All over the world, countless people congregate over the so-called Easter Weekend as Christians, but how many of us actually know what we are congregating upon and congregating for? I reckon this calls for scrutiny, from the beginning. When GOD created man, He created us in His image, He intended man to always abide in Him and Him in us in undisturbed fellowship with each other. But when sin and death entered the world, it separated man from GOD, it separated the spirit man (the inner man) from GOD. With the world overrun by sin and death, there was simply no humanly possible way for man to atone; We were destined for death, the grave, and damnation. But because man is GOD’s most beloved, it really is not surprising that GOD set in motion a great and masterful plan to restore mankind to our rightful place with Him. GOD gave His only Son to die for the sins of the world in our place, and so He overcame sin; HE then upped the ante, raised Him from the dead, and so overcame death.
GOD gave His Son Christ Jesus, a ‘Lamb without blemish and spotless’ [1 Peter 1:19], the consummate ‘Passover Lamb’ [1 Corinthians 5:7], the Lamb was put to death at the time when Passover was observed [Mark 14:12], and this ‘Lamb of GOD took away the sin of the world’ [John 1:29]. More importantly, in John 1:1-3 and John 10:30 we read that Christ is GOD Himself and that He and the Father are one, meaning that GOD gave Himself up for us; And if GOD could die for us, how important, valuable, and worthy are we to GOD? Imagine the price GOD has put on man that He could not send an angel or even Adam, one of the-original-sin-duo to doom mankind, to come and die in our place. GOD Himself came, HE died for us, HE did not send a proxy or substitute, He died to save you and me! Most of us have no clue what the price, value, and worth of man’s soul truly is, but best believe that the devil knows it very well and that this is why he consistently comes after man.
Paul writes in Romans 5:9-11 how the blood of Jesus has redeemed us and saved us from the wrath of GOD. This was no small feat. The blood of the Son was needed to become our atonement and propitiation, our appeasement to GOD the Father. Even if we were to stop doing all the wrong things, and lock ourselves up in our rooms 24/7—365—366, it would still not suffice. But because GOD never wanted to lose any one of us to sin and death, He knew that He needed to come Himself to save us. Man was (and still is) so important to GOD that He subjected Himself to a gruesome and absolutely barbaric death that we should have died, He suffered unimaginable pain and brutality that we should have suffered, and HE took it all upon HIMSELF for each and every one of us. And we now stand reconciled with GOD because of it. This is what GOD did for us to draw us close to Him, and He continues to offer salvation and eternal life to all who are born-again of the Holy Spirit.
GOD’s prized possession is man. GOD loves man and He did not just say ‘I love you’ in word only, GOD said ‘I love you’ in deed. His love for us saw GOD allowing Himself to get punished (and be wounded, bruised, flogged, whipped, nailed to a cross), all because He had to take our punishment so that we never need to take it. GOD did all of this while we were still sinners, He did not wait for us to accept Him. Now this is true love! More so because GOD knew that some of us would refuse Him, deny Him, and reject Him, yet and still He had Jesus die for all of us. GOD knew all of this and still put Himself up in man’s place because He loves those who accept (and receive) Him and those who refuse (and reject) Him in equal measures. This is the love that GOD has bestowed and lavished on us. Mankind is deeply loved in the heavens. This is a schematic that GOD has given us, that we also should love those who accept (and receive) us and those who deny (and reject) us in similarly equal measures.
Believers, at this moment, in the now, we are justified, sanctified, cleansed, washed, made holy by the blood of Jesus, and not the blood of any bulls, goats, or lambs! The blood of Jesus washed all our guilt and wrongs away, wiping the slate clean as though we never sinned. In the heavenly records, there is nothing marked against your name, even though hell would come with a mountain of accusations. The blood put things right between man and GOD; And because GOD, who is the judge of all, declares ‘not guilty’, who then shall bring a charge, accusation or condemnation upon man, and on what authority? This is why the devil is the accuser of the brethren, and GOD is the justifier of the brethren. When GOD forgives, it settles the issue; And when He says you are holy, you are really holy; Because the blood of Jesus did not only make us right with GOD, but it also made us the righteousness of GOD [—2 Corinthians 5:21].
