teachmevp

Illustrations of the diversities of early Christianity are many, which are called Christologies. Christologies is what do you believe about Christ: what kind of nature is Jesus Christ? 
 We can map out all these differences; when did Jesus become divine according to the gospel of John? He always was. He was with God from the very beginning. Everything was created through him. The beginning of the gospel of John ends up having the Christology that now become Orthodox Christianity. 
 Before Jesus was executed, he was recognized as a prophet, he seems to accept himself as a prophet, and it may be that he claimed to be a king or a messiah, but certainly by the time of his execution, some people thought he was a king, because that is the charge on which he was executed. 
 The Romans executed Jesus, because at least either he or other people were claiming that he was a king. He is a prophet and he is a king, but does that mean Jesus is divine? No, of course not. 
 The Israelites had lots of kings that were not divine. The Israelites had lots of prophets that were not divine. Many modern people get the idea that the word “Christ” or “Messiah” in itself signifies divinity, but it doesn’t. The “Messiah” in Jesus’ day was simply some Israelite figure who would rise up and take over the throne of David and reestablish the kingdom of Israel. 
 Calling someone the messiah in the ancient world did not mean that he was divine. Jesus is a prophet; he is even considered the messiah, but that does not make him divine. Some Christians therefore have to make a decision. Is Jesus human and only human? Is Jesus human and divine? 
 Jesus being human and divine is the take most followers of Jesus end up taking, although there are some followers today of Jesus who believed he was purely human. Those who believe Jesus was purely human tended to understand the Israelites history and they even accept him as a messiah, but that does not mean they think he was God. 
 They know the monotheism of Israel does not and cannot evolve from polytheism, because the two are based on radically divergent world-views, radically divergent intuitions about reality. The monotheism of Israel was not, it could not be the natural outgrowth of the polytheism of an earlier age, it was a radical break with it. 
 Monotheism was a revolution, not an evolution. Therefore, they say, no, Jesus cannot be divine. The early Christians who chose the human and divine route, though they had to spilt this up. Some believed Jesus was always divine; others believed Jesus became divine. 
 If Jesus became divine, then when did he become divine, at his birth, at his baptism, or at his resurrection? Other Christians say, no, he always was divine, but even they believed in different choices too, because some believed Jesus was divine but also fully human. 
 Other Christians believed Jesus was fully divine but not fully human. They believed Jesus was so divine he was God, so that when Jesus walked along on wet sand on the beach, his feet did not leave footprints, that is how divine he was, but this belief became declared as a heresy. 
 Out of all these choices, only one of them is considered Orthodox by the later church, so that what Christians end up with is the Nicene Creed, or the Creed of Chalcedon, which is what Christians came to believe? There were lots of complexities in early Christianity that finally got whittled down into a more united consensus view on Christology. It is God’s sovereign right to choose the criteria and he chose to use the criteria of belief. God has always used faith in every age; God has always used faith, or what a person believes, as the criteria necessary to effect salvation for humankind. 
 Our faith in the good news of Christ given to Paul enables God to impute us with the faith of his son. Once we believe, and are sealed, it is not about us; our faith, but Christ’s faith. If you want God to view you today, you got to be in his son. 
 For any one to think they are just before God through their performance; to think that they have perfected themselves with God through their behavior proves that man is a liar and the truth is not in them. One who puts their faith in the Nicene Creed or any Creed, has not met the criteria that God requires, and living up to a Creed is based upon performance. 
 Ministers of righteousness have a lot of fun with these Creeds controlling people! How can you get into his son, and have all of his righteousness freely imputed to your account? By simply taking God at his word, concerning what his son accomplished for you. 
 This one-sided reconciliation on God’s part is self-evident proof of God’s superabundant love to man. As far as God is concerned, he loved us so much that he was willing to let his own son die for sinful man, and have his son pay all the penalties for their sins, forget their rebelliousness and overlook their hostility, while they were still sinners, still rebellious, and still hostile. 
 God made up his mind to become completely reconciled to mankind before man made any signs of making peace with God. God has told the world through Paul’s teaching’s (not through Creeds), that he has reconciled himself to them because of his love for them, and it was God alone who did this harmonious act; we have had nothing to do with it, all we have had to do is to receive the reconciliation that God has made with mankind. 
 God has one-sidedly reconciled himself to mankind through what the death of his son accomplished; all sins and hostility are paid for as far as God is concerned, and it is time all people begin to believe it. This three-in-one god concept has its roots from polytheism; monotheism was a revolution, it was a radical brake from polytheism, not an evolution of polytheism! 
 If you want to believe Jesus is God, whatever. God has reconciled himself to man, before man wrote those Creeds?

The person who does not know what death is does not know either what resurrection is. In order to take the resurrection seriously, we must also take death seriously. The Christian belief in the resurrection of the body did not arise from philosophical speculations or wishful thinking like the notion of the immortality of the soul. 
 It arose from the conviction that such an event had actually already taken place with the resurrection of Jesus from among the dead. The resurrection is proof that Jesus is who he claimed to be, and that his sacrifice was pleasing to God. As long as Jesus lay in the tomb, he was just another tragic religious figure who suffered a martyr’s death. 
 In fact, Paul tells us that the resurrection is the greatest display of God’s power ever to be demonstrated, nor can it ever be surpassed. Our decree of judicial perfection in the eyes of God comes not through Jesus’ death for our sins, but through our union with Jesus’ resurrection life. 
 Paul’s statement that Jesus’ resurrection was “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep,” the expression “first fruits” has little meaning for today’s urban dwellers. In Bible times, it had a rich meaning because it referred to the first produce of the harvest, which was offered in sacrifice to God to express gratitude for granting a new harvest. 
 Thus, the first fruits, which were brought to the Temple, were seen not as mere hope of a new harvest, but as its actual beginning. Jesus’ resurrection, then, is “the first fruits” in the sense that it has made the resurrection of believers not a mere possibility, but a certainty. God planned that his son become sin for the world which his son did indeed become, but when it comes to being made the righteousness of God IN Christ, what response is necessary in order for a person to be made the righteousness of God by being placed INTO CHRIST? BELIEF in what God’s son accomplished where sins are concerned is that required response, it is very simple when we understand the difference in Reconciliation and Righteousness. 
 Not everyone has been baptized into Christ even though Christ, by himself, purged his or her sins when his blood dripped on God’s Ark. If Christ purged only the sins of believers, then Christ did not become a ransom for all, faith in what Christ accomplished where your sins are concerned is the requirement to be placed into Christ and have Christ’s test score placed on your paper. 
 Paul wanted to be found clothed in the righteousness that comes from being placed INTO Jesus Christ rather than to be found wearing the righteousness that came from his performance. Paul knew that the righteousness related to his performance would never measure up to the level of God’s righteousness. 
 The reality of reconciliation is the good news that Satan would gladly give up his pitchfork to keep people from believing today, and he has been very successful through what Paul calls “ministers of righteousness” in doing that very thing. 
 Satan only needs to focus on today to keep people in a lost condition is The Reality of Reconciliation, he does not need to go any further than that. If Satan can keep that glorious truth hidden by blinding people's eyes to it through a message that keeps sin on the table of God’s justice where that sin has already been put away, that turns Paul’s glorious gospel into a not so glorious gospel after all! Many people are living in their minds today with probation rather than salvation.

