Month: December 2018

 

Part 2 – Continuation of “Repentance from Dead Works.”

“Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection (maturity), not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment,”   Hebrews 6:1-2 NKJV.

1:  The first foundational doctrinal truth is the “Repentance from Dead Works.”

Before I start, I would challenge each of you to follow up on what is presented and do a word study on the word “perfect” throughout the Holy Bible.

You will find various meanings for the word “perfect, perfection or perfected.”

Correct meaning and understanding happens only when we are in the context to the entire Holy Scriptures!

Only then can we rightly divide the word of truth and understand its meaning.

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,”   2 Timothy 2:15 KJV.

When you read the word “perfect” in this teaching, you need to look up the original meaning in context to all the base point passages of scripture.

While Paul calls us not only to imitate God (Ephesians 5:1 KJV), but also to imitate him (1 Corinthians 4:16, 11:1 & 2 Thessalonians 3:7).  Paul denies that he is perfect (Philippians 3:12 KJV).

Yet, Paul calls the believers to share the excellence of life that Christ bestows on us, (Colossians 1:28, 3:14 KJV).

Hebrews speaks of the perfection of God’s children, stressing that it is the result of Christ’s death on their behalf.

“By one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy,”  (Hebrews 10:14 and cross reference Hebrews 11:40, 12:23 KJV).

A key New Testament verse for understanding perfection in the Christian life, is found in (Corinthians 12:9).

“But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made ‘perfect’ in weakness.”

Believers are made perfect if they have received the gift of God’s grace in and through Christ.

Christ came to earth with THE eternal mission of love.  He chose and willingly suffered an unimaginable, horrible death, becoming THE pure spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!  He is our peace and has broken down the middle wall that divided us from God.

The 18-inch curtain that separated us from God, was ripped from the top to the bottom when he died.

Thus, making the way open for us to come into the holy of holies by a new and living way through the veil of His flesh! His death opened the way for all those who call Him LORD.

He is the author of our soul salvation and in His ‘perfection,’ he exchanged with us, what we could never do!

By receiving Jesus Christ as Lord, He made us right with God once and for all! When we received Him as Lord and savior we inherited His many benefits.

“Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them.  Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah,”   Psalms 68:18-19 KJV.

When we understood our hopeless condition and the revelation of our total alienation and sinful life from God, we cried out to God to save us!

That beloved was the most amazing revelation we could imagine or ever understand!
Jesus Christ took our place!

We should have been totally separated from God!  But God!  Beloved of God, there was an exchange that took place at that very moment when you cried out to God!

Jesus Christ finished our payment of sin through the travail of HIS soul, being perfectly spotless, sinless, and totally righteous!

He gave and exchanged his perfect life ‘once and for all’ for all those who have received Him as LORD!

When we received the ‘Gift of Salvation,’ that paid and totally covered all the righteous decrees and demands of the law, once and for all, with His willing sacrifice on Calvary! Beloved, He took our place!

Jesus did for us what we could not do, and all to him we owe!  Through Jesus’ abiding “perfection,” He continues to make the way open for us and he ‘perfected’ that which concerns us!

Beloved, the Law, Religion, and Tradition are not our friends!  These influences will continue to send onslaughts against you.

Why?  Because they are on a serious quest to keep you from freedom and the simplicity in Christ!

The opposite of trusting faith is fear!  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom!  That is where we start; at the beginning!

To receive wisdom, we reverence God!  As Children, we can understand that Abba God loves and teaches us, and only wants what is best for us.

God is the perfect parent!  He is a good Father and He doesn’t make mistakes in our rearing!  God is not like earthly minded imperfect parents.

Satan doesn’t want you to see or know that the highest rank and power in the Kingdom of God, is that of a little child!

All of heaven backs up “A Child of God!” Especially one who knows who they are in Christ!

Satan wants to twist God’s Word and His nature and character to that of an angry parent that you can never please or measure up to!

Satan wants to keep you from developing as a Child of God, so he twists the scriptures and uses all sorts of false religious doctrines, and fear tactics, to misrepresent who God is!

Christian believer!  God does NOT put you into cringing, scared to death, insecurity, worry, and fear!

We are to reverence God and respect, and honor him as our Father!  Faith and fear cannot abide together!  One will cancel out the other!

When we get into trouble, Father God disciplines us for our good that we partakers of His holiness.

What good Father doesn’t discipline his child?  His Love and devotion toward us is always motivated to do what is best for us!

Yes, even when he must correct us, it is always for our good!  God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind!

Perfect love cast out all fear for fear hath torment, those who fear have not been made perfect in love.  Being perfected in love is when we understand that God is not against us, He is for us from beginning to end!

Child of God; God’s perfect love toward us liberates us and we finally comprehend that we have life and peace in knowing Abba God’s nature, and character, and His amazing love for us!

Read Hebrews 12:7-13….

“If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? ⁸ But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. ⁹ Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? ¹⁰ For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. ¹¹ Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
¹² Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, ¹³ and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed,”   Hebrews 12:7-13.

