God's Adopted Children

 

"I can't!" and "I quit!" are two powerful statements. They denote a desire and decision to stop trying in our human efforts. They lead us to realize that we can, only in Christ (Philippians 4:13).

They help us to die to our self and to rise to walk in the new life, which God has planned for us (Mark 8:34-35; Ephesians 2:10). His peace in our spirit confirms His will, and His joy is our strength (Philippians 4:7; Psalm 28:7).

We are dead, and our life is now hidden with Christ in God. Christ is our whole life (Colossians 3:3-4). We empty our self of all of our plans, goals and dreams, and live according to God's counsel (Ephesians 4:11).

God changed us from sinners to Saints, His adopted children who will inherit His Kingdom. All that is His, now belongs to us as well (1 John 3:2; Ephesians 1:5; Galatians 3:26). We are no longer strangers and aliens, but we belong in God's family (Ephesians 2:19).

The Christian life involves much less striving than many Believers think. There is no need for us to use our humanity to accomplish anything in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:8-9).

We walk in the Spirit and exhibit His fruit in our character (Galatians 5:15-25). This enables us to trust in the Lord with every fiber of our being and not to depend on our human reasoning at all (Proverbs 3:5-6).

Jesus died for our salvation from sin and eternal death (John 3:16 -18). Offering our life to His service in our vocation and calling is our daily commitment to Him in return.

Prayer:

Father God, thank You for validating our worth through Your presence in our life. You set us free to live, move and have our being in You (Acts 17:28). Your mercy and love granted us forgiveness while we were still sinners (Romans 8:5), so that we in turn can forgive our self and others who wrong us during our lifetime (Matthew 6:14).

Teach us to discern the difference between the carnal or satanic voices and Your voice in our mind; so You can lead us throughout our day. Remind us not to expect certain results when we obey Your promptings, because Your ways are so much higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9).

Thought for the Day:

We do not allow success or problems to approve or negate God's will for us, because we may not see the eternal plan, which God accomplished through us regardless of the results. - 1 Peter 4:12

The Faith of the Son of God

How can we live by the faith of the Son of God (Galatians 2:20)? First and foremost, we live by the mercy and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and His provision of regeneration and His resurrection life in us (2 John 1:3; Titus 3:5; Philippians 3:11).

Faith has nothing to do with our hopes or claiming God’s Word for things we want. It has everything to do with Christ who abides within us. Faith only comes to us by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17).

If we did not have the faith of Christ within us, we could not have faith in Christ and His redemptive work for us on Calvary’s cross (Galatians 2:16; Matthew 1:21; Hebrews 10:1-14). As Christ is formed in us, our humanity decreases.

We live in Christ, just as Christ also lives in us (Galatians 2:20; Colossians 1:27). We also live in God’s righteousness, not by keeping rules and regulations, but by the faith of Christ which gives it all to us (Romans 3:21-22; Philippians 3:7-9).

Christ becomes our whole life (Colossians 3:4). We receive the promises of God by Christ’s faith within us, not by mustering up our faith by human effort (Hebrews 10:5-14; Galatians 3:22-26).

Keeping God’s law through our self-effort is also useless, and Jesus showed us this truth (Romans 10:4). God works the faith of Christ into our life by His Spirit (Ephesians 1:19-20, 2:8-9; Colossians 1:12).

Through Christ in us, we are adopted sons of the living God, heir with Christ and we are given the right to call God our “Abba Father” (Galatians 3:26, 4:4-7). We can come boldly to His throne (Ephesians 3:12).

We receive peace with God through the atonement of Christ on Calvary’s cross (Romans 4:25, 5:1-12, 18). He is the only Mediator between us and God (Ephesians 1:12). The faith of Christ gives us a firm foundation (Acts 3:16).

Salvation gives us the treasure of Christ in our mortal body (Colossians 2:3). Once we recognize that we are truly crucified with Christ, then Christ is fully formed in us and manifests through our mortal body (2 Corinthians 4:7; Galatians 4:19).

Prayer:

Father God, as You form Christ in us, His faith rests in us as well. The more we come to know Him, the more we walk in His faith (John 17:3). As we come to know Christ more, we also come to know Your ways and purpose for our life.

The faith of Christ in us is the evidence of the things we hope for, but which we cannot yet see (Hebrews 11:1). Abiding in Christ is the only way we walk in Your power (John 16:24). Remind us not to “name it and claim it” for our own carnal purposes; but to ask and seek only for Your Kingdom.

Thought for the Day:

We live in the faith of the Son of God, which Jesus both conceives and brings to fruitfulness in us. 

– Hebrews 12:2

Moving Forward through Forgiveness

God became man in order to atone for our sins, because we could never pay the debt on our own (1 John 4:19). Jesus loves us more than a pearl of great price (Matthew 13:45).

Jesus relinquished his royal status and gave His life, so that we can live as God's adopted children and joint heirs with Him to receive all that the Father owns in His Kingdom (Romans 8:16-18).

God forgives us of every transgression of His law; but unless we forgive our self, Satan keeps us under his bondage to degradation and sin. The shame we feel for our behavior is fed by Satan's lies, which He whispers in our heart day and night (Revelation 12:10).

Satan knows that if we ever forgive our self, and dedicate our life completely to the God who saved us, he will lose us forever. There is no thought, word or deed, which we commit, that is too horrific for God to forgive (Romans 5:8).

Most of our choices are mistakes that we make without thinking, although some of them are premeditated. Yet, God forgives each one, which we confess, according to His mercy and justice (1 John 1:9, 3:9). He erases the injustice of our behavior with His goodness and grace.

God has a perfect plan for us and our true joy lies in following that plan (Ephesians 2:10). It is never too late to change. We can lay down our shield of lies and our heavy burden of pain at Jesus' feet.

We come to God in our weariness and hopelessness, and He gives us rest for our soul and births life into our dead spirit, which we carried around within us for our whole life, until the day we repent (Matthew 11:28).

Prayer:

Father God, Your Spirit joins Your Bride in encouraging anyone who reads or hears Your Word to come to Your river of life (Revelation 22:17). Your voice penetrates the hard wall, which we build around our soul to keep out the pain of the past and the eventual pain of the future.

This wall crumbles when we face life's difficulties with Christ in us. Help us not to patch up the wall of defenses and build it higher and thicker, and to realize that only Your love can protect us from life's hardships and storms (Isaiah 4:6).

Complete surrender to Your call on our life will put us under Your umbrella of protection (Job 11:13-15). You give us a place of repose (Isaiah 28:12). You refresh and satisfy our faint heart (Jeremiah 31:25). You give us Your living water to drink for eternity (John 7:37).

Thought for the Day:

Forgiving others and our self is the key to freedom from the destructive aspects of life and it is the door to our freedom in Christ.