We would rather be the blamer than the one being blamed, excepting blame means we have got a crack in that perfect persona of ours, the blame game is the battle that no one wants to lose. 
 Rather than recognizing the unworthiness of the flesh, and the imputed worthiness of the new nature, we spend our lives trying to convince ourselves and others of our value, one of the ways we do it is by elevating self through the denigration of someone else. 
 The unseen put down, that is a major tool in our ego preservation tool box, being critical of others is an intricate part of maintaining that fantasy that we are perfect and others are somewhere a bit beneath us, that is why we are immediate in our defense of self, a wiliness to aggressively find fault with others, a way to be superior, to feel safe. 
 Thank God that our destiny, our blessings are not dependent on our serving, because Christ did the serving for us, he did it faithfully, as well as it could be done, he is our righteousness, but every believer is promised reward at the Judgment Seat of Christ, a judgment all believers must under go, and the issue there will be rewards or lost of rewards for how we served the Body of Christ. 
 Paul wants us to recognize that Justification and Sanctification are not based upon feelings at all, they have nothing to do with feelings or emotions, they are not based on sensation in any sense. In fact, they are not based upon the capacity or the production of the flesh in any sense at all, because all now have equal access to God today. 
 According to Paul, God had given up on dealing with the Gentiles, and he called out one man, Abram, through who would come that special nation, that special people Israel. God belongs to Israel and Israel belongs to God, they are called the children of God, God’s espoused wife no less, but the blessing of reconciliation changed all that. 
 Reconciliation simply means a change in status, a change in status for true entire world, does that mean the entire world is saved? No! We have to have an individual change of status, and that takes place when we accept what the son accomplished for us, our sin debt being forever settled. 
 Now all have access to God, sin is no longer the issue with God, the issue with God today is his son, will we accept what Jesus Christ accomplished, our sin debt pain in full, or will we reject it? 
 All the different churches of our day is best described as the Corinthians epistle, equally the Galatians epistle, the same mind set that led to the judgment Isaiah warned Israel about, continues to operate within society today. 
 It never went away, the same inner mind set, that same sin nature at work in people throughout history, the more things change, the more they stay the same. They are marked by divisions, they have divided into little factions, into little groups and little cliques, separating one from another over who is more important than the other person, minds bent on serving only self. 
 Only when we come to see ourselves as God sees us, and are able to fully appreciate and understand who God has already made us to be, and who he has made us to be in Christ, can we become in our behavior, what he wants us to be in that aspect of our lives. 
 As Paul’s sound doctrine is taken in and fully appreciated, the believer who takes that doctrine in, and appreciates it, and applies it, begins to grow and mature in what they believe, that believer’s mind is being transformed in the process. 
 As we understand what God accomplished through his son for us, and build upon that foundation the truths of who he has made us to be by placing us into his son, we begin to view ourselves as God views us, and that is great security to be found in doing so.

We are more vulnerable to Satan and his forces deception than to any of their other schemes, because when they tempt us or accuse us, we can recognize it, but when they deceive us, we do not always know it, that is their strategy, to keep us in the dark. 
 We cannot expose their deception by human reasoning; we can only do it by the light of the truth, it is the only valid piece of the armor against the darkness of deception. It is critical that when we put on the armor of God, we start with the belt of truth, because the only thing big about Satan and his forces are their mouth, they are habitual liars. 
 When we put on the armor of God we are really putting on Christ, and when we put on Christ, we take ourselves out of the realm of the flesh, where we are vulnerable to attack, it is not wise for us to live on Satan and his forces level. Since their primary weapon is the lie, our belt of truth is continually being attacked. 
 If they can disable us in the area of truth, we become an easy target for their other attacks. We stand firm in the truth by relating everything we do to the truth of God’s word, and when we learn to live in the truth on a daily basis, we will grow to love the truth because we will have nothing to hide. 
 If Satan and his forces can deceive us into believing a lie, they can control our life in that area. God’s protection is that our role is not passive, God requires us to be active participants in the defense that he has provided for us. The belt of truth challenges us to be mentally active, not passive, because unlike our day-to-day emotions, which are the product of our day-to-day thought life, the emotional baggage from the past is always there. Years of exposure and experience in life have etched emotional grooves inside us, which produce a decided reaction when a certain topic is introduced. 
 We may have grown up with a physically, emotionally or sexually abusive parent. We may have suffered through a painful relationship in the past: a broken friendship, the untimely death of a loved one, a divorce. When a present event activates one of those emotional grooves, we believe what we feel instead of believing what is true. 
 Perceiving those events from the perspective of our new identity, which God sealed in Christ, is what starts the process of healing those damaged emotions, because we have the privilege of evaluating our past experience in the light of who we are now, as opposed to who we were then. 

 We must learn how to resolve previous conflicts or the emotional baggage will accumulate as we continue to withdraw from life, the past will control our life as our options for handing it continue to decrease. Those who have had major traumas and have learned to resolve them by wearing the belt of truth know how devastating the past can be to present reality. 
 When we do not understand the doctrinal truths Paul taught pertaining to our sealed position in Christ, we have no ground for success in the practical arena. When we get our eyes off our new identity, and try to produce in our daily experience the acceptance God has already extended to us, we will struggle, because Satan and his forces will try to convince us that we are an unworthy, unacceptable, sin-sick person who will never amount to anything in God’s eyes. 
 We are saints whom God has declared righteous, believing their lie will lock us into a defeated, fruitless life, but believing God’s truth about who we are will set us free. It is imperative to our growth and maturity that we believe God’s truth about who we are. 
 Our old pattern for thinking and responding to our sin-trained flesh must be transformed by the renewing of our mind, it is our responsibility to change our behavior by putting to death the deeds of the body. The battleground we face is in our mind, and Satan and his forces are at the heart of all sin, and deceive people into believing a lie. 
 The most dangerous and harmful detriments to our growth is passivity, putting our mind in neutral and coasting, sitting back and waiting for God to do everything is not God’s way to maturity.

If a person is holding on to the law today, in order to keep their salvation, they do not understand Paul’s good news at all! It is a dangerous thing to attribute righteousness to law keeping today, because keeping the law prior to salvation would not get a person saved, and keeping the law after salvation will not keep a person saved. 
 It does no good for ministers of righteousness to replace the word salvation with fellowship, because that is just as damning an idea! If fellowship is not based on performance, but based on position as Paul tells us it is, to suppose a person can lose their fellowship with God based on their performance, is not to understand what Christ accomplished where their sins are concerned. 
 This is the hiding of the truth, and the stealing of the truth away from people that ministers of righteousness involve themselves every week, they steal the truth, they hide salvation by grace alone through faith alone in their cross work ideal of Christ alone, in their effort to stick with tradition, rather than slick with truth, so they follow the tradition of men, because people are resting in the law today. 
 What does it mean to walk in the spirit, should not the word spirit, be new nature? Galatians 5:16-18 - This I say then, walk in the new nature, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh, for the flesh lusts against the new nature, and the new new nature against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would, but if you be led of the new nature, you are not under the law. 
 Paul talks about a battle going on in the mind of every believer, a struggle taking place between the new nature and the flesh, a struggle taking place between the ears of the believer. The flesh, Paul’s talking about all that we once were in Adam, prior to salvation, but once saved, we are no longer in Adam, at the very point of our believe, we are that instant in Christ, having been forever joined to our savior, the new nature. 
 Our pride is such, that we will always have that tendency to think more highly of ourselves then we ought, everything we say and everything we do is filtered through that sieve of self, it is just our sin nature. 
 Paul’s great desire was to know Jesus Christ in his resurrection power, because that same power that raised Christ from among the dead was energizing in Paul, and it is energizing in us. 
 There are believers out there who know Christ in his resurrection power, because they are acquainted to one degree or another with the fellowship of his sufferings, one does not come apart from the other. 
 Religion is fill with lots of people who would rather beg God to fix their suffering circumstances, rather than to thank God for his enabling grace that is sufficient for every suffering saint, that energizing power, most of Paul’s pain and suffering came from making the right decisions. 
 Paul was striving to know Christ, and know him intimately in the power of his resurrection, and in the fellowship of his suffering, Paul wanted Christ’s life to be manifest in his own life.

