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Day #13: To be with Him
“Love vs. Works” (part 1)
It doesn’t matter what is wrong with you,
it matters what is right with you, and His name is Jesus!
Unconventional means: just as in the miracle Virgin Birth your faith is based on unconventional means. Your Salvation is a ‘miracle birth’, ie; of the Spirit and not of the flesh. Understand that your salvation in the Lord is never based on the flesh; your efforts, your works or your alignment to law, but is purely on the Love and Mercy of our Lord and Saviour. This is always your place of security and identity and not ever on your own assumed capacity. Trample not the Blood spilt for you but through the Spirit of God root yourself ever more intimately in the Love of God. For from here the Spirit gifts you in capacity to grow abundantly in His Salvation-Life, even unto the full likeness and image of the Son. Immanuel … truly God is with us!
Scripture:
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all these saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:17-19 NKJV)
God IS Love and love by nature is inherently intimate. Love is never based on law or works (Rev. 2:2-5), love is not needing to prove yourself in order to be accepted. Love is based on intimacy, acceptance and encouragement. Your Heavenly Father is a jealous God – His very Name is ‘Jealous’ (Ex. 34:14). Jealousy is based on both love and affection, as well as experience of betrayal, ie; man’s adulterous heart that is set on another. The ‘another’ in this case is the Opposer’s voice and man’s tendency to quickly lean to his lures, oppression, and suggestions over that of the Father, and this since the Beginning.
This Opposer’s ‘voice’ places a weight on your shoulders that you are incapable of carrying. He would have you proving yourself before God and man in order to find acceptance. But the Blood shed for you proves God’s Love and acceptance (John 3:16), He has accepted you and embraces you as a son, just as you are: sin, warts, and all. The sin of your life is washed clean by the Blood of His Son (Heb. 12:2) of whom was nailed on the Cross, cursed so that you might be released from the curse; from Satan’s hold.
Works, sacrifice, and law have no place in Love. Love has been made perfect in you (1 John 4:17) and is not based on proof of certain ‘works’ or certain ‘law’. No, it is based purely on the Love of your Saviour and the Father of whom gave Him up for your sake. As a believer you are now a precious living tree; the ‘Planting of the Lord’ (Ps. 92:13, Is. 61:3, Is. 41:19).
The Law is there to express the righteous standards of God. But the Gospel says that you cannot achieve the Law and the more Law the more ‘sin abounds’, ie; your short fallings become even more evident (Rom. 5:20). Endeavouring to prove yourself through obedience to the Law and unto Works is opposite to faith in what Christ Jesus has achieved for you. Understand that believing and accepting (receiving) His Salvation, has made you guilt-and-accusation-FREE. And by His Love, He has ‘grafted’ you into the Branch of God, right here and now, just as you are (Rom. 11:17).
As a living ‘tree’, your singular ‘root’ cause now is bonding in the Vine; so that you might grow and become fruitful. Digging ever deeper into the Love of God in order to ‘abide’ and ‘remain’ drawing from Him (John 15:9). From this place of being rooted (Eph. 3:17-19) in the Love of God, He ‘writes’ into your soul the Living Word of God (Is. 54:13, Heb. 8:11, 1 John 2:27). Transferring of Himself day by day and, by His Spirit, He rises up in you inspiring and bearing His Works and Fruit liberally and abundantly in you.
With your love set in the Love of God, He guides you in ALL things pertaining to Life (2 Pet. 1:3): 1. Jesus is the Lamb of who’s Blood shed for you, gives you, the ‘believer’, full rights in Heaven. 2. The Spirit of God is as a ‘bridge’ to the Father, a ‘nanny’, ‘the Helper’, imparting the ways and nature of the Kingdom within you. 3. And God’s affection for you is as a Father for His beloved lost son or daughter; with His arms opened wide (Luke 15:11-32).
In your flesh you cannot achieve the righteousness standards (Heb. 12:14, Matt. 5:48) that your Heavenly Father seeks, regardless of the rights Christ Jesus has achieved for you. You cannot produce the Fruits nor the Works that represent Heaven, nor are you humanly capable of following the Law or all the commands of the Kingdom of God. No, of your flesh you can do NOTHING and you will bust things if you insist. But bonding with the Love and drawing from the Spirit of God, He forms all these things abundant and liberally in you – without your striving! Naturally forming the branches, leaves and the fruits of God in and out of season; as a tree planted by a stream (Jer. 17:8, Ez. 47:12, Is. 58:11, Ps. 1:3, Matt. 21:18-22).
The Blood shed for you has given you right standing as a son or daughter of the Living God. The Blood of Christ Jesus has given you full access into the Courts of Heaven; welcomed as family, regardless of past sin. The righteousness of God is made mature in you by your love ‘remaining’ in Him. Your love, your roots, daily drawing and set in the Vine; in a continual yearning unto the Lord. As a young sapling of the Lord, you are a treasured ‘planting’ in the Garden of God. Though you may be just a young shoot with a few leaves, or otherwise an old dry branch of who’s life is renewed; you are loved and nurtured by the Father and the angels of God (John 15:1, Ps. 91:11).
To think that you must prove yourself in your own flesh is to turn your ‘tree’ upside down. It is to retrieve your faith back to your own flesh and capacity. The Opposer’s voice continually points to your branches in the eyes of everyone and say “where is your fruit?” He would cause you to be daunted by all the ‘laws’, all the ‘fruits’, and all the ‘commands’ expressed in the Word of God. A weight being loaded on your shoulders that neither you “nor your ancestors could carry” (Acts 15:10, Matt. 11:28-30). But you must realise that the Word of God paints what the Kingdom of God is like but it does not give you capacity to walk in it. It is only by the Spirit and Grace of God that He increasingly gives you the capacity to bear the likeness of the Son and access all that is in the Father.
To place the tree upside down is to feel that you have to achieve the Laws and the Commands of the Gospel before you can truly be accepted. That you have to have the branches with all their intricacies of works and righteousness in place before you can truly have right standing before the Father. Realise that you HAVE been made Alive in Christ, you are a New Creation in Him (1 Cor. 5:17), so, therefore, Life HAS struck root in you. Choosing day by day to ‘remain’ in the Vine, the Spirit of God will naturally cause growth and bear His Fruits in you and in abundance.
Pray this prayer with me. ‘Lord, please continue your unconventional work in me. Please work in me as you see fit. I love your purpose and your intentions for me as a son of God, therefore, I fully yield myself in you. You are truly trustworthy and true; you who is Life, you who is Love. What other place is there for me? I wish to be a planting of the Lord, I know you will give me what I need to sustain me and cause me to flourish wherever I am. Please draw me dearly close in you, in Jesus Name. Amen’.
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