Is your conscience clear with God? Or do you feel guilty, not quite good enough? Because of the shed blood of Christ, we can come before God with a clear conscience. It is about God, not us.
We sing songs about the blood washing away our sins in some of the old hymns, but it is rare to talk about it and even rarer to hear a sermon on the blood. I have often wondered why this is. It is only by the shed blood of Christ that we can live a life free from the guilt and shame of sin. It is only by the shed blood of Christ that we can stand before God, pure and blameless in His sight. It is only because of the blood that we will be able one day to enter the pearly gates of heaven.
The story of man began in the Garden of Eden. It was there that God created Adam. Adam was created in the image of God. God said about him, “It is good.” There were no imperfections in him. The same was true of Eve. Adam and Eve were perfect, they lived in the perfect environment in the Garden of Eden. No sin was to be found anywhere in the garden, there were no imperfections of any kind to be found there. There was nothing that would cause them to turn their backs on God. Enter Satan, the enemy of man and God.
Until then Adam and Eve had a perfect fellowship with God. It was a fellowship that can only be envied and imagined by us today. They knew who God was and had a good perception of Him. Then Satan entered and sowed a seed of doubt, that caused Adam and Eve to question who God was. Did He really have their best interests at heart? From that moment until now it has been a downward spiral for mankind, adopting Satan’s agenda: “I will be like the most high.” Since then man has tried to rise above God, replacing Him with their own efforts and high opinion of themselves and their abilities.
Adam and Eve did not have learned knowledge, they had God-given knowledge. Adam would have been very intelligent to name all the thousands of animals. Think about it. To name thousands of animals without duplicating any names and to remember them all would be far beyond most, if not all, people’s capabilities today.
However, there was certain knowledge that God did not give them, such as the knowledge of good and evil. God did not want them to experience evil.
When God said that Adam and Eve would die if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, He was not referring to physical death. Although, because of sin entering the world, mankind would now have a physical death, rather than live forever. Adam and Eve would have lived forever in the Garden of Eden had they not sinned. God created man in His image. He looked at what He created and said it was very good. He had not created man to die.
While a physical death is bad, a spiritual death is much worse. Because we live in a physical world, we tend to think of everything in the physical, therefore we tend to think God was speaking of a physical death. He may have been speaking of both.
As hard as it is sometimes, we must always remember that the physical is now temporary, but the spirit is eternal. It is our spiritual souls that will live forever.
It was the spiritual death of Adam that broke the relationship between God and man. God could no longer have fellowship with man because there was now something that hindered that relationship. That something was the sin, the disobedience of Adam. If this had only involved Adam and Eve, that would have been bad, but it didn’t end there. Because Adam would be the father of the human race, his descendants would be born into sin. Because of this, we are all born with a sinful nature that we can never overcome while on this earth. Only by the grace of Jesus Christ will one day be able to leave this earth and our sinful nature behind. What a glorious day that will be!
We’ve all felt discouraged, and alone at some point in our lives. We feel drained, exhausted, and lethargic, and find difficulty getting out of bed.
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John Bunyan called it Giant Despair in his timeless classic The Pilgrim’s Progress, and it imprisoned Christian until he found the Key of Promise in his clothing.
It’s natural to become discouraged, but it’s unhealthy to stay that way. Satan loves to utilize the giant of discouragement to cast down our faith and progress. Satan knows exactly what will discourage us and will use it to get us down. We are no match for him, he has had thousands of years to practice his craft. Our only hope is in Christ and the promises of God.
Discouragement is the temptation to evaluate your momentary circumstances apart from the overarching plan of God for your life. God is a God of encouragement, not discouragement. As soon as you become discouraged, cry out to Him in prayer and ask for His help. God wants to hear your prayers, even when discouraged. He will answer and bring encouragement to your heart.
If Giant Despair has you in his dungeon today, remember you have the key to escape. It’s inside your Bible, found in one of the hundreds of promises God has given you. For example, Joshua 1:9, says, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go” (NIV).
“When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” (Psalms 34:17-19) God is near to the “broken-hearted”. He wants us to reach out to Him for help.
“Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.” (Psalms 55:22) We don’t need to struggle alone. The Lord will shoulder our burdens for us.
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28
“The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” (Deuteronomy 31:8)
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:31)
“Discouragement can be defeated only when the full truth of everything that is for us confronts and conquers the half-truth of fear and despair.” Jason Meyer
As we consider the greatness of God, we may be inclined to think of events or miracles that have happened to ourselves or others or the great love of the Father to offer His Son as a sacrifice for our sins. Maybe we would consider His creation of the human body with all its complex and intricate elements and its DNA code that is 67 billion miles long—the same as about 150,000 round trips to the Moon. To think of all He has created is mind-boggling. Consider the earth’s beauty and majestic wonders that cause us to stand in awe of His creation. Or consider the universe with over a billion known galaxies; planets that are so large that they make the earth look like a golf ball next to them. Wow! A light year is a measure of time, that is how far light travels in a year, which is 5.88 trillion miles or 9.46 trillion kilometers. The observable universe is 93 billion light-years across. To most of us, that is an incomprehensible number, yet the universe goes beyond that. How far, only God knows. As enormous as the universe is — God is bigger. God created the universe, therefore it cannot contain Him. He is far greater than His creation. God tells us that His thoughts and ways are beyond us. They are beyond our human minds to grasp or understand.
