Jesus Descended First

Ephesians 4:7-11

When Jesus ascended into heaven, following His Passion on this earth, he “led captivity captive” and then “gave gifts unto men”. The five-fold ministry gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are from God, through the finished work of Jesus, to provide for the newly founded church. It is the action of leading the captivity captive that shows us volumes about Jesus’ accomplishment at Calvary.

Jesus told us that hell consisted of both flames for the sinner and Abraham’s bosom for the saint (Luke 16:22). Prior to the cross, no man could enter into heaven for their sins had not yet been taken away, only covered by countless lambs and bulls. Since these sacrifices could not take away sins (Hebrews 10:4), the saints that died went to a paradise, waiting the shedding of the blood of the Lamb, which would take away the sin of the world.

When Jesus died, He descended in spirit into the lower parts of the earth (Ephesians 4:9). While there, He preached deliverance to the captives (Luke 4:18), taking them out of this Paradise and leading them to the Father, the access which had been paid for by His blood. All men that exhibited faith in God prior to the cross were actually looking forward by their faith to that cross, accepting the blood of Jesus as the washing away of their sins. Jesus’ death then brought fulfillment to their faith, becoming a truly finished work.

After descending into the earth, Jesus then ascended far above all heavens, “that he might fill all things” (Ephesians 4:10). The only way that Christ could fill all things is if He has first “fulfilled” all things, and the cross was the complete fulfillment of God’s plan for man’s redemption. By then pouring gifts, in the form of the five-fold ministry, into the church, Jesus has filled us with all that we need for growth and development.

It is beautiful to know that no one was left out by the finished work of the cross. Those who had died prior to the cross were covered by the descent of Jesus into the heart of the earth, while those who lived after the cross had just been paid for by the shed blood of the lamb. Those in Paradise were escorted to heaven to live forever with the Lord, while those of us left on this earth have the resurrection of Jesus, which allows the Holy Spirit to live His life through us. We are both provided for, and that through what Christ has accomplished.

The finished work of Christ is that which fills all things. You are who you are in the Lord because the work of the cross was so complete. The gifts that Jesus paid for are “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12). This shows us that though the cross is a finished work, it is still finishing the work in us. We are constantly being molded and shaped into the very likeness and image of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Glory to God for His perfect payment for you, by the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. Your past, present and future have been atoned for by His perfect work.

How to Walk in Power

Galatians 3:5

Galatians 3 is a harsh rebuke by the Apostle Paul to the church at Galatia, and it is very telling about Paul’s attitude toward the gospel. The rebuke of “O foolish Galatians” which leads off the chapter does not come as the result of spiritual laziness or some sort of sin. Instead, Paul rebukes them for mixing the message of pure grace with that of works and law. He says, “Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3)

A misconception that is attached to the power of God is closely related to this attitude by the Galatian church. Many believe that when someone operates under the anointing in preaching or teaching or they have wonderful miracles come out of their ministry, that they must live a holier life or have some higher form of sanctification. This leads people to try to “pay the price” for power in their life and an increased emphasis on works is soon to follow.

Paul debunks this theory when he asks them about the power that rests on the preachers and miracle workers in their midst, “Doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” (Galatians 3:5) Is it the keeping of the law to a greater degree than his peers that causes this man to preach with authority or operate in the gifts of the Spirit? Paul’s answer is found in the last part of the question, “the hearing of faith”.

God does not “reward” the worker of the law with great anointing or signs, wonders and miracles. The more that the believer hears of Christ and His finished work and they learn to rest in that work, the more that they are used of the Spirit, for there is no dependency in their own heart on their performance. They do not fear being accepted of God and they know that they do not earn what Jesus has already paid for. The knowledge that they are loved and forgiven keeps them qualified in their minds to be used of God, and this hearing of the faith brings the power of the Holy Spirit out in them.

This was common knowledge among the disciples, but not so much among the laity. When Peter and John came into the temple in Jerusalem at the gate called Beautiful, they were met by a lame beggar, asking alms. Peter made the now famous statement, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk” (Acts 3:6). The man was healed instantly and the people looked on Peter and John, “greatly wondering” (Acts 3:11).

Peter senses that in the wondering of the people, they are convinced that they are looking at two great and mighty men. He says to them, “Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Or why look you so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?” (Acts 3:12). Note the phrase, “by our own power or holiness”. Peter knows that the people think that he and John are powerful and further, that they have paid some sort of “holiness” price to be used so mightily of God. This is the same attitude that Paul is confronting in Galatians 3, and it should be confronted again today!

