Author: admin

The arrival of spring is heartily welcomed in Minnesota where winter lingers for almost a half-year. The two-parted whistles from male Northern Cardinals is often heard in the early spring. While lifting my head up to search for the birds, I cheerfully found little buds springing from the tip of the branches. I think our spiritual life is very similar: Only through experiencing the coldness of death, can we start to cherish the joy of resurrection.

While Christians praise God for choosing us to receive the grace of salvation, we not only acknowledge our release over the bondage of our sins and evil through Jesus Christ, but also realize that our new life has been undergoing the inception of the eternal life with glorious victory. When I read about Lazarus who was dead and rotting in the grave for four days, I cannot help but relate Lazarus to myself who was dead spiritually and brought back to life by Jesus. Therefore, I compare the stages of resurrection of Lazarus and my spiritual life in the following.

The stages of resurrection of Lazarus (John 11:43-44)

1. Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
2. The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
3. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

The stages of resurrection of my spiritual life

1. I was dead in my sins so that I could not see and know God. But through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, my spirit came back to life so that I can respond to Jesus Christ’s effectual calling. As a result, I confessed and repented my sins to God and “He forgave all my sins” (Colossians 2:13).
2. God made me alive with Christ who was risen from the death.
3. While I was cleansed by Jesus Christ’s blood, God canceled the written code that was against me and took it away, nailing it to the cross. My debt of sins is totally paid, once for all.
   The climax of the resurrection of Lazarus is that people helped take off the strips of linen covering his body and face. Likewise, God cut off the spiritual handcuffs and shackles from our sins and Satan so that we can be “rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of the Christ” (Colossians 1:13). Since then, we were reconciled with God through believing Jesus Christ and “become holy, without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1:22).

A truly reborn Christian wants to obey God’s commands out of love. Our spiritual life grows as we read the Bible and pray in the spirit. Gradually, we understand God’s wills that have been clearly written in the Bible and also learn from Jesus, our best role model who completely obeyed the Father without holding His own schedule or item list.

Why is the name of Jesus Christ powerful to save sinners and beat the evil? It’s because He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.

“Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Philippians 2:6-11).

By faith, Christians receive the precious name of Jesus Christ, as a police officer is granted a badge. We are given the authority to trample on evils and to overcome all the power of the spiritual enemy.

The heart of humility and gratitude makes you see yourself as a forgiven sinner in front of God. You admit that you may stumble in ignorant imperfection in this life. However, you shall not stay in the guilt; instead, you come to God and confess your sins when God convicts you, as you believe that “if you confess your sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive you your sins and purify you from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

However, when you encounter Satan in spiritual warfare, he will try to deceive you that you cannot avoid sinning against God because of your sinful flesh. As a result, Satan either tempts you to find an excuse for your sins or to feel depressed and helpless to overcome sins. At this very moment, you need to proclaim your status as a saint: Through the blood of Jesus Christ, you have been given the divine nature and can escape the corruption of flesh.

Therefore, you have the freedom to not go on sinning and you will not sin with deliberate intention because you are born of God with His divine nature. Through continually practicing to “Submit to God and resist the devil” (James 4:7), the muscle of your faith will be strengthened. You can gain the victory over sins because “He has brought you out into the light” (Micah 7:9), “you are more than conquerors through Him” (Romans 8:37).

Now, because you clearly declare that your identity is God’s child, with the Truth, you can expose the devil’s lies and resist his temptation. You will notice that the sound of accusation or your guilt disappear while the devil flees from you. However, Jesus said: “Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). When Jesus comes back, you will receive His praise, glory and honor (1 Peter 1:7).

Have you joyfully received Jesus as your Savior and the Lord so that you can grow mature spiritually and gain the assurance of salvation and the hope of everlasting glory? How do you see yourself today in light of your salvation through Jesus?

I dedicate one noon of the week to fast and pray for myself and other people. One day while I kept my promise to fast and pray with a healthy fear to God, I was led by the Holy Spirit while reading the Bible and sensed several polluted, ignorant sins in my heart. I confessed to God and amazingly felt more craving for His pure spiritual milk (1 Peter 2:2) instead of food, even though my stomach growled.

A while later, I found myself being inspired by C.H. Spurgeon’s poem in a fortuitous reading. As a result, my gratitude to God’s cleaning water gushed out to the following praise:

My soul as a fountain, connected with heavenly head water.

No draining, but a spring of the Lord, sustained by Grace, purified by trials, abided by Love, guarded by divine power.

My soul thus favored is flowing with His sweet and living water to the spiritually thirsty peoples and unto the eternal glory of God’s kingdom.

The Bible says: “The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life. That one may avoid the snares of death”. (Proverbs 14:27).

Let us give the Lord our reverence with love. Then, the fountain of life will overflow from within, to nourish us and others.

How do you nourish your spiritual self? What spiritual practices deepen your walk with Christ?

Are you the person who goes on the bus with a seat and still carries your heavy, bulky backpack on your back, even when the driver kindly reminds you to put it down because it will be a long way to the next stop?

