Trust The Finished Work of Christ Jesus and Not The Traditions of Men That Make Void The Word of God.....
DON'T JUST BELIEVE IN GOD BELIEVE GOD IN HIS WORD
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Who Am I - I Am In Christ Jesus A new Creature
LOOK TO CHRIST God has made you who you are as a part of His new creation. Any attempt at knowing who you really are must start here. "Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (II Corinthians 5:17). So, who are you, really? You are a new creature in Christ. Paul wrote, "For to me to live is Christ …" (Philippians 1:21). In Galatians 2:20 he said, "I am crucified … but Christ lives in me." Since it is true that we no longer live, but Christ lives in us, let me ask you this question: If you want to get to know who you are, who are you going to have to get to know? Him! In other words, to discover your true identity, you will have to discover Him Who alone is your life. It is impossible to know who you really are apart from Him – apart from knowing Him. Realizing this one simple truth frees you from the "know thyself" world-view. You are delivered from it by knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, in Whom you have your new, true identity. Hear Paul again, "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death" (Philippians 3:10). The call of the believer's life is not some human, self-centered psychology of "know thyself," but by the divine, Christ-centered spirituality of "know Him." E.W. Bullinger wrote, As to the natural man, all is different. The ancient philosophy had a motto continually sounding in its ears, "Know thyself." This saying was introduced by Solon, one of the seven wise men of Greece, and the wisest of them all. A lawgiver, a great reformer, and a great patriot, 638 years before Christ, Solon gave this as his most precious wisdom. It was carved over all the schools and seats of learning, its letters may be seen today carved in the marble ruins of Greece. It was good, so far as man's wisdom went; it was the best that man could do! Oh, but how impossible to obey it! It is the one thing man never could do. It is the one thing none of us know. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). If we could know ourselves thus, what then? When we came to this knowledge, and saw ourselves and our ruin, would it not end in despair? No, we can only know ourselves by the knowledge of Christ. Christianity came and brought with it a loftier motto, a heavenly wisdom, a Divine truth: "That I may know Him."[1] Paul also wrote, "Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (II Corinthians 3:17-18). Beholding and Becoming Paul tells us that as we behold the glory of the Lord, we are changed into His image. This is the principle of what we might call Beholding and Becoming. As you BEHOLD Him, you are transformed into His image. This beholding and becoming is carried out and accomplished in the very details of your life. The Father is steadily at work in you, manifesting the life of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus He accomplishes this in the most difficult circumstances that life may throw at you. This is the great plan of God in your life. Changed The Father is transforming you, so that you are being "changed into the same image." This word "changed" is the Greek word metamorphoō from which we get our word "metamorphose," which Webster defines as, "to change into a different form; to transform."[2] It appears three other times in the Greek Scriptures. It is used twice of the Lord Jesus Christ's transfiguration: "And after six days Jesus takes with Him Peter, and James, and John, and leads them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and He was transfigured [metamorphoō] before them" (Mark 9:2). "And was transfigured [metamorphoō] before them: and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light" (Matthew 17:2). And this same word is by Paul in Romans chapter 12: "And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed [metamorphoō] by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God" (Romans 12:2). Image Just exactly what is this "change"? We are being TRANSFORMED "into the same image" of the Son. The Greek word for "image" is eikōn. Its usage by Paul the Apostle is very telling. He uses this word in reference to the Lord Jesus Christ being in the "image of God": "… Christ, Who is the image [eikōn] of God …" (II Corinthians 4:4). "… Who is the image [eikōn] of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature" (Colossians 1:15). Then Paul uses this same word in reference to believers: "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image [eikōn] of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers" (Romans 8:29). "And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image [eikōn] of the Heavenly" (I Corinthians 15:49). "And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image [eikōn] of Him Who created him" (Colossians 3:10). The Lord Jesus Christ is in "the image of God," and you are being transformed into "the image of His Son." The first principle of knowing who you really are is to look to Him, to know Him, to keep your eyes upon Him – for all that you are is "in Him." Well did the hymn writer pen, O soul, are you weary and troubled? No light in the darkness you see? There's light for a look at the Savior, And life more abundant and free! Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace.[3] Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr, © Daily Email Goodies™ --------------------------- BOOKS BY CLYDE L. PILKINGTON, JR. http://ClydePilkington.com DAILY EMAIL GOODIES Receive the Daily Email Goodies by signing up at: http://dailyemailgoodies.com OUR WEEKLY PERIODICAL The Bible Student's Notebook, available in two formats: Electronic (e-mailed to you) and Printed (mailed to you). http://biblestudentsnotebook.com OUR ONLINE ARTICLES Bible Student's Notebook past articles online. http://www.pilkingtonandsons.com/Articles.htm
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
Free Will.....Or God's Will Be Done In All
The Myth of Free Will
I was raised in the “free will” doctrine and taught it diligently for many years as a pastor. We all do have a will: the “problem” is that it isn’t free. “Free will” is a myth.
