Katfish

I dont know if I can adequately articulate what I think about this, but I will try. Initially, salvation was only for the Israelites. They were God's chosen people, and Jesus came to them first. I dont know my scripture well enough to tell you where the passage is, but a gentile woman was asking Jesus for healing for her daughter. He told her he came for the children and it wasnt right to take the bread meant for the children and toss it to the dogs. The woman replied that even dogs would eat the crumbs dropped on the floor by the children, and Jesus healed her daughter because of her faith. We (gentiles) have been grafted into a mature cultivated olive tree through salvation in Jesus Christ. Because of them (the Israelites/Jews) we are saved. They have suffered for our sakes (blinded for a time). It is like a nuclear family that is complete with Mother, Father, children, and extended family members who observe a whole orphanage full of unclaimed childlren. The family has no need of the orphans, but because of their love and compassion for them, they open their home and accept the orphans as their very own. They are not treated differently, and they do not occupy a lesser place in the affections or blessings than the natural children. They receive a full portion, a secure place in the inheritance. That is what adoption through Christ means to me. I am eternally grateful that I have been adopted through His immeasurable love, forgiveness, mercy, and grace.

God cannot look upon sin. He provided a way for us to be reconciled back to him through Jesus Christ. We have to be holy and blameless in his sight to have relationship with Him, and this is accomplished by the blood of Jesus. It is not to say that we do not sin or that we are without sin. God will always allow us to have sin in our lives to remind us that we need His grace and mercy. Our task is to bring every thought into submission to Christ. You cant do everything at once. Some of us have a lot that we are dealing with that can be overwhelming. Tackle Satan one thing at the time, bring each issue under submission and press on. Be thankful to God for every victory and continue to focus on the areas that God convicts you in. The more you conquer, the easier it is to conquer because your spirit becomes stronger as you submit your will to His.

God has always had a chosen people to represent Him in the earth. Predestination teaches us that before the earth was ever formmed, He chose a people to be His representatives in the earth and to carry knowledge of him forward through the ages. It also teaches us that we cannot come to God through any power of our own, but only by His calling. I guess the scary thing would be, "well, what if I'm not chosen?" If you were not chosen you would not care. You would be ignorant of the need for God and unconcerned about the consequences because you utterly do not believe. The bible tells us that the Gentiles were dead and without hope before Jesus came. They were ignorant of the God of Israel, of His ways, His laws for living. If you feel the need for God in your life, then you were chosen before the world was created. It doesnt matter what you have done or how you have lived in the past. If you feel drawn to Christ, you think about God, you think about the Bible, you want to be a Christian, whatever the draw is...it is from God - not from your own consciousness. You then have to decide if you are going to run the race, finish the race, and persevere till the end. Predestination is comforting for the same reason stated above. Satan cannot take it from you. He can make you doubt it, he can make you run from it, deny it, ignore it, smother it, sit on it, ...you name it. Satan can do all those things to make you ineffective and worthless in the kingdom of God. But, he cannot take away the fact that you were chosen before the earth was created. We have the task of learning the true power we have at work in us through the Holy Spirit and how to use it to triumph over all adversity in this world - to provide evidence to the world who God is! God has given us Wisdom and Understanding to know Him, to understand Him, to know His plan for our lives, to fellowship with His Son. But if we never learn how to use it, what we have to do to make it grow and come alive in us, then we are left powerless and at the mercy of every situation Satan sends our way. We are not alone, God is always with us, but we are powerless because we have not armed ourselves as God intended us to do.

I dont think people are really being taught what it means to be in Christ or to fully understand who we are in Christ. It is something that I am beginning to discover, and why I signed up for this study. I have allowed Satan's condemnation to keep me immobilized and utterly useless in the kingdom of Christ. I have come to understand that through the power of the spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, I have the ability to overcome sin and temptations in my life. I do not believe that the minute you become a christian you are magically "changed" in your mind or your flesh. I do believe that you have come to the knowledge of Christ, what he did for you on the cross, and that you need Him in your life. From that point on you should be working toward developing the mind of Christ, to walk like Christ walked, to love like Christ loved. This, however, requires effort on our part to study the bible, to know what it says, hide its words in our hearts, to learn how to live a victorious, joyfilled life here on earth while we await His coming. The spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us. We have to learn how to feed it so it will grow to maturity and that we will grow into mature christians, able to withstand whatever Satan throws at us. None of us will ever be perfect. There is no magic bullet to remove all the unwanted circumstances, feelings, and traits we have in our lives. We will always have to deal with sin in our lives. But, as we grow in Christ, as we feed the spirit and starve the flesh, the spirit within us becomes stronger and stronger so that no matter what the circumstance, no matter what the situation is, we are able to rejoice in the Lord, be at peace within ourselves, and have the assurance and confidence that God is in control and everything will work out in the end to our benefit. One last thought...condemnation is from Satan. It says "if you love the Lord, then why do you do these things?," it says "If you are a christian then why does God let these things happen to you?" Satan will always try to attack our identity, just like he did Jesus. Its the easiest way he can immobilize us. If you are seeking God, it is because you were chosen to seek him before the world was created. Every thing that Satan tells you to keep you from persevering in that seeking is a lie. You need to say to Satan, "It is written!" and follow it with every scripture that applies to that situation. Conviction comes from God. It tells us what we have done wrong, but it also tells us what we need to do to fix it. Condemnation presses you down to the point that you feel so unworthy and so ashamed that you begin to doubt God's love for you. Conviction brings consciousness of a wrong that you have committed and shows you a way to make it right.