GOD’S WORD FOR MAY 4

OUR PERSONAL PROMISES:

JESUS, YOU……………………SHOWED ME A GREAT LIGHT—Isaiah 9:2—(We all can recall the shafts of light that came to us through revelations of His truth in our lives!)

JESUS, YOU……………………WILL GATHER TOGETHER ALL THINGS IN YOU— Ephes 1:10-11 – (all things were created by Jesus and through Him, and they will all gather together in Him in the end)

JESUS, YOU…………………….TEACH ME — John  6:45—(He is constantly teaching us——-please help us to have teachable hearts, Lord!)

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THOUGHTS FOR TODAY

1 Corinthians 1:30

 “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption”

We are beginning chapter 9 in “Abide in Christ” by Andrew Murray.  The chapter title is:

“As Your Sanctification”

1 Corinthians 1:2

This is a letter from Paul:

“ To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:”

Thus the chapter opens in which we are taught that Christ is our sanctification.  In the Old Testament, believers were called the righteous; in the New Testament, they are called saints, the holy ones, sanctified in Christ Jesus.  Holiness is higher than righteousness.  “Holiness may be called spiritual perfection, as righteousness is legal completeness,” said Horatius Bonar in “God’s Way of Holiness.”  Holy, in God, has reference to His inmost being; righteous, to His dealings with His creatures.  In man, righteousness is but a stepping-stone to holiness.

It is in this that he can come nearest to the perfection of God.  (Matthew 5:48; 1 Peter 1:16).  In the Old Testament, righteousness was found, while holiness was only typified; in Jesus Christ, the Holy One, and in His people His saints or holy ones, it was first realized.

As in Scripture, and our text, so in personal experience, righteousness precedes holiness.  When the believer first finds Christ as his righteousness, he has such joy in the newly made discovery that the study of holiness hardly has a place.  But as he grows, the desire for holiness makes itself felt, and he seeks to know what provision his God has made for supplying that need.  A superficial acquaintance in God’s plan leads to the view that, while justification is God’s work by faith in Christ, sanctification is our work, to be performed under the influence of the gratitude we feel for the deliverance we have experienced, and by the aid of the Holy spirit.

 BUT…. the earnest Christian soon finds that gratitude is not capable of supplying the power.  When he thinks that more prayer will bring it, he finds that, indispensable as prayer is, it is not enough.  Often the believer struggles hopelessly for years until he listens to the teaching of the Spirit as he glorifies Christ again and reveals Christ, our sanctification. To be appropriated by faith alone.

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