Pledge of Hope

 “Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.” 2 Corinthians 5:5 [NASB]

As I read 2 Corinthians 5 today, God made me aware of a few things I had heard in sermons over the years but had not put together into one train of thought. In this chapter, Paul wrote about living as a Christian, a believer in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. He told the Christians in Corinth about the mental tug-of-war believers live with continually from the day Jesus cleanses them from their sins and makes them a child of God. All believers experience this tug-of-war. They live in a sinful world and long to be with Christ in heaven, long to be clothed fully with the righteousness of Christ and live in a righteous world, His kingdom. Paul stated that he and other Christians’ desires to be righteous and in God’s presence forever is so deep that it causes them to groan and feel the burden of wanting the life Jesus offers to swallow up and take over their mortal life (2 Corinthians 5:4).

Have you ever felt this desire, this burden? If you’ve ever known a senior-aged adult Christian or a Christian who had a terminal illness, you will recall their spoken desire to be in heaven with God and their loved ones and not on earth. Their desire and burden are so great that it seems they speak of this every time you visit them and even mention it several times during a visit. If you’ve not spent time with someone who had this deep desire, then consider of a time when you wanted something very much. Maybe you’ve not been able to become pregnant and have children. Possibly you’ve wanted to go to university to study for a degree, but the funds were not available. Perhaps you have a family member who has cutoff communication with you, and you have prayed for them to have a change of heart so you can talk with them. Each of these are great desires. They are mortal desires. The desire to be in God’s kingdom and in His presence is an eternal desire. It originates with the Holy Spirit living within a person’s being. The Christian recognizes this world is not his/her own and wants to go to the place of peace, joy, and rest in the presence of God.

Paul experienced this desire. He said he preferred to be away from the body (his mortal life that fights against sin and decays) and at home with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:7-8). Yet, Paul knew only God knows the time of a person’s death. Because of his love for Jesus, he sought to please Him even while he lived in his mortal body on earth, and not just because he would stand before God’s judgment seat one day (vs 9-10). Paul said while he lived in his mortal body, he desired to please the Lord and that means loving Him. “Christ’s love compelled him and his co-laborers” to tell other people about Jesus and the salvation He gives to anyone who believes in Him (vs 11, 14-15). Because of their love for God and their desire to obey Him, they regarded other people the way Jesus does. Jesus desires each person be saved (2 Corinthians 5:15, John 3:16, 1 John 2:2, John 11:25, Romans 6:10). Prejudice should no longer have place in a believer’s heart. Instead, the love of Jesus for each person must be paramount.

Paul said each person who is a believer once regarded Jesus Christ with prejudice. We, mentally, said, “He could not be that powerful.” Or, we’ve said, “He cannot take away my sins. I am too stained and dirty from the evil I have done.” We might have said, “There is no God and so there is no Jesus. This life on earth is all I have, so why bother a God who was never there for me.” Each of these is a prejudice against Jesus and the Trinity. We judge Him as not powerful, not telling the truth, not caring and loving, not merciful and forgiving, and/or non-existent. Yet, the words in the Bible are testimonies from several millennia. The testimonies of believers, since Bible writers penned what God told them to tell people, proclaim God is real, alive, almighty, omniscient, loving, merciful, and Life-giving. Paul taught about God and the sufficient sacrifice provided for the sins of the world through the sinless life, death, and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. This is what Paul proclaimed. He said, “Though we once regarded Christ in this way (with prejudice), we do so no longer” (2 Cor, 5:16). Because Paul and his colleagues had no prejudice against Christ, they proclaimed Him through their lives and their testimony of what He did for them, who He is, what He called them to do, and to whom and how they were to proclaim Him. He proclaimed in verses seventeen and eighteen,

“Therefore, from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh [that is, with prejudice]; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

Paul said in these verses, he and the other men with him had no prejudice. Why? Because when they believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, their Savior, He put into them His Spirit and made them a new creation. This new creation occurred at their belief in Him. When they trusted in Jesus, His Spirit came upon them and began changing them from their old, mortal, prejudiced self into His own image. Because Jesus was unprejudiced and came to earth to save each person, each believer is supposed to live a similar non-prejudicial way by the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Spirit changes a believer from the old nature (“clothing.” as Paul said) to the new nature. Christians understand and desire what Jesus desires, that each person would hear the Gospel and believe in Jesus as the Son of God for his or her salvation. Because of this, Paul said, “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us” (vs 20). God’s desire for all people to receive salvation becomes the believer’s desire. This desire is part of the same groanings and longings Paul expressed in verse four. This desire comes because the Spirit makes Christians more and more into the image of Christ; Christ’s desires become their desires. Jesus’ desire is not just to be with His Father in heaven, but that each person receives salvation and change into His image (nature), change from their old, mortal, sinful nature.

