I have been reading Luther's essay on freedom recently. And it's beautiful. His understanding and explanation of the liberation of Christ is Foundational revolutionary beastliness.
For my heart, it was really a renewal of my understanding of salvation: Faith alone Justifies.
That statement is over-used and under-meant in so many christtian circles. But oh to know the fulness of it's meaning in our hearts.
To grasp that Christ has placed us with Him in heavenly places and has anointed us with joy, freedom and everlasting Real life NOT through our daily discipline, or our obedience to the word, or even our devotion to the heart of God - relationship with Him ... but !!!! It is in our step of FAITH to trust that He is who He says He is - our saviour and the one we need for all things of Godliness - justification, purification, reconciliation.
To know the liberation and joy this understanding sets in my walk with Him. Free to love Jesus without guilt. With a heart fully redeemed in His sight although still so wayward... and a soul no longer thirsty but daily and eternally quenched by His Love.
He is pleased with me because I am His daughter... and I can know Him fully and nourishingly because He has given me this gift of salvation - of justification... I can have peace with my father .. undeserved peace, with the Lord of All.. He is powerful enough to shake the earth and still chose to be bruised for my iniquity.so that humanity would know His name and have a WAY to Him. a way to be reconciled to unity with the Father.
How sweet and strong His love.
Romans 5 By faith we have been made acceptable to God. And now, because of our Lord Jesus Christ, we live at peace with God. Christ has also introduced us to God's undeserved grace on which we take our stand. So we are full of joy, as we look forward to sharing in the glory of God.
Yes!
Another wonderful thing Luther points out is that trusting God with ourselves is the highest, purest form of worship, as it fully and completely declares that we believe God to be exactly who He says.
Amazing .
I've just started back at school after Christmas Holiday time and it was such a blessing from the Lord's hand to spend New Year with Lou and her family - they are so alive! It was nourishment to my soul but also to hers...how Good God is to always benefit us in our spirits.
Being back at school is good. I'm still struggling with my commitment to schoolwork, but God is walking me through the growth of discipline and motivation. I have been seeking it for so long and many many a time have tried to work out how to nail it in my own strength. But the beauty of following Jesus is that His correction is COUNSEL and Gentle. So just was made aware that He walks me through a process gently and efficiently that when the fruit comes it is well grown.
It's like walking out a path in an untrodden field full of grass. That is what our lives are like without the pattern of the Kingdom... grass without any paths of life walked out yet. As we come to know the Lord more and more He teaches us the way to walk by the counsel of His scripture... steadily leading to craft out paths not yet trodden (by us). The first time you walk it you can't even really tell a difference, maybe you wouldn't even be able to walk the same way again, but the more and more the Lord guides us down it the more it becomes a habitual way we walk and the more obvious and natural it becomes to us to walk this way.
I believe this is how it is for my walk into discipline and motivation for following and submitting to teaching at school.
The bible calls it "the renewing of our mind" in Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.
Let me be transformed.
At the end of my 2nd Year at Nexus, Dave Silber wrote this on my report: "I pray that you will come to more of an understanding of God's love (Ephesians 3) and fully immerse yourself in it."
Oh that I would as I journey with Christ.
His love is life to me.
