Its been a little while since I wrote my last post, I couldn't grasp the right Word. This week however I have been revitalised. The vital elements have been kickstarted again. This week at church we had Pastors Gina and Andy Elmes speak and it was incredible.
There are certain things that pop up when you aren't expecting them, thoughts that remind you what you did or who you were before you came to Christ. And as much as I know I am forgiven, guilt was playing on me that I had done things I wasn't proud of, things I had been forgiven by God for but my chatterbox was making me hold on to those past doings. And it was with these thoughts, securely squashed in the back of the 'guilt' drawer of my mind, that I walked into Sunday's service.
Our church had the most amazing blessing yesterday as we had Pastors Andy and Gina Elmes from Family Church at Portsmouth. I can't begin to explain how that preach has already helped me shake off the dead skin of my mind. I feel in my spirit refreshed and alive. And it was this Word that reminded me how to do that. It enlightened me to my death.
So I am going to try to do justice to Pastor Andy's preach, and make sense of what it translates to me.
As with the best Pastors, he encourages you to research the Bible yourself, to answer your own questions with the Word that has been given to us. Pastor Andy clarified the absoluteness of being saved. That it is unconditional, that when you are saved you cannot be resaved. That there is no in-between that makes us feel comfortable, we are or we aren't.
He showed us that we cannot be a sinner and be saved by Grace at the same time. It is one or the other. You can be a sinner, or you can be saved from sin having a hold on you. He explained, using the words of Paul, that the sinners we were died with Jesus, were buried and resurrected with him. We are born again! We are new. We are not the people we used to be. We have a new way of living. So why do we continue to hold onto things that have no claim over us.
'This happened to me...'
'I keep doing this...'
Justifications, and I'm not negating their validity, are not needed. If you claim that you are saved you know that Jesus had freed you from the hold of sin, why do you let either the sin, or the memory of sin hold onto you. In Christ you can do all things, all things, you have the strength of him within you to prise those clutching fingers off of you arm, and walk away. Sin isn't just what you have done, its what has been done to you also.
But the best news is, if you believe you are saved, that you never have to be held by that again. Remember that 80's film Labyrinth, do you remember that the heroine faces danger and eternal stench, doom and loss of her brother? That she is distracted and the paths change direction and everything that is thrown against her is because she is heading in the right direction to save her brother. But to do that, to save herself and her brother she has to remember something.
Six words, she has to remember six words, and in a specific order. How would the movie had ended if the word she said to the enemy been, 'I have no power over you'. She might have believed it. If you start to believe that you have no power over the things that held you, you are forgetting that you have been saved. But flip the first and last words (and adjust for grammatical correctness), 'You have no power over me.'
You, sin, have no power, Jesus has all the power, over me. I am claimed and you can't touch me. So stop trying to make your presence in my life important.
If you were important you wouldn't fight so hard for me to see you.
Jesus doesn’t fight for my attention, I follow him because I'm interested in what he has to say. With you, chatterbox/devil/satan/sin, I just find you draining and I really am fed up with you pulling at me all the time. So just go.
But you have to believe it. If you don't believe it, it wont happen. If you can't believe in the big things, believe in the small. Ask for that sign that could not be coincidence, if you need it. But remember you need to pay attention. As a store manager, I have had people come up to me and ask have you got a sale on, and I hesitate, silently looking and the 20 massive signs around me screaming SALE in bold coloured text, before I answer, 'Yes, we put all our signs up last week,' which they respond they hadn't noticed.
Watch for your sign. Remember your death. The old you was forgiven so you could die with Jesus on the cross, and as He ascended, you were born into the person you were supposed to be.
Have an amazing week, remember who doesn't hold the power. (hint, its not you)
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