Supremacy & Totality
Friends: Do not be fooled by any false gospel! Any message that emphasizes anything over Christ’s finished, complete work on the cross is dead religion, and is rooted in humanism, not Christianity. That’s why Paul went to the Corinthians preaching “only Christ and Him crucified!” (1 Cor. 2:2)
There is nothing supernatural or holy about changing your behavior. That was the old covenant. We live by the Spirit of the law and of the Lord Jesus, who works from the inside out. We understand that our uncleanliness comes not from certain foods or association with disease or death, but from within us. The Israelites had no concept of an internal sin nature. For them, protecting their bodies from outside factors meant staying pure and holy before God. Jesus came preaching a message that was totally opposite. When He established His kingdom here on earth, he changed the system completely. He revealed that the death we had tried for centuries to avoid was not external or nearby, it was at our very core. But then he redeemed us totally. Our spirits are no longer dead when we are in Christ. We are totally alive. HAH! Rejoice! Get totally lost in the glory of it and never recover!
I’m going to challenge you to stop trying to be a better person. (It’ll never work for more than a few weeks, anyway.) Instead, ask Holy Spirit to teach you about the Supremacy of Christ, and chew on Galatians for a few months. When we stop working so hard and learn to focus on Jesus (as King, as Lord, as Salvation, as the Gospel itself!) we learn that the Christian life is a beautiful, joy-filled experience and our behavior starts to change without our even noticing. Jehovah Sneaky…He’ll getcha every time, if you’ll let Him distract you from your religion with His love!
Here’s what Oswald Chambers has to say:
http://utmost.org/the-supremacy-of-jesus-christ/