God makes it quite clear in His Word that He has only one answer to every human need; His Son Jesus Christ. In all His dealings with us, He works by taking us out of the way and substituting Christ in our place. The Son of God died for our forgiveness, He lives for our deliverance. It will help us greatly and save us much confusion, if we keep constantly before us this fact, that God will answer all our questions in one way and one way only, namely, by showing us more of His Son.
Our problem is twofold: sins and sin. To better understand this let us look at the first eight chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. It will be helpful first to point out a natural division of this section of Romans into two and note certain striking differences in the subject matter of the two parts.
The first eight chapters of Romans form a self-contained unit. The four-and-one-half chapters from 1:1 to 5:11 form the first half of this unit and the three-and-one-half chapters from 5:12 to 8:39 the second half. A careful reading will show that the subject matter of the two halves is different. In the first section, we find the word “sins” given prominence. In the second half, the word “sins” hardly occurs once, however, the singular word “sin” occurs repeatedly and is the subject mainly dealt with. Why is this?
Lord, give to me a quiet heart, that does not ask to understand but confidently steps forward in the darkness guided by thy hand. (Elizabeth Elliott)
As humans, we understand so little of God. God’s thoughts are as far above ours as the heaven is above the earth (Isaiah 55:8-9). But He knows the plans He has for us (Jeremiah 29:11). It is enough that we know we are a part of God’s sovereign design and that we are important to Him. God thought of each one of us before the earth was even formed (Ephesians 1:4). Knowing this, we can trust God with our lives, for He only wants what is best for each of us. After all, He knows what is better for us than we do. He sees the big picture, we only see this moment in time. yet, it is a hard thing to do as we all want to have full control of our own destiny. But, if we just trust God and obey Him, then we can confidently step forward in any situation, knowing our Lord is already there. What a peace it is, knowing God is in control of every situation in our lives.
Understanding Abraham’s covenant, Moses’s Law, and Finally the Enactment of Grace.
1st. Covenant: The Abrahamic Covenant is really the beginning of the revelation of the covenant of grace. It was God’s decision to reach into humanity and specifically save a people for Himself. It comes in the form of a promise to Abraham. God calls Abram to be separate from the world and into a relationship with Himself. God promises to bless him and his descendants. He promises that Abraham is going to be a great nation, that he is going to be given a land, a place to live, and that through Him, all of the nations will be blessed.
The Abrahamic covenant comes from Genesis 12:1-3. It reads: “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
The covenant with Abraham is a covenant of grace, in that it brings about the redemptive purpose. It does so by making a separate nation out of Abraham and his descendants, the Jewish people, through Isaac and the twelve tribes of Israel. And one of those tribes led to the promised Messiah Jesus.
The Bible teaches us that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, (2 Corinthians 5:8).
Jesus told the thief on the cross, “today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Jesus didn’t say today you will sleep. The confusion comes from the fact that sleep was often used as a term for death. For instance when Jesus spoke to the disciples about Lazarus: “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.” Then His disciples said,” Lord, if he sleeps he will get well.” However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead” (John 11:11-14).
At death, our spirit separates from our body. Our body returns to the ground and our spirit returns to its maker.
“and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
The apostle Paul said: “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far” (Philippians 1:23).“(I) would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8).
Paul was not looking forward to soul sleep, he was looking forward to being with the Lord.
Without a body, there would be no need for sleep. Sleep is for our human mortal body to rejuvenate itself. The body is what requires sleep, not our spirit. The body will go into the ground and sleep, but our souls will be in heaven with the Lord (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
Paul spoke of falling asleep instead of dying when he wrote to the Thessalonians.
“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-15).
Notice in these verses, Paul says that Jesus will be bringing those that have fallen asleep with him, in other words, He will be bringing the saints that have died with Him. If He is bringing them with Him, then it is obvious that they are in heaven now and not in the grave.
In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, Lazarus went immediately to heaven and the rich man went immediately to hell.
Finally, when John was given a vision of heaven, he described the Christians that were martyred as souls crying out for revenge, they definitely were not sleeping. In every reference in Revelation to human beings in Heaven, they are conscious, not sleeping. As Paul said, to be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord. The instant we die, we will be in heaven with Jesus! What a glorious time that will be!
