Month: May 2019

278. Preserved Blameless

1 Thessalonians 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God will sanctify us wholly. We are sanctified wholly by faith, but that holiness is not yet whole: sin still remains, self still controls, death still rules, the world still influences us unto evil, the devil still walks about seeking to devour. These evil enemies are still attacking and tempting and lying. Sanctification is a done deal, but it is also a work in progress. God made Christ our sanctification, but God isn’t finished with me yet (though He promises to finish the job). We are accounted as wholly holy, but that holiness hasn’t yet touched every part of our soul and body. We must wait with patient faith until our body’s death and resurrection. Then the sanctification process will be complete. At the coming of Christ we shall wholly be preserved blameless. That’s a promise we can live with. We wait with patient faith.

Blameless means no blame, no guilt, no shame; and therefore, no sin. Sin is forgiven now and that forgiveness gives us a daily new lease on life, a new life every day. So we know we can face the Judge when He comes: we know we will stand blameless in the Judgment. We are declared innocent, righteous, pure and holy; and when the soul and body are wholly sanctified we are innocent, righteous, pure and holy. Only then can we stand in the blazing and beautiful holiness of God Almighty. In the Judgment all evil enemies will be cast out, and no taint of sin will exist in the new environment of the new heaven and new earth. Thus we also must be blameless in order to live forever in this perfect new environment. And so we shall be.

We can say that the spirit within us is entirely holy already when we are born from above. The Holy Spirit lives there, and He can only live in a holy place. By faith the human spirit is holy and alive. From there, the spirit influences and positively affects the soul and the body. We may quench the activity of the Spirit within, but the Spirit never rests. He is continually working from the human spirit to sanctify the soul; and the soul tells the body what to do. The spirit is actively alive and energized when we hear the Gospel. The Gospel is a life-giving power. This is what the promise means to sanctify wholly: that the soul and the body will be gradually made wholly holy until the soul and body, along with the spirit, are preserved blameless for the judgment. We don’t face the Judgment Throne until after the bodily resurrection. Then we shall be blameless. Meanwhile, we wait for the Lord to finish the job in our soul and body, and we enjoy the promise that He will.

277. Live together with Christ

1 Thessalonians 5:10 Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

Jesus died for us: because He did that we will live together with Him. This is the Gospel. We read or hear that Gospel message or we speak it to ourselves and the promise is realized: we live together with Him. By faith we are united with Christ in His death: our sin died the death penalty. By faith we were buried with Christ by baptism into death: our sinful self is dead and buried. By faith we rose with Christ into newness of life: the new man rises out of the water and lives. By faith we ascended with Christ and are seated in the heavenly places with Him: we sit with Him and rule over the defeated enemies. And we will come with Christ to judge at the end of the age: we receive the promised inheritance and enter into the joy of the Lord.

All too easily we drift away and forget what wonderful things Jesus has done for us, and we need to be reminded again and again that we are living together with Christ. Jesus Christ is our life and we are living with Him. When we aren’t feeling so good about life or things are not going so well we can return to this promise and remind ourselves that we are living together with Christ. And if so, everything will fall into place. Jesus Christ is always with us, just as He promised, but we easily forget, we act like we are alone, and we are unaware of His Presence. But is true whether are aware of it or not: “whether we wake or sleep” He is there. 

To be honest, we don’t understand fully and we can’t explain it clearly, but it is still true and real: we live together with Christ. First, we live: we are alive with new life every day, and we look for God we will see Him present and active and living with us on a regular basis. Christ in us is life; it is truly living and enjoying God. As soon as we sin and remember sin we enter into death, and so we repent instantly and come back to the Life, for Life is always available in any and every circumstance. Second, we live together with Christ: it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. We don’t have to understand which one of us is actually doing the living at any moment, but generally speaking, if it is sinful, I am living myself alone, and if it is a good work, Christ is living. Either way, I live in a constant state of repentance and faith. Because Jesus died for me I am living together with Christ.

276. Obtain Salvation

1 Thessalonians 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Wrath is the unavoidable consequence of sin; salvation is the inevitable consequence of grace. The wages of sin is death, which is the result of God’s just wrath over sin. The grace of God is life, which is the result of Christ appeasing the wrath of God over sin.

God has appointed us to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Wrath is the justice of a righteous God because of sin. The only way that humans think they can avoid the wrath of God is to deny the existence of God or the character of God. Either: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God;’” or: “My God wouldn’t send anybody to hell.” That is true: your.God might not be an infinitely just God, but that God doesn’t exist, that God is a man-made idol, or that God is a demon god who deceives with lies.

