The Community Fellowship. Please don't understand the passage above to say that baptism has to happen before you are saved. Yet God desires our path to be toward Him and our walk to be with Him. It is that easy.
That about what an insider is. They get in the club first. They are the first to trade and make big money... they understand because they are a part or even in the loop. What does it mean to be an insider with God?
We are part of His family!
John 1:12 (nlt) --- But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.
We are forgiven completely!
1 John 2:12 (nlt) --- I am writing to you who are God's children because your sins have been forgiven through Jesus.
There is so much, so much more. Fact is, we are on the inside. We are insiders. All because God worked in our lives before we knew anything. That is awesome!
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