What a marvelous plan God had for us! God has kept the fingerprints of the guilt-worthy off of the righteousness he designed for the guilt-worthy. The greatest determinant of our mental health and freedom is a true understanding of God’s reconciliation. 
 The insidious reality of Satan and his forces relentless assault of deception on our mind can keep us from experiencing maturity and freedom, because our past has shaped our present belief system and will determine our future unless it is dealt with. We have been tricked into believing that what we do makes us what we are. 
 We fail, so we see ourselves as failures, which only causes us to fail more. We sin, so we see ourselves as sinners, which only causes us to sin more. We have been sucked into Satan and his forces futile equation, and that false belief sends us into a tailspin of hopelessness and defeat. 
 It is absolutely vital that we put on the breastplate of righteousness, so that we can resist the persistent accusations of Satan and his forces, they never give up trying to get us down and keep us down by hurling one false accusation after another. Wholeness and meaning in life are not the products of what we have or do not have, what we have done or have not done, we are already a whole person and possess a life of infinite meaning and purpose because of who we are in Christ. 
 Our understanding of the identity that Adam had before the fall, that identity has been restored to us, that restored identity is the critical foundation for our belief structure and our behavior patterns. Many people that are of the body of Christ have obsessive-compulsive behaviors because of this relentless battle for their minds, and the battle for our mind can only be won as we personally choose truth. 
 A mentally healthy person is one who is in touch with reality and relatively free of anxiety. Rejoice in Christ always, in our minds is what this is all about, everything whether good or evil begins in the arena of our minds. Joy is a trust issue; joy in Christ for a believer is that of a state of mind independent of surrounding circumstances. 
 Rejoicing is the exhibit of that interstate of mind, because no longer do we have to strive to attain and maintain God’s acceptance on the basis of who we are and what we can do, no longer are our sins held against us, no longer does the death penalty for sin hang over us. Joy comes from an understanding of the grace of God, an understanding and appreciation of the resultant peace with God that we now have because of God’s grace. 
 Paul wants us to know at one point in time something was true, but now something else is true. Paul presented the evidence that all people of all time justly deserve the wrath of a perfectly just God, because people glorifies themselves by filtering everything they say and everything they do through that screen of self-protection, self-elevation, and self-gratification. 
 But now, as far as God is concerned, he loved mankind so much that he was willing to let his own son die for sinful people, and have his son pay all the penalties of their sins, forget their rebelliousness and overlook their hostility, while they were still sinners, still rebellious, and still hostile. God made up his mind to become completely reconciled to mankind before people made any signs of making peace with God. 
 God has one-sidedly reconciled himself to mankind through what the death of his son accomplished; all sins and hostility are paid for as far as God is concerned. By removing the sin issue from the table of God’s justice, God effectively canceled Satan’s ownership of all mankind. 
 Those who put on the breastplate of righteousness know that we have peace with God, for a person to have to make their own peace with God would be nothing more than an exercise in futility, it could never be done. We could not make peace with God, to say that anyone could make peace with God, would be to limit God to his mercy, because grace is the foundation on which Paul’s entire ministry was built. 
 There is a glory that belongs to God’s grace, and it is to be praised on the bases on what God’s grace has accomplished.

Our only boast is in Jesus Christ, none of us can boast in ourselves, there will be no body in heaven wearing a merit badge based on fleshly achievement, no one there will be introduced as super saint. 
 Our reconciliation is of God, he designed it, he provided the means by which it could be accomplished, but people continue to operate today in their thinking, nothings really changed, under the assumption that their sin is separating them from God. 
 If an ounce of new reconciliation in this Age of Grace could be restored for anyone, when it comes to the issue of their sins, then the degree of forgiveness that must be obtained in order to restore the reconciliation is the very degree to which that individual refuses to believe what Christ accomplished, he accomplished it all. 
 The truth is, a person could not obtain an ounce of forgiveness if they tried, because God has already forgiven us all, that is why Christ’s ambassadors have the responsibility and privilege of making the reality of the reconciliation Christ has already accomplished, known to those who know nothing of it. 
 We can look at others through new perspective, because we serve others today, motivated by appreciation in the fact that God loves them, Christ died for them, we are intricately joined to them, just as we are joined to Christ, the very instance they believe the good news that Paul proclaimed. 
 Love has much more to do with attitude in action, than it has to do with emotions, direction that does what is in the best interest of another individual, this is a work of righteousness. The law had apprehension as a motivation factor, our labor of love under the Age of Grace has had the apprehension aspect removed entirely. 
 Israel’s labour of love under the law contract was a system of performance according to demand, they had to deal with their neighbors according to a strict system of rules and regulations, the law told them how to deal with one another. 
 We are to serve others today, based on how God expressed his love to others through Christ, and what he accomplished for them, who he made them and us to be in our savior, by joining us to our savior. 
 We should be extremely relieved to know that God’s not using our works of faith, he is not even using out labour of love to determine our worthiness for heaven, we know sins have been taken off the table. 
 God uses Christ’s labour of love, as expressed through what Christ accomplished on our behalf, and our trust in what Christ accomplished where our sins are concerned, as his criteria for our heaven worthiness, we can rejoice that it’s Christ’s faithfulness, not our faithfulness. 
 When the circumstance of the moment is a happy circumstance, when everything is well on the home front, that is when we can say a person might very well be happy, but circumstances can go south, if joy were dependent upon the situation at hand, it would be uncertain as a match lit on a windy day. 
 Joy is a trust issue, joy for a believer is a state of mind, independent of surrounding circumstances, rejoicing is the exhibit of that inter-state of mind, the joy Paul is talking about has no relationship to the transient nature of life, so the believers attitude need not to be come victim to uncertainty or adversity.

We are struggling with the belief aspect of our growth, because we are still struggling with the belief aspect of our growth: who we are in Christ. With the helmet of salvation firmly on, we see ourselves for who we really are, it is imperative to our growth and maturity in our ministry of reconciliation. 
 God’s basic goal for our life is character development, but there certainly are a lot of distractions, diversions, disappointments, trials and traumas which come along to disrupt the process. Paul reminds us that the tribulations we face are actually a means of achieving our supreme goal of maturity. 
 People tend to look for quick-fix solutions to difficult situations, but God’s plan is for us to hang in there and grow up. We need occasional mountaintop experiences, but the fertile soil for growth is always down in the valleys of tribulation, not on the mountaintops. 
 When we stop believing that God is in control; that he is working everything out for our good; that whatever happens is for the ultimate best of everyone involved, however little it seems to be that way. The more time and energy we invest in contemplating our own plans on how to live our life, the less time and energy we have to seek God’s plan for our ministry of reconciliation. 
 When our faith in God’s omnipotence and care is strong, it is impossible for Satan and his forces to break through our shield of faith and land an attack. Satan and his forces are actively involved in trying to distract us by peppering our mind with their thoughts and ideas. 
 The first thing we need to understand about the battle for our mind, the main targets which must be destroyed, are the strongholds. Strongholds are negative patterns of thought, which are burned into our minds either through repetition over time or through one-time traumatic experiences. 
 Before we were born anew, all our stimulation came from the environment of this hostile world. Every day we lived in this environment we were influenced by it and preconditioned to conform to it. The worldly stimulation we were exposed to was both brief and prevailing. 
 Brief stimulation includes individual events, situations, places and personal encounters we experienced. We were influenced by books, movies, music and traumatic events we experienced or witnessed. We learned a way to cope with these experiences and resolve the conflicts they produced. 
 Prevailing stimulation consists of long-term exposure to our environment, the influence of our family and friends, our neighborhood or our jobs. We developed a philosophy about how to survive, cope and succeed in this world apart from God. Once a stronghold of thought and response is entrenched in our mind, our ability to choose and act contrary to that pattern is virtually nonexistent. 
 That is why Paul insists that we be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Strongholds in our mind are the result of conditioning; we can be reconditioned by the renewing of our mind, anything that has been learned can be unlearned. Satan and his forces have no power over us except what we give them by failing to take every thought captive and thus being deceived into believing their lies. If Satan and his forces can get us to believe a lie, they can control our life. If we fail to take a thought captive to the obedience of Christ, but believe it, they will control us. 
 Since Satan and his forces primary weapon is the lie, our defense against them is the truth. Dealing with Satan and his forces is not a power encounter; it is a truth encounter. Satan and his forces know just what buttons to push to tempt us. 
 They have observed our behavior over the years and they know where we are vulnerable, and that is where they will attack. Our temptations will be unique to our area of vulnerability. The moment we are tempted, we are at the threshold of a decision, and if we do not immediately choose to take that thought captive, we will begin to consider it as an option. 
 If we begin to mull it over in our mind, immediately our emotions will be affected and the likelihood of yielding to that temptation is increased. We need to take every thought captive by practicing first-frame thinking, evaluate every thought by the truth and do not give place to the lie. Our emotions play a major role in the process of renewing our mind, our emotions reveal our perceptions and here is where the shield of faith comes into play. Our emotions are a product of our thought life, and if we are not thinking right, if our mind is not being renewed, if we are not perceiving God and his word properly, it will show up in our emotional life. 
 If we fail to acknowledge our emotions, we may make ourselves a slow-moving target for Satan and his forces. We are not shaped as much by our environment as we are by our perception of our environment. Life’s events do not determine who we are; God has determined who we are, and our interpretation of life’s events determines how well we will handle the pressures of life. 
 In reality, we have very little control over our emotions, but we do have control over our thoughts, and our thoughts determine our feelings and our responses. If what we believe does not reflect truth, then what we feel does not reflect reality. When we believe what we feel instead of the truth, how will our ministry of reconciliation be? As inconsistent as our feelings. 
 The important process of renewing our mind includes managing our emotions by managing our thoughts and perceptions. Satan and his forces are always hurling their fiery darts of fear, doubt and worry in our direction, but the only time they can hit us is when we let our shield of faith down. 
 A shield deflects; it keeps the darts of the enemy away from our mind, the shield moves with the attack. When we allow doubt to creep in, an actively raised shield of faith prevents this otherwise inhibiting fatigue, so the shield is the first line of defense, the enemy has to get past the shield first.

