From The Wellspring
Modified character and conduct, changed attitude, and changed feeling tone – all of these things come through the operation of the Word of God in your life.
Transcript
Alright, thank you very much and hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? Well, I’m fine, thank you, nice of you to ask. I feel great–praise the Lord! No complaints to bring to the complaint desk of Heaven today, everything is praise. God is so good to us, isn’t He? Now I’m glad to be back with you and I want to continue if I may, in Ephesians 1:4, “According as He hath chosen us in Him” that’s in Christ, “chosen us in Christ before the foundations of the world”, that’s about as far as we got the last we got together. And we were remarking that before the Lord ever flung the stars out into space, before He ever said, “let there be light,” before He ever created the world we now know, He had you and me in mind and He wanted us for His own.
My heart just melts with love and adoration to my blessed Lord when I realize the greatness, this stupendous greatness of His salvation that before He ever made the universe which is so fast in itself that it boggles the imagination and we have not begun even to explore it’s farthest reaches. Before He ever built this immense universe, He thought about you and me coming down the road of time and He said, “I want him and I want her for my own” chosen us in Him. Look up and thank God for thinking about you, eons ago, and planning for you, thank Him for it.
Now what did He want us to be? He has chosen us in Christ in order that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. “Having predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved one” that’s in the Lord Jesus. Well that’s a quite a mouthful isn’t it? An involved sentence, Paul the Apostle is the master of involved sentences. He strings them together to be sure.
Now the basis of the choosing in which God Almighty engaged before the foundation of the world, the basis of that choosing was that He wanted you and me to be holy, that’s the basic character of God without blame that brings into focus the fact that God knew that we were going to fail and sin was coming in to the world and He had to do something about that. Without blame means redemption is coming. Before Him in love, He wanted a love relationship not an automaton that was simply going to do automatically what it ought to be.
In love having predestinated to the adoption of children, he wanted somebody to belong to Him, to be His family so that He provided for children, the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. He said I wanted — I want these people to exist in a love relationship with the redemption from sin having been accomplished, and the holiness of God now restored to their lives, and I want them to be in my family. According to the good pleasure of His will, He said this is my part of My eternal will. And He said, I want it finally to shine as part of the very glory of God, and He said I’m going to do it all through my well-beloved son, “He hath made us accepted in the beloved.”
Now there is just a little lay out of the eternal plan of God as Paul has summed it up in those few words. Doesn’t that make your heart warm with gratitude to God? You look ahead and he saw the creation and then he saw the fall in to sin as “by one man sin entered in to the world and death by seen and so death passed upon all men for that they have all sinned”.
God saw it coming. He then provided for the redemption from sin, that we might be without blame before Him. He then provided for a love relationship, Paul says in Romans 5:5, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given unto us” and John the Apostle said, “We love him because He first loved us”. God provided before He ever built the world, He provided for a redemption from sin and a love relationship on your part and mine with Himself. And then He hath said He predestinated to the adoption of children before God built the world he provided not only to repair the damage of sin but to bring us in to his own family, the adoption of children by Himself.
And then He provided that you and I should be exhibit A, for all eternity of the glory of God’s grace, to the praise of the Glory of His grace. Simon Peter in his writings says, “That the angels desire to look into” the things you and I experience as redeemed children of God. The only way that the grace of God would ever be known, would be to redeem poor fallen lost, hell-deserving sinners, and make them children of God. He said, that’s going to be to the praise of the glory of His grace. And the only way that he’s going to be able to do that you read here that in Ephesians 1:6, is that He has made us accepted in his beloved Son.
The cost of all of this program which God envisioned before the foundation of the world, the cost was going to be the sacrifice of God’s only begotten Son, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”. That we should be holy, He said He chose us that we should be holy. Now the holiness is the very opposite of sin and sin is the opposite of holiness something holy was a perfect it didn’t have any blemish. And so, what God is envisioning for you and for me, is that through the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ and the power and work of the Holy Spirit within us, through all of these working together we are now viewed by Him as being holy, because Jesus stands for us, He is our propitiation, He’s our representative, He is our advocate in the glory.
There’s one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And because the Lord Jesus stands there for you and me, God sees you and me as holy and because of the Holy Spirit is working in us that process is being completed here on earth as well. Growing in your Christian life actually means if it’s done according to God’s plan, that you’re growing heaven-ward, that your life is holier than it was before that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. The phrase without blame takes into account the fact that we do fail and that sin has come in to the human race and therefore we are blame-worthy, so far as a Holy God is concerned and also so far as our human relationships are concerned.
When God works at His best in your life, He takes away the source of blame. Not that you won’t make any mistakes, but that more and more your life is going to be the kind of life that is helpful and that inspires others and that strengthens others, rather than being the source of blame from others. That is the horizon that God has for every child of His, that we should be holy. Now, the minute you trust Christ as Savior you are accounted holy and righteous before God by faith, but the process then begins of making you the kind of person God says you are.
I sometimes say jokingly, concerning Dr. Barkat who is our Vice-President for Academic Affairs, the Dean of the College, and when I’m presenting him I say, “Here’s the man whose job it is to make the college as good as I say it is”. Well, when you trust the Lord Jesus as your Lord and Savior God says that minute that you’re righteous and that you’re holy and then it is the work of the blessed Holy Spirit.
That is perfectly synchronous with the truth you find in Romans where the Bible says, “God calleth things that are not as though they were”. The statement of God is creative in its power. That’s the reason that the more of the Word of God you put into your life the holier you’re going to be. The statement, the Word of God is creative in its power “where with all thou shall a young man change his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word”, Jeremiah said, “Thy words were found and I did eat and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart”.
Modified character and conduct, changed attitude and changed feeling tone all of these things come through the operation of the Word of God in your life. So God says that you’re holy and then the Holy Spirit of God begins working to make you that kind of a person and the job will finally be achieved when the Lord gets you safe home to Heaven and you’re in His presence and the Bible says, “We know that when we see Him we shall be like Him for we shall see him as He is. That we should be holy and without blame before Him, in love.”
I asked a friend one day who had belonged for a good many years to another great church system. I said, “What is the difference really, between how you feel now about Jesus and about the Christian life, and how you used to feel when you were associated with the other group? There’s a small silence and then my friend said, “Well, what I did before I did out of fear, what I do today I do out of love”. There’s the difference; that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given unto us.
Today, cultivate a love relationship with God. You’ll find that it will affect your attitude and it will affect your actions, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. God already loves you with an everlasting love, let your heart reach out to Him in a returning love that will make a difference in your life.
Dear Father today, fill our lives with love for Thee in Jesus, Amen.
Until I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!
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