“THE UNDESERVED OR UNRESERVED RELEASE OF GOD’S OMNIPOTENT POWER!”
August 6, 2016
In Hebrews 10:11-14 the author of Hebrews gives us an amazing unveiling of the awesome, unreserved release and availability of God’s omnipotent power to change hearts, birth eternal ministries, and equip “perfected saints”! It says: “And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
BUT this Man (the Lord Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, “God in Flesh”), after He had offered one sacrifice for sins FOREVER, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. FOR by one offering HE HAS PERFECTED FOREVER THOSE WHO ARE BEING SANCTIFIED.”
And “the sanctified”, those “set apart” by the grace and mercy of God, have been “perfected forever” for the very purpose of extending Christ’s life, expressing His love, and proving His power, through you and me? Absolutely! The Holy Word declares it! God’s eternal desire is that He, Christ Jesus, be glorified THROUGH YOU as a true believer!
What does Ephesians 2:4-10 tell us? “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together with Christ, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His 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 of works, lest anyone should boast. For WE ARE HIS WORKMANSHIP, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
It’s so interesting to me that when I read Revelation 3:7-8 Jesus clearly says, “These things says He who is holy, He who is true, ‘He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts, and no one opens.’ I know your works. (SO!) See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have Not Denied My Name.” There IS an open door to Jesus!
But then in Revelation 3:19-22 the Lord Jesus declared: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. BEHOLD, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” [And don’t you find this amazing that Jesus was speaking to those “in the church at Laodecia”?] THEREFORE, HOW EASY FOR UNBELIEVERS TO SHUT THE DOOR ON JESUS, BUT HOW HORRIFIC WHEN “professing Christians and churches” shut the door on Jesus?!?
And I remind you again of Jesus describing ‘believers’ as: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” [Ephesians 2:10!].
Repentant men of faith and trust in the work of Christ at the Cross accept their crucifixion with Him and receive with passion, joy, and celebration His forgiveness, His acceptance of us, and His desire to make each of us His earthly temple and dwelling, not a destroyed memory of a building in Israel, but temples of holy dwellings in the hearts of men in every nation of the world!
Notice, FIRST, what Ephesians 1:3 tells us of GOD’S GOODNESS, “who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ…!” And what amazes me is Ephesians 1:4 tells me, “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,” and that with an eternal purpose: “that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” And that’s ALL because of the shed blood of Christ for us and because of our ‘redemptive faith’ in (Ephesians 1:5-6), “having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”
That’s because of God’s goodness, His graciousness, and His sovereign will, which leads us to:
SECOND, GOD’S Gracious Birthing OF Redemption Through Jesus’ Blood, THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS, ACCORDING TO THE RICHES OF HIS GRACE, which Ephesians 1:7-8 declares “which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence.” Notice!
It’s only “divine wisdom” that reveals the sin nature, your sin nature and mine, was crucified with Christ, that the open door to His presence and purpose, was then fully revealed as the blood of Christ bought us out of slavery to sin, granted us forgiveness from the guilt of our sin, made us accepted In Christ, with Ephesians 1:12 telling us, “that we who first trusted in Christ SHOULD BE TO THE PRAISE OF HIS GLORY”!
Colossians 1:13-14 declares: “He (God) has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”
Are you aware of what Hebrews 10:12-14 unveils to true repentant believers? “But this Man, after He had offered ONE SACRIFICE FOR SINS FOREVER, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. FOR BY ONE OFFERING He (the Lord Jesus Christ!) has PERFECTED FOREVER THOSE WHO ARE BEING SANCTIFIED.” Sanctified? That’s “set apart”, repentant believers then, now, and future, who Repent For the Forgiveness of Sins, are washed in the blood of the Lamb, indwelt by Resurrection Presence, anointed in the power of the Indwelling Holy Spirit, and become “witnesses”, “ambassadors”, “evangelists”, who proclaim the “goodness of God” for His children of faith and hope in Christ alone!
1 Corinthians 1:30 says, “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God – and righteousness and sanctification and redemption – Verse 31, that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.” Having forgiveness through the shed blood of the Lamb of God, we realize, rest in, and rejoice, in the reality that our blood-bought faith has opened the door to us of faithfully participating, now and forever, in all God is!
I receive with joy and gladness Oswald Chambers’ words in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.255), where he said: “We have forgiveness through His (Christ Jesus’) blood. Identification with the death of Jesus Christ means identification with Him to the death of everything that never was in Him…God is justified in saving bad men only as He makes them good. Out Lord does not pretend that we are all right when we are all wrong. The Atonement is a propitiation whereby God through the death of Jesus makes an unholy man holy.”
THIRD, IN GOD’S WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING, OF BRINGING ABOUT WORLD REDEMPTION AFTER THE “FALL”, DID HE CONCEDE TO A MAN’S ‘BEST EFFORT’ AS A PARTICIPANT IN WORLD REDEMPTION, OR THE NECESSITY OF “NEW VESSELS”? Remember, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God!” (Romans 6:23). “Fallen flesh” never reveals the nature, character, true vision of Holy God, but only ‘man’ defining ‘self’, ‘sinful self’, as a ‘worthy vessel’ even God should use! No!
Romans 6:5-11 unveils fallen humanity’s “old man, old nature, old identity as a slave TO SIN”, but then reveals “Victory In Jesus”! It says: “For if we have been united in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be IN THE LIKENESS OF HIS RESURRECTION, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, THAT WE SHOULD NO LONGER BE SLAVES OF SIN. For he who has died has been freed from sin.