Christians desire and long to be clothed by Jesus’ Spirit with the new nature He gives and to be with Jesus in His kingdom. While they live on earth in their mortal bodies, the Holy Spirit lives in them and changes them continually into the image of Christ. His indwelling is the guarantee, the pledge from God, of their future eternal change into the image of Christ (2 Cor. 5:5). The Spirit of Christ in a person is like earnest money put down for a house or car. It is a guarantee of the future fulfillment of the contract or understanding. Knowing the Spirit is within the believer, that person has hope that one day, the Spirit will one day completely cloth him or her in the new nature. When difficulties in life occur–temptation, trials, and persecutions–the assurance, guidance, and protection by the Holy Spirit remind the Christian of God’s assurance, His guarantee, that he or she will be in God’s kingdom and will experience peace and joy eternally with Him.

This chapter of 2 Corinthians tells us about some purposes of the indwelling Holy Spirit of Jesus. He lives in each Christian to assure the believer of his or her salvation. The Spirit in the Christian’s life reminds him or her of God’s eternal purpose for him or her with Him in His kingdom. The Spirit is the guarantee of being totally made in Jesus’ image. He gives the believer the deep longings to be with God and the desire to be on earth. This desire to be alive on earth comes with it the desire to love Christ by being obedient to His commands to tell each person on earth about Him. The Spirit puts into each Christian’s heart the love of Christ for each person so he or she wants to tell others about Him. Christians realize they are ambassadors for Christ. The Spirit living in a believer encourages, teachers, guides, protects, and remakes each person into a closer resemblance of Jesus Christ, changing them to have His love and non-prejudicial attitude, desires, and righteousness.

Today, we should each stop and consider what keeps us from believing in Jesus. Is it because it seems God is not real or does not care since you assume He is not listening to your prayers? Next, we should examine ourselves to determine where prejudice lives in our heart and ask Jesus to forgive us and make us like Himself. Then we need to ask Him to show us where we refused for Him to continue making us into His image and confess the sins He shows to us. We should examine ourselves to determine when and why we stopped believing in God and ask Him to remind you of the guarantee by His Spirit of your eternity with Him in His kingdom. Ask for forgiveness for judging Him and His purposes and ask that He put His desires in you, the desire to love Christ and love each person you meet because He loves them. Ask God to help you keep your eyes always on Him. Pray to Him for the will to love and obey Him, even when it makes little sense. Thank God for loving you and saving you. Praise Him for who He is, the eternal, almighty, omniscient, and omnipresent God. Praise Him for what He has done in your life and throughout the expanse of time from creation. Thank God for choosing you to be in a righteous relationship with Him.

The Holy Spirit in a believer’s life now is the earnest money of God’s love and plan for you, a plan not to harm you but to give you a hope and a future (Jeremy 29:11). His living in a Christian grows the person to be loving and unprejudiced like Jesus.

The Holy Spirit living in you now on earth is a taste of what you will be fully when you live with God in His kingdom for eternity. 

Each Christian can decide to let the Spirit to change him or her. That permission changes a person from being prejudiced into becoming like Jesus.  As a result, the Spirit, God’s pledge to Christians, reminds them of their future full transformation and transition to living in God’s kingdom. God will make each believer like Jesus and He will give them their inheritance, eternal life in His kingdom.

Will you live as one who received God’s pledge, or will you stay prejudiced?

Supernatural

 

“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Philippians 3:13 [NASB]

Many verses speak about the change, the re-creation, of a person who believes in Jesus Christ as the Son of God for salvation. Paul encouraged and wrote to the Philippians about putting on the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:1-5). He wrote about being made new in the attitudes of your minds and putting on the new self, created to be like God in righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:22-23). With Galatians 2:20, Paul stated he no longer lives, but Christ lives in him. The life he lived was by faith in the Son of God. John wrote in John 14:6 Jesus said he who believes in Him receives new life. Later, in John 14:23, Jesus said for the believer, the one who loves Him, He and the Father will love him or her and will make their home in him or her. Many other verses in the New Testament speak of the fact Jesus lives within each Christian through His Holy Spirit.

Let’s consider briefly what this means for us today. Before Jesus saved us, we realized we did not have the strength, power, or will to avoid temptation. We fell into sin by our weak old nature, our self-centered and rebellious approach to life. When we become believers in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and as our Savior, His Spirit lives in us. This indwelling by the Spirit makes available to each believer God’s power to overcome temptation and be sinless, to gain victory over temptation and sin. Let me state it another way. We can do nothing of our own will, strength, and power to ensure we will not sin. Because of our fallen nature, we are susceptible to temptation and sin. This means discipleship, true growth of our closeness to God and being made in Jesus’ image, can occur only by the grace, strength, and power of God. Oswald Chambers said this similarly. He said, “Discipleship is built entirely on the supernatural grace of God” (My Utmost for His Highest). Just as we can do nothing to earn or merit salvation and eternal life, we can do nothing in our own strength to gain power over temptation and sin. Humans are frail and weak.

