teachmevp

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 his 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. 
 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. Shall we continue to sin that grace may abound? There are two reasons given in response in the hallways of religion, judgment and chastisement. Those are the traditional answers as to why Christians should not think they should continue to sin. 
 Yet, Paul gives two entirely different reasons to that very same question, identity and slavery, Paul does not side with religion. If we continue to yield the members of our body to serve the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, we can fall into a snare in that we become addicted to the manner in which we satisfy those lusts. We are going to become enslaved to that which we choose to put ourselves in servitude. Choose to serve sin, and we can soon become addicted to the manner in which we have chosen to serve sin, is the principle. Paul is not talking about a believer losing salvation, he is talking about what those who pursue the satisfaction of the sinful lusts, we reap what we sow, not from God, but through that to which we are reaping. 
 The sin nature within us loves sin. There is something attractive about sin to mankind, something that is pleasin’ for a season when it comes to that issue of sin, something that appeals to the flesh. 
 Does God want us to set ourselves apart unto righteous behavior in order that he might have cause to consider us to be righteous? A quest for righteousness before God through performance is the wrong motivation for doing the things that Paul calls on every believer to do and for abstaining from the particular behavior Paul would have us avoid. 
 We all miss the mark, we all come short, some of us may come closer to it than others, but none of us completely and consistently eliminate sin in our lives. Most people think that victory over the law’s demands can only be achieved by obedience to the law’s demands. We that believed Paul’s good news, our being set apart is not contingent upon the degree to which we set ourselves apart.

Is Paul telling us to turn from our wicked ways, and get back to the law, or to promise God that we will do our very best to turn from our wicked ways, or that we must be willing at least, in our minds to turn from our wicked ways in order to get God to make the decision to save, we have not hear that from our apostle. 
 If a person hears Paul’s good news, and that person refuses to believe Paul’s message, choosing instead to believe that their works can add something, that their works can do something to do with getting them save, or keeping them saved, that person does indeed need to change their thinking, they need to repent. 
 All who are believing the messages presented by the ministers of righteousness today, they need to change their thinking and accept Paul’s message as being the truth in order to receive justification unto eternal life by being placed into Jesus Christ, so repentance, or a change of thinking is necessary in that sense, even in this age of grace. 
 Many of the people preaching Paul’s words and proclaiming them to be true, are doing so without fully understanding what Paul has just said, they say the words much like they would say the words of the gospel - for Christ died for our sins - without really fully understanding or ever coming to comprehend what happened to the sins Christ died for. 
 Paul’s message is unique and distinct from the message of Jesus Christ and the 12 apostles, there is difference in God’s earthly program and God’s heavenly program, what traditions of people must be left behind if we take the doctrine of Paul seriously? 
 The mindset of the religious of Paul’s day and the religious of ours, the pride nature is the root cause of that rejection, pride insists upon attributing success to self, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, it is a fearful thing to think they may have been wrong all along. 
 Paul was continually fighting against a mixed message (Galatianism), same false religious systems are operation and being promoted in our day.

Shall we continue to sin that grace may abound? There are two reasons given in response in the hallways of religion, judgment and chastisement. Those are the traditional answers as to why Christians should not think they should continue to sin. 
 Yet, Paul gives two entirely different reasons to that very same question, identity and slavery, Paul does not side with religion. If we continue to yield the members of our body to serve the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, we can fall into a snare in that we become addicted to the manner in which we satisfy those lusts. We are going to become enslaved to that which we choose to put ourselves in servitude. Choose to serve sin, and we can soon become addicted to the manner in which we have chosen to serve sin, is the principle. Paul is not talking about a believer losing salvation, he is talking about what those who pursue the satisfaction of the sinful lusts, we reap what we sow, not from God, but through that to which we are reaping. 
 The sin nature within us loves sin. There is something attractive about sin to mankind, something that is pleasin’ for a season when it comes to that issue of sin, something that appeals to the flesh. 
 Does God want us to set ourselves apart unto righteous behavior in order that he might have cause to consider us to be righteous? A quest for righteousness before God through performance is the wrong motivation for doing the things that Paul calls on every believer to do and for abstaining from the particular behavior Paul would have us avoid. 
 We all miss the mark, we all come short, some of us may come closer to it than others, but none of us completely and consistently eliminate sin in our lives. Most people think that victory over the law’s demands can only be achieved by obedience to the law’s demands. We that believed Paul’s good news, our being set apart is not contingent upon the degree to which we set ourselves apart.