We did not choose our race, our nationality, our sex, our eye or hair color, our birth date, or even who our parents were. No “free will” there at all, and that is just for “starts.”
“Free-will” is “influenced” by our culture, our society, our peers, our sex, our upbringing, our parents, and by our spouses, etc. “Free will” is simply an illusion. Everything about us is a composite of influences around us, and in circumstances over which we have no control or choice whatsoever. We did not even choose to be here.
Something as basic as the weather conditions restrain our so-called “fee will.” For instance, we use our “free will” to “choose” to go hiking – then a strong thunderstorm settles in and changes our “free will” plans.
My mother had no “free will” in getting cancer. My father had no “free will” in dying from it. Jenny had no “free will” in her husband abandoning her and her children. Bob had no “free will” in the loss of his job. Jerry had no “free will” in the drunk driver that paralyzed him and killed his son.
Aashish had no “free will” being born, and then living and dying without ever even having heard of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ – not even once, let alone the gospel of what He had done for him.
We all have a “will,” but whatever are its characteristics, “free” is definitely not one of them. Even our belief in “free will” is not of our own “choosing” – it was thrust upon mankind by the religious system. It makes for good theology, but it just isn’t true. Paul warned us of religion’s “will worship” (Colossians 2:23); and if we listen closely we can hear this worship of human “free will” in the language of its believers:
“I believed in the gospel.”
“I came to Christ.”
“I chose to place my faith in Christ.”
“I decided to live for God.”
The disciples may have thought that they chose to follow the Lord, but Jesus set the record straight:
“You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you” (John 15:16).
This is why John wrote that the work in Israel was not “of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).
As parents we love our children; and they love us “back.” They respond to our unconditional love of them. They do not love us out of “free will” – they did not pick us out and “choose” to love us – they were influenced in their “decision” to love us only because we loved them first. They were set up! And so it is with God in His relationship with us. We learn this from John’s simple words:
“We love Him, because He first loved us” (I John 4:19).
There is no “free will.” The reason that we love Him is completely outside of ourselves. His love is the first cause from which our love springs. Paul wrote of this love being manifest through the Lord Jesus Christ to us:
“For the love of Christ constrains us” (II Corinthians 5:14).
His love is not just available, or a potential love, nor an offer of love; but aconstraining love. “Constrain” is a strong word. The Greek word from which it is translated is sunecho. James Strong defines it as “to arrest (a prisoner).” The word is so strong that it is used in the Scriptures of being overtaken by a disease (Matthew 4:24; Luke 4:38; Acts 28:8).
It is interesting that Paul used this word, for he knew firsthand of Christ’s constraining love. It arrested him on the road to Damascus. Paul (Saul) was not seeking Christ. He did not “choose” Him. Paul met the resurrected Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, and there called Him “Lord” (Acts 9:6). This was all the grand, abrupt, course-altering, sovereign work of God in reaching Paul.
Paul was on his way to Damascus to do harm to the saints there. He did not change his mind by his own “free will.” Rather, it was the dramatic “Damascus Road experience” that transformed his will. Paul met with spectacular interference to his “free will.” He met the resurrected Christ! One day, those who have not trusted Christ during this life will be resurrected and brought into the presence of the Son of God, and will with Paul call Him “Lord.”
“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10).
Oh, the extent to which God will go to reach man! Isn’t it odd how Christendom limits God’s ability, and yet makes man’s will free. God is not limited at all, and in due course He will pull out all the stops in reaching mankind with His love.
There are two “wills” in the universe: the Creator’s and the creatures. God’s will is FREE, the creatures’ is not. God “will have all men to be saved” (I Timothy 2:4), and He Who “works all things after the counsel of His Own will” (Ephesians 1:11) will “reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven” (Colossians 1:20), making Him “the Savior of all men”(I Timothy 4:10).
When my children were young we lived on a busy street with no fence around our house. I would not allow them to play in or near the street. They had no “free will.” I constrained them with my love.
We are not the masters of our own fate. We are not the lords of our own lives. We are the creatures, not the Creator. “He is Lord of ALL” (Acts 10:36), “in Him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28), and our response to His love is all a matter of timing, “but every man in his own order” (I Corinthians 15:23).
None of us had any “free will” in being included in the disobedience of Adam. It was forced upon us. Neither do any of us have any “free will” about the undoing of Adam in the obedience of Christ.
“Therefore as by the offence of one [Adam] judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of One [Christ] the free gift cameupon all men unto justification of life.” (Romans 5:18)
Not even our faith to believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior is a matter of our own choosing.
“For by grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves: it isthe gift of God …” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
THIS is the good news, believe it or not.
“If we believe not, yet He abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself” (II Timothy 2:13).
Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.
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