So now for that great and masterful plan to work, GOD had to make Jesus to be sin for our sake. And because sin could not touch Jesus, for He was the righteousness of GOD, GOD needed to strip Him of His glory, of His divine nature, for Him to step into sin in our stead. GOD then put that same glory that was upon Him on us, who believe in Him, for our redemption and salvation; And this is why 2 Corinthians 5:21 says were not only made righteous (right with GOD), but we were also made the righteousness of GOD. Righteousness is another dimension in the spirit, another level of man’s state of being. By being made the righteousness of GOD, we are given a new nature to abide in with GOD in the spirit. You have to be born-again to receive this nature of being the righteousness of GOD. When someone righteous commits a wrong, they may not remain righteous, but when someone with the righteousness of GOD commits a wrong, they remain righteous because righteousness is inherently at the core of the spirit man. It is, in the root, the nature of GOD.
Righteousness, by its very nature, is not something that we can get by our own merit or capacity, or any righteous act that we do. On our own we do not qualify for it, we do not deserve it, and we cannot earn it. We are made the righteousness of GOD by the grace of GOD, and by His mercy, and when we are born-again the Holy Spirit gives us righteousness in Him so that we become acceptable to Him. [—2 Corinthians 5:21 NKJV/AMP; Titus 3:5]. Not understanding that the only thing that can take away righteousness from a child of GOD is if you deny Jesus with your mouth, which no child of GOD would ever do, is the reason why when we do wrong, we condemn ourselves, we fast for 7, 21 or 40 days for GOD to forgive us. Note that you were made righteousness by your own confession of faith in our LORD and Savoir GOD the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and thus it would take your express denial of Jesus, with your own mouth, for the righteousness to fall away from you.
The blood of Jesus has made it possible for man to come, approach and stand before the throne of GOD with boldness [—Hebrews 4:16], and with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith [—Hebrews 10:22], something that man could not do before. In this way, the Son of GOD forged a new path for us to GOD the Father. And In this way, GOD was saying ‘I want to dwell with and dwell in my people (you), I want to have communion with my people (you), I want to have a relationship with my people (you) from the least to the greatest, from the greatest to the least’. No pastor’s approval, no intermediaries, and no intercessors required because, with the righteousness of GOD in us, we are always connected to GOD for we abide in Him and He abides in us. This is what the LORD came for, spoke to them about, saying ‘abide in Me and I abide in you’, but they did not understand Him; They perceived what Jesus said to be impossible as it did not exist in their dispensation, and they killed Him for it.
Believers, we now dwell in GOD at all times, never fearing His wrath, condemnation, judgment, or rejection. Believers, we now stand before GOD in His righteousness, delivered from the bondage of being enslaved by the fear of sin, death, illness, and any other form fear comes in. The devil, sin, and death were defeated and destroyed. Now We Celebrate The Victory because we are delivered by ‘He that destroyed him who holds the power over sin and death’ [—Hebrews 2:14-15]. All of GOD’s people in every nation and every tribe are redeemed by the blood of Jesus and are so made untouchable; We are ‘kings and priests’, meant to serve GOD and to reign the earth; [—Revelations 5:9-10]. GOD glorified His people, He chose them in advance, called them to Him, and gave unto them right standing with Him [—Romans 8:28-30]. He disrobed of His glory so that we could be robed with it; What was taken from Him, was put on us, and what was taken from us, was put on Him. The eternal life is ours under the blood, free of all bondage. This is the Passover, The Victory We Celebrate!
Imagine the price GOD put on man that He could not send an angel or even Adam, one of the-original-sin-duo to doom mankind, to come and die in our place. GOD Himself came. HE died for us—Now We Celebrate The Victory because we are delivered.
0 Comments