Most people think that victory over the law’s demands can only be achieved by obedience to the law’s demands. If they do not want to undergo the penalty of death as the law demands, they had better obey the law. They are out there trying and sometimes with much sincerity to obey in order to gain the victory. 
 Well, that is not how it is done according to the apostle Paul anymore, it is about what has already been done for them, and why continue to wallow in the mud from which they have been rescued. Paul takes us away from chastisement and judgment and he leads us toward the reality of our position. 
 You see, the victory belongs to us right now. It’s always belonged to us. It’s something we have always had. It is not something we have to strive for, something we gain through our performance through time. Paul wants us to know that our position in Christ means that we are already victorious! 
 Nothing in the law can stake its claim on us, the believer ever again. Being joined to the perfectly righteous Savior means that the law can never again point to our lack of righteousness. Victory over the law, victory over sin and victory over death are ours to enjoy right this very moment. 
 We cannot become more victorious than that through anything we do, we cannot add to that. There is no greater victory over sin that can be gained by mankind than the victory already achieved by Jesus Christ. For those who have a knowledge of sin, death is particularly painful. What is it that gives sin its power to generate this heightened fear in those who understand their lack of righteousness before God? The Law! 
 In fact, the law is the exact measure of the righteousness required by God through performance in order to gain righteousness through performance. It is the law that proves people’s unrighteous condition. When the law is held up against the best that any person can do, the law proves all people are lacking the righteousness necessary to dwell with God. 
 Paul moves those who are believers away from condition and takes us to position. It is the law that gives death the power to bring heightened pain to those who understand their sinful condition. God designed the law to make sin show its hand, to make sin abound, so that people could look at that picture of the law and look at themselves and could see that their sin was exceedingly sinful. 
 The truth is, the law brought forth sin, it incites the pride-nature to rebellion. Performance of the flesh must be removed from the picture when it comes to the righteousness necessary for a relationship with God. It is a person’s knowledge of their sinful condition, that makes death such a fearful event for the non-believer. 
 A person must trust that their sin issue was resolved in its entirely in order for God’s power from on high to baptize (identify) that person into Christ with the righteousness that belongs only to the Savior. There can be no further payment for sin as that payment was made by Jesus Christ and it was made once for all, the sin issue became a son issue. 
 To be justified means to receive that gift that came to all mankind, the gift declaration of the very righteousness of God, no one can receive that unless that person is placed into Christ. Being placed into Christ, joined to Christ is the method whereby God justices a person, or righteousifies a person. The issue at the Great White Throne Judgment will be those standing there in their own righteousness.

You know how giving earnest money works when it comes to making a purchase today. When a person gives earnest money in connection with a purchase, that person is guaranteeing, through that which is given in advance their intention of following through on that which they have promised. 
 Well, according to the apostle Paul, the indwelling of God’s power from on high is both God’s seal and his deposited pledge that all believers are forever his and are destined to inherit eternal life. The security all believers have in that the indwelling of God’s power from on high guarantees that those who have believed Paul’s good news can never be lost, they belong to God. 
 The word “sealed” means sealed for preservation. The seal is the safeguarding device, the securing device, used to preserve the contents. God’s power from on high is the seal that God uses to secure all who believe in this dispensation of grace. 
 The word “earnest” means a pledge in the sense that an advance deposit has been made as the security guaranteeing the fulfillment of that which has been promised to those who have been sealed. We were not sealed on the basis of our behavior, but upon the basis of (and at the point of) our belief, that is a seal we can fully depend upon. 
 Understand that repentance in the earthly kingdom program was not about turning away from their sins and not sinning anymore. Repentance was about changing one’s mind when it came to earning a righteous standing with God through their performance. 
 God wanted them to change their minds about how faithful they had been and how faithful they could hope to be, when it came to meriting his acceptance through adherence to the law contract. We can see how how mixing the two programs along with improperly interpreting the Scripture for that program, can lead to misguided thinking when it comes to the issue of eternal security. 
 The fact that mankind is unable to do anything to alter their sinful condition, human reasoning would say, “Give us something that we can do. Give us some way to perform. Give us a few balls of our own to hit, so that we might earn back what we lost through Adam.” 
 God’s reasoning said, “Impossible!” The Law that God gave to Israel was a measure of what mankind would have to perform to be accepted by God. God did not give Israel a law they could keep. God gave Israel a law impossible for those with a sin-nature to obey perfectly, in order to teach them their need of a Savior.