Do we not know that God has held back the wrath we so justly deserve, but do we not know that he has been good to us in holding back that wrath, he has not held back his wrath, because he is happy with who we think we are, or because he is satisfied with who we are trying to become. 
 God has been long-suffering in holding back his wrath, because he hopes that we will consider his goodness through is son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and flee to his grace, God wants us to change our mind about who we are from fleshly perspective, apart from Christ. 
 It is the goodness of God, that leads a person to a change of thinking, that draws that person to adopt what God has said is true in his Word. God is not patiently waiting for us to change our mind about what we do, many have done that thinking it gains salvation, the self-righteous moralizer looks in their self-righteous mirror, and they think God must be satisfied, a prize package. 
 All people should change their minds about the way that God has provided, and what his son accomplished where their sins are concerned, because not all people believe that those sins were done away with Christ’s payment. 
 When peace of mind is based solely on circumstances, depression is the ultimate end for all, because we live in a sin cursed world, physical death is on it’s way for each of us, timing of that being the only uncertainty of that reality. 
 Sin brings death, insecurity is the ultimate mind set for all who’s mind are focused on earthly things, which is precisely why Paul is directing believers to a refocus of thinking, God provides a way for believers to have joy, even in the midst of unhappy circumstances. 
 Understanding peace with God, appreciating peace with God is that which allows the peace of God to rule our minds, govern our emotions, grace is the fountain head of joy. 
 God has manifested his grace to us through the accomplishments of his son, each and every blessings is to provide for us a place of security and a place of specialness that we know that is there for us in the mind of God, we are secure and we are special, the result of that grace, peace. 
 Most of Paul’s pain and suffering came from making the right decisions, Paul desired to be found in Christ, not with a righteous record that could be gauged as having come from Paul as the source, but a mind set of glorious joy can only begin with a proper understanding of God’s glorious grace. 
 Is it not interesting that the Gentiles had been considered dogs, but Paul speaking to the saints in Philippi, and it is the unbelieving Israelites who are considered dogs. 
 Paul is simply drawing a contrast between those who were relying upon ritual for righteousness, and those who place no confidence whatsoever in their flesh for a right standing before God, and those false teachers who thought that ritual could do something, and the ritual was circumcision. 
 Paul’s point in this age of grace, is circumcision apart from faith is nothing more than concision, it is nothing more than mutilation, Paul had more reason to boast if that is the way God values righteousness, if he values it through our performance. 
 Paul was not a Gentile converted, then circumcised as a proselyte to the Race of Israel, he was not a Gentile taking hold of Israel’s covenant and being circumcised, he was born into a Israelite family, Abraham’s blood flowed in his veins. 
 Paul was answering a group of people in his day (Philippians 3:9), in fact they were bragging, they were boasting about their achievements as though God could do nothing other than to declare them righteous, because they deserved just such a declaration. 
 Paul warned us to guard against those who would promote a righteousness through performance idea, “Beware of Dogs, Beware of Evil Workers, Beware of the Concision.” There is no scale in God’s mind other than Christ’s righteousness, righteousness that has been credited freely without any cause in us, to our account, there can be no further payment for sin, as that payment was made by Jesus Christ.

The only ones who can take up any piece of God’s armor, and the only ones who are involved in this struggle against Satan and his forces, are those who have been placed into Christ. The fact that the helmet is related to salvation indicates that their blows are directed at the believer’s security and assurance of being placed into Christ. 
 This helmet covers our mind, intellect or reasoning. The two dangerous edges of Satan and his forces broadsword are discouragement and doubt. We did not receive our righteous standing before God by the things we have done in the past that we might consider to be righteous. 
 We certainly do not maintain it by the things we continue to do or what we promise God that we will do that we might consider to be righteous. Our justification was something accomplished for us by God’s grace. God has already set everyone in Christ apart as holy. 
 Everyone who is in Christ stands perfectly righteous or perfectly holy, justified according to God’s gift declaration of righteousness. We that believed Paul’s gospel, we have the very righteousness of Jesus Christ himself credited to our account. Our being set apart is not contingent upon the degree to which we set ourselves apart. We can become vulnerable to Satan and his forces deception in this area if we fail to daily put on this helmet of salvation. They are committed to fouling up our life through their deception that nothing really happened when we were born anew. 
 They may disrupt our daily victory, but they can do nothing to disrupt our new identity in Christ. However, if they can get us to believe that we are not in Christ, we will live as though we are not in Christ, even though we are secure in him. 
 Religion is Satan’s invention and many people involved in religion’s domain are dealing with God on the basis of probation, rather than salvation. Then God must make a decision in their minds, whether or not to save that individual. 
 If they will simply dedicate themselves to no longer sin, that is the idea promoted by Satan’s ministers of righteousness, their suitability for heaven depends upon their turning away from all of their sins. God testing over and over again the validity of that dedication, then God will knew if they are truly devoted to him, then God will be able to finally make a decision as to whether or not they are heaven worthy. 
 Then there are people who believe that God’s grace as it relates to salvation is something that has to be tapped into, new sins requiring new grace and new forgiveness. Satan’s purpose in this age of grace is to confuse Paul’s gospel with a gospel so nearly to it. 
 We can be sure that confusion concerning that gospel through the use of a counterfeit gospel; a gospel that looks so much like Paul’s gospel that we would not know the difference, if we did not clearly know Paul’s gospel, will be Satan and his forces focus in this age of grace. Putting this helmet on daily is important, God has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation, to tell the world God is not imputing their trespasses unto them; so we see the world still thinks he is. This ministry of reconciliation is not to the saved, we know we are reconciled, but now all have access to God, a change in status for the entire world. 
 Does this mean the entire world is save? No. We have to have an individual change of status and that takes place when we accept what God’s son accomplished for us. The issue with God is what his son accomplished, not sin. What is the world going to believe about what God’s son accomplished, or do they still think God is counting those sins against them and God is coming back to haunt them at some point in time. 
 We need to put that helmet of salvation on daily, because when Paul talks about a new creature; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new, he is not talking about sin in an individual’s life, he is talking about the identity we once were in Adam prior to salvation. We have a new identity in the second Adam, God has sealed us in Christ.

