Saved, Adopted – and Responsible

Now Saved, we in Christ are now adopted as sons of God and co-heirs with our Brother Jesus.  In this we have full rights as inheritors, and one Day, when we are gathered and brought home, we will receive our place in the Family.

As for now, we stand Righteous before God due to His acceptance and expectation of this Day of Justification, when the world will be Judged and our Lord will wave us past the scrutiny and condemnation that will send those without Forgiveness into Hell.

This time now, the Last Days, are the time of Salvation and service to the God Who has rescued us.  And as God and we await and look forward to our homecoming, we are now kept in the assurance, and under the deposit, of the Holy Spirit.  Because we have been Saved, and because we have been truly given a resurrected soul, and because God knows His Act and His Will in our Salvation is going to be confirmed on the Day the whole world is Judged, and because He has called us to labor in good works – He has given us the Holy Spirit.  We have been entrusted and endowed with the very Spirit of God!  He is our assurance and the seal on the Inheritance we will receive at the Gathering.

This issue of His Spirit in us, and our responsibilities concerning this, are central to the Christian life and walk.  Our success, our joy in God, our good stewardship – all of these pivot on our deliberate and faithful cultivation of our relationship with the Holy Spirit of God in us.

Good stewardship requires first something of value to administer; second, an understanding of what it is and how to relate to it; and third, the discipline to deal with it diligently in a way that is proportionate to it’s value.

The ‘titanium cable’ which runs centrally through any useful Christian walk contains the following: 1) Knowing God’s Mind, His Person, and His Will through the Word He has given; 2) Praying, in His Spirit, for our own obedience to His Will; and for His intercession, consistent with His Person and Will revealed in His Word; 3) A holy life, always seeking out our sin through diligent reflection in the Word, the Standard God has set forth for us – and this all for the purpose of remaining soft in heart and sensitive to the Spirit’s leading by seeking, recognizing, confessing, and repenting of our sin; 4) Obedience to what we know God, His Word, and His Spirit convey to us as we, in a pure and soft heart, learn His expectations in Scripture and grow in our relationship through experience and prayer; and 5) Exercising our good walk, to experience the joy of meeting God and dancing with Him as he blesses and assures His child, whom He has given all of the ingredients, means, and circumstances to do so.

All of these issues, the strands of that ‘cable’, are rooted in the centrality of the Holy Spirit within each of us as children of God.  These are the main concerns of the Christian, and all are common in the responsibilities they represent for both God and us.  Study of the Word, Prayer, the Holy life, Obedience, and the joy of experiencing God; we have our responsibilities to do each of these, and God has the responsibility to provide the means, His response, and the circumstances to carry it all out.  All of these ‘cable’ issues are the task and the promised blessing of each child of God.  And all are possible through the Holy Spirit, which we hold in common with God Himself.  And every believer in Jesus Christ has the duty and the means to exercise and cultivate his or her relationship with God the Holy Spirit.  All of these points demand a relationship with this Spirit, and as for God’s part of the responsibility, He is never lacking.  A failure to cultivate this relationship, and a failure to see the fruit of a good walk, and the disappointment, which always accompanies a poor walk, is no one’s fault but our own.  The fellowship of a healthy walk with God is exactly what He desires, exactly what He has provided for in our Salvation, exactly what He commands us to strive for – and exactly what we will be discussing with Him when we get Home.

See the Promise of the Holy Spirit to you and in you; grow in your recognition of the value of this Gift; strive towards the best relationship possible; and enjoy God now as you prepare to go Home to enjoy Him forever!