EXCERPTS

LIMITING GOD through Ignorance

In the book of Exodus, we saw the willing-hearted and the wise-hearted providing the means whereby God could dwell in the midst of His redeemed people. Now the truth is complete. We Christians do not provide the material for the temple; we — our bodies in all their weakness—are the temple.

The children of Israel, among whom God dwelt, were not rich or important or especially selected. They were just a bunch of slaves redeemed from Egypt. So it is with us. When we accept Christ as our Savior, He comes to dwell in our hearts in the person of His Holy Spirit. He comes to us just as we are. There is no waiting until we are worthy. If He did wait, He would never come at all! His desire is to dwell in our hearts and to make our bodies, individually, the temple of God.

Now we can begin to understand that our own personal history will parallel the history of God’s people in the Old Testament. When they recognized God’s presence to control—His presence, His plan, His power—then they enjoyed blessing and peace and success. God was not limited. Instead, His will and His Word were sent forth with power. Conversely, when they forsook God and went their own way, they ran into problems, enemies, defeat, and even captivity.

This is the promised pattern for your own life. If you will recognize your body as God’s temple, and give to Him that which is rightly His (not only by creation, but by purchase—”for you were bought at a price”), then you, too, will enjoy blessing and peace and success. But, if you choose to retain control of your own life, for good reasons or for bad, in the measure that you retain control, in that same measure you will run into problems, enemies, defeat, and even captivity. This is the basic law of God: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life” (Galatians 6:7-8).

Ignorance is no excuse for failure, but it is a sure way to limit God in all His purposes. How wonderful it would be if some of us realized, perhaps for the first time, what is really involved in being a Christian. If we choose to retain control of our lives, then we will continue in our weak, sickly, powerless living. There will be no joy in our hearts, no blessing to other people, and we will be limiting God once more. But if we act now on the truth we have heard, then blessing will be inevitable.

From:  LIMITING GOD  Pg. 157-158      John Edward Hunter    © 1995 Fresh Springs, Inc

 

The Secret of Behaving Like a Saint

All that we ever possess and experience in the Christian life is the result of the givingness of God. The complimentary action to giving is taking —- not asking. My personal experience of God’s love in my heart is the measure in which I respond to the “givingness” of God. When I came as a sinner and realized that God was offering forgiveness, I took this  gift SO freely offered. Because I took, I enjoyed the blessings of for giveness of sins, and I had peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We see the same idea in the gospel stories where ( Christ so often said to a healed person, “thy faith hath saved thee.” We know that the source of the healing was in the per son of Christ, but the actual experience only came when the seeker took, or appropriated, for himself the blessing so freely available.

This is one of the basic truths of the Christian faith: God is offering all that I need in every area of Christian experience.
Not only is God giving that which makes me a Christian, He is also giving, moment by moment and hour by hour, that which enables me to live the Christian life. Ignorance of this fact is he cause of the failure we are considering in this chapter  failure to understand the secret of behaving like a saint.

From: KNOWING GOD'S SECRETS   page 28-29    John E Hunter   © 1995 Fresh Springs, Inc.