When God uses someone, there has certainly been a price paid, but not one of works, otherwise God would owe that man or woman the power and the anointing (Romans 4:4). The price that has been paid is the hearing of faith. When you hear of what God thinks about you and you embrace it, you become usable by the Father.

Know what He thinks of you, and be prepared to watch God move in a mighty way.

The Promise, Not the Present

2 Corinthians 5:1-8

It is fitting to open this devotion with the last verse of the preceding chapter, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18). Paul is encouraging the reader to live beyond the things that they see, and hold fast to the unseen promises of glory. He continues with the theme into chapter 5.

Remember that there is a distinct difference between the promise and present. Oftentimes the present seems dark and discouraging, with persecutions and trials, but we can rest in the knowledge that we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus and that we have an eternal inheritance. I am not saying that Christianity is gloom and doom, for I don’t believe that in the least, but there are going to be rough seas on this journey, and persecutions will come (Mark 10:30).

Paul uses this section of his letter to give hope to the church, that there is more than meets the eye. He differentiates between the physical body of the believer and the spirit man. If we were to have this physical body stripped away, he assures us that we have a glorified spirit body that we will live in forever in heaven. The burden that is faced by the saint is “not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life” (2 Corinthians 5:4). We are not groaning to “be unclothed”, which means that as saints we are not begging God to kill us so that we can escape this world; instead we are longing for the glory that will come with being in His presence.

God actually implanted the desire inside of us to be with Him (5:5), and then gave us the “earnest of the Spirit”. The “earnest” is the “down-payment” in Greek, meaning that God put a down-payment on our eternity by placing the Holy Spirit in each one of us. We get a taste of His heavenly goodness everyday due to the presence of the Holy Ghost as He speaks to us and ministers to us of God’s love. Remember, the Holy Spirit’s first job within the heart of every believer is to shed the love of God abroad in every area of our heart (Romans 5:5).

Because we have this down-payment in our hearts, “we are always confident, knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (for we walk by faith, not by sight)” (2 Corinthians 5:6, 7). The Lord is not absent from us, for He never leaves us nor forsakes us, but we are absent from His physical presence. We know this for we do not walk by what we see, but by faith. Paul has already stated this case to the Romans when he said, “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17).

Paul’s final piece of “blessed assurance” as I like to call it is to guarantee the believer that if we are absent from our body, we shall be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). This is a glorious promise for those who have lost a loved one who was a Christian, for we can know that they are at home with Jesus. They are not in some state of spiritual limbo, nor are they in a deep spiritual sleep awaiting the resurrection, but rather they are presently with the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are fully aware of all that is happening around them (Luke 15:19-31; Revelation 6:9-11).

Don’t fall into the trap of always looking at your surroundings. They will deceive you and cause you to fear the circumstances. Keep your heart focused on the promise that we have eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Such Were Some of You

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Paul’s address in the sixth chapter of 1 Corinthians deals with two major issues facing the church in Corinth. First, the believers in that church were suing one another over various matters, going before secular courts to solve problems better solved within the confines of the church. Paul speaks this to their shame (6:5). They were also committing fornication, specifically with harlots that hung out near the temple. Paul reminds them that their bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost and that they are better than they have been living (6:19, 20).

Sandwiched in between these two admonitions is Paul’s statement about those who will not be going to heaven. He includes fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate (which is translated “soft” meaning one who is a feminine male), abusers of themselves with mankind (homosexuals), thieves, those full of lust, drunks, extortioners, etc (1 Corinthians 6:9, 10). He does not say that if you commit one of these acts that you are going to hell; rather he is describing someone who IS one of these persons. This is their lifestyle, and they can be identified by what they do.

Believers fail frequently, in fact, this sixth chapter bears that out, but believers are not known by their failures but rather by their Savior. Paul’s description of those who are going to miss heaven is to show the church at Corinth that when they take one another to court for lawsuits, they are allowing this sort of person to be their judge. Also, when they fornicate, they are living like this group of people lives.

“And such were some of you” is Paul placing the believer beyond this lifestyle. You “were” this way when you were a sinner, so why would you go back to living this way now? “But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). Notice Paul’s insistence in using the phrase, “but ye are” each time? He could have left that out, but he wants to emphasize each area of a believer that has been changed by Christ’s finished work.