The vast majority of the people of this earth do not understand what reconciliation is all about, they think that new sin needs a new measure of reconciliation. Is that not the golden thread woven through every denomination out there, it is called religion. The truth is mankind could not obtain an ounce of forgiveness if they tried, because God has already forgiven all mankind. 
 Therefore the assumption is, God is not reconciled when they sin. In their mind they are separating themselves from God by their sin, and Paul is saying, God is already reconciled mankind were their sins are concerned. 
 The apostle Paul was commissioned to tell people that God is reconciled where the totality of the sin debt of all mankind is concerned, sin is no longer the issue on the table of God’s justice today. Sin has all been forgiven upfront, there is not an ounce of forgiveness to be obtained. 
 The reconciliation that Christ accomplished for mankind was total, complete, everlasting, and unalterable, it will always stand. Jesus did not die to give people a reprieve, he did not die to give people temporary relief. This is not difficult, God said what his son did for mankind was sufficient to absolve every one of their sin debt-past, present, and future, it is gone. If the flesh is incapable of producing righteousness, why is it then that Paul exhorts us to do certain things and to avoid other things? The flesh always points us to do that which satisfies the sin nature and brings credit to self. This is true of all of us. We see that we need to die to self, although our salvation is not dependent upon how well we accomplish this. Yet, as ambassadors of the ministry of reconciliation our witness is dependent upon how well we accomplish this. Dying to self is not fun or easy, but what is particularly difficult about fighting this tendency is that it is not exactly a behavior or action. 
 It can certainly manifest itself in those forms, but underneath them is an attitude. Dying to self is a real change of mind and attitude towards sin itself and the cause of it. The fact that God took sins off the table of his justice through his son’s death, does not righteousify us. 
 We have to believe that message of what happened to our sins, and there’s where ministers of righteousness are having a hay day, because they are keeping the issue of sins on the table of God’s justice, when they are no longer on the table of God’s justice. Rather than asking for forgiveness when we sin, and we all sin, we should thank God every moment of our lives for the forgiveness that was achieved for us when Jesus Christ died for us. 
 In order to dwell with God in eternity future, we have to be as righteous as God, his justice will not allow nothing other. Until we believe what happened to the sins Christ died for, we are not placed into Christ. 
 It is a simple message, but very difficult for the pride nature to get past, because people’s pride nature says that if I broke it, I can play a part in fixing it, and we all attempt to do that, and religion is there to give us a hand along the way. We are told by Paul, the good news is what will we do when it comes to our taking God at his word, concerning what Christ accomplished where our sins are concerned. 
 This gift decree from God comes by faith, not by our works, not by our efforts, he can look at the sinning person who believes and call that sinning person a saint, because at the very point of our belief, we are that instant joined to Christ. In God’s eyes we are no longer who we once were, we are now a new creation, having been forever joined to Christ. 
 Most people have no understanding that there are divisions within God’s word, and those who do understand that God has a plan and purpose for the body of Christ, which is unique and different from his earthly plan and purpose for the nation Israel. Most of those people fail to see where in scripture God put his earthly plan on hold and thus they fail to see where the body of Christ had it’s beginning. 

 Our justification was something accomplished for us by God’s grace. God has already set every believer apart as holy. Every believer strands perfectly righteous or perfectly holy, justified according to God’s gift declaration of righteousness. 
 We that believed Paul’s good news, we have the very righteousness of Jesus Christ himself credited to our account. Our setting apart is not contingent upon the degree to which we set ourselves apart.

Your talking about the Bema, we are not going to be judged for anything, because we been blessed with every blessing their is to be blessed with. At the Bema, we will be rewarded for how we severed the Body of Christ, not the world.

Ministers of righteousness use the word reform instead of the word transform, and they would appeal to people to reform, but God does not make that appeal. Transformation is entirely a work of God in the believer. 
 Reformation would be a work of the believer for God. Paul was sent with a brand new message, and Paul would not to have wanted us to mix the message of the 12 Apostles in regard to God’s program to and with the nation Israel, with the message specifically given him for the Gentiles. Many people involved in religion’s domain are dealing with God on the basis of probation, rather than salvation. 
 God is not testing or proving people today in order to make a final decision as to whether or not to save them, or to keep them saved. All of the saving work that God could possibly do, he has already done through Jesus Christ. God now holds forth the reconciliation that Christ has accomplished, offering people the choice to either accept or reject that gift of salvation. Appreciation based on the reality of salvation, not apprehension based on religion’s message of probation. 
 The believer today then, is to be based upon appreciation of what Christ has already done, and the security that they have in him, rather than apprehension based upon a supposition of what God may or may not do in the future for them. On the other hand, many continue to hold on to the notion that they have insufficient worth to warrant what Christ’s death accomplished in the first place. 
 Equally as dangerous, the foolish notion that Christ’s shed blood was insufficient to have fully satisfied God where their sins are concerned, thus the continual need for something further required of them to keep God’s justice up to date. The issue with God is the son, not sin, what are they going to believe about what the son accomplished, or do they still think he is counting those sins against them and coming back to haunt them at some point and time. 
 Unfortunately the gift of salvation will not be accepted by the vast majority of people, but it is their choice to accept or reject it. The reconciliation Paul’s talking about was accomplished by God, he designed it, he provided the means by which it could be accomplished.

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 the enemy 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. 
 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. The issue for life everlasting is not what church you attend or to which denomination you belong or how religious you are. 
 The issue in eternity will not be how many sins you have committed or how many sins you have promised God you will abstain from committing. It will not be whether you have walked an aisle, recited a particular prayer, or asked Jesus into you heart. The issue in eternity will be to which man are you related? 
 Do you have your identity in the first Adam, or do you have your identity in the second Adam, Jesus Christ. 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. Those who are in Christ are those who are not walking after the faulty assumption that their righteousness is related to their performance.
 God has dealt with that problem of sin, and the issue with sanctification is not about sin, but about perfection. We can rejoice and we can give all the glory and the praise to God for the fact that even though that sinful nature is strapped onto our fleshly backs like a rotting corpse, God does not see us in our flesh from his judicial perspective. 
 God does not relate to us on the basis of our performance in the flesh, but on the basis of our new identification in his son, he views us in our glorified identity, he sees us as being joined to his son.