An infinite sin against an infinite God demands an infinite wrath and punishment: that is the True God. Man can make up a false God, but he cannot dictate to the true God what He is like or what He should or should not do. God takes Sin seriously because it destroys a just and holy created universe for His created children to enjoy for eternity and into infinity. But, and that’s a big but, God has not appointed us to wrath; therefore, He has rescued us from hell instead of sending us to hell. In place of just wrath, God has appointed us to salvation. That’s why He sent His Son, our Lord. Salvation belongs to the Lord: God thought it up, God initiated it, God carried it out, God finished it, God gives it to us, and God grants faith to believe for salvation. God the Father does it all and He does it all for us because He loves us.

God appeased His own wrath because His Love is actually more powerful. God’s love is a flame that burns away dross and purifies the soul. God’s love is a flood that drains away all sin and evil and cleanses the soul. Through Jesus Christ we have obtained the appointed salvation. What a Reversal! We have obtained undeserved salvation instead of deserved wrath.

275. Children of Light

1 Thessalonians 5:5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

The promise of God is that we have become and always will be children of light. By the Gospel God has transferred us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. We did not know we were born and lived in darkness because we got used to the darkness and didn’t know there was another way of life. Even after we have been made children of light we do not always see the difference between light and darkness. We still grope and feel our way through life even after seeing the light. We must be told by the Word and convinced by the Spirit that we are surrounded by darkness but we have been delivered into light. Even though we are “of the day,” we act like we are of the night. The Gospel promise has been given to us so that we may know the truth, see the light, and live in it. We are so blind we don’t know how blind we are. 

In the face of appearances and deceptions we are children of the light and of the day. But we need to see it, believe it, live in it, and enjoy it more than we do. We need to admit that darkness is real and it was a part of us, and darkness deceives us into thinking we are still in darkness. When we hear the Gospel we believe it and we see the light and we shine the light of life and truth upon the enemies that seek to keep us in the darkness (or at least, make us think we are in darkness). The light is always stronger and pushes back darkness. Darkness has no power. 

The “children of light” promise tells the truth about who we really are, where we live, and what we can really see. The bright message is clear: “God is light…For if we walk in the light as he is in the light…the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.“ [1 John 1:7]. Believe the Gospel and walk in the light you have been given; yes, you will fail, but the blood of Jesus cleanses you while you walk. Confess your sins and God forgives and cleanses. 

Psalm 119:105: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” When we don’t remember who we are or where we are going or what to do next, we can turn to the Word for truth and light. Believe the Light and walk in it.

274. Ever with the Lord

1 Thessalonians 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Those believers who are alive when Jesus returns will be caught up (raptured) together with the suddenly resurrected believers. All together all believers will meet the Lord in the air when He returns to earth; and ever after we will all be with the Lord forever.

It is absolutely necessary that all must die and rise again. Thus, those still alive on earth when Jesus returns will have to die and rise again in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye. Without death we cannot be changed into forever-holy creatures. Death and bodily resurrection is the change that must occur in order to live forever in a spiritual body. The new resurrected spiritual body will be recreated to live in the Paradise of the New Creation.

The essence of the promise is that we shall be forever with the Lord. “With” the Lord involves intimate communion with Almighty Creator God. Living in thr real and evident Presence of God with His powerful love and beautiful holiness will be an awesome experience. With God there shall never, ever, be any diminishment of full and enjoyable life with the Lord. Every enjoyable experience we have on earth comes to an end. After the joy we always come back to earth, to the boring and mundane. Not so when we are with the Lord. The joy is never-ending just as life never ends. That is what it means to be “with the Lord.”

The Lord is with us now in this life before the end comes, but the Lord is “with us” by faith, not by sight. His Presence with us is not usually felt and seldom perceived, but it can be always believed. We are allowed to enter into the Presence whenever we repent and believe the Gospel. The Presence of the Lord is obscured by Sin and Evil that is around and in us. The flesh resists the spirit, the devil deceives the soul, and the world is always visible and tempting. We are with the Lord, but we recognize that we are also with the Devil. Both are drawing us to be more “with,” One is drawing with the Truth and Love, the other with Lies and Self. While we here and now struggle to be with the Lord, the promise says that One Day we will be “ever” with the Lord.