Taken fromthe section on Heaven in “Things You Probably Learn in Church.” Things You Probably Didn’t Learn in Church is a book covering several subjects that are not usually not taught in church. Check out this book and my other books at: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B06XK4GJT1
Satan’s most strategic weapon against the believer is as the accuser. Why is this so effective? Because in our hearts we know we are unworthy of God’s love. Satan tells us we have sinned, we kept on sinning, he points out the failures in our lives, telling us God wants nothing to do with us. And our temptation is to look within and in our self-defense, try to find within ourselves some ground for believing Satan is wrong. We may be tempted to admit our helplessness and go to the other extreme, yield to depression and despair. Satan uses his accusations against us, charging us before God. If we accept his accusations we fail immediately. Thus, accusation becomes one of Satan’s greatest and most effective tools against the believer.
Why do we accept his accusations? Because we are hoping to have some righteousness of our own. We are hoping to be good enough by our own power. Satan’s accusations have caused us to look in the wrong direction for an answer.
Our need is to recognize the absolute sufficiently of the blood Christ shed on Calvery. It was there that He obtained our eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12). He became our redeemer. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
When we are walking in the light with the Lord, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. It is not just some sin, but every sin. Big sins, small sins, sins that appear to be very black, and sins that are not so black, even sins that we think can not be forgiven. Yes, all sins, conscious or unconscious, remembered or forgotten, are all included in those words: “every sin.” The blood of Christ makes us clean and God the Father is satisfied.
It is the blood that cleanses us from all sin and unrighteousness. “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)
What an amazing cleansing the blood does in our lives when we walk in the light with our Lord. Everything is exposed in the light. I cannot hide anything in my life, nor does God overlook anything. He has a perfect knowledge of me. He knows every tiny detail about me. He knows every thought I have. He knows my heart. And yet, because of the blood of Christ and His amazing grace, I stand in the presence of God, spotless, without blemish.
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isiah 1:18).
We must learn to put no confidence in the flesh, little wonder that we sin, for the very nature of the flesh is to sin. We must learn to rely completely on God for our salvation and not on our own goodness or abilities. As hard as it is to admit, we are helpless and weak, without the power of God in our lives. If we have expectations of ourselves, the result will be that when Satan comes along with his accusations, we will fail miserably.
God is well able to deal with our sins; but He cannot deal with a man under the accusations of Satan, because that man is not trusting in the Blood. The Blood of Christ speaks in his favor, but he is listening instead to Satan. Christ is our Advocate, but we the accused, side with the accuser. We have no recognition that we are not worthy of anything but death. God alone can answer the accused, and that by the precious Blood He has already done so. Never should we try to answer Satan with our good conduct but always with the Blood. We are sinful because of our sinful nature, but the Blood cleanses us from every sin. Praise God! Christ paid the price for our sins in full, and God is satisfied. Satan has no grounds for his accusations.
Our faith in the precious Blood of the Lamb, and its cleansing power; and our absolute refusal to be moved from that position can alone silence Satan’s charges and put him to flight.
“Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” (Romans 8:33-34)
It is God’s holiness and righteousness that demand that a sinless life should be given as redemption for man. There is life in the blood, and that blood has to be poured out for our sins. God is the one that requires it in order to satisfy His righteousness.
We have to believe the blood which is precious to God, is sufficient payment for our sins and God is satisfied.
“18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:18-19)
We are told that because of the cleansing power of the blood, we can boldly approach God’s throne of grace with confidence (Hebrews 4:16). We can approach God through His merit alone based on the work of the Lord Jesus in the shedding of His blood. And never on our own merits or achievements, which fall miserably short of the perfection required to enter the presence of God. Your initial approach to God is made possible by the blood and only by the blood. This will never change regardless of your measure of attainment, whether you have consciously sinned or not. It is only by the precious shed blood of Christ that we can enter into the “holy of holies”, the presence of God. It is not and will never be by our own efforts or goodness.
At the beginning of our Christian life, we are concerned with our actions more than we are with who we are. We are more distressed by what we have done than our inner being. We think if we could only change our actions, we would be more pleasing to God and would be better Christian. Therefore, we set out to change our actions and by doing so, set ourselves up for failure. The trouble is not on the outside but on the inside. It is not because we have done wrong, it is much deeper than that. It is because we are wrong and can never be right by our own efforts. Our only hope is in the blood of Christ that washes away our sins, cleanses us, and makes us as pure as new-fallen snow.
When we are walking in the light with the Lord, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. It is not just some sin, but every sin. Big sins, small sins, sins that appear to be very black, and sins that are not so black, even sins that we think can not be forgiven. Yes, all sins, conscious or unconscious, remembered or forgotten, are all included in those words: “every sin.” The blood of Christ makes us clean and God the Father is satisfied.
It is the blood that cleanses us from all sin and unrighteousness. “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)
What an amazing cleansing the blood does in our lives when we walk in the light with our Lord. Everything is exposed in the light. I cannot hide anything in my life, nor does God overlook anything. He has a perfect knowledge of me. He knows every tiny detail about me. He knows every thought I have. He knows my heart. And yet, because of the blood of Christ and His amazing grace, I stand in the presence of God, spotless, without blemish.
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isiah 1:18).
This study is continued in my next post, “Satan’s most Strategic Weapon against YOU!”
Sharing Jesus 