Understanding identity is key! The term “in the flesh” has to do with position, not practice. According to the apostle Paul, “When we were in the flesh”, we that believe were once something, but now we are no longer what we once were. 
 We were dead in sins, because we had our identity in Adam, Adam in rebellion. We now have a brand new identity, “dead to sin” identity. The goal of most believer’s life has been to become disgusted enough with ourselves to try hard enough, so that we can finally win God’s approval. 
 One of the most disturbing things is someone unable to express confidence about whether they can know if they will have eternal life or not. From Adam onward, people have been doing what seems right before other people, in regard to having a relationship with God. 
 Not one member of the entire human race has ever lived up to any system of rule-keeping for righteousness. Yet, how many are attempting today, to do what humankind before us was totally unable to do? Does our no-condemnation status with God depend to any degree whatsoever upon our performance? 
 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. Many believers spend their entire existence unsuccessfully trying to be someone other than who they really are, paying lip service to the idea that we are accepted because of God’s grace, the struggle for acceptance on the basis of works is epidemic, but the greatest travesty of all, is the lack of understanding about our new identity in Christ. 
 It would be disastrous enough if the reason people did not understand who they are was simply for a lack of information, and the truth is that there is an absence of teaching concerning our new identity and what it means to be new creations in Christ. Should we not be grateful today that God no longer recognizes the old man, that he now sees us in our new man identity in Christ! 
 Yet, our flesh will always want to make provision for the flesh. The members of our flesh are like matches, and when we spend a great deal of time striking matches under the curtains, and then we stand there in amazement when the house is burring down. Paul wants us to make the members of our flesh available as weapons of righteousness. 
 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. 
 It is not about perfecting the flesh, it is about crucifying the flesh in our minds. 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 the enemies level. 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.

Our fleshly production did not gain us our position in Christ, and it certainly can not gain us heaven, Christ accomplished that for us. If the works of our flesh did not contribute to getting us saved, how can the works of the flesh play a part in keeping us saved. 
 If we are trying to satisfy God’s justice on a daily basis or however by conforming to a standard of rules and regulations, we are going to find that just the opposite becomes true in our flesh, we are going to find ourselves constantly focusing on the flesh, the milk of self-righteousness will sour under the divine heat of God’s justice. 
 Living after the flesh, from a functional point of view is taking the credit yourself, God is not looking at our production, he is not looking at our behavior in order to view us as being in favor with him, he is looking at our identification with his son, and what God’s power from on high is producing in us, because that is where our life is as far as God is concerned. 
 The general principle works across the board, one drink leads to another drink, one drug leads to another drug, one pleasurable indulgence leads to another pleasurable indulgence, one serving of self leads to another serving of self. 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. 
 The unbelieving world is not under the reign of righteousness, unbelievers are under no obligation to serve righteousness. It should not surprise us to see what we see now, and what we will be seeing in an increasing manner as time goes on in the world today, the unsaved world is simply serving the master they are under. 
 Paul brings this to our attention, and he is not taking us to judgment and chastisement, he is taking us to position and obligation, we serve him to no greater degree than we serve those to whom he’s joined, and they are joined to him equally.

There are two words that are rendered “end” in the New Testament, but the use of these two words must be carefully distinguished. The Greek word “sunteleia” denotes a finishing or ending together, or in conjunction with other things; it implies that several things meet together, and reach their end during the same period, whereas the Greek word “telos” is the point of time at the end of that period. 
 The sign of the telos is the setting up of “the abomination of desolation” spoken of by Daniel the prophet. What ought we to look for as the first thing which has the end of the “many days” and “the time of the end”? The price has been paid in the shedding of the precious blood of the promised Deliverer; and now, the necessary power is to be exercised so as to secure all its results, in wresting the inheritance from the hand of the enemy by ejecting the present usurper, and forcibly taking possession. 
 We see this power put forth in the Seals, Trumpets, and Bowls, which fill up the active judgments of Yahweh in accomplishing this, and which end with the coming of the promised Deliverer himself. As the 7-Sealed Book begins to be opened, six seals are separated off from the seventh; as though to point out to us that the seventh is not immediately consecutive on the sixth, as the other seals are consecutive one on the other, the sixth seal evidently carries us forward to the time of the end. 
 The Day of Yahweh will be a prolonged period; it must not be confined to “seven years”, as is so often done. These events may occur a period of thirty-three years; and if to these we add the seven years of the last week of Daniel, we have a period of forty years. 
 Matt. Chapter 24, “What shall be the sign of your coming, and of the sunteleia of the age?” Jesus describes four of those seals, and adds, “All these are a beginning of sorrows.” This fixes these first four seals as the “beginning” of the sunteleia of the Day of Yahweh. 
 This “beginning” may be spread over some years before the Great Tribulation, proper, comes on. Not one of these seals has yet been opened, nor can any period of history be pointed out in which these first four seals have been in operation simultaneously. If this 7-Sealed Book has to do with the whole subject of prophecy, with its causes, and not merely with its consequences and its end, then it may well take us back to the beginning when man was driven out from Paradise, when Adam forfeited his inheritance; and the promise of a coming Deliverer and Redeemer was given. Who has the right to redeem the forfeited inheritance, the lost Paradise? 
 Satan is in possession of this world now, and as such, Satan was able in a peculiar way to tempt him who had come to redeem it, in the only lawful way in which it could be redeemed. We take it therefore that the opening of the seals of this 7-Sealed Book is the enlargement and development of the Book of Daniel, describing, from Yahweh’s side, the judgments necessary to secure the fulfillment of all that he has foretold. 
 However, there is something more in the 7-Sealed Book then the mere continuation of Daniel’s prophecies, but there must be that which calls for all these judgments and requires the putting forth of all this power. Who is worthy, who will act the Goel’s (or Redeemer’s) part for man and for Israel, and recover his lost estate. 
 This 7-Sealed Book was given to the one worthy to open the seals, in connection with such a transaction for a much weightier Redemption of Creation, both by unanswerable right and unequalled might. For the Goel was an avenger as well as a redeemer. 
 The themes which form the whole Books subject: The removal of the curse from creation, the redemption of the purchased inheritance, the ejection of the great usurper; and all accomplished through the payment of the redemptions’s price by the merits of the promised coming Deliverer, and the putting forth of redemption power. But the payment of the price is only one part of the work of redemption. 
 If the price be paid and there be no power to take possession and eject the holder, the payment is in vain. And if power be put forth and exercised in casting out the usurper, without the previous payment of the redemption price, it would not be a righteous action. So that for the redemption of the forfeited inheritance, two things are absolutely necessary, price and power. Today God is asking men through his ambassadors to choose to believe the gospel of the grace of God. He is not forcing them to believe it or causing them to believe it. He wants them to choose to believe it of their own accord and their motivating factor to choose to believe it is presented by the apostle Paul as to what God did on their behalf. 
 The call today, comes through the words relayed by Paul. Paul relays them to us in his written letters. How many people are called by Paul’s good news today? Everyone!