273. God will bring us with Him

1 Thessalonians 4:14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

God promises to bring us with Jesus when He comes from heaven to earth again the second time to judge. This is a surprising promise. We eagerly look forward to the Second Coming of Christ to Judge, but we did not seek to, nor did we expect to, come with Him when He comes, but there it is. God will bring us with Jesus when He comes at the End of time. The very bodies of those who believe in Jesus and have died and are buried will suddenly rise from the dead; then these bodies with join with their souls and they will meet the physical resurrected body of Jesus in the air as He comes from heaven to earth. “Them which sleep in Jesus” are all those who died believing in Jesus Christ as their Savior. The “sleep” refers to the physical body; the soul does not sleep for it is with the Lord.

Those who are still living on the earth when Jesus comes again at the End will die and resurrect immediately in a twinkling and they will be changed. Then they, too, in their new resurrected bodies will join with Jesus and those who were buried. Then all the saints and angels will be with Jesus Christ when He stands on the earth to begin the Judgment and usher in the Eternal State of the New Jerusalem on the New Heavens and New Earth.

Of course, we cannot predict exactly how it will all happen and in what order, but we do know we will come with Him when He comes. Everything will be so suddenly and drastically changed forever. Sin, Death, Antichrist, Satan and all his angels will be contained in the eternal fire. The Flesh will be changed, the World will disappear, and there will be no more temptation to sin, disobey, rebel, and reject God ever again. The Eternal State of harmonious beauty, love, and peace will be beyond any description that our human minds can comprehend.

Why will we come with Him? We don’t know, but in some way God wants us to be involved with Christ in the Final Judgment. We died with Christ, are buried with Him, we rose with Him, we reign with Him, and we will judge with Him. Our role in the Judgment is simply this: that we are united with Christ in all that He does and will do. We can’t explain our involvement in the judgment, but God loves us so much that He draws us into Him so closely that He shares His life with us in everything He does. Indeed, Jesus is “with you until the end of the age.”

272. Sorrow Not

1 Thessalonians 4:13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

Because of sin human beings suffer with many sorrows, but we have the promise that we may not sorrow. At the end of the day, death is the symptom of all of our sorrows; we all feel death with its pains, sorrows, sufferings, sicknesses, and weaknesses; death involves anything that shortens life or diminishes the full enjoyment of life in all its abundance. 

“Them which are asleep” in this verse is a reference to the death of loved ones. The sleep refers to the bodies of fellow human beings who have died. In regard to the body death is a sleep, but the body can be and will be awakened in the resurrection. Meanwhile, while we wait loved ones sleep while we are still awake, meaning we are separated. Death is always a separation. We will always during this life experience separation. But the promise is that the death and separation does not have to cause sorrow. Instead of sorrow, we have hope. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. There is the certain promise of resurrection and reunion. We will be reunited with loved ones whose bodies are presently sleeping in death.

We have been separated from God because of sin, but we do not sorrow because we have a union with God by faith in Christ, and we have the promise of reunion with God in an eternal and full union with God once again. We lost that connection with the life of God when we were conceived and born in sin, but it has been restored again in all its fullness through the work of Jesus Christ. In actual experience we will always have sorrow because death separates and because our bodies will die some day; but by faith we will have no sorrow because we have no death. There is no separation because we have union with God and so we have life. By sight, sorrow is unavoidable; by faith sorrow is impossible.

Sorrow not! The cause of sorrow is gone. He is risen; we will rise again.  Because He lives, we will live also. This is really an awesome and a powerful promise. It is unbelievable but true: no sorrow. Admittedly, we cannot just say to anyone who is suffering sorrow and loss: “Sorrow not.” Nevertheless, it is a fact that when Jesus speaks to us, “Sorrow not,” it really happens. We are not ignorant; ignorance has been replaced with hope. Faith makes the promise real. Can you believe it? Sorrow not!

271. Unblameable in Holiness

1 Thessalonians 3:13 To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is coming to judge at the end of the world when He ushers in the Eternal State of a New Heavens and a New Earth. Every human being is accountable to God, and everyone knows, consciously or unconsciously, that he or she must face a just judgment. Every born sinner innately fears the judgment, and many are struck with terror when they are convicted of this truth.

Most people deal with this reality in one of three ways: 1) by ignoring or denying that it is really coming; 2) by deceiving themselves into hoping that somehow their goodness outweighs their sin and deserved condemnation; 3) or by repenting of their sin and believing the Gospel. The third alternative is the only honest and safe way to deal with the issue of facing the Judgment of a Just Judge.

