Alive with Christ
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you used to walk when
you conformed to the ways of this world and of the ruler of the power of the
air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience. All of us also
lived among them at one time, fulfilling the cravings of our flesh and
indulging its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature children
of wrath.
But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved! And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might display the surpassing riches of His grace, demonstrated by His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.
One in
Christ
Therefore remember that formerly you who are Gentiles in the flesh and called
uncircumcised …remember that at that time you were separate from Christ,
alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of
the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus
you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and decrees. He did this to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace and reconciling both of them to God in one body through the cross, by which He extinguished their hostility.
He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
Christ Our
Cornerstone
Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with
the saints and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles
and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. In
Him the whole building is fitted together and grows into a holy temple in the
Lord. And in Him you too are being built together into a dwelling place for God
in His Spirit.
Being built together… yes and in a fallen world you are probably wondering how to do that when you think just about everyone around you offends you… or they think you are offensive.
Jesus took upon Himself our offenses and should we be able to take (deal with) the offenses of others??? Yes. How?
Reading Matthew 7: 1-5 ~ “Do not judge, or you will be judged. For with the same judgment you pronounce, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while there is still a beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Let’s take a deep look at Matthew 7… what does it mean judgment you pronounce? It means to pronounce or declare a sentence. For such sentencing will be given to you. Jesus is asking us not to sentence people who we are in relationships with… you and anyone in the body of Christ. And, He tells us not to look at the speck in someone’s eye when we ourselves have a log… that means whenever someone offends us or we offend someone we must look at how that all came about… it’s a two-way street.
Yes, we forgive but we need to remember the offense so that we can come to a resolution… we cannot do that if we just sweep things under the carpet by saying… forget about it. That only leads the soul towards darkness. The spirit wants confrontation (the act of confronting: the state of being confronted; such as a face-to-face meeting is a confrontation between the offended and the offender) because that leads to resolve. That leads to a forward motion and that leads to the light at the end of the tunnel.
Bring things to light, bring offenses into the light in love so that you can move past them. For this is what leads all to the light and toward His Glory.
For those in the body of Christ, we live to glorify Him and His Holy Name. All our actions should reflect this testament. We die to self means that we live for Him and in Him. We walk as He did with mercy, compassion… offering hope. We live a quiet life, in peace, having patience and perseverance.
We live remembering His sacrifice for us and this we live to proclaim… I will not die but live to declare God who is Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior and that He left us His Holy Spirit so that we can walk according to it and not the flesh. So, that we can ‘practice being/walking/living’ in the spirit because God is spirit and we were created in His image.
Our real battle is against Satan. To win that battle, we declare what God says is true about us and in this way, we win against Satan
by agreeing with God. This is a blessing to us and to the Creator of all things
seen and unseen.