Paul’s not saying, walk worthy in order to gain our calling, or walk worthy in order to keep our calling, but walk worthy of the calling that belongs to us, because God has freely given it to us. How can we who have been justified freely, sanctified in Christ, how should we be conducting ourselves, we should conduct ourselves in a manner conducive to the job that God’s given us. 
 We should conduct ourselves in a manner that goes sides by side or that goes in hand with what God’s already called us to do, that job is our ambassadorship. It is our ambassadorship of the message of reconciliation, how our we to conduct ourself given our ambassadorship, we are called to peace, this is how believer’s are to relate to other believers. 
 A ransom for all - was not testified until Paul proclaimed it, the revelation of the secret, which was kept secret since the world began. If a person believes Jesus Christ died for their sins, but does not believe that God’s justice was satisfied when Christ died for those sins, that person has not believed Christ died for their sins according to the scriptures, Christ’s death was pictured in the scapegoat sacrifice of the Israelites program. 
 Leviticus 16:21-22, Christ was made to be sin for us, 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 entirely of that sin debt upon himself. Those who believe God’s message to us through Paul, are now ambassadors of this wonderful news which our apostle calls the glorious gospel of the grace of God.

Many in fundamental Christianity set themselves apart because in their minds eye, they believe they are more holy by doing so in the eyes of God. Many of them think they are more holy in the eyes of God, because they have achieved that set-apartness, and you other suckers out there, it is too bad that you are not on their level, because they are using their own measuring stick to see how holy you are. 
 People setting themselves apart, is called self-sanctification! God is the Sanctifier, NOT the person. 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. Sanctification is an already accomplished fact for each and every believer of Paul’s good news. 
 God sets every believer apart, not some more so than others, but everyone who has believed what his son accomplished is set apart, it is a judicial transaction that takes place in God’s mind the moment we believe. Not being conformed to this world has to do with both believers and non-believers deciding to set themselves apart and setting the parameters for doing so. 
 People can set themselves apart to live any kind of lifestyle they so choose as long as they choose to do it. Those who refuse to believe in the accomplishments of Christ are fully capable of setting themselves apart when it comes to the lifestyle they desire for themselves. 
 The flesh is capable of behavioral change. Paul does indeed exhort those who believe his good news not to be conformed to this world, but that is not the type of sanctification in any degree or any manner that Paul has in mind, our righteous standing before God has already been accomplished through our being set-apart.

Holiness linked to performance is what religion is all about. Paul was reigning in life from a practical perspective, he refused to allow things which were not expedient or wise to take control of him. Whether we fail to make those correct choices or not, as believers, we reign in life because we have the very righteousness of Christ himself. 
 Never make the mistake when it comes to improper choices that we can continue to make improper choices and face no consequences. We all too often plant one crop and then before we know it, the crop we have planted is growing up all around us to the extent that what we have planted can begin to get a strangle-hold on us. 
 It happens to the just and it happens to the unjust, if something comes up, it is because we have planted an improper choice. Our relationship with God is not contingent upon the crops we plant and the choices we make. 
 We cannot stop reigning in life, because believers need not ever fear a change in attitude from God toward us. The improper choices we make do not change the direction of God’s mind toward those have have been joined to his son, because he sees those believers in his son. 
 Unwise choices bring along with those unwise choices undesirable consequences. While they will not affect our salvation, they can indeed wreak havoc in our life. God would have to do for the human race, what the human race was totally incapable of doing for themselves. 
 Jesus Christ paid the price necessary to satisfy God’s justice. The world was given a Redeemer and the price the Redeemer paid through the shedding of his blood to ransom the human race was a satisfactory payment to take the sins off the table of God’s justice. 
 The fact that Christ became a redeemer of the world, does not mean that the world will accept the gift the Redeemer purchased on their behalf. Christ’s faithfulness was the only faithfulness sufficient to merit God’s favor. God used our faith in Christ’s faithfulness as the means whereby he would credit Christ’s righteousness to our account. 
 To be justified does not mean to be perfectly righteous in performance. It also does not mean to become perfectly righteous or even more righteous in performance through time. It means having Christ’s perfect righteousness freely credited to the account of the ungodly who believe. 
 Our justification was something accomplished for us by God’s grace. This gift decree of righteousness comes totally apart from any and all human promise, any or all human performance, or any or all human production. God will never consider our works as a payment for God’s justifying declaration. 
 Justification is God’s gift! To say your works have anything at all to do with God’s gift declaration of righteousness is to slap the giver in the face. Remember, we were given our righteous standing as a free gift.