The sin issue, became a son issue, and we need to see ourselves properly, apart from faith in the One who is faithful on our behalf, in seeing ourselves properly, when it comes to how we view other people, because they have the same brokenness that we have. 
 But, God knew what it would take to save us, he knew what it would take to have us dwell with him through eternity future, and that dwelling with him would require that we would measure up to his degree of rightness, and measuring up to his degree of rightness would only come one way. 
 We need a justifier who would justify the ungodly by faith, what a marvelous thing God has done, and who would have thought of a salvation in that sense, that God’s plan would call for him to join us to his son, therefore, what belongs to the son, now belongs to us, who have been joined to God’s son. 
 The law was never given as a standard by which a person could live their life and achieve righteousness, it was given to be a mirror, so that those who were placed under that law might gain a better glimpse of themselves. Paul did not say the law was written in our hearts, he said the works of the law are written in the hearts of the Gentiles. 
 God knows whether or not a person has placed their faith in what his son’s faith accomplished for them, or whether that person is still holding onto the notion that their good works will somehow merit them a position of righteousness in the eyes of God, God knows the motivation that resides in the human heart that underlies all the works that we call good. 
 Any kind of works at all, even if they appear to be good works in our mind, that are done for the purpose of attaining salvation or for the purpose of maintaining salvation, even for the purpose of proving one’s salvation is a slap in the face of God, who had to provide the gift of salvation, because people’s righteousness would be totally incapable of meriting it. 
 Our good works must be done solely out of appreciation for what God has already accomplished, we place our faith in Christ’s faithfulness, and that alone. 
 God never intended subjective feelings to be a replacement for objective truth, that is why he has given us his Word, only when inner peace lines up with the written Word of God, are we headed in the proper direction. 
 We not only have peace with God, we can enjoy the peace of God, who shall keep our hearts and minds through Jesus Christ in every circumstance that we face, we should not take any course of action that we do not have peace about, but is an inner sense of peace about something a sure fire fail safe system when it comes to choosing a direction to take in our lives? 
 There are multitudes who are putting faith in their feelings, but we often connect our emotions to our prayer life, and thus we further validate in our minds the course of action we were bent toward taking in the first place, if things go right in our eyes, all is well and good, we have not only affirmed ourselves, we have affirmed our Savior. 
 If things go topsy-turvy, perhaps the devil got involved in the details, but can feelings, even a sense of inner peace, always be trusted as a fail safe method to always point us in the proper direction, when it comes to the contentment or peace department, God through his power from on high, does not lead independently of his Word.

We are justified through our sanctified position in Christ, we find the amazing and comforting truth that God’s love for those who are joined to his son, is the same unalterable and unending love God has for his son, that is how closely connected we are to Christ. 
 It is a past tense accomplishment that can never be revised, reduced, or retracted, God’s loving attitude towards those who are united to him by way of being in his son, nothing past, present, or future shall separate us from the love of God. 
 It is important we know the difference, because the old man and the sin nature are not one and the same, the old man speaks of our former identity with Adam, that identity is no longer true of believers. So, the old man is a thing of the past, having been crucified with Christ, and the new man is the new identity belonging to every believer, the sad news is that the new man continues to reside in our earthly bodies where the sin nature is ever present. 
 The old man has to do with identity, even though every believer has a new identity in Jesus Christ, every believer suffers the same propensity, the battle against the sin nature that the apostle Paul struggled with himself on a day-by-day basis. God’s strength is perfected, God strength is brought to a point of fullness in the life of a suffering saint during this age of grace. 
 God allows saints to suffer today, because God’s strength is made perfect in the life of the suffering saint, if God’s strength was made perfect in fixing the saint, Paul would be telling us to pray for the fix, but Paul is filling us in on a secret that Jesus Christ revealed to him. God expects us to make the right use of our minds in light of the doctrine he’s given us through the ministry of the apostle Paul. 
 We should no longer be in need of someone to turn our heads, and tell us what to do, and which direction we are to take, will we always make the right decisions, NO, but we can certainly learn from the decisions we make, so that we can make better decisions the next time around. 
 Choices always bring along with those choices consequences, the choices have been given us to make, as well as the consequences to reap for the choices we make.
 All believers, during this age of grace, are adopted sons, but we are the children of God, as Paul will go on to say, but in what sense are we the children of God? The Galatian saints had begun following the Judaizers, but under what gospel had they been saved in the first place, Paul’s gospel! 
 Paul had begotten them by his gospel, they had their new creation, because of believing the good news Paul presented them. Paul is the one who had led these saints to a saving knowledge of the justice resolving accomplishment of Jesus Christ on their behalf, Paul gave birth to these saints in the sense of bringing them to a saving knowledge of Christ. 
 Unfortunately, we continue to sin, even though our sins have been paid for, and we will continue to sin, as long as we remain in our earthly bodies with the indwelling sin nature we inherited from Adam, God’s justice has been satisfied, but sin will remain a part of our earthly existence. 
 Yet, Satan’s ministers of righteousness are busy at work within the righteous structure called religion, in order to keep the meaning of Paul’s good news hidden, to keep people’s eyes blinded to the truth of what Christ really accomplished.

It was the new identity Christ accomplished for Paul that made such a great impact upon Paul, it is not striving to become a better someone, it is recognizing the someone God has already made us to be. It is understanding our new position in Christ, when we come to fully understand and appreciate that new position, the striving can end. 
 The law of the new nature of life in Jesus Christ, if that is not a liberating truth! Paul told us there was a fixed rule in his life, a rule that he could count on no matter the circumstance, no matter the presence of indwelling sin, no matter his conduct, a rule that applies to all believers, and Paul calls that rule, the law of the new nature of life in Jesus Christ. 
 It was not Paul’s practical walk that made him free from the law of sin and death, it was the law of the new nature of life in Jesus Christ that liberated the apostle Paul, the law of the new nature of life in Jesus Christ is the true liberator. 
 Those who are in Jesus Christ are those who place no confidence in their flesh, but understood, as Paul understood, that in people’s flesh dwells no good thing.
 While no believer will be sin less, hopefully, we will all sin less, as our behavior is impacted by our transformed thinking, and that transformed thinking comes through taking in the Word of God, and having the Word do its work in our lives. 
 The sin nature disease called iniquity runs within the deepest recesses of the human mind, recesses beyond our conscious reasoning, God can see what people cannot see, and the disease that manifests itself in our coming short of the right thing to do all of the time, every thought, every word, and every deed, and the coming short of the measure of God’s rightness, actions in our lives are called sins. 
 Grace is a much greater motivator than law, conduct becoming a believer does not come through a fear of losing one’s salvation, conduct becoming a believer comes from a proper understanding of the magnitude of God’s grace, and what that grace accomplished for us. 
 We are not to tell the lost that God can take away their sins, we are to tell the lost God has already taken them away, so that they might believe that good news message, and be joined to the Savior. 
 Those who believe God’s message to us through the apostle Paul, the apostle that God appointed to relay that message to us, are now ambassadors of this wonderful news which our apostle calls the glorious gospel of the grace of God. 
 The fact that God is no longer imputing the sins of the world, to the world of sinners has nothing to do with the self-righteous efforts through performance of individuals, it has nothing to do with a proper approach to God, in order to get him to stop doing that which he has not been doing since his son became sin on all people’s behalf. 
 The issue is not that of sinners making God’s son become their Savior through the avenue of a present day forgiveness of sins, but in believing that the son of God became their Savior the day he took their sins, the entirety of that sin debt upon himself, and that is what makes a person Heaven worthy. 
 It is not the non-imputation of sins that makes a person Heaven ready, it is the imputation of the very righteousness that belongs to the Savior that makes us Heaven worthy.

