If believers are to comprehend and experience the Christ life
within, we must abandon the way of religion where people are taught how
to live for God and embrace the gift of God's Grace that empowers you to
experience the outflow of His life in you to accomplish His purpose for
the Community of the Redeemed.
This is the
life Paul wrote about in Philippians 3:3-11. Read it.
All religions
are in agreement on at least one element: the false teaching that
relationship with god is attained and/or maintained by the actions and
efforts of man. In the passage above Paul explains why why this is not
so. Paul here talks about spiritual circumcision to emphasize the basis of
salvation;
1. True worship of God is a spiritual matter...not a ritual matter.
2. Christ is the object of our rejoicing...not rejoicing in religion.
3. Our confidence is in the Spirit...not in the flesh.
How did
Paul know these things? He learned them from Jesus. Jesus said, "God is
a Spirit and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in
truth." This principle must be understood if we want to be involved in
the true worship of God. Jesus said in John chapter 4, when he was
talking to a woman of Samaria. This woman's religion was no different
than the religion of today where the belief is that people go to a
certain building or a certain place in order to worship God. In verse 20
the woman said to Jesus, "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain; and
you say, that in Jerusalem is the place we ought to worship." Today, the
worship of God is associated with being a denominated believer
attending a segregated denominated building, this discredits the unity
that Christ prayed for His Community of the redeemed and is of the false circumcision.
In response to her, Jesus said,
The time is coming and you should be doing it now, when true worshipers
will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. In order to worship God
in this way we must abandon the religious way rituals, rules and
regulations for they are in vain. Religion emphasizes the external and
the religious requirements that people are required to perform, having
no understanding of or no appreciation what it means to worship God in
spirit and in truth.
This is exactly what Paul
warned the early believers about in Galatians...Judaizers would come in
among the early believers and would emphasize the keeping of the law
including circumcision. Now circumcision is a fleshly procedure, in the
natural it is impossible for circumcision not to include the flesh of
man. The flesh is symbolic of human effort and the self-righteousness of
man. The issue with involving the flesh is that man can never attain
the righteousness of God favor with God, or the blessings of God by his
own efforts.
Paramount to experiencing God's
grace is an understanding of Christ in you and His working through you.
Salvation is not a way for people to learn how to love for God. It is
the life of Christ within you and Him working His works through you, so
that the work done is His doing even though it seems to others that you
are the one doing the work.
Religious people are about pleasing God by working for God in their own strength and with their own life.
Grace
people understand that it is not about them or what they can do for
God. It is about what God has done for them and through them by giving them a whole new
life and no longer do they need to strive in their own strength,
expending their own energy strive to live a holy life. Instead they
rest in the Life of Christ...Who is holy.
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