Leaving legalism for Christ

One thing I’ve found in over 40 years with Jesus is that legalistic people never think they are legalistic. I know I didn’t, and still don’t, even though I still detect some residual legalism in my own life from time to time. But when you understand the underlying premise of legalism, you’ll begin to see where it pops up in your own life.

The power of grace

When we try to follow the Law and Christ, we’ve drifted away from the gospel, making it powerless. This is clearly Paul’s message in Galatians. In fact, he goes so far as to say they are cursed for doing so (see Gal.1:6-9).  This is confusing for many devoted believers because they often confuse “grace-only” with license to sin, but this is no more true than that being legalistic gives you license to sin.

The Fellowship of God

You and I have been invited into the Great Fellowship of God! It’s the same fellowship of love the Father and the Son have enjoyed from before the foundation of the cosmos (John 17:24-26).  Today is Pentecost, which is when God poured out His Spirit on all flesh and began to make His home in us (Acts 2:1-21). Pentecost is also the same day that God overturned the curse of the Law. When the Law was given, 3,000 people perished for committing idolatry (Exod.32; 32:28); when the Holy Spirit was given, 3,000 people were saved (Acts 2:41). So, it’s appropriate today that I talk about what we’ve been invited into in Christ.

The (real) antidote to deception

I’ve said many times now, one of the reasons we need to train our souls for rest is because if we don’t, we end up running on the hamster wheel of trying to attain things we’ve already been given as a free gift. We empower the lies we still believe that keep us from knowing who we really are. We end up only imitating the life of Christ instead of actually living from it.

Abiding in Love (activation)

As we saw last time, learning how to remain in God’s love is the same thing as training our soul to live from heaven to earth. His perfecting love casts out all fear, makes us fruitful, and undefeatable!  We also asked ourselves, if these things are true (and they are!), then why don’t we avail ourselves to this glorious adventure in God? I will look at this question and offer a practical activation.

Training your soul to live from heaven to earth

I asked the question last time, do we know who we are in Christ? Do we see ourselves as Jesus in this world? (1 John 4:17) We looked at some hindrances to believing this. While our spirit is perfect in heaven in Christ, our soul is out of sync with this reality. Of course, the next question is, how do we bring our souls into sync with our true heavenly selves?

Tell me, who are YOU!

All of heaven knows who you are, and all of hell also knows who you are. The only question they both have is this: Do you know who you are? (Think Who song, “Who are you, who, who, are you…tell me who are you!”)  Sadly, many beloved Christians walk through their life mostly ignorant of their true identity, living like orphans instead of beloved sons and daughters of their Father in heaven, acting as if they didn’t die with Christ and get raised as Him.