As I continue to study out THE issue of "they are the sons of God" and how we are adopted as sons, I have been taken back to the book of Proverbs to see the curriculum God has laid out for His sons to follow. Proverbs is fitting for many reasons, but logically because David writing a book of Proverbs (an educational system of an elder teaching a younger man how to be an elder) to his son Solomon (ch. 1-9) typifies that of God teaching His sons. Although, the doctrine of Proverbs I as a member of the Body of Christ do not follow there's a "table of contents" as it were that is laid out in Proverbs, that I have learned every son goes through. The little I have learned already is amazing and the table of contents can be laid out right on Paul's epistles. The main reason I write is this. Throughout all my study and my former persuasion experience in religion and Calvinism, under Lordship salvation I have never come across or understood this issue of adoption and now that I have I am utterly awed. Every denomination as it gave its' own style of education also sought to deny the flesh in some form or capacity, the attention and desire was always misplaced. There may have been some desire to please God, but always went about it in the wrong way. Again, focus, time, energy, was almost always put on the flesh and how to deny it and stop sinning; however, as I learn more and more about "being a son of God" the very first thing God does within His son is "to know wisdom and instruction". Father wants us to be aware of wisdom and instruction, it is a basic but necessary component to being a son of God. The Father then takes you and explains something about His business that will shock, awe, and amaze you. What He explains reveals that all the allurements and attractions are not to be compared with God as our Father teaching us as His sons. The Father is excited and desires to teach you and this "to know wisdom and instruction" is designed to give you the same desire and excitement in receiving the education from your Father. Our Father doesn't want us focused on the flesh and carnal things, but rather reveals that He is MORE attractive than anything else, and His teaching us as a Father this curriculum with Pauline doctrine is not even to be compared with earthly things. Our Father is truly amazing.
Look Up,
Josh Strelecki
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Don't Frustrate The Grace of God
"I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain."
- Galatians 2:21
Every believer, ones who solely trusts that Christ has died for their sin, was buried, and raised again, ones who believe Christ was delivered for their offences and raised again for their justification (to be declared righteous), and the ones who God's righteousness is not only unto, but the ones on whom it is upon, should know what it is to frustrate the grace of God. The believer understood through faith that they were sinners in need of God's righteousness, that no matter what good or bad they had done they fell short. The believer came to understand that all their attempts through law keeping and service to others was not the means of their righteousness, but that their righteousness would come from a source outside themselves, who is Christ.
It seems all to common among believers today that fruit, service, and law-keeping are the focus in the life of a believer. The issue of righteousness is lost and almost unsettled in the believers life resulting in a proving of their salvation by trying to produce something they never could: righteousness. They put their flesh suits on, hit the religious treadmill, and start working and exercising the flesh all to prove something they received by faith in the first place.
Righteousness never came by law keeping or the flesh and never will for if it did or if it does Christ is dead in vain. If your trying to prove your saved, stay saved, or think your saved by works, by law keeping, by the flesh then Christ is dead in vain. The believer starts out by believing solely in the crosswork of Christ, and they continue believing in the crosswork of Christ, He remains the issue. It is then when Christ is not dead in vain, but rather the reality of Galatians 2:20, is unleashed in the inner man.
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me."
I pray to all those that read that "as ye have received Christ Jesus, so walk ye in Him."
In Him,
Josh
- Galatians 2:21
Every believer, ones who solely trusts that Christ has died for their sin, was buried, and raised again, ones who believe Christ was delivered for their offences and raised again for their justification (to be declared righteous), and the ones who God's righteousness is not only unto, but the ones on whom it is upon, should know what it is to frustrate the grace of God. The believer understood through faith that they were sinners in need of God's righteousness, that no matter what good or bad they had done they fell short. The believer came to understand that all their attempts through law keeping and service to others was not the means of their righteousness, but that their righteousness would come from a source outside themselves, who is Christ.
It seems all to common among believers today that fruit, service, and law-keeping are the focus in the life of a believer. The issue of righteousness is lost and almost unsettled in the believers life resulting in a proving of their salvation by trying to produce something they never could: righteousness. They put their flesh suits on, hit the religious treadmill, and start working and exercising the flesh all to prove something they received by faith in the first place.
Righteousness never came by law keeping or the flesh and never will for if it did or if it does Christ is dead in vain. If your trying to prove your saved, stay saved, or think your saved by works, by law keeping, by the flesh then Christ is dead in vain. The believer starts out by believing solely in the crosswork of Christ, and they continue believing in the crosswork of Christ, He remains the issue. It is then when Christ is not dead in vain, but rather the reality of Galatians 2:20, is unleashed in the inner man.
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me."
