"In him (Christ) you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit." (Eph. 1:13)
The normal Christian experience is that when a person responds to God's offer of eternal life through Christ by faith, God moves into that person's life as the Holy Spirit. By faith we understand that God is one God in three persons. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, are all the one and same God. So understand this. When a person becomes a believer, God comes to live in them. Their body becomes God's temple.
What was impossible through the entire Old Covenant becomes suddenly possible. No longer does someone simply adopt a religion and try and imitate the behavior that God desires. Every world religion offers that. Uniquely, becoming a Christian means that God moves into a person's life and gives them the ability to live the Christ life. Instead of imitation, suddenly the Holy Spirit is reproducing the character in Christ as long as we abide in Him (John 15:5)
Vs. 14 of Ephesians 1 speaks of the Holy Spirit as the guarantee of our ultimate deliverance in
eternal life. How do you know whether you are a Christian or not? It is not by the externals of things like baptism, or church membership, or doing anything. It is by the witness of God's Spirit in our heart. WOW!. Praise the Lord.
Monday, January 11, 2010
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