What Has God Established In Us?

Good Morning Friends,

Today we look at what God has created and the list is rather extensive. For starters God has established the heavens and placed us on a planet just so located in the galaxy and solar system for us to thrive and live. So too God has founded the church and has launched leaders and countries. God has even begun a work in each of us so that we might glorify God. The processes and plans of God are time-honored and proven reputable. So to build our faith on this foundation we seek clarity on what this is all about. Even as we ask: What Has God Established In Us?

Scripture:
You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God. Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.

 1 Peter 1:18-23 (NRSV)

And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.

 1 Peter 5:10 (NRSV)

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

Jeremiah 29:11 (NRSV)

Message: We see establishment dates on cities and businesses. Our calendars once upon a time reflected the establishment date of the Incarnation and the beginning of the reign of Christ’s Kingdom as a witness that God establishes leaders as well. But in truth our calendars have changed and that is ok for Christ’s reign and lineage began before the beginning of time. Make no mistake about it Christ’s reign began more on the timeless moment on the cross than at his birth. There would be no Christmas celebration without the death and resurrection of Jesus. Of course his lineage is important.
No blood is more important. No blood is more precious. No word more enduring than the Word made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. But Christ’s establishment date and our establishment date is not our birth either but perhaps more importantly the date our death to sin. You see it is the day our sins die, where Jesus dies, where the curtain to the Holy of Holies is torn open making God accessible to each one of us so we might share a life of love and a faith that will last forever. That is the date we are established. That is the date God takes up residence in us. But let us not forget that there is always more to the story and so now let us turn our focus for a moment to the place where Jesus was born, lived, died and was resurrected. Yes the date of 1947, after the II World War, marked the establishment of an independent Jewish state by the United Nations. It was founded in an area of land called Palestine by the Romans when they conquered it nearly 2000 years ago.  It is the same land that was once called Israel when the Babylonians conquered it in 586 BCE. This small country… this small plot of land, this miracle of prophecy is part of the story too. Yes God is to reign in us but what God has established in Israel is important too. Yes God has come and will come again but today let us not forget that He has established His kingdom and He lives in the world He has created through us. So let us imagine for a moment that Jesus is with us…let’s imagine what it would be like if we lived every moment as though God was all around us. Friends, what if we lived as though nothing could happen that God could not take care of? What if we lived as though heaven was all around us? What if we really lived as though our sins and failures were gone from the mind of God? What if we lived as though the power of the Holy Spirit lived in us? Friends, having been pardoned by faith, we have been paroled to enjoy peace…the fellowship, joy and hope of God’s glorious place of grace can be in our lives. Here we have hope. For God has established love in us to continue the story.

Pray with thanks that the cleansing of our sins, the cost of our salvation, the confidence given so we might enter God’s presence, the connection established on the cross linking heaven and earth, the conquest and victory over sin revealed in His character will now be in us as we claim the new covenant…a promise sealed in blood.
Pray that we get right with the Lord. Pray that in times of difficulty we seek Him. Pray we persevere. Pray that we understand that God sees our life in its totality. Pray that we realize that even though His plan is not the easiest, it is the best…Pray that in times of difficulty great things can be established that form the future…. a future that employs us for God’s cause and glory. Pray God establish Divine Authority in us for our protection, direction and development. Pray we not only let God establish us as members of His church but as members of the Kingdom. Pray we realize in the mystery that God’s Kingdom has come and will come again to establish something new.

Blessings,

John Lawson