Look at the three things that Paul says is different about you now that you are a Christian. You are washed, meaning that you have been placed beneath the waterfall of God’s forgiveness due to what Jesus accomplished at the cross. All of your sins and your sinful ways are gone for His blood has washed them away, freeing you from being identified as those in verses 9 and 10. You are also sanctified, which means that you have been set aside for the use of the Holy Spirit. You are not “being” sanctified every day, for His finished work is a truly finished work! Finally, you are justified, which means that God views you as if you have never even sinned. You are made just because God honors the sacrifice of His Son and sees you as He sees Jesus! (Romans 3:26)

When you fail, please do not view yourself as a sinner. You have been washed, sanctified and justified. The quicker that you come to terms with this news, the quicker that you live free from the shackles of sin and failure.

God is Righteous

Romans 3:26

When we were children, we would say a prayer over our food that went, “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food, Amen”. There is good theology packed into that prayer of thanksgiving, because God truly is good and He is great. Due to the climate of the Old Testament, where God is seen killing those who sin and putting plagues on many others, how can we prove to the world that our God is truly “good” and “great”?

We know that God functioned in the aforementioned capacity in the Old Testament because He was dealing with man through the Covenant of Law, where man was held accountable for his keeping or breaking of God’s perfect law. No man could keep it, so every man was judged for his failures. When Jesus came, He lived that law to perfection and then laid down His life at Calvary so that we could have His goodness. In short, He lived it so that we won’t have to. He died, so that we can live. This changed God’s attitude, for it appeased His wrath (Isaiah 53:11, 1 John 2:2).

If God continues to look upon our sin with anger and then strikes us with cancer and tumors as a way to “keep us in line”, then He was obviously not appeased with Jesus’ sacrifice at the cross. For the church to preach that God is “keeping score” and is ready to pour out His wrath on this earth, shows a fundamental lack of understanding just how finished the finished work of the cross is. Will God show wrath to the earth again? He certainly will, but not while His church is here, for the blood is on the door of our hearts (John 3:36; 1 Thessalonians 5:9).

God declares to the earth just how righteous that He is through one act; bringing complete justification to those who have placed faith in Jesus Christ. Paul said that this one act shows that God is just (Romans 3:26). God being “just” means that God is fair and that He has perfect justice. If He justifies us when we believe in Jesus Christ and that constitutes God being just and fair then that means that all of our sin has been placed in the body of Christ at Calvary, and that God is honoring the price that Jesus paid by forgiving us.

Justification makes us appear before God as if we have never sinned in our life. This act is miraculously done by no effort on our part; it is all a gift of God’s grace through Christ’s finished work. By justifying us upon our faith in Jesus, God proves to the world that He is a righteous God. If He required us to earn our salvation or our blessings by works then He would be guilty of killing His Son for our sins and then holding us accountable for them as well.

It is an insult to Christ’s finished work when someone insinuates that you must pay for your own sins and failures. For you to think that your sin is greater than grace’s ability to save you is to think very highly of your ability to fail. In fact, that attitude thinks more of sin than it does of the Savior. His sacrifice was so all encompassing that you and I will never be able to “out sin” God’s abundant grace, for where our sin abounds, His grace will always super-abound (Romans 5:20).

May you go forward today with the blessed assurance that your Father is righteous for He has declared you justified through the finished work of Jesus Christ His Son!

No Salvation by Association

Acts 8:9-24

Simon Magus was a sorcerer from Samaria who bewitched people and convinced many that he “was some great one” (Acts 8:9). Along came Philip the evangelist who preached Jesus Christ, and many people believed and were baptized, including Simon himself. His story provides us with a prime example of someone who goes through the motions of salvation, with no real heart change.

Following his baptism, Simon follows Philip around, wondering and beholding at the signs and miracles that are done at Philip’s hand. After hearing about the revival in Samaria, the apostles in Jerusalem send Peter and John to preach of the great and mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit, and Simon watches as people receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands. Intrigued by this, Simon offers to pay Peter to give him the same power, thinking that this is some sort of trick that Peter has learned. Peter, of course, will have nothing to do with this and actually says, “Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God” (Acts 8:21).

