There are many people who argue that we are set free from every religious practice and ritual because we are set free by the cross. I have been called legalistic and religious by some people because I insist that it is good practice to Tithe, Fast and Pray, Regularly Worship and many other practices that some insist belong to old testament Judaism and not to Christian service.
Paul said that whoever you submit yourself to as a servant to obey is your master (well, he said that you are his servant). As Christians we should have only one master, God the father. We should have no other thing telling us how to spend our money or our time or what gets our time and energy. In theory. I know that there are many practical things that are needed for day to day life but these are choices. Once we allow something to dictate to us then we become its slave.
That is why smoking or any other kind of addiction is bad. It takes resources from us for no good purpose and flushes it away while getting us more and more hooked up with what it wants and not what God wants (or what we want for that matter). It becomes an idol, something that becomes more important than God in our lives.
That is why we tithe. When we tithe we honour God with our finances and it takes the power of the flesh out of our spending. On the positive side there are so many promises in the word of God about Him blessing your finances when you give that you would be mad not to so long as you see it the right way and not as a religious thing but as part of your relationship with God.
That is why we fast and pray. We don't want desires for different foods, etc, to rule over us. We need to control the flesh. Actually we are told to crucify the flesh. Jesus said that we would not fast while the Bridegroom was with us but that we would fast when He was gone. It is NOT an old testament thing. It is a powerful tool to help us have victory and power in our lives.
Do not be deceived by people who would try to tell you that the liberty that Christ has won us through the cross is a license to do what we want. It is the opposite. In old testament prophecy it says that He will write His law on our hearts, that we will no longer have hearts of stone but hearts of flesh and that we will do by nature the things that please Him. It is not that the things that please Him have changed. It is that the state of our hearts should have changed when we asked Him in to our lives and that we now have a different nature that allows us to think and desire along the lines of what God thinks and desires rather than according to the fallen human nature.
What He did on the cross is this. He destroyed the power of the sinful human nature in our lives if we allow it to. Both in our lives as individuals and corporately as the body of Christ.
This is not being religious, it is being responsible, it is being a good steward of the grace that God has given us.
Pastor Garth Clarkson
Thursday, 9th January 2014
Posted by Garth Clarkson at 02:09
TUESDAY, 29 APRIL 2014
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