Saturday, July 15, 2017

Eternal Life, part 3

[This is part three on a series regarding Eternal Life. We have found so far that God gives us His own Nature, called Eternal Life or Love. This message will be about the fact that God is light and that we have that light in us.]

"This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5)

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth." Ephesians 5:8-9

These two verses tell us a lot about God and lot about being a new creation in Christ. We know that God is pure light, spiritual light and that there is no darkness in Him. Light is goodness and righteousness and truth; darkness is evil and sin and error.

We were darkness. Now we are light. Goodness and righteousness and truth have been put within us. We are born of the God who is Light. "For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:6) God Himself has shown in our hearts.

We have the light of God in us. It is up to us to walk in that light. "Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path." God's Word is a light to us. As he reveals His Word to our hearts, we are able to walk in the light of it. If we choose not to, then we will walk in darkness, not light. "If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." (1 John 1:6-7) This verse very clearly states that we must walk in the light that we have.

If we walk in the light that we have, then we have fellowship with God and with one another. If we walk in the light that we have , then we have automatic cleansing from that sin we don't yet have light on. We don't know everything, so there are sins in our lives that we are unaware of. I don't know about you, but I used to do and say some things that were wrong, but I didn't know they were wrong. Yet I was still in fellowship with God. Once God made me aware of those things, I repented and walk in this new light that I had. And that is something that we must do continually throughout our lives. We have keep learning and growing and walk in the light. If we walk in the light we have, God will give us more light to walk in. It seems that just when I think I am doing pretty well and have it all together, that's when God begins to bring more light and I have to conquer something else in my life. That's with God's help, of course.

This leads us to another question. Can I be sure I am actually hearing from God? You can if you are born of Him. "They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." There is a Spirit of truth and a spirit of error. Since we are "from God", in other words, born of God, we know the truth when it comes out. Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them." Since we have in us God's Nature, Eternal Life, we can hear His voice. The sheep know the Shepherd's voice. They follow Him.

So, by having God's Nature in us, we can hear Him and understand Him and walk in the light - in goodness, righteousness and truth.

Saturday, July 8, 2017

Eternal Life - part 2

[This is part two of a series on the subject of eternal life. If you have not read part 1, I encourage you to do so before reading this.]

In part one, we discovered that "Eternal Life" is not just living forever, but is actually our receiving God's own Life and Nature in our spirits in the New Birth. Specifically, we found that the Greek word, "zoe", which is translated as "life" in the NT refers to the Nature of God that is imparted to us. That is how we can become children of God.

But there are two other words, "light" and "love" that also describe the Nature of God. 1 John 1:5 says that "God is light". That means that light, spiritual light, is what God is. In 1 John 4:16, the NT tells us that "God is love". The Greek word is 'agape' which is used almost exclusively as the kind of love that God possesses, and that which He gives to us.

The fact that we have the kind of love that God has is best described in Romans 5:5, "The love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit." That love is the Divine Nature given to us in the New Birth. Notice 1 John 3:14. "We know that we have passed from (spiritual) death to (eternal) life because we love the brethren." I recall when I was in college, I came across a sister in the Lord who was doubting her salvation. She had struggled spiritually when she was away from Christian fellowship back when she was on break (I could relate) and came back to school wondering if she really was a true Christian. I asked her if she was happy to get back with the Christians in our college fellowship group. She said she was overjoyed. She had missed them so much! I shared with her this scripture to assure her that if she loved the brethren that was proof that she did know the Lord and had eternal life.

Some Christians doubt that we can even have the God kind of love. They fall short many times and figure they could never love as Jesus loves. "I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26) This is quite a statement by Jesus. He says that the love that Father has for the Son is in us. That should settle that issue once and for all. God's love, His Nature, is in us. That is not a hope but a fact.

Why do we still struggle? If we truly have God's love in us, why do we not seem to experience it. Once again, we must be aware of the fact that that love is in our hearts (spirits) and not in our flesh or our minds. Our flesh still must be kept under and our minds renewed with the Word of God so that the love of God can come out of us and bless others. "But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him." (1 John 2:5) We have to do what the Word says so that God's love can be perfected in us. In other words, the love of God has to grow in us.

Can the love of God grow? Paul taught that it can. "The fruit of the spirit is love ... ". (Galatians 5:22) Love is a fruit that grows. It grows in our spirits. We must bear the fruit of love. So we can grow in love and the other fruits of the spirit. If we let this love grow in us and yield to it, then we will experience the love of God in greater and greater measure.

