December 2000

[Part Fifty-four]

“SEALS OF GOD”

[-M-]

  Years ago, stores offered a buying bonus of blue chip stamps and green stamps you earned with every purchase. You could take these trading stamps to a redemption center and exchange them for valuable items. Collecting these stamps toward an expensive item you might not otherwise be able to afford was a boon to one’s budget, especially for gift-giving. This gave buyers an added incentive to shop and spend. God also has a Redemption Plan, but it is second-to-none! He offers Adoption into Sonship as that High-priced Commodity which no man could ever possibly afford! The Throne of God is the Redemption Center where we present the Blood of Jesus in exchange for all the riches of Glory! The evidence of this Adoption is the “taming of our tongue” that no man can do for himself! Pr 18:21 says that “Death and Life are in the Power of the tongue”; to which Jas 3:8 adds that our tongue of death is an “Unruly evil, full of deadly poison”! Jas 3:2 assures us “If anyone does not offend in word (tongue), he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body!” Ro 8:23 says the Adoption into Sonship, also called the “manifestation of the Sons of God”, is demonstrated by the “Redemption of our body”! With this, we are no more at the mercy of the mind of flesh and its slavish lusts! For “We were planted together in the likeness of Christ’s death, therefore, we shall be raised together in the likeness of His Resurrection! Our old man is crucified with Christ so the body of sin might be destroyed forever; and we would serve sin no more ! For he that is dead to sin is freed from sin! If we are dead with Christ, we believe we are alive in Him; for we know He is raised from the dead and cannot die any more! Death has no more dominion over Him; so as He died to sin once, He now lives to God forever! Therefore you should consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!” (Ro 6:6-11)
               At first glance it might sound easy to “Just say no” to the dictates of the flesh; but it is not! Hear Paul’s quandary, “I do not understand my own actions! They baffle and bewilder me. For I do not practice or accomplish what I wish, but I do the very thing I loathe (what my moral instinct condemns)! Now if I habitually do what is contrary to my own desire, it means I acknowledge and agree that the Law is good (morally excellent) and I take sides with it. So it is no longer I who do the evil deed, but the sin principle which is at home in me and has possession of me! For I know nothing good dwells in my flesh nature! I set my will to do what is right but I cannot perform it! I have the intention and urge to do what is right, but no power to carry it out! I fail to practice the good deeds I want to do, but the evil deeds I do not want to do are what I am ever doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I doing it- it is not me that acts, but the sin principle which dwells within me- is fixed and operating in my soul. So I find it to be a law of my being that when I want to do what is right and good, evil is ever present with me and I am subject to its insistent demands! My inward, spiritual man delights in the Law of God; but I see another law in my members, warring against the Law of my mind! It brings me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched, miserable man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God that I shall be delivered through Jesus Christ our Lord! ”
              Php 3:20-21 says, “Our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, will change our vile body to be like His Glorious Body by His Resurrection Power that enables Him to subject all things to Himself!”
             This great metamorphosis is about to take place in a suffering body around the world. Thus we are warned, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit Who has sealed you for the Day of Redemption” (Eph 4:30) It is God’s greatest joy to redeem His Sons from the grave- so much so, He set His Seal to it!

[TO BE CONTINUED]