Sunday 5 April 2015

Jesus is Alive!!

Hallelujah!! Jesus is Alive! 

Man’s Death, separated us from God.  God created us for fellowship and intimacy with Him.  He is heartbroken at our separation from Him and He is taking every effort to bring us back into intimacy with Him.  God does not want anyone to perish.  When Jesus Died our Death, the separation between Man and God was bridged and we could enter the Holy of Holies. 

Once Christ had completed His task on the cross, the mortal had to put on immortality; corruption had to put on incorruption. Resurrection was mandatory.  It had to happen.  At resurrection, Death was dealt a death blow.  Death was swallowed up in victory. 

Satan can no more intimidate us with the threat of Death.  Death has lost its sting.  In Christ we have victory over Death.  Obviously, this does not mean that we will not leave this earthly house, this tent.  We, in fact, groan to be clothed with our new habitation, which is from heaven.  We desire that mortality be swallowed up by Life.  Paul goes to this extent to say, “For me ... to die is gain”

The second victory that we enjoy because of resurrection is that we now can live here on earth, victoriously over the power of sin.  The resurrected Christ lives within us.  He invites us to be crucified with Him and the life, which we now live, will be no more ours but the life of Christ.  Once we have come to Christ and received His forgiveness, we cannot go back to live for the ‘self’.  This is the crux of the gospel.  The gospel only becomes personally applicable, when a person lives no more for the self but for Christ.  This experience of dying to the self and living for Christ is a constant, ongoing experience for a Christian.  This is not about our effort but trusting Him constantly.  This is why the Christian life is a Life of Faith. 

Thirdly, when we personally appropriate the work of Christ on the cross by repenting of our sins, seeking His forgiveness and inviting Him to be the Lord of our lives, Jesus became our Life.  God gives us eternal Life and this Life is in His Son.  He who has Christ has Life and he who does not have Christ does not have Life. 

There is a book in heaven called the Book of Life. Anyone who is not found written in the Book of Life will be cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death.  Man without Christ, though physically alive, is already Dead.  Physical life that Man lives is given for Man to repent, turn to Christ and have Life.  When Man is physically living, he has the opportunity to have his name included in the Book of Life.   

This is also the basis for missions and evangelism.  Every physically living person is living only for one reason and that is to have the opportunity to receive Jesus into his life.  We, who know Christ, are ambassadors of Christ, pleading on God’s behalf, with every physically living Man to turn to Christ and thereby be reconciled with God.  If a person dies physically, without entering into a relationship with Christ, his name will not be included in the Book of Life and he will be cast into the lake of fire. 

God is pleading for Man to come back to His intimacy and embrace.  

Saturday 4 April 2015

Death Died

The wages of sin is death.  The opposite of Death is Life.  What is Life?  God breathed His breath into Man and Man became a living being.  So, Life is the breath of God.  This is the Life that Man had in the Garden of Eden.  This Life would Die in Man when Man broke relationship with God.  This is exactly what happened when Man ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Man Died. 

The serpent told Man that they would not Die if they ate the fruit.  This was a lie and Man still believes the lie since Man thinks that physical life is Life and physical death is Death.  Now we can understand why Man runs after saving physical life.  Whereas, whoever saves this life will lose it but whoever loses this life for Jesus and the gospel will save it.  The truth is - the purpose for physical life is to lose it for Jesus and the gospel - This is Man’s only hope. 

Now, Man is Dead.  How serious is Death?  What is Death?  There are three perspectives of Death.  The first is Man is now eternally separated from God.  Death has finality to it.  Man and God relationship is eternally broken. 

In the court room of heaven, Satan is the prosecutor and he has been able to get his evil aim executed over us.  Satan, who tempted us to sin and thus caused our Death, stands diabolically gleaming over us, the accused, with this verdict written over us – DEAD. 

The second perspective of Death is that we are Dead in our sins.  Sin has a Death grip over us.  Even if we desire to do good we are not able to, since Sin working in us causes us to further sin.  We are captives to Sin and we are Dead in our sins.  Nothing we can do can set us free from the Death of Sin working powerfully in us. 

The third perspective of Death is that there is a second Death, which is the lake of fire.  Anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.  All of these three perspectives give us the understanding of the seriousness of Death. 

On the cross, Jesus became Sin for us.  He had no experiential knowledge of sin but He became Sin.  Each of us has different experiences of sin but none of us can claim to know Sin in its totality.  I'm a graduate in Agriculture but I can never claim that I personify Agriculture.  Agriculture is a vast subject.  Similarly with sin but Jesus became SIN for us.  The entire length, breadth, height and depth of SIN were placed on Him and He became the personification of Sin. 

This is when the relationship with the Father snapped and Jesus could only call God and say, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  JESUS DIED.  Very often we look at the physical death of Jesus on the cross and we say Jesus died.  Jesus surely died physically just as every Man born on earth dies but Jesus Died our Death

Let’s go back to the court room of heaven.  Remember, we left Satan standing over us, with a wicked glee, saying, “You are Dead”.  Now walks in our advocate, Jesus, presenting His Death on our behalf to the God the righteous judge, saying, “DEATH DIED, since I Died Man’s Death once and for all”  There is an incredible silence in the court room.  Then comes the resounding over-ruling from the Judge, for all of heaven and earth to hear, ‘Man’s Death Cancelled, Declared Righteous’.  Satan defeated.