Ephesians; 1:3 – Heavenly blessings are for time, part 2.

Friday November 2, 2018

 

The spiritual blessings in the heavenlies have been brought to earth and offered to all men through the person of Jesus Christ. Heaven has come to earth, sing hallelujah (praise you Yah!).

 

The reality of our heavenly possession will be revealed quite openly later on, until then, hold them and treasure them in your heart, no matter how ugly the world around you may get.

 

REV 19:1 "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God;

 

REV 19:2 because His judgments are true and righteous; for He has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth with her immorality, and He has avenged the blood of His bond-servants on her."

 

REV 19:3 And a second time they said, "Hallelujah! Her smoke rises up forever and ever."

 

REV 19:4 And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne saying, "Amen. Hallelujah!"

 

REV 19:5 And a voice came from the throne, saying,

 

"Give praise to our God, all you His bond-servants, you who fear Him, the small and the great."

 

REV 19:6 And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude and as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying,

 

"Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.

 

REV 19:7 "Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready."

 

Hallel Yah in the OT is “Praise the Lord.” It is like barakah - bless the Lord.

 

Just like some people want only part of heaven; the good health, eternal “fun”, perfect environment with perfect people; and they don’t want all of heaven; the worship of God forever, so people in time want some of God’s help to make their lives better, but don’t want Him to change everything.

 

That is not a statement of Lordship salvation. You believe in Christ as your Savior for salvation. You do not yet consent to obey Him fully. No unbeliever even knows what that means. Believers struggle with complete submission, but forever it is their predetermined way to do so.

 

The person who rejects the gospel rejects his need for a Savior. If Jesus offered them happiness, peace, and infinite love they might say “yes please,” but if He then says that such things can only come by His death, then that means that the person must be worthless to do anything for eternal life. They may want happiness, but they don’t want the cross of Christ, which is the only way it can come by. 

 

In other words, people don’t actually want heaven on earth, because heaven is full worship and obedience to the person of Christ.

 

This is one of the aspects of Christ telling us that we had to be perfect in holiness, which is what every believer is elected to. Being perfect in holiness is being conformed to heaven, and that is precisely what we have been elected to, which is closely associated with predestination and adoption.  

 

God knows that we are not going to come anywhere near perfection in this life, but that is where He is always taking you. His grace means zero discouragement, total forgiveness, and constant striving.

 

God’s demand for perfection should not discourage us in the least. Each time you fall He is going to pick you up again. Yet, it is always perfection that God is taking us towards. How could it be any different? Could a perfectly righteous God will for us a partial holiness or a part time holiness?

 

What many people, if not most people want, is for Him to cure them from some one particular sin they are ashamed of (like sexual deviance, voyeurism, or physical cowardice) or which is spoiling their everyday life (like a bad temper, drunkenness, or drug addiction). He will cure them alright, but He will not stop there. He will cure the whole man.

 

God will cure you of the one or two sins that are destroying your life or making you feel ashamed, but He will not stop there. It is Christ you must become, not just a better person.

 

No power in the universe can stop God from leading us to full and perfect holiness, in which our entire lives are transformed, except for ourselves. And this is what we are in for. This is what we have been elected to. This is very important to realize, for if we don’t, after we get somewhere, after God has helped us overcome some particular sin in our life, we will pull back. We will leave our doctrinal instruction and kindly ask God to leave the rest of ourselves alone.  

 

Such a person may keep their place in overcoming that sin, but they will never realize true joy, love, and peace that comes with the full overhaul.

 

Many, when Christ has enabled them to overcome one or two ins that were an obvious nuisance, are inclined to feel that they are good enough. God has done what we wanted Him to, and now we wish that He would kindly leave us alone. This is a fatal mistake.

 

ISA 45:9-10

"Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker —

An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth!

Will the clay say to the potter, 'What are you doing?' [don’t make me holy]

Or the thing you are making say, 'He has no hands'? [You can’t make me holy]

"Woe to him who says to a father, 'What are you begetting?'

Or to a woman, 'To what are you giving birth?'" [I am not what You designed me to be]

 

The whole of us changed to a new creature in Christ at salvation, and accordingly, the all of our personality (intellect, will, and conscience) must change into conformity with Jesus Christ.

 

Every Christian has been blessed with election, predestination, adoption, redemption, forgiveness of sins, justification, wisdom, a robe of perfect righteousness, the indwelling Christ and Holy Spirit, heavenly citizenship, a divine inheritance, a place in the body of Christ, and all the riches of Christ Jesus. And yet how some of us struggle along, eking out a poor, wretched, miserable existence! We act like spiritual paupers when we should be like spiritual billionaires.

 

Despite the ugliness around us and within us, we have heaven within us, clothing us, with us, and surrounding us. We must not live like spiritual paupers.  

 

In the heavenlies means that heaven has come down to earth. And although the believer is surrounded with decay, ugliness, pettiness, greed, lust, sin, and although he has these things also lurking inside of him in the sin nature, tempting him and pressuring him to live in the ugly things surrounding him, he has heaven within him, clothing him, with him, and surrounding him.

 

JOH 6:32 "Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven.

 

The Law wasn’t it. The bread from heaven was not a list of commands and rules. The bread was a Person, God the Son become a Man.

 

The Law was from heaven, but it was not the bread from heaven. It would not sustain man since salvation wasn’t in it. It would guide man, and because of man’s position in Adam, that guidance would condemn man.

 

That condemnation did not mean that the Jews threw off the Law and didn’t live by it. The Law was guidance while life was in the Redeemer of Israel. If there is no life, guidance means nothing, just like the doctrines of the NT are meaningless if a person does not possess the life of Christ. To the Jews in the OT, life was in faith in Yavah to redeem them, and as alive believers, the Law was their guide.

 

By Jesus’ time, the leadership in Israel had concluded that life was the Law.

 

JOH 5:39 "You search the Scriptures [the Law], because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me;

 

JOH 5:40 and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life.

 

How could salvation be by works or obedience to commands if the bread from heaven was not the Law but a Person?

 

JOH 6:33 "For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world." 

 

JOH 6:34 They said therefore to Him, "Lord, evermore give us this bread."

 

Jesus responds positively to this request.

 

JOH 6:35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.

 

JOH 6:36 "But I said to you, that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.

 

JOH 6:37 "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.

 

JOH 6:38 "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

 

JOH 6:39 "And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.

 

JOH 6:40 "For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day."