Thursday, February 4, 2016

Open Access to God


We were created by God to be His children and enjoy unbroken fellowship and intimacy with Him.
“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.”Ephesians 1: 4-8 (NLT)

Mankind lost relationship with the Heavenly Father through first Adam, but is restored back to fellowship through last Adam –Jesus Christ “ And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins.”Romans 5: 16 (NLT)

“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.”Romans 3: 23-24 
Before the fall, Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the evening in fellowship. Then, when Adam sinned against God by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, it brought death to mankind’s relationship with God. 

Man was cut off from intimacy with God and unable to be in God’s presence because of sinfulness. No matter how hard man tries in himself he can never make himself worthy to be in God’s presence, or restore himself back into right relationship with God. The role of the law covenant was to reveal to mankind how futile it is to try and relate to God through our own self-righteousness.
It’s only by receiving the gift of righteousness that we are restored back to that high place of close relationship with God. 
We can now enjoy intimate fellowship with him! Now our relationship with God is not based on our imperfect performance or our self-righteousness, but on the perfect righteousness that we have in Christ. We have peace with God and open access to Him “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.”Romans 5: 1-2 

 We have peace with God. There are no obstacles in the way to us drawing near to him. “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”Hebrews 4: 16 (NLT) 

You couldn’t be any closer to God! “For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.”Ephesians 2: 6 (NLT)

 You are always close to God! You are united with Christ and sit with him in heavenly places, and can enjoy unbroken access to perfect intimacy with him 24 hours a day. Sin cannot break your fellowship with God anymore! In the New Covenant now, even if you mess up and sin, it doesn’t cut you off from God or break your access to him, in any way! In the Old Covenant it did. That’s because the Old Covenant was a covenant cut between God and man. It was a covenant, where your relationship with God and the blessings or punishment you’d receive from him, were all based on your keeping of the law of God.
If you kept the law you would be blessed, and if you broke it you would be cursed. The problem is, because of man’s fallen state, it is impossible for anyone to perfectly keep the high standards of God’s law. 

Man is always going to fall short, and therefore, suffer the consequences. One of the consequences is broken fellowship with God. But the New Covenant is a covenant that God didn’t make with man, but between the Father and the Son, Jesus. That’s why it’s not reliant on our performance but on Christ’s perfect performance. God brought us into Christ and that’s how we come into this New Covenant. This is a much better arrangement! 

The good news is that now God relates to you through Christ’s perfect righteousness in you, and not your performance, whether good or bad! Therefore, you can have perfect and unbroken fellowship with God 24/ 7.

The proof of this is that the Holy Spirit does not leave you when you sin. If your sin made you unholy, the Holy Spirit would have to leave until you were made holy again. Then you’d have to be re-baptized in the Holy Spirit. This would have to happen every time you sinned! No, Jesus said in John 14: 16 that the Holy Spirit will never leave you. This demonstrates that we don’t have to be fearful ever again of being separated from the love of God but can walk in boldness in our relationship with him no matter what! 
“So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.’ For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory.”Romans 8: 15–17 (NLT)
“What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us... 38And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:31-34,38,39 (NLT)

No comments:

Post a Comment