God in his infinite wisdom pre-decreed that every believer would be joined to his son, fully identified with his son. He also pre-decided that we the believer would be blessed with all the blessings and privileges of an adopted son. 
 God decided in advance that we the believer are to be to the praise of the glory of his grace. God has predetermined, his mind is made up, he has pre-decided something where we are concerned once we believe the good news of Paul, and his mind is not going to be changed on this. 
 Once we are justified unto eternal life, having first trusted in Jesus Christ, there are certain things that God has pre-determined to happen to us. God wants us to rejoice in these things, he wants us to praise him for all these things and he certainly wants us to thank him for all these things because he has pre-determined these outcomes for us. 
 God did not predetermine to cause some individuals to belief unto eternal life, he predestined to conform everyone who believes to his son. He wants us to rest in these things, God’s mind is set. God is not giving out his righteousness as a reward to those who are sorry for the past, and who promise to do their best in the future. 
 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. What an ingenious salvation plan, to take someone else that is righteous and join us to that person, therefore what is Christ’s is ours! It is a gift, a declaration of rightness with God, and this comes totally apart from that unrighteous person’s production. We cannot earn salvation, and we can never lose salvation, because salvation is based not upon what we do, or promise to do, but upon what Christ has already done for us!

Three idol obstacles stand in the way of our growth and maturity of Paul’s good news. These obstacles hound each and every one of us each and every day of our lives. None of us can say that the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life have not hammered our walk wherewith we are called. 
 Sin is alive and well in an ever present force that must be understood and reckoned with on a daily bases. We can never escape sin, but we can indeed deny it’s outward expression. If you have come to a point of sobering, you have come to a point of total agreement with the apostle Paul, as he examined his own life from a fleshy prospective. 
 God could only grant a gift decree of the very righteousness of Jesus Christ, to those God would be joining to his son, this is why our faith in Christ’s faithfulness is essential. There are people in the church, the overall visible church today, that are lost, those who falsely believe they are saved. 
 The most common view in the religious world today is that God actively chooses who he wants to save and who he does not want to save, and they think it is absolutely impossible to have faith, to believe, unless God steps in and gives it to them. Preachers teach the idea that a person has to be saved in order to be saved. 
 That God has to do a work in the person before belief by the person is even a possibility. They teach God would have to give them saving faith in order for them to believe, and God gives faith only to those he’s so chosen to be believers. 
 God did not predestinate us to believe, he predestinated us to be conformed to the image of his son, because he knew who would believe. God has given everyone the opportunity to be saved, but only he knows for sure who will accept that opportunity. Flesh wants to say if I broke it I can fix it. God is not asking us to turn from anything to be saved. God is asking us to believe Christ accomplished salvation for us and we are simply to believe it. Christ did it all, there is nothing left for us to do. 
 God did all the giving, we do only all the receiving. You who say you believe in Jesus Christ, is there any sin that can be put to your account now? If you really believe that, then you do not believe that Christ paid for all of them. We can take God at his word, why can’t we stand with God on what he accomplished through Christ, that is FAITH.

What an astounding truth to ponder and really come to understand; a gift declaration of righteousness to those who could never gain that declaration through performance. We need to look at sanctification from the standpoint of who is doing the setting apart. 
 God has already set every believer apart as holy. To be perfectly righteous is to be perfectly holy. Every believer stands perfectly righteous or perfectly holy, justified according to God’s gift declaration of righteousness. 
 If you have believed Paul’s gospel, you have the very righteousness of Jesus Christ himself credited to your account. That means that you are perfectly holy in the eyes of God IN Christ. That is an amazing judicial transaction to ponder, it is an accomplished fact. 
 God is not making you progressively less sinful, progressively more holy until that time when he can admit you to Heaven. Your setting apart is not contingent upon the degree to which you set yourself apart. We are IN Christ, Christ’s test score is written on our paper. 
 This is an amazing truth to understand and just as Justification itself is an amazing truth to understand, and one that needs to firmly settled in our minds. Sanctification is another one that needs to be firmly settled in our minds and then we will not be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine that comes our way or by way of some debilitation or painful circumstance that comes our way. 
 Truth will be the governor of the Intellect and the Intellect will be the governor of the Will and the Will will be the governor of the emotions. There are to many preachers holding over the heads of their congregations a little law mixed with the possibility of losing their salvation, this is how they keep people in line! 
 They feed their congregations a little fear of missing heaven! Frighten them a bit with the possibility of hell fire and brimstone and they will keep on doing the do’s and avoiding the don’ts, that will keep them straight! They will live properly in order to merit heaven and miss hell!
 Paul called the carnal believers at Corinth saints because even though they were carnal, they had believed Paul’s good news. Saint is God’s word for a believer, he sets us apart. Jesus Christ’s death was sufficient to satisfy God’s righteous demand for justice. 
 When God looks at the believing sinner, God sees his very own son and what does Paul address every believer, even the carnal saints at Corinth? He calls them Saints! God’s attitude towards a believer does not fluctuate in response to action, it is not condition on our behavior.

