The Word of God works!

Hebrews 10:19 states an incredible truth: "Therefore, brothers... we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus". The word "therefore" points us back to the entire discussion from Heb. 8:1 through 10:18 concerning the old and new covenants and the old and new priesthoods. In particular, it emphasizes the main statement made in 8:1-2: “Now the point of what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, One who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man."  The word "therefore" points us toward the application of what has previously been said.  On the basis of the truth stated in the previous chapters, we are now exhorted to do something, and something very important: to enter the very presence of God.

Every theological affirmation in Scripture has a practical application. There is no such thing as the purely theoretical in the kingdom of God. Every statement of Scripture is meant to work in real life. And the flip side is equally true: there is no such thing as merely practical. Every practical application must have a theological foundation to it. The kingdom of God will not advance with people who have a lot of Bible knowledge but have not put it into practice. If that is the case, they don’t have real Bible knowledge! And equally, the kingdom of God will not move forward with people who are out there doing a lot of things only because they had some bright idea, attended the latest church growth conference or read the seven secrets of some spiritual guru. The kingdom of God only moves forward when Biblically minded men and women put their Biblical ideas into practice.

Now let's retrace our steps and go back for a minute to the passage in front of us.  Two things are of incredible significance.  First, the truth that Jesus, as our High Priest, has entered the presence of God, sat down at God's right hand, and begun to reign. Second, the fact that as a result of this every one of us can now enter God's presence. Jesus has opened the door to the throne room of God. It cost him everything to do that. For us to turn aside from spending time with God and developing our relationship with him is in practicality to waste what Jesus did for us.

The Word of God works. It is designed for real life - your real life to be exact. It works better than anything else in this world. Watch the "therefores" in the Bible. Put them to work in your life and see what happens.

The spirit and freedom

So much misunderstanding has revolved around the word "charismatic."  The phrase itself represents the Greek word charisma or "gift."  The problem is we spend so much time arguing over "gifts of the Spirit" we forget the far more important issue, which is the gift by the Father of the Holy Spirit to us. You cannot be a Christian without having received the Holy Spirit: "Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him" (Rom. 8:9). The Holy Spirit is God. He is the way in which God is present among us from the day of Pentecost until the day the Lord returns. Without the Holy Spirit we have neither God nor Christ. It is about time Christians learned to remember that the Holy Spirit is God as much as the Father and the Son are! Some Christians have relegated the Holy Spirit to nothing more than a doctrine, and their churches show it! But other Christians have seen the Holy Spirit as nothing more than a purveyor of gifts, and their churches show it!

Why then does God give his Spirit? The answer is clear. The Holy Spirit is given to us so that we can enter into relationship with God as his sons and daughters. The person who understands what it means to be a son or daughter of God and has entered into that freedom is a truly charismatic person. Whatever else God does in our lives by way of the activity of his Spirit flows out of that central reality. What divides believers in actuality, at least in my experience, is not whether or not we believe or operate in spiritual gifts. The difference is whether or not we really know God as our Father and are living in true freedom, or whether we still have the attitude or identity of a slave, of one looking in from the outside, never sure of whether God really loves us or not and trying in our insecurity to earn his favour. After all, Paul says if we don't know the love of God, what is the point of prophesying, good works or anything else (1 Cor. 13:1-3)?

But there is good news for us!  Paul begins his letter to the Galatians with a stern warning and an appeal (chapter 1). He takes chapters 2-4 to explain what the gospel really is, then returns to his theme of freedom in 5:1. And he does so with a shout: “For freedom Christ has set us free!” What he means is this: freedom is our destiny. We are no longer slaves. He was speaking into a Greek culture steeped in pagan thinking that all men are controlled by fate, are slaves of fate. Even the gods are not free.  All we can do is accept our lot in life. We can do nothing to change it.  The Greeks even believed that if you tried to change your life for the better or tried to be a better person morally than you were fated to be, you would be committing transgression.  Transgression (the same Greek word Paul uses for sin in Romans) had nothing to do with good or evil or any moral values.  In pagan thinking, transgression was the violation or the crossing  of the lines of fate.  An evil man who prospered was fated to prosper, while a good man who suffered was fated to suffer.

Christ died to set us free from a world in which our fate was determined either by ourselves, the gods or anything else.  We don't believe in fate, we believe in destiny.  And our destiny is in God's hands alone.  We are no longer slaves, we are free. The way God conveyed that freedom to us is through the gift of his Spirit. The Spirit makes real in our lives the result of what Christ did for us on the cross. He literally regenerates us -- which means he brings us to life!  So the cry of the gospel that we are set free in Christ was a radical message for those who heard it. And it is as true today as it was then.  God paid a high price for your freedom and mine.  There's only one way to take hold of it: through the gift of his Spirit.

If we seek his Spirit, we will find everything else he wants for us.  That should be our focus.  "The one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life" (Gal. 6:8).

