Sunday, 12 April 2009
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April 12, 2009 Steve Whitfield
God wants to have a relationship with man, and He has done everything in His power to make that happen. He has sent us His Son to bring us more and more into this relationship.
Today we are going to consider how to STAY in this relationship. There are two different aspects. Since we are NOT like Christ, there has to be something to keep us in this relationship. Thus, we have to drawn into what maintains this relationship.
We know that man was created as a tripartite being. We have a body, a soul, and a spirit. In our spirit we have fellowship, intuition and conscience. After the fall, conscience was the only one of the three that had a certain function. After man fell, they suddenly realized their nakedness. This indicates something “kicked in” that wasn’t functioning before, because they had been naked all along.
Even before we were saved, we had a conscience. We may have tried to live by that, and thus lived a moral life. This inbuilt function represents God to us. When someone puts out their hand to steal something, their conscience speaks (if their conscience isn’t damaged). The problem is that things that used to be abnormal have become normal, and this has affected people’s consciences, because conscience is affected by knowledge and observation. Society plays a part in the function of the conscience.
Religion also plays a part. It may allow the conscience to lose its normal function by being “bribed,” or by doing something good to make up for what makes a person feel guilty in his or her conscience.
According to the Word, the way to take care of the conscience is to confess, apply the blood of Jesus, and go on. If, however, our conscience is numbed by society, it may be hinder the Lord’s shining light from reaching our hearts and seeing things as God does.
The heart is composed of the mind, emotion, will and the conscience. Our heart is full of things. Abnormal things ma become “normal.” We can vindicate our behavior with rationalizations. The things that we should realize are wrong become justified when we allow reasonings to take root and “smooth over” feelings of guilt.
When we enter into fellowship with God, we enter into His presence. As we enter into His shining presence, we will be convicted of sin. The blood of Jesus, however, has been provided, which we may apply and be confident in for our fellowship. We don’t have to run away from God when we feel convicted of sin; we simply have to admit our wrong and apply the blood of Jesus. When we have a problem with a brother or sister, we need to apply the blood of Jesus and confess (if it is appropriate). We have something called the anointing (1 John 2:20) which teaches us what to do in every circumstance.
John wrote that God is love, light, in Him is no darkness at all. So if we look at someone in a “dark” way, our conscience should alert me to a problem. As this anointing works in us, as an ointment, its elements get into us, like a oil gets into wood when applied. As the Lord is anointing us, His element gets into us and overwrites what society has done to our conscience, or what religion has done. The anointing sensitizes our conscience, which has been desensitized in so many ways.
As we are in this relationship with the Lord, He is inscribing His laws upon our hearts. He is inscribing, “Forgive one another” and so on. This is what is going on in our hearts, and our conscience is a part of our heart.
The Lord works with each one of us according to our own situation. Therefore, we should not judge others according to our own conscience. But as we enjoy the Lord, our conscience becomes more and more refined, and enables us to stay with God in a way that He may continue to work more deeply within us.
The key to all of this is valuing the fellowship we have with God. Once you sense it is broken, we should immediately seek the Lord as to what has offended Him, rather than running away and hiding like Adam did. We are not under the Old Covenant today, but under the New Covenant. The Lord has brought us into a relationship with Him based upon the blood of Jesus Christ. As we return to fellowship over and over, we learn more of the details of what He loves and hates, and are given the power to live according to what He loves and hates, based upon the growth of His life within us through the function of this inner anointing we have.
The Lord’s standard is quite high. If you read Matthew chapters 5 through 7, you will realize whatever we learned in society and religion is not in the same ballpark as the Lord’s level of righteousness. This is the standard the Lord has for us must be written into our hearts, and we must be empowered to carry this standard of living. This all happens through the Lord’s operating anointing of the Spirit of life within us. As we live under the operation of the anointing, we have boldness towards God. If our heart is blaming us, that means we are in the realm where the Lord’s life hasn’t risen to that level yet. This is why we have to apply the blood and keep coming to the Lord…so we may continue to receive the rich supply from Him that will enable us to continue to grow in His life and arrive at the level of righteousness He has.
When we hear the alarm of the conscience, like a smoke-detector going off, we need to go immediately to the Lord. This will keep our relationship fresh and allow us to walk boldly before Him. If we allow offences to accumulate, we will lose our boldness. Don’t try to rationalize or bury the feelings of the conscience; they will not ever really go away. Just deal with them as they come.
As we take care of our relationship with the Lord, we should also be conscious of our relationships with others as well. In this way we may all go on together.
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