The only component of Paul’s good news Satan 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 and his clan 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, the other components of Paul’s good news will have no bearing whatsoever for that individual. 
 If Christ paid the penalty for our sins, to keep those sins on the table of God’s justice is to do great injustice to what Jesus Christ accomplished, it turns salvation into probation! The pride-nature screams, God not imputing sins to those sinners would mean those rotten people have gotten away with committing things than I can not even imagine committing, the pride-nature recoils at that very idea. 
 Some simply have a difficult time thinking that God is not counting the sins of those they perceive to be much more sinful than themselves against those people, these people have cubby-holed sin in their minds, they see themselves in a relatively more righteous position than those whose sins are off the richter scale of evilness, the pride-nature of people actually wants God to impute the sins of some people, to those people. When most think of submitting, it sends a chill down the spine of more than a few, because those words conjure up the notion of someone barking out orders, as the one on the submitting end, becomes the doormat to be stepped on. 
 This is not at all what Paul had in mind, submission has nothing to do with controlling someone or being controlled by someone, when it comes to the husband being the head of the wife, it has to do with the husband aligning himself to serve his wife in the manner that God intended him to serve her, and the same is true when it comes to the wife, and her role in the marriage relationship. It is an amazing thing that for believers and that is the only people to whom Paul is writing, there is a Bema Seat of Christ Judgment that husbands will not be judged by how well their wives responded, it will be how well they led, and wives will not be judged as to whether their husbands were leading correctly, but in their role in serving the husband. Thanks buddy.

To be dead in sin, is to be identified with the first Adam, Adam in rebellion. To be dead to sin, is to have that new identification Paul is telling us that belongs to all whom God has sanctified, or set apart through union with the second Adam, Jesus Christ. 
 From God’s perspective, all believers have Christ’s righteousness freely attributed to their account, what belongs to Christ belongs to you. God no longer views you from the standpoint of your sins, he views you now from the standpoint of his son, who you are in. Why continue to consider your relationship with God to be based solely on your former identity. 
 Why not consider your relationship with God to be based solely on your new identity. Why not come to the understanding that God now relates to you the only way he can relate to you and that is according to your new identity in his son. 
 God cannot relate to you, he will not relate to you according to your former identity in Adam, that Identity disappeared the instant you took God at his word concerning Paul’s good news. What security we have in our union with Jesus Christ. 
 This is not something you did for yourself. This is not something you are gradually accomplishing yourself through better performance. This is something God did for you at the point that you believed Paul’s good news. God gave you a brand new identity. 
 God can no longer view you according to your former identity. God views you the only way he can view you since you believed the gospel of your salvation, and that is according to your brand new identity.

The transaction called Justification has to do with God recognizing those who take him at his word, concerning the price Christ paid on their behalf to resolve God’s justice for their sins. Justification is a recognition of righteousness that comes from God to those who believe his good news, which he committed to the apostle Paul to bring to the Gentiles, the message that must be believed for God to declare a person, or recognize them as being righteous, perfectly righteous. 
 God is not dealing with a nation today, and he is not recognizing any nation above any other nation. God is dealing with individuals today, to believe this good news is to be reconciled in your mind, not God’s. 
 God in his infinite wisdom devised a plan whereby he could take the very faith belonging to his son along with its resultant faithfulness and credit that faith and faithfulness to the account of those who believe. Jesus Christ believed that God’s justice has been satisfied where the sins he came to sacrifice himself for are concerned, Christ’s faith was and remains in God, and indeed we can believe God’s justice has been satisfied. 
 Those who believe in a belief system known as Universal Reconciliation are not understanding the difference in reconciliation and justification. To have your sin slate judicially emptied because Christ died for those sins does not mean that you now possess the righteousness recorded on the slate of the one who died for those sins. 
 The instant you take God at his word, that his son resolved God’s justice where all your sins are concerned (past, present, and future), God’s power from on high joins you to his son who died for your sins and thereby you become an instantaneous member of the household of God. Belief is necessary for righteousification and that belief is how you are heaven-worthy.

