NEWSLETTER 064 MESSAGE

Message: The Goal Of The Christian Life

“Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:” Eph. 4:13

The goal of the Christian life is that we would become like Jesus to the glory of God the Father. All the gifts of the Spirit are manifestations of the Character of Christ. We all have the ability, through the Holy Spirit, to picture a unique aspect of Jesus. As we grow in maturity, our life - our actions, reactions, words, attitudes, etc - should reflect more and more the life of Christ.

An often overlooked but vital tool to becoming like Christ is the Law of God. God’s Law is His perfect standard of righteousness. Christ perfectly kept the Law. As we work on understanding and applying the Law of God in our lives we grow both in the knowledge and experience of God.

Many times we look at the Law of God just in terms of human applications. While this is important, every Law given by God also reveals something about His Character and the way He Himself operates. Let’s look at an example: Ex. 23:5 [ If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him.]. Here we have a case Law. Someone’s donkey has fallen because the burden is too heavy. We are to help the owner - even if he is an enemy - with his donkey. The basic principle is that, if we have the ability, we are to help people in their immediate need. They may be enemies, but if they need our help we have to help them. This is talking about a specific, immediate need that we become aware of - not long term care [which is dealt with elsewhere]. The point is we cannot ignore people in trouble. In dangerous cases our help may be limited to calling 911, but we need to do something!

But how does this law - aside from its practical instructions - reveal the Character of God? Isn’t this what God did for us? We were struggling and falling under the burden of sin. No one could help us. We were enemies of God. He could have ignored us. He could have told us we were only getting what we deserved. He could have given us a lecture. Instead, because there is no other way He could help with sin, He came down and carried our sin burden Himself - taking it to the Cross.

As we apply this Law in our lives, we allow the image of Christ to grow in our lives. The same can be said for every Law. Maybe this will give you a new perspective on the Law of God. The Law needs to be an important part of our Bible Studies. We need to see both how we are to apply the Law in our lives today and what it reveals about the Character of God. We study the principles of the Law in Life Line and many of the details of modern application in Biblical Law. Great courses to take. What we need is someone[s] to do extensive study on how the Law reveals God’s character.

Note: I must point out - because there is much confusion on the topic - that the law is NOT our method of gaining or maintaining salvation. Salvation is through Jesus Christ alone. Those Christians who reject the Law because they think it relates to salvation have not even understood the issue. The law deals with Christian maturity [sanctification], not salvation [justification]. See the Life Line course for more details.

Announcements

Probably by the end of April the Joshua Club will be back in operation. All the courses on the Free Bible Study Lessons site will be PDF format. Joshua Club members will be able to have as many complete courses [not samples] as they desire for only a small monthly fee. New courses will be added and current courses will be converted into workbooks. Workbooks - complete with tests and answer keys - are easier for personal study and may also be used in Christian High Schools or Bible Schools. Plus many of the Reports that are on the FBSL site are having study guides and answer keys developed for them. It will be exciting to have the Joshua Club up and running again for the benefit of all. Watch for further details.

If you operate a web-site, you may link to as many of our pages as you wish.

God bless you,
Glenn Davis
Free Bible Study Lessons

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