Book reviews
|
 |
|
| OUR LORD who became the RIGHTEOUSNESS og GOD (II) |
| Samuel Akpabio [email] ( United Kingdom ) |
2009-11-04 Views
: 17 touched : 4 |
In this review I am going to write of the things which I believe the Holy Spirit has led me to understand the reason the LORD had to become the righteousness of God on our behalve.
The flesh ( the body of Sin ), I have come to understand thrives against man because it derives its power from the law of Law of God. For man to have relied on the Law of God to worship ( Honour and serve) God, would have meant that all men would have been destined to hell after the fall of man.
I have come to realize that the depth of God's love is unlimited. You see that even in the old testament God placed the Laver between the altar of sacrfice and the Sanctuary for the daily cleansing from sins by the washing of their hands and feet before they could perform any service unto the Lord each day in the Aaronic and the levitical offices so that they were not destroyed because of the sins they committed daily due to weakness of the flesh. Our Lord also demonstrated this to the disciples by the washing of their feet in John 13 for them to understand by the teaching of the Holy Spirit that they and all true believers would remain free of their actual sins as long as they walk by faith in the righteousness of God according to Rom.1:16-17, and also in Rom.9:9-10.
God has given us the grace to worship Him in the spirit, with our hearts and not the flesh. For this the salvation of God is for the saving of the souls of the mankind, and not their flesh. I have come to believe that God has done nothing yet to deliver the flesh from sins. Therefore, believers must know that it is impossible to serve God with the deeds of the flesh, and so we must learn to seperate the flesh from the spirit of the mind. This is what the Apostle Paul came to understand, and is the subject of his expostion through the mind of the Holy Spirit in Romans 7. Paul,s teaching is to enable us to know that we must be united with Christ through faith in His works for us to receive all the benefits or blessings given to us because of the weightier matter of God's faith, mercy and love. In Rom.7:1-4, Paul exlains that Christ took our sins, past, present and future in His body. He was judged and crucifed for the sins of all of the mankind, thereby putting away the Law of sin and death to which we were married, and slaves to that Law. So spiritually we died with Him. He also was raised from the dead, thereby fulfilling all the righteousness of God and established a new and living way by the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Therefore by having faith in His righteousness is having faith in the righteousness of God, and we have been raised to be married to Hin in the new and living way. And as He was also raised from the dead, we shall also be raised from the dead, and as He is so shall we be. This is the reason we have to believe the gospel of the water and the Spirit because the works of Jesus - the righteousness of God is hidden in His baptism and His cross ( water and the Spirit). Therefore to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and to confess this union of our faith with Jesus daily is the subject of Rom.9:9-10, and is the antitype of the laver which we studied in the Tabernacle. In Rom.7:5-13, Paul is telling us that because the Law is righteous, sin derives its power to kill, and if we attempt to live by the Law we die because of the Law of sin and death.
In rom.7:14-25, Paul encouraged us to know that if we live according to the flesh we shall not be able to will ourselves to do any good but only evil because the flesh does not mind the things of the spirit. Pauls wants us to know by the mind of God through the Holy Spirit, that we must learn to serve God with our mind and not with the flesh. He strssed that man can either serve God with his mind because the mind is spiritual or the flesh because the flesh is carnal. We must then realise that it is only when our faith is in union with christ because of righteousness, only then can we walk in the Spirit and serve God in the spirit of our minds.
Basically, we must have the understanding that without walking in the faith of the righteousness of God we cannot say we are the children of God but mere spectators. Even if we received the forgiveness of sins at some point in our lives, if we do not maintain our union with Jesus on a daily basis we will sway out of the way because all men sin everyday of their lves. Infact the Laver has taught me without any shaddow of doubt to walk daily in the faith of the baptism of Jesus and His cross and confessing my union with the Lord in His baptism, His blood on the cross and His resurrection. Through this faith have noticed a change in personal healings, protection for me and my household, provision for my household and contentment. All the scriptures from commands, promises and so on are all covered by the umbrella of our faith being in union with Our Lord Jesus who became the Righteousness of God through His baptism, His blood on the cross and His resurrection.
There believers who spen most of their prayer lives in confessing their sins. This is because such believers in Jesus have not received the remission of their sins. They can never be united with Our Lord because sin seperates man from God. I believe that as true believers we must appreciate the grace that the Lord has given us. we ought to daily praise the Lord for His salvation, for this gives honour and glory to God. Even when we sin we should go to the LORD and admit our weakness and then to praise Him for having made free of sin in our hearts. we can enable the flesh to follow the spirit through walking daily union with Jesus our Lord with the right confession and with the faith of the righteousness of God in our hearts. These are the things which strengthen our faith as we are preparing ourselves in this age of the black horse - the third Era mentioned in Revelation for the great tribulation. Let us update ourselves by always giving thanks and praise to God for His unlimited love, even the love of giving His only begotten Son Jesus to deliver us from our sins and to judged for sins, because God is Good and His mercy endures forever. A-men.
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