God alone decided to make peace with the human race, while the human race is an active enemy to God. Certainly the bible shows that God does not like the actions of the human race, but God reconciled himself to his enemies while they are still in hostility. 
 These are important words; God’s reconciliation to the human race took place when the human race was actively his enemy, not after the human race repented. The entire human race is guilty when it comes to human merit, performance, and production and all fall short continually coming short of the righteousness of God himself. 
 All of the human race are in need of a justification that will come totally apart from anything that they do. Paul wants the human race to know at one point in time something was true, but now something else is true. No longer does the human race have to strive to attain and maintain God’s acceptance on the basis of who they are and what they can do. 
 No longer are their sins held against them, no longer does the death penalty of sin hang over them. It is simply been given to the human race to either accept or reject what God’s son has already accomplished in this age of grace. 
 Reconciliation simply means a change in status and it is a major issue recognizing reconciliation. Reconciliation from God’s advantage point is a done deal, and God is reconciled where the totality of the sin debt of all the human race is concerned. 
 The issue of sin was settled, it is a son issue today, not a sin issue. Will the human race accept what Jesus Christ accomplished or will they reject it, the son is the issue with God today. God’s attitude of love forces no one to take him at his word. 
 God gives all the choice to accept what Christ accomplished on their behalf today, or to reject it. God purchased the human race out of sins dominion never to be returned to the market place of sin again. 
 By removing the sin issue from the table of God’s justice, God effectively canceled Satan’s ownership of all the human race.

God has set you apart and he calls you righteous based not upon what you do or what you abstain from doing, God decided to give a judicial decree of rightness apart from our behavior, apart from our practice based solely on our belief. The judicial decree of rightness God grants to those who believe is called justification, God alters your identity by removing you judicially in God’s mind from an identification with the first Adam and now you are judicially identified with the second Adam (Jesus Christ). 
 That joining itself is where sanctification comes into play; God gifts every believer with a judicial decree of perfection, perfect righteousness. Most have the idea that sanctification means to become progressively less sinful, therefore, progressively more holy down through the course of time through the avenue of either their promise or performance, their conduct or commitment. 
 Relative righteousness comes into play as we try to sanctify ourselves according to what we perceive in our judicial minds, relative righteousness based, as to be righteous. Therefore, we stop doing some things, and we start doing some other things and we begin to believe that we are a prize package especially if we can relate and be connected to a large group doing the same thing. That is self-sanctification. 
 As the believer stands before God in his courtroom, the evidence is overwhelmingly against them. Yet, as God drops the gavel, he pronounces no penalty. Justification is not a process, but is a one-time act, complete and definitive. 
 What a marvelous plan God had for anyone who believes! God has kept the fingerprints of the guilt-worthy off the righteousness he designed for the guilt-worthy. If one has yet to believe this powerful message, they are standing only in the righteousness their flesh has been able to produce for them, which means they have missed the mark of the righteousness God requires for heaven.
 What an amazing salvation the believer truly has, the issue remaining on the table of God’s justice today is whether a person will accept that gift. Justification has to do with a judicial decree of the very righteousness of God himself freely attributed to a believers account. To believe and receive are one in the same thing when it comes to this gift of salvation. 
 The moment a person believes, they are saints and considered holy, because God himself places them in a position of sainthood. Sainthood is not something they have to attain, it is not something they have to wait for or wait to become. 
 Justification is the judicial act of God whereby he declares the believer righteous. How can God call the believer holy, when they know in a practical sense, they are unholy nearly every day of their lives. 
 They will never measure up to the perfect righteousness of God, but all who will accept reconciliation on the bases of what Christ’s death and resurrection accomplished, are forever reconciled to God. God has a purpose for those who believe this powerful message, by placing the believer into his son. 
 Once they have trusted what Christ accomplished where their sins are concerned; they are then placed at that point in time into his son, because Christ’s payment has completely satisfied God’s justice where all their sins are concerned.

Where do people go to see how far they have removed themselves through their behavior from God’s favor? More often then not, they go right back to the Law of Moses taught in the halls of religianity by ministers of righteousness. 
 That can only lead in one direction, instability. The religiously minded begin to believe they are indeed measuring up as righteousness becomes relative to those people. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people walking away from a God they perceive as being unfair in having created them to fail in the first place. 
 Some take it to the extent of a total denunciation of God altogether. If God does exist, how can he demand perfection? If God does exist, the fact of his fairness or unfairness does not really matter, does it? 
 You see, no matter where on the performance spectrum one happens to sit, whether it be the perceived safe-haven of religion or avowed atheism on the other end, a misunderstanding of the need for, and the manner of justification and sanctification resides at the core of that unstable thinking. 
 Most people think in those terms because most people fail to properly understand justification, the cornerstone that comes prior to sanctification. If we misunderstand justification, we are going to have a difficult time understanding sanctification. 
 Since people link a justified standing before God with performance of their own, they also link a sanctified standing before God with their own performance. And as a result, they believe the degree to which they stand sanctified in God’s eyes depends entirely upon the degree to which they remain holy in behavior. 
 If they do not see themselves as being holy in conduct, they do not believe that God sees them as being holy, either. We need to understand that forgiveness was all upfront and all-inclusive, but when we accept this idea of conditional forgiveness/forgiveness on the installment plan; a little forgiveness here, a little forgiveness there, the need for new forgiveness for new sin, that is the atonement program of Israel, not the reconciliation program of the body of Christ. 
 We are saved unto good works, we are saved for the purpose of good works, but we are not saved by our good works, or kept saved by our good works, 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.