The price of freedom

Paul writes to the Colossians that in Christ "we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Before we look at what redemption signifies, let's stop for a minute to ponder the meaning of forgiveness.  Forgiveness implies that a wrong has been done.  We sometimes mistakenly believe that forgiveness is pretending that the wrong never happened.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  You cannot forgive unless you first acknowledge the wrong that has been done.  To do so is not unspiritual at all.  Why?  Because for a start God hates the sin more than you did.  God is angry when people are violated and abused.  Forgiveness must start with a frank acknowledgment of the wrong that was done.  Forgiveness then releases the person who wronged us to God.  Forgiveness acknowledges that God alone has the right to be judge -- not us.  Refusal to forgive is a statement that we have the right to take the place of God in judging.  Yet because we do not have that right, our refusal to forgive only results in anger, bitterness and resentment.  We hurt ourselves more than whatever injury the other person caused us.  Jesus describes the process as being given over to the torturers or jailers (Matt. 18:34).   The fact is that what we did to the sinless Lamb of God was utterly without excuse -- yet He has forgiven us for it.  How then could we assume the seat of judgment when it comes to the lesser things others have done to us?  Jesus explores this theme in the parable of the two debtors (Matt. 18:23-35).  When we fully acknowledge the wrong but choose to release the person to God, we find peace -- or at least I have!  Unforgiveness is a denial of the cross -- it will destroy your life.  You need to treat it as a deadly poison and move past it. Now let's look at the meaning of redemption.  Redemption is a word borrowed from the slave market. Redemption occurred when someone  paid a price to set a slave free.  Man fell into sin when he rebelled against God. If God is the holy God He is, then He must punish that rebellion, for otherwise He would be endorsing our sin, in which case there would no longer be any difference between man and God. God is angry -- righteously angry -- when we sin.  He is not angry in our self-centred, pouting, vengeful way, but in a pure way which expresses His utter holiness.  If God were vengeful, why would He have sent His Son to die for the sins we had committed against Him?  Yet someone had to pay the price for our rebellion, and until that price was paid, no one could be set free. Sin has been committed and must be atoned for.  We were slaves to sin. No matter how hard we tried we could not change ourselves. In fact, we fell further into sin.

But God sent His Son, and through His Son’s death, God paid the price himself. That is our redemption – we are slaves set free. As a result, we have the forgiveness of sins. That means no longer is the judgment of God against us, the judgment which sends sinners to the lake of fire. Now instead of judgment we receive mercy, and we are transferred from the tyranny of sin into the kingdom of a loving God.

If all this is true, then there is only one way to access true freedom: by coming through the blood of Jesus Christ, by accepting His sacrifice for you, by bowing the knee before Him and acknowledging that He and He alone is Lord of all. The price of freedom -- the blood of Christ. The cost to you is nothing -- except for giving Him for your life.

And then knowing we are redeemed, we can live a life of forgiveness toward others.  We can follow Jesus in the way of the cross and find true freedom.

Treasures in Heaven

To break the poverty curse, we must become givers like God and not takers like men and women have been since the days of Adam and Eve. If God is the great Giver, it should be no surprise that very early on the Bible gives one of God’s names as Jehovah Jireh, the Lord our Provider (Genesis 22:8). God did not start being our Provider at the cross. He has always been our Provider. He was our Provider in the garden — only we did not acknowledge it. But now in Christ we have the opportunity to reverse the poverty curse by accepting Jesus as our Provider. To do this we have to acknowledge only one thing: that Jesus is always enough. If we do not believe Jesus is enough, we will fall back into the poverty spirit as surely as Adam and Eve did when they refused to believe that God was enough for them. If we have Jesus, we don’t have to focus on anything else. There is nothing else that we need in this life except Jesus Christ. And this includes the material realm.

How is this true? Jesus Himself gave His disciples the answer. First, He warned them not to lay up treasures on earth (Matthew 6:19). The poverty spirit is what drives us to lay up material treasure for ourselves, because we are not convinced that God is able to provide for us, or because we want more in the material realm than God has given us. Then He tells us not to be anxious about material provision (verse 25). Those who do not know God, driven by fear that their needs will not be met or by greed for more than they need, live their lives in the pursuit of material wealth and wear themselves out in the process. But we are not to be like them (verse 32). Instead, we are to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things [that is, our material and financial needs] will be added to you.”

This does not mean that we are to live in poverty or think that God does not care about our needs. In fact, something very different is the case. If we are consumed with desire for the advancement of God's kingdom and His righteousness, our motives will be so refined and purified that it gives us a place to come to God and ask unashamedly and radically for His material provision. The kingdom of God does not move ahead without financial provision. Jesus Himself knew that and lived by it. The fact that man does not live by bread alone (Matt. 4:4) does not mean we can live without bread! As we seek the kingdom, God gives the "bread." And the poverty curse and spirit are destroyed forever!

Breaking the power of the poverty spirit

How do we make the transition from poverty to provision and break the power of the poverty spirit over us? Let’s take a quick look at 2 Corinthians 8, where Paul addresses the subject of money. He sets the stage for his discussion by making the following statement about Christ, who “though He was rich, yet for your sakes became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich” (verse 9). If everything we lost in Adam is restored in Christ, a proper attitude toward money and material things should should be part of this.

This statement of Paul’s establishes a truth critical to the breaking of the poverty spirit. And that truth is this: Fallen men may be takers, but God is a giver. God is a giver because He has no needs. He lives in an infinite abundance and loves nothing more than to give generously. We became rich because of what Christ gave to us.

Put another way, whatever we have is a gift from God. As Christians, we often shy away from talking about money, yet Paul had no such sensitivity. In fact, he uses a statement about what Christ gave up spiritually as an introduction to teaching the Corinthians how to give material things up. If we do not teach believers how to handle money and material wealth, they will learn from the world instead of the Word.

All of us understand something about the riches of Christ. We understand that Christ came into the brokenness of our lives to heal us and save us and give us a whole new life. This new life does not belong to us; it is a gift of God and is to be lived for His glory and returned to Him when we meet Him face to face. But Paul is actually addressing financial issues in this chapter! And so we see that these truths, although they in the first place apply to eternal, spiritual realities, also apply to the earthly, material realm. What is the lesson? If God is a giver, then we are to follow in His footsteps. To become givers rather than takers — to learn to give away rather than to accumulate — which in the eyes of the world is foolishness — is actually the only way for us to break the power of poverty and enter into the provision of God.