The Gospel of Mark, chapter 9, gives us the record of a father that desperately wanted help for his son. The boy was tormented by a demonic spirit in the worse way, and the father brought his son to Jesus to be healed. We all know that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is in the healing business, but the kind of healing and deliverance our Savior provides takes place supernaturally. In His Word, God warns us not to walk according to the flesh, but to walk in the Spirit, and this requires us to operate in an entirely different realm. We were born into a world that schools us in the flesh from day one. We learn to lean and depend on our five senses for knowledge that helps us govern our lives. We also learn to crave the things that bring pleasure to our flesh. If it feels good, then we want it, and we keep on wanting more and more of it. We grow up finding a lot of comfort in the tangible stuff—the stuff we can taste, touch, see, hear, and smell. It becomes very easy for us to live this way, but the faith of Jesus Christ doesn’t travel on that highway.
God’s original intention for His children is that we partner with Him. This vehicle of partnership is the way He chose to establish and deepen the relationship between Him and us. The foundation and pathway to a relationship with God is our faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. In John 14:6(NLT), Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” Because of Adam’s and Eve’s sin, humanity lost that most sacred and holy connection between humanity and God. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ gave his life to restore it. And even though we weren’t there when he died on the cross, and we didn’t physically see him resurrected with all power in his hands on that third day, faith demands that we trust this with our whole hearts. We must believe in what we did not see.
In John 15:13(NLT), Jesus said, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” The sacrifice of the life of Christ for our sins was the single greatest sacrifice that could be made in all of eternity. It was a love sacrifice. John 3:16 says that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but will have eternal life. Without Christ giving his life, everyone would have perished. We would have been doomed to be slaves to the kingdom of darkness. Because of Christ, the believer will never, ever experience hell. There is no ‘thank you’ big enough to express the level of gratitude Heavenly Father deserves for all He has done for us through His beautiful and powerful Son.
This love that God has for us has no end. If you lived ten thousand lifetimes and spent every day basking in His love, you still would not reach the end of it. Even then, after ten thousand lifetimes, God would reveal to you a side of His love you’ve never seen. Jesus Christ tells us in John 4:24(NLT), “For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” God, who is Spirit, created spiritual children. We were created from the spiritual realm of God. Ephesians 1:3(NLT) says, “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.” God has given us every spiritual blessing in heaven through our new birth experience. He sealed us with His Holy Spirit to guarantee that our love relationship with Him never ends. This is how much He loves us.
Ephesians 2:4-5(NLT) says, “But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead.” At one time, we were spiritually dead to God because we chose to be. He’s given us free-will. We can choose to love Him, or we can choose not to love Him; He will not force us either way. He hopes that we will wake up to the reality of our identity in Christ, and realize that heaven is our primary, not secondary residence. To wake up is to come into the light of Jesus Christ. It is to believe in the reality that we are spiritual beings with a soul, housed in a body, and commissioned by Christ to carry forth the work he began in, for, and through us long ago.
We weren’t there to witness the colossal damage Adam and Eve committed against God through their sin. Again, we weren’t there when Jesus Christ gave his life on the cross as a sacrifice to redeem us from a doomed fate. But we are living in a world that for the most part ignores the sacrifice of Christ. We are seeing in real time the horrors, arrogance, hatred, greed, and abuse that people consume and inflict under the influence and rulership of satan. Through His Son, Jesus Christ, this is what God has saved us from. Ephesians 2:8(NIV) tells us, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”
Our faith in God and believing in the salvation He has made available to us through Jesus Christ turns the light on in our hearts; it causes us to come alive to God. Colossians 1:15 tells us that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God; he’s God’s firstborn, and he is over all creation. Jesus Christ is who we are destined to become. Romans 8:29(NLT) says, “For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” From the very beginning, Heavenly Father pre-designed us to be fashioned in the shape and form of Christ, and it is through Jesus Christ that you and I can know the blueprint of who we will be. That same love, compassion, and power that he has is in us. This is why Jesus Christ is never ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters. He’s thrilled to work with us in accomplishing the Father’s Will. This is our purpose, and we can fulfill it by walking in God’s love and living according to the example of Jesus Christ every day. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Living by the Example of Jesus Christ”, written for victoryinjesuschrist.life. Copyright© 2020. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
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