Archived Daily Manna | Rejoice Fellowship | A mission to release people to rejoice in the world.

Message: Many Christians view the power of Christ something like this: I will confess my sins, repent of them, be baptized, try to follow Christ's commandments. (Perhaps they belong to a denomination with other specific practices for salvation, and follow these.) When I die, I will reawaken and be forgiven for my sins (immediately or eventually) and live forever in perfect peace with Christ, in heaven. Smithfield Decritals, ca. 1300. That is, at any rate, a simplified statement of general Christian belief. We will strive, and persevere through suffering, for a few transitory decades of life on earth; then by God's grace, whatever sins we have committed will be forgiven and we will know God. But Christ's words in today's Scripture are dynamite to anyone who has not read and fully appreciated them. Jesus does not say will have eternal life, He says, “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life”. He does not say that the person with faith in Him will pass from death into life; He says that the believer “has passed from death to life.” He does not simply say the time will come; He says the time “is now here.” There will be a final judgment, but that does not mean we are cut off from God until it occurs. God lives in us right now; by virtue of our baptism and/or confession of belief and repentance, our hope for the future is already realized. God's living Spirit dwells within us, right now. Judgment is already being determined; we do not have to wait until the end of time to enjoy the great benefits of God's love, mercy, and power in our lives. Our eternal life has already begun. Our God is a living God. Christ left us and ascended into heaven, but God did not leave us. That is the whole point of Pentecost: the Holy Spirit, who is every bit and 100% of the actual, living, eternal God, with all of His power, has changed us already. God is alive and lives within us. In John 1:13-14, John tells us, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” This does not mean we will become the children of God “some day”. It means we are the children of God right now. See what Peter has to say about this: But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. (1 Peter 2:9-10) Could this be any clearer? God is a Living God, and we are his living apostles — not some day in the future, but right now. And like Christ himself and the apostles and all the saints, God's purpose in giving us this gift while we are alive in the flesh is to make His name known, to proclaim his excellencies, as Peter put it. So: Let's do it!