The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Now"
"While full realization and manifestation of the believer's eternal relationship and standing with God does not yet appear, the fact of such grace exists and abides as a settled reality in the heart and mind of our Heavenly Father. Our hearts and minds must join Him in the affirmation."
How precisely do we define "now?" Do we mean this particular period of our lives? Or this day? This hour? This minute or second? What is now? While we may answer the question differently based on context and circumstance, one truth regarding the now of our present must be viewed as vitally important and significant.
"Beloved, now are we the sons of God" (I John 3:2).
While full realization and manifestation of the believer's eternal relationship and standing with God does not yet appear, the fact of such grace exists and abides as a settled reality in the heart and mind of our Heavenly Father. Our hearts and minds must join Him in the affirmation. He commands us accordingly.
"Therefore reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:11).
Much may counter the reality that who we now are in Christ is not who we were without Him. Experience, evidence, and emotion may belie the truth that "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature" (II Corinthians 5:17). We do not always remember, believe, think, speak, or act in accordance with the truth and reality of what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished for us and within us in His redeeming work. The truth and reality does not change, however, anymore than air and the lungs to breathe it cease to exist if we choose to hold our breath. Christ is who He is. We are who we are in Him. Now (and wonderfully, forever).
Unto the wayward, carnal Corinthians, the Apostle Paul wrote, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (I Corinthians 3:16). Paul did not suggest the Corinthians return to being who and what they were in Christ as "new creatures." Such grace abode in the Corinthians as a fixed, now reality. The apostle rather began his corrective application of truth with the reminder of a present reality that, if affirmed and embraced, would produce great effect in leading to a spiritual, faithful walk with God (which it did, as evidenced by Paul's second epistle to the Corinthians - II Corinthians 7:6-11). Indeed, believers cannot be in practice who we are as living temples of God if we do not know who we became in spiritual substance when we trusted the Lord Jesus. The "now" reality of being a "new man, created in righteousness and true holiness" in our innermost being must be reckoned as a gift of grace that, once received, cannot and will not be revoked (Ephesians 4:24).
Of course, as believers, we desire far more in our "now" than relationship and "newness of life" as dwelling within us. We want to walk accordingly. "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" (Romans 6:4; Galatians 5:25). Knowing that whatever our present response to God may involve, our present reality of being His born again, Spirit-enlivened and enabled sons and daughters in Christ plays a vital role in faith and faithfulness. Yes, "now are we the sons of God." May our Father grant much grace of illuminating our hearts to who He is, and also, who we are as the scene of His living, moving, and vital presence. Now.
"But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
(Romans 6:22-23)
Weekly Memory Verse
If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new."
(II Corinthians 5:17)
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