This analogy completely reflects my spiritual life. I was saved as a God’s child (meaning I was on the bus), but I was not free (meaning I still carried my backpack). Even worse, I was miserable because I could not fulfill most of the commandments in the Bible with a genuine heart.

I did want to be a good Christian but I found that I often heard voices like “you just fake to be loving because you still have jealousy in your heart,” or, “it’s impossible for you to be totally selfless because the Chinese saying says, ‘the heaven and earth would be destroyed if a human was not selfish’ ”.

Besides believing the condemning voices, I suffered with depression, self-rejection, low self-esteem, anxiety, control, an angry temper, suicidal temptation, etc. At that time, I did not fully understand the solid Bible truth for transforming my mind. I practiced and knew little about how fortune-telling and astrology are connected with evil and detested by God (refer to 2 Chronicles 33:6). And the human-centered world view plus my own unconfessed sins from my lineage and my heart still haunted me.

When I was in early elementary school, I had never heard about baptism in Christianity. But I sometimes immersed myself in the bathtub that my mom stored water in for cleaning. I wished I could wash away my wickedness after coming out of the water. There’s a temple for worshipping Guan-Gong (ancient Chinese general) near my house. I often went there to play in the big front yard and also accompanied adults to go inside to worship many different idols. The strong smoke of incense and the pictures about hell in the books were the vivid memory about the temple. In my young mind, I remember I often asked myself that if I only worship this god, would I offend the other gods?

When I was 18, in the college, I heard about God’s creation for the first time from the pastor who came to the campus to preach the gospel. I immediately accepted the idea that humans are God’s creation because it solved my long-time puzzle about the theory of evolutionary which I was taught in high school biology class. After a few months, I was urged by a local house church to be baptized so that I can be saved from the world. Afterwards, I walked my Christian life in the dim light for almost 20 years until I got an opportunity to translate an English speech to Chinese.

This speech was about how to tell the difference between mental illness and demonization. The speaker was a pastor’s wife and a nurse. I read through her article and asked her if she could pray for me because my situation fitted the demonization as what she described from her experiences in the deliverance ministry. During the consoling time, she gave me a list helping me to identify the sins I committed in the past. It seemed that the light of Holy Spirit shone through my heart and I was reminded of a long list of sins from myself, my family and the sins against me from the religious cult I joined ignorantly as a child, from the curses someone spoke to me, from the sexual harassment by other adults and from the possible sins in my lineage (ancestors).

Nothing dramatic happened during the prayer time. The pastor’s wife told me that I may stop being afraid of something after the deliverance prayer. Then I noticed I did not fear the bitter coldness of the winter in Minnesota for the first time after I moved here for nine years. My spiritual journey was like the blind man in Bethsaida who was brought to Jesus. Jesus spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him. The man saw people but they looked like trees walking around. Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes, then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored and he saw everything clearly (refer to Mark 8:22-24). After the deliverance prayer, my eyes are bright and I walk in the full light of God since then.

My story may not be the situation for some Christians who were healed by Jesus and got their eye sight right away like the blind man, Bartimaeus (refer to Mark 10:46-52). But one thing I am sure–God intends His children to be free and joyful in the faith, hope and love, because that’s what Jesus came to do:

“This is why the Son of God was revealed, to destroyed works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).

When I look back and wonder how I got here, I know that the long nights in the spiritual life were meant for me to finally surrender myself to God and ask Him to be my Lord, not just Savior in my life so that I can be filled with His Holy Spirit and gain the power with His authority to resist the devil. During the gloomy times, I call upon Him in the day of trouble and He delivers me and I shall glorify Him (refer to Psalms 50:15). I went through the bitterness of being a saved but not free Christian. Then God came through for me and I can savor the full sweetness of living in Jesus.

After I was set free in Jesus’ name, I noticed the gradual changes in my spiritual life:

I am hungry for the Bible’s truth and love to talk to God in prayer. (Psalms 42:1)

I can love God with all my heart after I pray to Him for giving me love. (Luke 10:27)

I make peace with myself and others. (Galatians 5:22)

I learn to discern with the help of Holy Spirit and discard the fault from the cultural/social influence and the lies coming into my thought. I am transformed by renewing my mind by practicing the truth. (Romans 12:2)

I am alert to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. If what I hear does not align with the truth, I resist it right away. (2 Corinthians 10:5)

I learn to fight with Scripture in the spiritual warfare. (Ephesians 6:12)

I have the spirit of power, love and self-control to obey God’s commandments and live a holy life. (2 Timothy 1:7)

Corrie Ten Boom, the Dutch missionary and a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp said:

“Jesus was baptized in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the fullness of the Holy Spirit is the birthright of every child of God. But we must make room for Him, even in the hidden corners deep in our hearts. Then we can count on Him who will accomplish His work through us”.

Every child of God ought to be a free and victorious Christian.

If Jesus sets you free, you are free indeed (refer to John 8:36) and you have the power to overcome sins and the freedom not to sin again.
​
You can learn more from the biblical teaching about the victorious Christian life from the free download documents on this ministry website.

https://www.lighthouseministryintl.org/resource-downloads/

Original posted on: http://www.tblfaithnews.com/faith-religion/could-you-be-saved-but-not-a-free-christian