This is what being in Christ is all about, what is his is ours, we are joint-heirs with Jesus Christ, this is how intricate, how intimate is our union with our Savior, this is our new identity and has been our new identity from the very instant we believed Paul’s good news. 
 If God is no longer imputing people’s sins unto them, because God imputed those sins to his son, would that mean that the entire world would then instantaneously become dead to sin, NO, because Reconciliation and Sanctification are not one and the same, they are two different truths. 
 No one is dead to sin apart from being baptized into Jesus Christ, even though God is not imputing people’s sins to their account, no person is placed into God’s son, apart from belief. 
 We are identified with every aspect of the One to who we were joined at the point of our belief, when Christ died, it is just as though we died from the judicial viewpoint of God, when Chris was buried, it is just as though we were buried right alongside Christ from God’s viewpoint, that is how intricate is our union. 
 When God raised Jesus Christ from among the dead, from God’s perspective, we are raised and seating in Heaven right now.
 What God wanted Israel to see was her shortcoming, her sin, the law was given to manifest, or to bring to light the indisputable reality of sin, the undeniable truth of the existence of sin, even in a person who thought they were performing sufficiently, righteously to merit a justified standing before God. 
 Now if a religious Israelite was sinful, what does that say about the rest of the world, the law was given to Israel and that condemned the entire world, everyone has done exactly like Israel, it condemned the entire human-race according to Paul, for all have sinned. 
 But now, it’s a gift decree of perfect righteousness put on our account immediately at the point of our belief, it’s a judicial transaction that is all of God’s doing, none of our doing, it’s not something we become through practice, it’s a gift decree of righteousness given us by God. 
 How is it that Jesus Christ is the one who is performing that which is good through us, rather than our flesh performing that which is good for Christ? 
 The realization that God’s love accomplished some fantastic things on our behalf, apart from an understanding of the love of God, the love he has for us, the love of Christ, and what that love accomplished for us, while we were yet sinners, our only motivation to serve others would be self-interest related. 
 The sin nature always points us to do that which satisfies the sin nature, and brings credit to self, this is true of all of us, we did not derive our position in Christ by way of our performance, so we need to stop trying to enhance our position in Christ by way of our performance, the source of the position that we have in Christ and the Word of God can do the work of God in our life. 
 Paul could never get away from himself, if any good was to come from our apostle, it would have to be the indwelling power from on high producing that good, the fruit of God’s power from on high, it’s God’s fruit, it’s not our fruit.

Thanks everyone, but God has kept the fingerprints of the guilt-worthy off of the righteousness he designed for the guilt-worthy. God is not patiently waiting for us to change our mind about what we do, many have done that, thinking it gains salvation. God views us in our glorified identity, he sees us as being joined to his son. When we do not understand the doctrinal truths Paul taught pertaining to our sealed position in Christ, we have no ground for success in the practical arena. We are capable of transforming our thinking, it is a new operating system, day by day renewal of the mind as to who we are in Christ. Paul did indeed teach a different teaching from what the 12 were taught, because it’s a gift decree of perfect righteousness put on our account immediately at the point of our belief, it’s a judicial transaction that is all of God’s doing, none of our doing, it’s not something we become through practice, it’s a gift decree of righteousness given us by God. Paul also showed that we are not an extension of believing Israel time past carried on over in some spiritual form to the age of grace, can not be. We are not now, nor will we ever be spiritual Israel, God has designed believers to be a brand new unique organism operating as a living breathing manifestation of Christ’s Body right here on planet earth. Paul also showed that Grace and Law are polar opposites and God will share no one joined to his son with the law. Human righteousness comes from self-interest motivation, it’s self-glorifying, and while it may be of earthly benefit, that won’t cut it when it comes to meeting the demands of God’s perfect justice. Thanks everyone.

The goal of the apostle Paul is to establish us and every believer in the knowledge of our sanctified standing before God, our being placed into his son. Justification and Sanctification are “much more” assurance that Paul is giving us, as to the security that we as believers have, being placed into Christ. 
 We see Paul using this term “much more” over and over again, these are “much more” security passages that we find in Romans. The “much more” idea that Paul had in his mind when he was writing Romans, Paul wants to establish our minds in the “much more” assurance that we have, so we can have that stability of mind and stability of emotions, if the will is the governor of the emotions. 
 When it comes to the establishment of the mind of the believer, and the truth of their secure position in Christ, this is security, this is who we are in Christ, we can not lose it. This is why our faith in Christ’s faithfulness is essential!
 How many people not understanding Justification or Sanctification will say, “See there, if you do not live right, if you just let that flesh run wild, you are going to be a castaway, you are going to lose your salvation.” 
 1 Corinthians 9:27, people not understanding this passage, a passage out of its context is a pretext, and so their pretext is you can lose your salvation, which is foolishness. 
 Paul did not want to lose rewards at the Beam Seat of Christ, he wanted to do what was befitting a person who believes the good news, not for his righteous standing before God, but for his testimony before others. Paul did not want those to whom he was preaching to look at his life, the manner in which he lived his life, and then reject the message he was preaching. 
 Paul is telling us not how he set himself apart in order to gain a greater righteousness before God through his performance, but how he made his life-style, to the best he could conform to who God had already made him to be in his sanctified position being joined to the Savior, that he might more affectively reach others, that was Paul’s key motivation. 
 Paul is letting us know here in the book of Romans, that God did not make Heaven for good people, God made Heaven for sinners who are justified freely by his grace. How many of us share Paul’s concern today, when it comes to the life we live out of appreciation, not out of apprehension, or out of an attempt to earn a more righteous stranding before God. 
 We have a self-sanctification in the positive sense of separating ourselves from those things we know that are not good for us or not good for others, not in order to merit any more righteousness before God through that performance, but in light of all that God has already made us to be in Christ. 
 Motivation is the key component when it comes to self-sanctification, for what reason do we set ourselves apart, is it to be more holy, so God can see us as more holy, that is self-sanctification negatively. 
 A lot of people suppose that becoming more righteous in practice will make them more righteous in God’s sight, faulty thinking, Paul called it foolish, it will not gain them Heaven, there are a lot of misconceived notions out there concerning the book of Romans.

Why we need to believe, why it is we believe, what happens when we believe, it’s faith presented in the Book of Romans, it’s not how we become more righteous practically, that is something different, it’s how God declares us to be righteous judicially as a gift and how God’s able to do that. 
 All our sins were future, when Jesus Christ died for them, so God had to know about them, and they all went on his son, never to be judged again. 
 When we place our trust in what Christ accomplished where our sins are concerned, we are joined to the Savior himself, the baptism by God’s power from on high into Christ, immersed not into water, but immersed into Jesus Christ, and it’s in that sense and it’s through that method that God can declare unrighteous believers to be as righteous as God himself, what belongs to the son, belongs to us, we are joint-heirs with Christ. 
 When we look back to Israel’s program, we will see the prayer of faith. James in his Epistle, he leaves no doubt about the power of prayer in Israel’s program, they walked by sight, and God allowed their prayer life to work in connection with sight, when that earthly kingdom is on their doorstep again. 
 We do not need to be too discouraged, as we watch the times unfold and the worries come, they just bring us ever closer to what we would call, our blessed hope. The one-world government architects of our day are steering us ever closer, and at an ever more rapid pace toward that time, when the entire world will need an answer man. 
 Rest assured, an answer man will arrive on the scene, once God has called his ambassadors of the age of grace home, yet, as the world will learn when that answer man comes along, he will not really have the answers at all, he will be the false fixer. 
 Satan’s goal is to counterfeit Christ’s reign on earth with his own reign, but when Christ is reigning on the throne, there will be a one world government system in place, and Christ will be the supreme archon of that governmental system. Satan, in his attempt to be like the most high God, also, wants a world-wide governmental system, but without Christ. 
 The Gospel of the Kingdom was about the nearness, the proximity of the kingdom of God on earth. The Gospel of God was about the identity of the earthly king, the Gospel of God had application to both programs of God, the program of God with Israel, the earthly program, and the program with us in an age of grace for the heavenly realm. 
 The 12 apostles were teaching the identity of Jesus as the messiah after God raised him from among the dead, Paul also teaches the identity of Jesus Christ (Christ means messiah), he did teach the Gospel of God, but the issue in eternity in Heaven will be to which man are we related, do we have our identity in the first Adam, or do we have our identity in the second Adam, Jesus Christ. 
 We have to believe that Christ died, and not just died for our sins, but what was accomplished when he died for our sins, what was accomplished where those sins were concerned.