I pray to all those that read that "as ye have received Christ Jesus, so walk ye in Him."
In Him,
Josh
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
LAW and FLESH
"I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me."
-Romans 7:21
I started yesterday my reading and as I always remind the saints at Twin Cities Grace Fellowship, the epistle to the Romans is jammed-packed and every time I read, something always jumps out: new and/or refreshing. The text is absolutely wonderful. Here are a few of my notes I have made on Romans 7; however, I don't include every verse in this blog.
Romans 7:1- “Death breaks the dominion and obligation of the law”
We are dead to the law so that our position of being dead to sin (chapter 6) can be put into practice. The reason why God had to do that is because the law was not designed to accommodate the deadness to sin. The law was designed to put sin into motion (7:5).
v. 4- God had to make us dead to the law so that we can bring forth fruit unto Him. (Gal. 2:19)
You can’t live unto God under the law, if God has to make you dead to the law so that you can live unto Him, God has to make you dead to the law so that you can bring forth fruit unto Him. Then that means you can’t do it under the law. This is the critical thing that we have to learn and realize the reality of.
v. 5, “For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.”
v. 6, “But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.”
Newness of spirit is little (s) that means a new system of operation and thinking in your human spirit, instead of the letter of the law there. Instead of having that performance system in your mind and thinking that God is going to bless if you do good and curse if you do evil and having fear for your motivation of serving (law contract). Instead of operating out of that thinking, God says we are dead to sin, dead to law, so that we should serve in newness of spirit, Grace thinking, who you are in Christ, and operating out of that.
v. 7, next objection, “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, thou shalt not covet.”
v. 8, “But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.”
Example of v. 8
v. 9, “For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, SIN REVIVED, AND I DIED.”
Nothing wrong with the law, but our assumptions are wrong!!
v. 13, “Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.”
v. 14, “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.” (Heb. 9)
v. 15-25= “Struggle to put His position in Christ under the law.”
The sin he wants to stop he can’t, and the good he wants he can’t.
v. 17, We are to be free from sin and dead to sin. Why then in verse 17, is sin doing anything in us? It comes by the law. The law does not provide the capacity to do the good you wish, but has the flesh operating and sin reviving. Our flesh is dead.
v. 22-23, “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”
***Another law in my members…who wins the war, “and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. ***
v. 24, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
He just described functional death and the deliverance is getting yourself from under the law and operating who you are in Christ.
v. 25, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”
Reference-chapter 6, in Christ Jesus our Lord we are under grace!!! What we need is a system that doesn’t cater to the flesh because the flesh only serves the law of sin. What we need is a system that doesn’t call upon the flesh and that's what grace does, it's crucifying you in Christ. God puts us under grace, may we not put ourselves under law.
-Romans 7:21
I started yesterday my reading and as I always remind the saints at Twin Cities Grace Fellowship, the epistle to the Romans is jammed-packed and every time I read, something always jumps out: new and/or refreshing. The text is absolutely wonderful. Here are a few of my notes I have made on Romans 7; however, I don't include every verse in this blog.
Romans 7:1- “Death breaks the dominion and obligation of the law”
We are dead to the law so that our position of being dead to sin (chapter 6) can be put into practice. The reason why God had to do that is because the law was not designed to accommodate the deadness to sin. The law was designed to put sin into motion (7:5).
v. 4- God had to make us dead to the law so that we can bring forth fruit unto Him. (Gal. 2:19)
You can’t live unto God under the law, if God has to make you dead to the law so that you can live unto Him, God has to make you dead to the law so that you can bring forth fruit unto Him. Then that means you can’t do it under the law. This is the critical thing that we have to learn and realize the reality of.
v. 5, “For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.”
v. 6, “But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.”
Newness of spirit is little (s) that means a new system of operation and thinking in your human spirit, instead of the letter of the law there. Instead of having that performance system in your mind and thinking that God is going to bless if you do good and curse if you do evil and having fear for your motivation of serving (law contract). Instead of operating out of that thinking, God says we are dead to sin, dead to law, so that we should serve in newness of spirit, Grace thinking, who you are in Christ, and operating out of that.
v. 7, next objection, “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, thou shalt not covet.”
v. 8, “But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.”
Example of v. 8
v. 9, “For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, SIN REVIVED, AND I DIED.”
Nothing wrong with the law, but our assumptions are wrong!!
v. 13, “Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.”
v. 14, “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.” (Heb. 9)
v. 15-25= “Struggle to put His position in Christ under the law.”
