“I am not saved by believing – I simply realize I am saved by believing. And it is not repentance that saves me–repentance is only the sign that I realize what God has done through Christ Jesus. The danger here is putting the emphasis on the effect, instead of on the cause. Is it my obedience, consecration, and dedication that makes me right with God? It is never that! I am made right with God because, prior to all of that, Christ died… The Spirit of God brings justification with a shattering, radiant light, and I know that I am saved, even though I don’t know how it was accomplished. The salvation that comes from God is not based on human logic, but on the sacrificial death of Jesus… The supernatural becomes natural to us through the miracle of God, and there is a realization of what Jesus Christ has already done – ‘It is finished!’… The modern view of the death of Jesus is that He died for our sins out of sympathy for us. Yet the New Testament view is that He took our sin on Himself not because of sympathy, but because of His identification with us. He was ‘made…to be sin.’ Our sins are removed because of the death of Jesus, and the only explanation for His death is His obedience to His Father, not His sympathy for us. We are acceptable to God not because we have obeyed, nor because we have promised to give up things, but because of the death of Christ, and for no other reason… That Christ died for me, and therefore I am completely free from penalty, is never taught in the New Testament. What is taught in the New Testament is that ‘He died for all’ (2 Corin. 5:15) - not, ‘He died my death’... The substitution which is taught in the New Testament is twofold – ‘For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.’ That teaching is not Christ for me unless I am determined to have Christ formed in me.’” -Oswald Chambers
Ezekiel 20:44 “But, dear Israel, you’ll also realize that I am God when I respond to you out of who I am, not by what I feel about the evil lives you’ve lived, the corrupt history you’ve compiled. Decree of God, the Master.”
So now what? Will we allow Christ to be formed in us? Will we allow Love to be formed in us?
The Way of Love, 1 Corinthians 13
“…Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies…”
Love is our highest calling.