The Christian faith has long held to the theistic view
that insists humanity can experience God in a personal kind of way. Christianity is about maintaining
Biblical relationships that enable people to express themselves through a
lifestyle of holiness (wholeness) and unity. The Christian Apostle Paul
described this personal conversion in terms that include repentance,
forgiveness and living life “set apart” (Romans 12:1. He described the life
that results as a “reasonable service”.
More commonly known today as Evangelical Christianity,
this commitment of reasonable service submits to, and accepts, the control of
God’s Holy Spirit in the daily life and experience of the believer. It becomes
the maturing of the salvation God wants to create in the life of every
individual. God came into the world through Jesus seeking to restore a world
blinded to God, in order to save the otherwise unsalvageable.
In olden times, God spoke through the prophets. When the
time was right, God revealed Himself through Jesus Christ. The clearest picture
humanity has of God is what we see in Jesus Christ, Jesus being to God as the
rays of the sun are to the sun (effulgence, Hebrews 1:3).
When Jesus ascended to heaven, he told his disciples The
Heavenly Father would no longer live among them in the flesh, satisfying their
senses of sight, sound, and feeling. Rather, God would dwell among them as the
Holy Spirit, indwelling them, or living within them and empowering them.
Believers would be renewed by means above and beyond, or
outside of, their human physical senses. God’s Spirit would no longer dwell in
the tabernacles and tents they made with their hands; rather, he would inhabit
dwellings not made with hands; i.e., in the believers.
This work was completed on the cross, even as Jesus
claimed. Contrary to some who argue the point, Jesus achieved his purpose in coming to
earth. He established the Kingdom of God by transforming the weaknesses of the
flesh into the higher purposes of God Almighty. The Presence or reality of God’s
Spirit eliminated the need for further human (priestly) mediation between God
and human-kind.
Jesus said, the Holy Spirit first convicts people of sin,
second convicts them of righteousness, and third convicts them of judgment
(John 14-16). God’s promise was to give this Spirit of Truth who will guide
individual believers in their understanding and enable them to grow from grace
to grace in righteousness.
Luke further quoted Paul to say, “And now, brethren, I
commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you
up, and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:32
NKJV). The Greek verb Paul used here expresses the perfect tense, suggesting
completed action.
Thus, we view the action of sanctifying or being
sanctified as a finished product, which suggests that those freed of wickedness
have been brought near to God by their faith and sanctity. Paul is describing
the daily renewal of inner strength so necessary to our mature growth—strength
above and beyond our normal human strength, thus supra-natural.
Here we find the perfection we are each capable of
attaining in the here and now. Here we find God finally within reach of all
persons. Here we find life beyond the worldly libertarian philosophy of being
an end within ourselves. No longer dependent purely upon our own resources, we
find here the long promised hope of Christian’s living in a conflicted world –
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord (Zechariah 4:6).
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