Consider this. Though we are frail, weak, and rebellious, God had mercy on us. He gave us His grace, a gift we did not earn. God did not give us what we deserve. We possessed nothing within ourselves to gain a righteous relationship with Him. Paul said it this way in Ephesians 2:4-9,

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loves us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” [NASB]

The only way a person can have victory over temptation, sin, and death is by God’s supernatural (divine) power. Having God’s power only occurs when His Spirit lives in a believer and he or she seeks Him and His will, and lives believing and acting upon His power. Zechariah, in a time before Christ came to live on earth to die and rise again for our salvation, recorded God’s angel’s words about this. He said in Zechariah 4:6, “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit.” Only by living as Christians with God’s might and power dwelling within us through His Spirit can we withstand temptation and not sin.

Discipleship truly is built entirely on God’s grace and power. Nothing we can do can earn us salvation, and nothing we can do will make us strong enough to withstand temptation. Only by God’s grace, power, and might can we receive salvation from sin and death. Only by God’s grace, power, and might can we live victoriously over temptation. The latter is discipleship, growing in Christlikeness, knowing God more intimately, and standing victoriously over temptation and sin.

Lord, I am weak and a sinner. You have saved me and given me Your power and strength if I will call upon You and walk in Your way. Keep me strong. Grow me to be more like Jesus. Guide me in Your paths. Draw me closer to You. You alone are to be honored, glorified, and praised for You are almighty, victorious, loving, and merciful. Amen.

Doing the Impossible

³⁵ Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You to me: what have You done?” ³⁶ Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.” (John 18:35-36 [NASB])

¹⁵ And I (Saul) said, “Who are you, Lord?” And the Lord, said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. ¹⁶ But get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you; ¹⁷ rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you, ¹⁸ to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.” (Acts 26:15-18 [NASB])

As Christians, we know without doubt where we will go when we no longer live on this earth. We don’t fear eternity. Yet, many of us fear what will happen to us on earth; what humankind will do to us if we say or do what Jesus' Spirit tells us to say or do. We fear of being ostracized. We fear of being rejected by people we think we want to impress or to have as friends. We fear physical persecution.

In the earthly realm, these fears seem normal and appropriate. Yet, if we truly are followers of Christ and, as such, are the children of God, these fears should not affect how we live. Remember, fear is not of God. Instead, we must submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit and let Him clothe us with the new nature that comes from Jesus. By this, we will become more like Christ every day. We are to submit ourselves, so the fears of the world do not enter our thinking. If we fear, we are letting the old nature block our acceptance and keep us from living in the new nature.

In John 18:36, Jesus implied because His servants, His followers, were not fighting to get Him released from custody, Pilate could know they truly were His followers, Christians. They sought to do the Father's will. Jesus' followers understood, because He told them His arrest and crucifixion would happen and was part of God's plan for the salvation of humanity. Jesus told His followers they would face persecution, too, and stand strong by His Spirit’s empowering of them. Because He stood strong, they could know they could stand strong in the face of persecution.

When Jesus met Saul on the road to Damascus, Jesus told Saul He would rescue him from the Jewish people and the Gentiles (Acts 26:17). He made sure Saul knew being a follower of Jesus would mean being, doing, and saying things contrary to what the world wants to hear, see, and be. So, knowing Jesus will rescue him and will send His Spirit to empower and embolden him to endure ostracism and physical persecution, encouraged and gave His later followers the ability to stand strong by the new nature He put within them when they received salvation.

Fear should not affect our following Jesus. We can do or say what the Spirit leads us to do or say in this world. Jesus went before us as the Son of God who lived as a man and became the model for us of how we should live, act, speak, and think. He told us persecution would happen. Jesus told us He would rescue us, too. He might not rescue us immediately, but in the eternal time frame, He has already rescued us and we can go forward with hope and assurance in faith because of Jesus.

Today, some of us are facing battles and persecution. It would be so much easier to give in and give up the fight rather than stand strong against those things. Remember, Jesus has overcome Satan, sin, death, and the world. There is nothing to fear. Live with the new nature Jesus gave you, not the old, mortal, fearful nature. Watch what God is doing and is about to do because of your faithfulness to Him.

God is able and is faithful to do the impossible using the finite for His eternal good.

While I (Jesus) was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which you have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished, but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. (John 17:22 [NASB])

Lord, I want to live and be Your disciple, Your child, here on earth the way You lead me, but at times I allow my old nature and fear to lead me. I say, “I am just an introvert” or “I have small children to protect.” I allow my old nature, my human reasoning to lead me instead of You. I’m sorry, Lord. You are God and can do anything. You are faithful and love me and will do what is best. I can trust in You. Please forgive me to live based on my reasoning and my comfort zone. Help me step out and live in faith where You lead me so other people may hear about, come to know You, and be saved. I love You, Lord. Amen.