The prediction and prophecy is that Jesus is coming to judge. Of this fact there is no doubt or argument; ignore it at your peril. The promise, however, is that the Lord will establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God. In order to enter into the presence and joy of the Lord the blamable sinner must be blameless and holy, for God is holy. No sinner can stand in the judgment and be welcomed into the Eternal Kingdom without being made holy, forgiven of sin, justified, and rendered innocent, blameless and guilt-free.

This promise of blamelessness in holiness motivates us and gives us the power to love one another and all people. The promise that comes from the future Judgment Day changes our present day living. We do not love in order to make us acceptable before God; we love because He has already established our hearts in holiness, and thus acceptable. Holiness produces genuine love, and true love comes only from One Source, God.

What a change Jesus has effected: He has changed us from terror to unbounded joy. He wrote our names in the Book of Life, and when the books are opened we will rejoice and praise God for Grace and Salvation. We are changed from cringing to leaping. The promise of God makes a great change.

270. The Word that Works

1 Thessalonians 2:13 For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

Receive the Word of God as the Word of God, not the word of men. For then you have the promise: it works! The Word works; it works effectually. God sends out the Word from heaven with a purpose, and it always accomplishes what He sent it out for. God sends the Word to convict of sin by the Law and of righteousness by the Gospel. The Word effectively does just that when it is believed. Therefore, we believe the promise: the Word effectually works. We believe the promise by working the Word.

The Word effectively works forgiveness of sins, salvation and eternal life. Jesus effectively, finally, and definitively earned forgiveness for us when He died on the cross, guaranteed it to us when He rose from the dead, and powerfully applied it to us personally when we heard that message with faith. Forgiveness enters the heart and replaces sin and guilt and shame, births a new life, and works the miracle of a new creation.

The Word of God, when heard frequently, has the incredible power to change lives, both now and for eternity. When one believes in Christ he haseternal life; he does not wait for it. The life of God that dwells within effectively influences thoughts, attitudes, words and behavior. The new life, the eternal life, the God life does not lie still and dormant: it works in them that believe. God’s Life is active and working; Life changes things. The Life can be, and is, resisted and fought against by the dead self. Therefore, we need constant doses of the Word to overcome and obtain the victory. That is why the faithful Christian goes to church, reads the Bible, and stays in contact with the Lord and the Word on a regular basis.

The Word breaks the smug and proud self that is set against God; and the Word grants forgiveness and a new life to the humble believer. Believe the promise that the Word works and changes things, for it is far to easy for us to attribute cause and effect relationships to the wrong sources. God’s Word is Truth, and the truth sets us free.

269. Called to the Kingdom

1 Thessalonians 2:12 That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.

We are called. The Holy Spirit calls us through the Gospel. We respond by the faith the Spirit creates and grows within as we hear the Gospel. The call of the Holy Spirit is enticing, alluring and attractive; and the call is compelling, but it is not forced. God graciously grants us the freedom to resist, and the human being, totally corrupt in sin and rebellion, can only resist the call of God on our life. Being blind, dead, and an enemy of God we cannot respond positively to the call unless moved by the Spirit through the sweet Gospel. The call is powerful, but it is not overpowering.

When we are called through the Gospel and faith is granted to receive it, we have what the Gospel promises: forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation. We are called to His kingdom and glory. This is a wonderful promise: we have been called out of darkness into light, out of the kingdom of the world and devil and death into the kingdom of God and Life, out of bondage into freedom, out of the prospect of eternal death into eternal life, out of sin and guilt into forgiveness and righteousness, and out of shame into glory.

It is enough to be in the kingdom, but it is even grander to be in His glory. Jesus brings us into glory. We who fall short of the glory of God are called smack dab into the center of the glory of God. We human sinners cannot see the glory of God or we would be struck dumb, even struck dead. But forgiven sinners are allowed, even graciously invited, to enter into God’s glory, without fear of death, but with the gift of a beautiful life. 

Every time we repent and believe the Gospel we are brought into God’s kingdom and His glory. Sin prevents us from seeing the glory in its fullness, but faith in the forgiveness of sins believes the kingdom and the glory. We see Jesus, the Word of God come in the flesh, and, as John says, “We have seen his glory.” It looks like grace and truth. Jesus is the glory of God, and it is within us. To the kingdom and glory living in us we have been called.