Blog In Audio:
Greetings;
Happy Resurrection reality! I hope you had a great Resurrection Sunday! We had to do a little adjustment here in Bellingham. We had a couple of COVID cases in our Learning Center so we had to change our Sunday service. Pastors Jonathan and Danie are locked in their house so they had to broadcast from home. I did a bit of a gathering at the church with a few others, while others joined in online from their homes. It wasn’t what we thought would happen, but our hungry hearts are still reaching out to God. Pastors Jonathan and Danie challenged us to let some things die in regard to our old expectations in order to receive all that is new of God in Christ in this season of time.
Today I want to consider what it means to be a new creation in Christ. Good Friday was a matter of the life of the flesh being poured out for us all. Resurrection Sunday was about making the blood of grace available to us all. The life of the flesh is in the blood of the cross, but the life of the Body of Christ is found in the Holy Spirit. The sevenfold power of the Holy Spirit in our lives is the life of new creations in Christ. I believe this is the true blood of grace.
Our blood is the fluid that circulates in the heart, arteries, capillaries, and veins to carry nourishment and oxygen to every part of our body as well as the ability to carry away waste products from every parts of our body. Blood supplies life to our body members, protects them from harmful substances that will kill them, and gives its substance to preserve life and provide healing where needed. Blood gives life, preserves life, and protects life in our body. Red cells provide life and carry away death causing substances from our body members. White cells protect our body parts against foreign agents. Platelets preserve life and protect it whenever a body part is wounded. These are attributes of the blood of the flesh. The Bible doesn’t teach that the life is in the blood. It teaches that the life of the flesh is in the blood (Lev. 17:11). What about the life of the body of Christ? What is the blood of the body of Christ? What is it the provides spiritual nourishment, oxygen, and all manner of life to us as new creations in Christ? What is it that cleanses us from all impurities and keeps us healthy? What is it that provides the necessary spiritual warfare to overcome in all things? We were people of flesh and blood, but now we are part of the flesh and bone body of Christ. When Jesus showed Himself to His disciples after His resurrection He presented to them that He was a body of flesh a bone. He was a body of resurrection life. He was a testimony for us all as new creations in Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; 15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. 16 Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
God’s mercy justifies us to live, but His grace empowers us to reign in life. God’s grace working in our lives is the true blood of the body of Christ. This is the power of being new creations in Christ. We have redemption through Jesus shedding the blood of His sinless flesh. This is what gives us all the forgiveness of sins. We are justified to live and there is also an administration that empowers us live new lives in Christ. This is reigning life. This is the power of the blood of the Spirit working in and through our lives.
Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.
We are justified to live because of His blood, but we are saved by His grace. We shall overcome all wickedness through Him. Our thoughts, reasoning, desires, imaginations, and emotions are being empowered by God’s grace working in our hearts and minds. It is even powerful enough to quicken our mortal bodies and affect our spirit, soul, and body. This is the power of God’s grace working in and through us. It is the power of God’s manifest presence in or lives. It is the proof that there is no gap, no separation, between us and God and we access this power when we boldly come to the place of God’s presence because of His mercy and find the life that now empowers us to live. This is grace.
Romans 5:10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
God’s mercy reconciled us to God as our Father, but God’s grace empowers us to live with the evidence of lives that have been reconciled to God. Grace is the evidence that God is in our lives. We must choose to receive God’s mercy and embrace His grace to live with a culture of grace among the kingdoms of the world. We are new creations in Christ! This is our gift of resurrection life that came by Jesus and Jesus alone – the Savior of the world!
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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