One serving of self, leads to another serving of self, words spoken in haste, lead to other words spoken in haste, harmful words to further harmful words, we serve the sin nature rather than our Savior, as we serve self, rather than the Body of saints to whom we are as equally and intimately joined, as we are joined to our Savior. 
 Apart from trusting Jesus Christ as Savior, human righteousness comes from self-interest-motivation, it is self-glorifying, and while it may be of earthly benefit, that will not cut it when it comes to meeting the demands of God’s perfect justice. 
 Paul is just bringing this to our attention, and he is not taking us to judgment and chastisement, he is taking us to position and obligation, “Owe no man anything, but to love one another.” 
 My service to God, is no greater than my service to you. Jesus Christ’s faith in the Father’s will, and Christ was faithful to do the Father’s will, so it was ultimately Christ’s faith that allowed God’s justice to remain intact, as God declares an unrighteous believer to be righteous, apart from Christ’s faith and his faithfulness to carry out the Father’s will based on that faith, there would not be anyone perfectly righteous, to whom God could join a believing sinner. 
 Just as Christ never doubted the will of the Father, the Father never doubted the faith and faithfulness of his son, it was God’s plan to use the faith and its resultant faithfulness of the son of God, in the ultimate glorification of human-kind, the union of believers to Christ, is that which allows God to remain just, when he credits those with righteousness with that which belongs to the one who is absolutely, perfectly righteous. 
 When Paul talks about a new creature, old things being past away, all things become new, he is not talking about sin in an individuals life, he is talking about all that we were prior to salvation, in Adam. Once saved, we are no longer in Adam, we are at the initial point of our belief, in Jesus Christ. 
 In God’s eyes we are no longer who we once were, we are now the new creation, being forever joined to our savior. Paul is not talking about a believer gaining sinful perfection at the point of their belief, or at any other time for that manner, a person who believes that sin in others proves a lack of salvation, is a person who is over looking the sin in themselves, that individual is thinking more highly of themselves, than they ought. 
 Paul did not say eliminate our sin nature all together, instead, Paul said mortify it, render it functionally inoperative, do not allow it to reach it’s final culmination, which is separation and division, while it will always be present with us, we do not have to allow it to rule and reign in our life, or to fracture others who happen across our path.

According to Paul, we have how much forgiveness, total forgiveness! If we want God to view us today, we got to be in his son. At the point of our belief in what Christ accomplished where our sins are concerned, we are as closely associated with Christ as anyone could be, we are joined to him. 
 God has kept the fingerprints of the guilt-worthy off of the righteousness he designed for the guilt-worthy. God is not patiently waiting for us to change our mind about what we do, many have done that, thinking it gains salvation. God views us in our glorified identity, he sees us as being joined to his son. 
 Remember, we were given our righteous standing as a free gift. It’s a grace gift given by God, and we receive it the instant we place our faith in Christ having resolved God’s justice for our sins. This gift decree of righteousness comes totally apart from any and all human promise or all human performance or all human production. 
 No human merit whatsoever for this free gift, God will never consider our works as a payment for God’s justifying declaration. When a person changes their lifestyle after salvation, it is because that person is attempting to set themselves apart from their former lifestyle. 
 Unbelievers are fully capable of setting themselves apart, people are doing that every day and to varying degrees. The flesh is never capable of performance to the standard of the perfection belonging to God himself, no matter how set apart we try to become. 
 Some believers quit drinking, some say when they quit drinking that God took it away from them. Non-believers quit drinking, did God take it away from them? God sets every believer apart, not some more so than others, but everyone who has believed what his son accomplished is set apart by God himself. 
 God is the sanctifier, not the person, and it comes regardless of how those believers set themselves apart. Our righteous standing before God is accomplished through our being set-apart, the only way we can ever be made totally and perfectly as righteous as God himself is for that believer to be joined to God’s son. 
 God has set us apart and he calls us righteous based not upon what we do or what we abstain from doing where he’s concerned, or not upon any promise we might make along those lines, but upon Christ’s righteousness and our faith in Christ’s faithful sacrifice on our behalf, because it is at that point of our belief that God’s power from high set us apart. 
 God alters our identity be removing us judicially in God’s mind from an identification with Adam, and now we are judicially identified with Jesus Christ. God places us into Christ, we have been made part of Jesus Christ’s body, part of his flesh, and part of his bones according to Paul.

The direction within the Word of God enlightens us as we take it in, it is not for people in order to get them saved, or for keeping them saved, or to keep fellowship, it is for people who are already saved and sealed saints, the direction is in the written Word of God, it’s the Word of God that gives us or sheds that light on us. 
 Light in the sense of understanding, so that people might gain that understanding of who God is, and his plan for us, and who we are, and the relationships we should have between one another. Direction within the Word of God was addressing those words not just to pastors in the pulpits, but to the people in the pews, because God’s direction was addressed to the saints, not to the pastors. 
 What is religion all about, it is called, walking after the flesh. When Paul talks about walking after the flesh, he’s not talking about continuing a sinful lifestyle, as most suppose that he has in mind, to walk after the flesh, is to attribute to the flesh the ability through performance to earn a righteous, or more righteous standing before God. 
 All who think that their performance can gain them heaven are proving their lack of understanding, when it comes to Paul’s use of the term “flesh”, rather they sit in an assembly where sin is being continually hammered in some manner, to keep people on the right track. To walk after the flesh is to suppose that righteousness comes from or sourced from what we do, or what we refuse not to do, what we commit or promise not to do again. 
 Faith, we learn the necessity of a total abandonment of any notion, that any person can merit righteousness before God through the performance of the flesh, and that we must place our trust solely in the fact that God accomplished our salvation for us through his son’s death, when he judged his son for our sins. 
 When ungodly people are willing to simply take God at his Word, abandoning any notion that they can merit a righteous standing with God through their performance, and trust solely in what Christ accomplished for them, having resolved that issue of their sins, God’s power from on high performs a miracle in those people’s lives by uniting those believers with Christ himself. Paul did not want to lose rewards at the Beam Seat of Christ, he wanted to do what was befitting a person who believes the good news, not for his righteous standing before God, but for his testimony before others. Paul did not want those to whom he was preaching to look at his life, the manner in which he lived his life, and then reject the message he was preaching.