Now IF WE DIED WITH CHRIST, we believe (trust in, rely upon, adhere to the fact) that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God IN Christ Jesus our Lord.” Far too many fail to understand the consequences of their sin and sin nature! That’s why Paul was inspired to say also in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God IS eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
And if that is Biblically true, AND IT IS, does Jesus have to say the same thing to ‘modern-day’ Christians as He did to the “Sad-you-sees” (?) in Matthew 22:29, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.”
And then, in Mark 9:1, to a crowd of people plus His own disciples, Jesus said to them: “Assuredly, I say to you, that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.” What a promise to them and to us!
Luke 4:13-14 there is a mind-boggling, heart-searching, disciple-questioning passage! It says: “Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him (that’s Jesus!) until a (more) opportune time. Verse 14! Then Jesus returned in the POWER OF THE SPIRIT to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region.” And “the news of Him”, Spirit-filled, is STILL being spread through available “vessels” who RECEIVE the Spirit’s anointing!
In Acts 10:34-38 we read about “Spirit-Anointed Peter” speaking Holy Truth! “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. BUT IN EVERY NATION whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him. The word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace through Christ Jesus – He is Lord of all – that word you know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached: how GOD ANOINTED JESUS OF NAZARETH WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT AND WITH POWER, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.”
Oh, but then look at the awesome extension of the Holy Spirit’s ministry beyond Peter and the early church even to today and beyond! It says in Acts 10:44-45, While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, BECAUSE the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also.”
It’s really interesting as you study Isaiah 40 that you see in Verse 7 about “the breath of the Lord” (Do you believe that breath might be the Holy Spirit?) blows upon it; surely the people are grass. Verse 8, The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God stands forever.” And the Word of God, the Living Word, IS “Christ in you the hope of glory”, men and women re-born and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, empowered by the Spirit to be the Lord’s “faithful witnesses” and “Royal Ambassadors” of Kingdom Living in and through Him and His Holy Spirit!
Do you remember what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:3-5? “I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, BUT IN DEMONSTRATION OF THE SPIRIT AND OF POWER, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
The “Holy Temple” in Christ, in you, is built upon a strong and sure foundation, which is not only His Word, but His Spirit having His rightful place in you, over you, and around everything you are and everything you do! We’re not led by our “emotions” in the Christian walk but by the “emissions” or “emanating” of the Holy Spirit through your available life of faith and trust in Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit! Dare I tell you that Holy God desires to be and to do more through us, by His Spirit, than tragically, and often, we keep Him from doing?
In Revelation 12: 10-11 John HEARD the voice from Heaven! “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, AND THE POWER OF HIS CHRIST HAS COME, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. AND THEY OVERCAME HIM by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death!”
But, not only Old and New Testament histories, but ‘modern-day’ church “productions”, present to us many who “are at ease in Zion”, content as Pretenders rather than Converted and Transformed and Dwellings of His Resurrection presence!
In Isaiah 32:1 says, “Behold, a king will reign in righteousness…”, and if you didn’t know, that’s a prophetic utterance of the reign of King Jesus in the repentant, redeemed, regenerated, restored hearts of men to God’s eternal intent! And it then boldly described “lands” with thorns and briers, forsaken ‘temples’ or palaces, cities ‘of faith’ even ‘deserted’, but Verse 15 is filled with divine assurance and eternal confidence as Jesus states: UNTIL THE SPIRIT, (the Holy Spirit!) IS POURED UPON US FROM ON HIGH, when ‘the wilderness’ of a fleshly believer becomes a “fruitful field” through Spirit-anointing!
Dare I tell you that to live a victorious, overcoming, Christ-unveiling, Christ-revealing life is not by your “best-efforts” but by a “vessel’ anointed and overflowing in the fullness and fruit and eternal force of the very Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, who “girts” us, “anoints” us, “empowers” us, and, according to 1 John 5:6b, “… And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.” And far too many “professing believers” never become “confessing believers” to others because there is no surrender to be led by Holy Spirit leadership – too many feel they can handle their own ministries, which sadly never occurs – they never become “voices” in life’s wildernesses because, if they ‘witness’, it’s usually about their own spiritual prominence rather than the importance of “repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ in and through Calvary’s Cross and the empty tomb”!
I’m an ‘old hymn’ kind of guy – repeated ‘choruses’, far too often in modern-day churches, leave preparation for preaching on “shallow ground”! But a hymn, like “Thou, Whose Almighty Word”, written by John Marriott and W.R. Braine, in the old “The American Hymnal,” [ Compiled and edited by Robert H. Coleman, the Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn., 1933], says:
“Thou, (or You) whose almighty word Chaos and darkness heard, And took their flight, Hear us, we humbly pray; And where the gospel’s day Sheds not its glorious ray, LET THERE BE LIGHT!
Spirit of truth and love, Life-giving, Holy Dove, Speed forth Your flight: Move over the water’s face, Bearing the lamp of grace; And, in earth’s darkest place, LET THERE BE LIGHT!
Blessed and Holy Three, Glorious Trinity, Truth, Love and Might! Boundless as ocean’s tide, Rolling in fullest pride, Through the world, far and wide, LET THERE BE LIGHT!” How about “Light IN YOU the hope of glory”?