“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love,”   1 John:4:16-18 KJV.

Satan wants you to believe the lie.  That God isn’t good, that he doesn’t love you, that he is out to get you, and that you will never be good enough to measure up!

Well part of that is true; You will never measure up to God’s standards in your own strength and power!

Satan doesn’t want you to know about the goodness of God’s liberating power and the simplicity that is in Christ!

Do you remember when you were first saved, and how wonderful, powerful, and liberating it truly was to be free indeed?

If the enemy cannot stop us from receiving salvation, he will come at you to twist the scriptures about every promise Christ has done and provided for us.

The devil will go after us with a Religious spirit to bring us back into bondage and under a yoke of slavery!

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage,”   Galatians 5:1 KJV.

As I close this portion of teaching, I will leave you with this preview.  There are many religions and denominations in Christendom that teach that you must follow Jesus AND obey the Law.

These two cannot coexist!  It is like a magnetic force that pushes against each other; These cannot come together; It is impossible!

There is an ongoing war of darkness, and their mission is, to spy out our liberty we have in Christ in how he set us free and their motive is to bring us into bondage!

What Jesus Christ accomplished for us is so amazing, and so wondrous!  Many people, including Christians struggle saying it can’t be that easy!

But beloved of God, God meant for it to be so simple that a child can understand!

 

In HIS Grace and Mercy,
~ Sherry Edwards Mackey

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“Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection (maturity), not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment,”   Hebrews 6:1-2 NKJV.

The first foundational doctrinal truth is the “Repentance from Dead Works.”

The doctrine of repentance from dead works is absolutely foundational to our faith.  All of us have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.

All of our works in the flesh, past, present, and future can never make us perfect in our flesh and behaviors to have right standing or security with God,  (Romans 3:23).

Regardless of our activity, works, actions, and behavior; we can NEVER attain the ability to measure up to what Christ paid for us on Calvary!

Christ Jesus did it once and for all! How can we think we could be perfect enough in our flesh by making ourselves right with God apart from Christ?

Christ Jesus paid for us in full and we cannot add to that nor can we take anything away from it.

It is HIS Paid free gift to us!  He paid a horrible price for ALL our sins, past, present and future when we accept HIS free gift to us!

The bottom line question is: Can we be perfect enough in our flesh and behaviors to measure up to what Christ perfectly did?

NO!  If we think we can be perfect enough by the law, then we must do ALL the law perfectly,  (Romans 10:5).

You can attempt over and over to live the “perfect life” your best shot!  However, when we try to be perfect in our flesh, it will only lead you to insanity, and burnout!

NO ONE CAN DO IT!  You will be like the runaway train!

Can anyone become perfected by the law in performance in their behaviors?

If so, then Christ’s death was in vain for them.  Our choice beloved is; Do we live by the letter of the law, or by the hearing of faith in Christ?

If we choose to live by the law then the payment of Christ’s sacrifice was in vain for you.

All of our acts of righteousness are as filthy rags in God’s eyes!  The Father has commanded all men everywhere to repent of their wicked ways.

This belief that we are perfect in our flesh is a wicked way!

“And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.  Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do.  But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.  For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.  And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation.  But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?  We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.  But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin?  God forbid.  For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.  For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.  I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain,”   Galatians 2:9-20.

“Now we know that what things so ever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.  Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.  Where is boasting then?  It is excluded.  By what law? of works?  Nay: but by the law of faith.  Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.  Is he the God of the Jews only?  is he not also of the Gentiles?  Yes, of the Gentiles also: seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.  Do we then make void the law through faith?  God forbid: yea, we establish the law,”   Romans 3:19-31 KJV.

We cannot master the law, or we would have been the master.  Do we think more of ourselves or above God?  Perfection means maturity!  We would never be perfect in our flesh in this life.

Extreme teaching, is rooted in pride and it opens the door to dabbling with the fallen angels that come as angels of light!

They are very cunning and crafty, very expert in knowing how to present themselves and to twist the word of God.

These fallen angels of hell can manifest as glorious looking creatures, such as angels of light with beauty.  These fallen angels have studied man a long time!  They have studied YOU!

They know if they can’t get you coming, they will get you going!  These fallen angels’ mission is in drawing us further and further away from the truth!

Balance is so important! We must return to our foundations and see where we got off.  When we get off balance and off center, this is the time to pull away from anything and everyone and regroup with God!

When we refocus, and get centered back on God and His Word, He will pull us back into focus, balance, and to be centered!  Then He will cause us to be in sync with His order of things!

We must have our foundation settled because if we build anything on a faulty foundation when the winds blow, everything that isn’t built according to Christ righteousness will be blown away!

Our foundation is always Christ in what He did, not what we did!

“Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection (maturity), not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment,”   Hebrews 6:1-2 NKJV.

 

In HIS Grace and Mercy,
~ Sherry Edwards Mackey

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