God's life and love in us can grow. It will eventually dominate our beings until we are just like Jesus. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that you can never live up to the high demands of the love commandment. "Love one another as I have loved you" and 1 Corinthians 13 is not some unattainable ideal. These things were not put in the Bible to show us how inadequate we are. On the contrary, they tell us who we are in Christ and what we can do. God would not tell us to do something we could not do. He would not tell us to love as He loves unless He provided that love to us.

Here is a suggestion that can help you along these lines: Read 1 Corinthians 13, especially verses 4 through 8 every day for 30 days. Spend time thinking on these scriptures. Meditate on them. Let them sink into your consciousness. It will change you. I especially like the Amplified Classic translation of these verses. It brings out the fuller meaning of it.

Another suggestion for developing the love of God that is in you: Walk in love! That's how to grow it. Love is an action not a feeling. You can walk in love even if you feel nothing. Ask yourself in any situation, what would love do? Then do it.

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Eternal Life, part 1

Most Christians seem to be unaware of what the term "eternal life" means. I was taught that it meant that we were going to live forever, but when I would point out that everyone, saved or unsaved, will live forever somewhere, then I would usually get a blank stare. Other times, it was "explained" to me that it means to live forever with Jesus. That did not satisfy me. Yes, of course we will live forever with Jesus but that leaves a lot of scriptures regarding eternal life unexplained.

I think people get tripped up with the word 'eternal'. 'Eternal' can mean to live forever, but it is also an attribute of God. God is eternal, His existence is independent of time. So, if we were to describe what kind of "life" that God has we would have to say that He has "eternal life". His Nature, His Life is beyond the natural realm. Yet Jesus came to give us this Life. "I came that they may have life." (John 10:10b) The word "eternal" does not appear in this passage but it means the same thing. To see this we will have to dig into the Greek words translated as "life".

First, there is the word "bios" and that means manner of life or how one lives their life. The church has majored a lot on that. Then there is the word "psuche" which means one's natural life. That is the word Jesus used when He said that He was going to lay down his life (psuche). And He did. But there is another word translated "life" and that is "zoe" (pronounced 'zo-ay'). It means life in the absolute sense. It is used as the word for the Life and Nature of God. "For as the Father has life (zoe) in himself, even so he gave to the Son also to have life (zoe) in himself." (John 5:26) Notice that "life" is said to be "in" the Father and the Son. It is a nature, a substance. And Jesus said that He came to give it to us!

So how does that work? If we received the Life and Nature of God, wouldn't we be like Him? The answer is yes! But you might say now that we must not have it yet because we are not like Him, we have a lot of sins and problems and stuff. “Most certainly I tell you, he who hears my word, and believes him who sent me, has eternal life, and doesn’t come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life." (John 5:24) I like this passage because it tells us two things. First, it tells us that we do have eternal life and, second, it tells us that we are no longer dead. We weren't physically dead, were we? No. He is talking about being spiritually dead, having our spirits cut off from fellowship and relationship with God. "We were dead in trespasses and sins." Now that our sins have been washed away we have been made alive together with Christ. (See Ephesians 2:1,5) Our spirits, not our minds or our flesh, have been made alive with the Life and Nature of God. That's what it means to be born again and become a child of God.

God is the "Father of spirits". We were re-created in His image and likeness. We are, as Peter said, "partakers of the divine nature". (2 Peter 1:4) When we were joined together with Christ, His life flowed into us. His love came into our hearts. We want to do right now. We want to live 100% for God, but we still struggle with the flesh. Our flesh has not yet been redeemed. But there must be a way to walk in the light of eternal life and live as Jesus lives.

The church has tried to get us to live like Jesus told us to live, but we have failed most of the time. We have tried to correct our manner of life by trying to get our flesh to do what is right. Yet the flesh is contrary to God, it cannot obey Him. So, we struggle. We should have majored on eternal life (zoe) instead of manner of life (bios). The flesh cannot overcome itself. Our spirits, which have the life of God, have to become strong and overcome the flesh. We have to walk in the spirit so we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16)

So when Jesus said that He came to give us life, He was not recommending a new code of conduct or a new religion. He was offering us the life of God in our spirits so that we could live out that life so that it would change our manner of life. We can walk in newness of life. If we walk in the light of eternal life it will continually transform us to be like God wants us to be.

[The rest of this series will be about how this "zoe" can affect our lives.]