We are discharged from the law all together according to the apostle Paul, we have been set free, Christ issued the discharge papers and Paul delivered those papers. Why did God put that performance-based merit system in place in the first place, because God was proving to weak and sinful flesh, the inability of the flesh to fulfill its righteous demands, we can look back at the law now, and we can say, you can not touch me anymore, your condemnation will have no effect on me whatsoever! 
 I know the parameters, I no longer fear the repercussions of your ruler-ship, I know the condemnation you bring because of the emotions you stir up in the weakness of my flesh. Our blessing are not based on our performance in any way, shape, or form, our blessings are based on Christ’s performance, because we are members of his flesh. 
 How many blessings was God free to shower upon those who are joined to the flesh of his son according to Paul, all blessings in Heaven, the place of our citizenship, in Christ!
We are waiting for our new bodies, the body God has in store for each of us, a body that will be fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body with that eternal life as its source of life, and all the while, we are seeking deliverance from the suffering circumstances we face and we are seeking it all the time. 
 We want a deliverance that we can see, if God is miraculously delivering here and there from the problems that come along believer’s way in these old earthly tents, those people will be more absorbed in the deliverance of the old man, than they are focused on the hope of the new man. 
 When we get our new bodies, we will be delivered from the suffering circumstances that adversely affect the old tent in which we must dwell until we die or the gathering together occurs, whichever is first, it is not the deliverance of the old, it’s the hope of the new, today.
 Emotion can lead us down the path, and will oftentimes, most likely lead us down the wrong path, when emotion becomes the governor of our intellect, rather than the doctrinally governed intellect becoming the ruler of our emotions, emotion should never be the fuel, we should never be emotionally driven, but doctrinally driven. 
 Each of us struggles with an inner sense of right and wrong, and the difficulty we face in doing the right thing, in light of the inclination that all of us had to do that which we deemed to be wrong. We cannot say that only believers struggle with sin, because disobeying our conscience is coming short, in our mind, as to what we know to be the right thing to do, that’s the sin nature working in opposition to the conscience to have a person go in a direction contrary to that inner sense of right and wrong, that’s common to all humankind. 
 Unbelievers and believers alike struggle with the innate sense of right and wrong, and the are drawn toward that desire to fulfill the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

Wholeness and meaning in life are not the products of what we have or do not have, what we have done or have not done, we are already a whole person and possess a life of infinite meaning and purpose because of who we are in Christ. The inevitable result of God’s grace to the believer is true peace because every believer is without blame before him in love. 
 If we fail to understand that we are blameless and what being blameless is all about; God sees us in Christ and Christ was blameless. To be positionally in Christ makes a person a saint, because we have the very righteousness of God himself freely attributed to our account. 
 It is difficult for the human mind to lay hold of the magnitude of what the grace of God is all about and what that grace has accomplished on behalf of every signal person who has trusted what Christ accomplished. 
 For a person to have to make his own peace with God would be nothing more than an exercise in futility, it could never be done. To say that any person could make their own peace with God would be to limit God to his mercy. 
 Every miss deed, every miss step, if we are making our own peace with God, every failure no matter how large or small to our way of thinking would require a new act of mercy on the part of God. Mercy simply withholds that which is due, mercy simply withholds that which we deserve. 
 Grace on the other hand, bestows freely that which we could never earn and could never deserve. We need to cease attributing our righteous standing before God to our performance and keep our mind focused solely on how God views us IN Christ, that is what grace-life is all about, and we will be victorious in that God’s power can now produce it’s fruit in our life. 
 There is a glory that belongs to God’s grace, and it is to be praised on the bases on what God’s grace has accomplished. What an ingenious salvation plan, to take someone else that is righteous and join us to that person. God has a purpose for those who believe, he predestinated us to be conformed to the image of his son. What a ludicrous way for us to be thinking, placing ourselves back under the law for righteousness before God. The lunacy of desiring to be under the law, in order to perfect our righteousness in God’s sight. 
 Is it not a foolish notion to suppose that our righteous works can enhance the righteousness that belongs to Jesus Christ, to whom we have been joined. Can a person’s righteous works be added to the righteousness belonging to Jesus Christ himself, in order to arrive at a greater degree of righteousness than the righteousness already belonging to our Savior. 
 Is God requiring that we add our righteous works to Christ’s righteousness that we might become righteous indeed or is Christ’s righteousness the only righteousness from God’s perspective his saints will ever need. Pride insists upon attributing success to self, we are either under the jurisdiction of the law which requires performance for righteousness or we are under the jurisdiction of Jesus Christ and our position in him is our righteousness, we can not have it both ways.

The only ones who can take up any piece of God’s armor, and the only ones who are involved in this struggle against the enemy, are those who have been placed into Christ. The fact that the helmet is related to salvation indicates that the enemies blows are directed at the believer’s security and assurance of being placed into Christ. 
 Two dangerous edges of the enemies broadsword are discouragement and doubt. With the helmet of salvation firmly on, we see ourselves for who we really are, and when our faith in God’s omnipotence and care is strong, it is impossible for the enemy to break through our shield of faith and land an attack. Our enemies are actively involved in trying to distract us by peppering our mind with their thoughts and ideas. 
 They are always hurling their fiery darts of fear, doubt, and worry in our direction, but the only time they can hit us is when we let our shield of faith down. A shield deflects, it keeps the darts of the enemy away from our mind, the shield moves with the attack. 
 Our understanding of the identity that Adam had before the fall, that identity has been restored to us, that restored identity is the critical foundation for our belief structure and our behavior patterns. It is absolutely vital that we put on the breastplate of righteousness, so that we can resist the persistent accusation of the enemy, they never give up trying to get us down and keep us down by hurling one false accusation after another.

No one needs to be told how to live the Christian life, it’s not about trying to change something, it’s trying to understand something, and then work with that understanding. Paul calls it a labor of love, the members of the Body of Christ are to be the supporting cast of the Body of Christ. 
 There are times when the physical presence of another believer is helpful to a suffering saint, there are times when it is not. There are times when holding the hand of a suffering saint is welcomed, there are times when it is not. 
 Just being there in times of distress can be comforting to a suffering saint who is seeking that type of support, some saints would rather have solitude. Sin shall not have dominion over us, because we are not living under the law program, we are living under grace, the victory has already been won, because Christ won it, sin shall not have dominion over us, because believers are not under the law, but under grace. The Body of Christ is not about program, but about judicial position. The hope for both programs is the same, and that hope is a new body and resurrection from the among the dead unto eternal life, that hope is true for both programs. 
 The saints of both programs are promised that hope, but the residential destinations promised the believers of the two programs are entirely different, the earthly calling and the heavenly calling refer to the program to which believers have been called in their destinations. 
 The earth was the only realm of which God’s earthly nation Israel had been given inheritance, Heaven was not the issue for the nation Israel, they were never promised Heaven. Since there was resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead, the entire human race can be assured they will be resurrected as well, both believers and non-believers of both programs will be resurrected from the dead, but the unbelievers of all ages will be raised at the end of the Millennium time to be be judged by the one who has been given all authority to judge. Thank you.

The fact that every believer is set apart by God as being holy at that point of that person’s belief, God is the one who is performing the setting apart, God accomplishes this sanctification by joining all who believe to his son. 
 Paul even tells the carnal saints at Corinth that the reason these detestable deeds (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) had not and could not result in a lost of their salvation or their fellowship with God for that matter, is because as carnal as these Corinthians happen to be, they had a holy standing with God through their union with his son. 
 Paul is not bringing this list to their attention in order to frighten them, he wants to remind them that God no longer sees them in that light, he’s bringing to their attention the fact that God is now, no longer viewing them apart from righteousness that belongs to his son. 
 The gift decree of righteousness belonging to the son had been totally and permanently credited to the account of these carnal believers, to their account in heaven at the point of their belief. 
 The law pointed to sin, and then required death for the sinner, can the law now stake a further claim against the one who has already satisfied that claim, will the law ever again have a future claim where Jesus Christ is concerned, he satisfied that claim once and for all. 
 We are joined to Jesus Christ, fully identified with his satisfying the law’s claim, it only stands to reason that once a person is joined to the one who has satisfied the law’s requirement for sins, and is now standing only in Christ’s perfect righteousness, that believer’s sinfulness can never be used as proof of that believer’s lack of righteousness. 
 Paul moves us away from the realm of condition, and he takes us straight into the realm of position, the law can make no demand on the world of the lawlessness, because Christ met the law’s demands for the world of sinners for which he died. Today, the law can only serve the purpose of proving people’s need for a righteousness that no person is capable of gaining through performance.