Christ made alive in the Spirit

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.” 1 Peter 3:18 NIV

So cool that Christ Himself was made alive "in the Spirit." He brings us to God. He does that. Not us. Not you. You don't bring me to God. Your Pastor, you leader, doesn't bring you to God. Christ brings you to God. That is why He is the ONLY true and necessary Head of the Church. Only He can do this. And why??? Because HE is "alive in the Spirit."  Do you see that?? Christ is still alive... right this very minute. Alive in the Spirit of God, His Father. And His Father is indeed our Father as well. And we also are made Alive in the Spirit because we are risen up with Him and seated with Him in the Heavenly realms. Are we seated with Him because of something we have done?  No. If this were so we would then boast. No, we are saved by grace through faith. We are brought to God by grace through faith. We are put to death in the body like Christ by grace through faith. We are made alive in the Spirit, with Christ... by grace through faith. There is nothing we can do. Nothing.


But.....


Because HE has done it all.

Because of THIS, this He has done FOR us....


We cannot sit still. Once made alive in the Spirit ... that NEW CREATION within us, which IS ..  HIS very Life in us.... leads us to DO what the Spirit then tells us to do.  That is exactly what the Son did. He DID what the Father was doing...primarily living a Life of Love and laying down that love for sinners. Sinners loved Christ. They loved being around Christ. They loved HIM. Why? Because HE was full of the Spirit. He was alive in the Spirit. Being alive in the Spirit simply means we keep in step with the Spirit. Or at least we try. We pray in the Spirit. And we work ... for God ... in the Spirit. We work not to GAIN anything... for we cannot. Do you see this? There is nothing WE can do to be made alive in the Spirit. Nothing but faith. And even our Faith comes from the Spirit. We can do nothing at all, not even give ourselves faith. It is God who gives us everything we need for life and Godliness.

And once made Alive in the Spirit we are ... well... made ALIVE! Do you believe this??? This is the NEW Creation which Jesus speaks of. It is a Spiritual happening deep down inside. It IS a personal relationship with Christ; it IS a personal relationship with the Father. It is VERY personal. Just as it was for Christ.

Think about it! Christ, ... suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you us to God...was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.”

There is nothing quite as glorious as this... in all the universe. What sort of God do we serve?? This sort of God!  This is all done by GRACE!

The problem with lazy Christians today,
or quilt-ridden Christians today,
or self-righteous Christians today,
or nominal Christians today,
or Sunday-only Christians today,
or power-hungry Christians today,
or insecure Christians today,

or ME!

...is not that we focus on Grace and that focus has made us lazy. The problem is that we are NOT focusing enough on the FULL depth and glorious truth of this AMAZING Grace. We are not seeing ... I am not seeing ... the complete and wonderful view from God's eyes and heart. And from that view we are FULL. And complete. And NEW. As full, complete and new Spiritual people, we take this LIFE in the Spirit and we simply DO what the Spirit leads us to do, not in a perfect way, but in the best way possible. Christ was led by the Spirit; and so are we.

We love. And we work. We work because of HIS grace.

Grace Works.


“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.” 1 Peter 3:18 NIV

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