The sin he wants to stop he can’t, and the good he wants he can’t.
v. 17, We are to be free from sin and dead to sin. Why then in verse 17, is sin doing anything in us? It comes by the law. The law does not provide the capacity to do the good you wish, but has the flesh operating and sin reviving. Our flesh is dead.
v. 22-23, “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”
***Another law in my members…who wins the war, “and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. ***
v. 24, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
He just described functional death and the deliverance is getting yourself from under the law and operating who you are in Christ.
v. 25, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”
Reference-chapter 6, in Christ Jesus our Lord we are under grace!!! What we need is a system that doesn’t cater to the flesh because the flesh only serves the law of sin. What we need is a system that doesn’t call upon the flesh and that's what grace does, it's crucifying you in Christ. God puts us under grace, may we not put ourselves under law.
Friday, September 10, 2010
FOUND IN HIM!!!
I am desiring and hoping to write some short articles based off my reading each morning. I won't be writing every morning which was and maybe one day will be my lofty goal; however, intend on writing once or twice a week. My goal, because I enjoy writing, is to share a few thoughts about a particular passage that sticks out in my mind from God's Word that morning. These articles will by no means be exhaustive.
Philippians 3:7-9,
"But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:"
This passage has become dear to my heart for several reasons. I quickly want to point out that Philippians is one of Paul's later epistles, written after the Acts period. He writes this epistle form prison. Paul is older and more mature in the faith. Here are some things I enjoy in the passage.
1) Notice verse 7 & 8 are similar and he almost repeats himself.
v. 7, "but what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ."
v. 8a, "yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord:"
Paul said he counted all the things that were gain to him (see verses 4-6) as loss, but notice that HE STILL counts them loss. What does he count them loss for? For Christ, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
2) His all things that he counts as loss are counted as dung. No explanation needed.
3) My favorite verse out of this passage is verse 9. After many years in ministry and through many years of suffering Paul desire STILL is to be FOUND IN HIM (CHRIST). Paul's life was one of faith and he desired whether the rapture happened or at his death he would be found in Him. Paul although had his position eternally secure in Christ, practically he wanted to be found in that position in Christ. What does it mean to be found in Him?
4) NOT HAVING MINE OWN RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH IS OF THE LAW. This is a natural bent within mankind. We want to work. We want to work in order to prove something. In Exodus at the giving of the law, before Israel received the commandments they yelled, "all that the Lord commands we will do". Yea right. Are human pride wants to work to show God we can do something or prove something. Paul's attitude was not one of, "now I am saved so I will keep the law", but rather, "I am saved by faith alone in Christ alone I want to continue and be found in that faith". Paul wanted to be found not in his own righteousness which is of the law, but the righteousness that is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. Paul walked by faith and continued to walk by faith not in His own righteousness, but in Christ's.
"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him:"
-Colossians 2:6
May you rest in Christ's righteousness today by faith. I hope you desire to be found in Him and not in yourself. Christ is the issue. Count it all but dung for Christ!!!
Look Up,
Josh Strelecki
Philippians 3:7-9,
"But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:"
This passage has become dear to my heart for several reasons. I quickly want to point out that Philippians is one of Paul's later epistles, written after the Acts period. He writes this epistle form prison. Paul is older and more mature in the faith. Here are some things I enjoy in the passage.
1) Notice verse 7 & 8 are similar and he almost repeats himself.
v. 7, "but what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ."
v. 8a, "yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord:"
Paul said he counted all the things that were gain to him (see verses 4-6) as loss, but notice that HE STILL counts them loss. What does he count them loss for? For Christ, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
2) His all things that he counts as loss are counted as dung. No explanation needed.
3) My favorite verse out of this passage is verse 9. After many years in ministry and through many years of suffering Paul desire STILL is to be FOUND IN HIM (CHRIST). Paul's life was one of faith and he desired whether the rapture happened or at his death he would be found in Him. Paul although had his position eternally secure in Christ, practically he wanted to be found in that position in Christ. What does it mean to be found in Him?
4) NOT HAVING MINE OWN RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH IS OF THE LAW. This is a natural bent within mankind. We want to work. We want to work in order to prove something. In Exodus at the giving of the law, before Israel received the commandments they yelled, "all that the Lord commands we will do". Yea right. Are human pride wants to work to show God we can do something or prove something. Paul's attitude was not one of, "now I am saved so I will keep the law", but rather, "I am saved by faith alone in Christ alone I want to continue and be found in that faith". Paul wanted to be found not in his own righteousness which is of the law, but the righteousness that is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. Paul walked by faith and continued to walk by faith not in His own righteousness, but in Christ's.
"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him:"
-Colossians 2:6
May you rest in Christ's righteousness today by faith. I hope you desire to be found in Him and not in yourself. Christ is the issue. Count it all but dung for Christ!!!
Look Up,
Josh Strelecki
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