The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
“Of Birth and Growth”
The human race can be divided into two populations, namely, those who require spiritual birth, and those who require spiritual growth.
“Ye must be born again” (John 3:7).
“But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” II Peter 3:18).
God’s grace received in the Lord Jesus results in a “new creature” and a “new man, created in righteousness and true holiness” (Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 4:24). A spiritual being springs to life as God imparts the very life of the Lord Jesus into the innermost depths of the heart (Galatians 4:6). The new birth is many things, among them an absolute miracle of God He alone can conceive and deliver. All who trust Christ have experienced this wonder of grace whereby we became that which God created us to be, namely, the spiritual temple of His living presence.
“And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1).
“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (I Corinthians 3:16).
Having received the life of Christ into our spirits, we seek to grow in realization, faith, and applied devotion to the wonder of being “alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:11). The glorious journey that began so miraculously continues along the same path of the miraculous, whereby we “live through Him” (I John 4:9). Every thought, attitude, word, and deed pleasing to God results from His presence and power that began our relationship with Him, and then works to lead us in faith and obedience. “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him” (Colossians 2:6). Indeed, that which began our Christian life, the reception of grace, continues our living of the Christian life. The writer of Hebrews declared to believers, “Let us have grace, that we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Hebrews 12:28).
The unifying factor of this truth involves the fact that every human being on the planet requires the miraculous working of God, either for birth or growth. We pray accordingly for unbelievers, that they will realize their need for newness of life in Christ only the Holy Spirit can conceive and birth. We pray accordingly for believers, that we will realize we have received newness of life, and that only thereby can we bear “the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:11). The miracle of birth. The miracle of growth. We will never meet a human being who does not require that which God alone can initiate and further.
“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.”
(I Peter 1:23)
“If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.”
(Romans 8:10-11)
Weekly Memory Verse
By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.
(John 13:35)
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