A true believer is always right in the sight of God, for as Jesus is, so are we in this world (1 John 4:17). Simon has problems that go beyond his silly request to buy the power of God. Peter perceived that Simon was “in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity” (Acts 8:23). “Bitter gall” is “extreme wickedness” and the “bond of iniquity” are chains of unrighteousness. Peter is describing someone who is unchanged and unsaved.

The final indicator that Simon does not know the Lord is found in verse 24, when he asks Peter to “Pray ye to the Lord for me”. Simon feels no kinship with the Lord, and his wickedness has so distanced him from God that he feels more comfortable having Peter pray to the Lord for him, than he does in going to the Lord on his own. The text gives us no indication that Peter honors this request, for you can pray for no man’s soul but your own.

Simon is not uncommon, for he is an example of the lifestyle of many people in and around the church today. They hear a moving sermon and see others committing themselves to the Lord and they are moved to make some sort of verbal commitment as well. They are intrigued by some of the machinery of the church and they even go so far as to get involved in church programs and ministry work, but somewhere along the way it becomes clear that they are in it for all the wrong reasons. Soon, their wicked and unrighteous intentions come out and they show themselves even unable to converse with the Father, for they do not know Him.

I am not speaking about someone who meets the Lord and then has struggles in their life. These need reinforced that they are God’s righteousness and the knowledge that they are forgiven and not condemned will set them free. I speak of the one who has religion but has no relationship. With this kind, Peter pulled no punches, being quick to expose the hypocrisy for what it was.

There is no salvation by association. Each one of us must come to the Lord for a relationship and surrender our hearts to Him to be washed in His blood. Knowing someone who knows the Lord, or being friends with a preacher just is not enough. True relationship with Jesus bridges the gap caused by sin and makes you feel comfortable talking to your Father, for you know that He loves you and you love Him.

Free Because of His Choice

John 4:4

This is the day that Americans celebrate their Independence as a nation. Over two centuries ago, our forefathers raised arms to fight for the right to govern themselves, and to determine their own fates and destinies. Subsequent generations have given life and limb to preserve that freedom which was won and which has been sustained through much bloodshed. Thank God today for your personal freedom, and for those who paid a great price to make it free.

Jesus paid for our redemption on the cross of Calvary some 2000 years ago. Just as many troops have voluntarily laid down their lives for our freedom as a nation, Jesus voluntarily laid His life down so that we could go free from the shackles of sin. Jesus had over 12 legions of angels (72,000+) at His disposal if He changed His mind about dying at Calvary (Matthew 26:53), but He went anyhow, because as the old gospel song says, “When He was on the cross, I was on His mind”.

Doing for others because He was prompted by the Spirit was not a new thing for Jesus. He told us, “I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things” (John 8:28). His entire life was one of hearing the will of God and then acting accordingly. It was God’s will that Jesus live a sinless life and then give that life for humanity. God poured His wrath on His Son because He did not want to pour it on us.

In the time of the Bible, when a Jew wished to journey from Judea in the south of Palestine, to Galilee in the north of Palestine, they would cross the Jordan river and head north through Decapolis. This was not the shortest route from Point A to Point B, for this cost them an extra day of travel. The quickest route was directly north through Samaria, without the mundane practice of crossing the Jordan and then crossing back over into Galilee. The Jew went through this routine simply to avoid having to step foot in Samaria, such was their hatred for Samaritans. Samaritans were a breed of people whose ancestors were half Jew and half Gentile, thus Jews felt that they were an inferior race, and one unworthy of even the footprint of a good Jew.

John 4:3 tells us that Jesus left Judea, and departed again into Galilee, “And he must needs go through Samaria” (John 4:4). The Holy Spirit specifically mentions where Jesus is coming from and where He is going through and that He goes through Samaria by design of the Spirit. It is just like our Savior to ignore the trend of the day and go directly through Samaria. He was never afraid to get His hands dirty, and He felt no less love for Samaritans than He did for anyone else.

The reason for His journey into Samaria is the little woman at the well, who is only at the well at noon because her reputation has sent her into social isolation. The Spirit knows where you are and why you are there and He perfectly orchestrates Jesus to enter your Samaria on purpose. Thank God that Jesus went to the cross, though it would have made more sense for Him to “cross the Jordan” to avoid the issue. We can’t be worth the price that He paid to save our souls, can we?

We are free today through the blood of Jesus Christ and it was His choice to lay down His life. As you are grateful for physical freedom today, say a “thank you” to your Heavenly Father, that He whom the Son sets free, is free indeed.