Welcome! This blog is a blog about new life. This blog is about how the power of Jesus Christ can transform any heart at any time. All of us have made mistakes in life. Mistakes can either make or break our lives as believers. In Acts chapter 9 we can read about the conversion of a man named Saul. Saul was a Jew on steroids. He did all the right things and followed the Jewish law to near perfection. Saul persecuted the Christian church. He killed Christians. He tortured Christians. He had Christians arrested for preaching the Gospel. For all intents and purposes he was one of the greatest threats to the Christian church. Yet, Jesus Christ showed up and transformed his life. Paul went on to write over 60 percent of the New Testament. With Christ living through Paul, the New Testament church was established. We have heard the story countless times. Yet, there are some key things that we may be missing.
When Jesus came to Saul he did not ask Paul why He was persecuting the church. In fact Jesus said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting". There is a lot more to this than meets the eye. Jesus is saying that when we sin, we are sinning against Christ himself. We often forget that our sin is against Christ. We walk around thinking that we have sinned against others and that Christ has forgiven us. Yet, we fail to stop and realize that we are sinning against Christ. Indeed, we sin against others and we must forgive others as Christ forgave us. However, the sin starts with sinning against our Lord and Savior. In Psalms David's confession to God paints the picture well when he says, "Against thee and thee alone have I sinned." Sin is against God. We must first stop and realize that our sin is against God. Once we do that, we can open up the doors to forgiving others that we have directly sinned against.
Paul's name was changed from Saul. When we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior we get a new identity. We get a new name. We are no longer the old man, we are a new creation. Imagine our life as we know it. We have a name. We have a social security number. We have a credit rating. We have debt. All that we have in this world is linked to our name. What Jesus shows by changing Paul's name is that we are given a new name. We have a new social security number. Our old man has massive debts that could never be repaid. Our old man has a massive sin debt. We have all fallen short of the glory. What Christ is teaching us by Paul's conversion is that we have a new identity. We have no debt. We have a deposit of righteousness. We have a deposit of infinite blessings. We have a deposit of infinite grace. We have deposit of infinite hope. We have deposit of infinite cleanliness. We have a deposit of redemption. We have been adopted by the most High God. Because of Christ we are now sons and daughters of God. Ephesians 1: 3-10 says, "3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he[c] predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace 8that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9And he[d] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ." Paul the persecutor of the Christian church is telling us that we have deposited in our account everything we need. We have all the righteousness we need. We have all the hope we need. We have everything we need to be everything we need to be in the person of Jesus Christ. Those who trust Christ are holy and blameless in His sight. It is not by what we have done but only through the cross of Christ that we have a new identity. We can either walk around believing the lie that we are the old man with the old social security number with a massive sin debt that can never be repaid. Or, we can put on the new self and let Christ do through us what we cannot do ourselves. We have been chosen by God to let God live through us. We need not ask for blessings. We already have all the blessings we could ever need. We need to spend less time asking for blessings and search out the blessings we already have in Christ. When we understand that we have everything that we need, we no longer ask God for blessings, but we ask Him how we can bless Him. When we allow Christ to be the Lord of our lives, we find a new purpose in life. We want to bless our heavenly Father. We want to share His glory instead of ours. Christ has given us everything we need. He cannot give us more forgiveness. We have already been forgiven. He cannot give us anymore hope. We have all the hope we need in Christ. He cannot give us more righteousness. We are righteous because of Christ. We are blameless because of the death and resurrection of Christ.
The Old testament is filled with stories of how God revealed himself. God showed up as a burning bush to Moses. God knocked down the walls at Jericho by men shouting out loud. God parted the red sea. God did amazing things to show who He was to the people of the Old Testament. The New Testament is about God's promises coming true. God fulfilled the promises by sending his only son Jesus to live a perfect life, became sin and knew no sin, have a brutal death, and be raised from the dead. Why? So, that we could become His sons and daughters. God did this so He can lavish His love upon us. God did this so that we can have life in the person of Christ manifested by the Holy Spirit to live inside of us. God loved us so much that He wants to be in us. He wants to live our life through us. God did not just want to be around us. He wants to be in us. He wants to take residence in us so that He can live through us. God wants us to have everything we need so that we can have an intimate relationship with Him. God wants to give us all that He has. God wants to be glorified through our lives. God wants to take away the burdens and blows that life has dealt us. God wants to transform our lives into His image. He wants others to look at us and see Himself. If God can use Paul, He can use any of us. It is never too late to trust Christ. You may be in your darkest hour and everything around you is falling down on you. Yet, Christ is in control. He is on the throne.
Everything we need is in the person of Christ. He is the perfect Father who lavishes His love down on us. Do not listen to what the world tells you. Do not look at your past and say that you are too far from getting grace from Christ. There is no one that is too far from Christ. Have you killed any Christians? Have you tortured Christians? If not, Christ can do anything in anybody that is willing to let Him. We can either believe the lie that we can never be anything for God, or stand on the Word of God and trust that Christ is who He says He is. It is our choice. God is either a liar or not. Trust in the Word of God. People will tell us all sorts of things. However, we must take every thought captive and lay against the Word of God. We must know who we are. We must believe that we are no longer the old man. We must accept the grace that Christ has given us. It came at a high cost. Jesus had to die. Yet, the resurrection gave us a new life. We can approach God not because of what we have done, but because of what Jesus did on the cross. It is only through Christ that we are righteous.
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