[H]im that filleth all in all.
Ephesians 1:23, portion, edited
Him that is all deserves our all. He that is everything demands our everything.
No portion of this life is worth comparing with His. No piece of this preparation is on equal with that which is to be revealed, and is here now.
Clouds and thick darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
Psalm 97:2
The question of the ages, of the universe, and of the world, is that of righteousness.
When we approach what I like to call the million dollar question, why do born again believers not behave according to their new-creation nature, we have come to the very bedrock of the Christian faith, and also the most pressing issue of the universe, period.
The issue is righteousness.
We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
1 John 4:16 NAS
The place of the anointing is love. Without love, even the greatest faith counts for nothing.
This is the dominating motivating factor above all else in a minister. It was for love that God sent His servants the prophets and His own son to die. It was for love that Jesus obeyed, and suffered. It was for love that man was restored.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
Mark 16:16 KJV
Lest we forget our place, let us remember Jesus words. He did not come to condemn, because He didn’t have to. We already were, all of us (John 3:17, Romans 3:23). Lest we lose our moorings, let us remember the foundations of our faith. One of the foundations upon which all else is built upon is Eternal Punishment (Hebrews 6:2). Without these things, we are in error, and we cannot grow into maturity in the things of faith.
None of us can boast about our place in God, for no one is righteous on their own merit. Paul wrote, “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded.” Romans 3:27. Even in evangelism, while it is true that we have what everyone else is looking for, and we must not get into fruitless debates, it remains upon the finished works of the cross. We tell others that they are sinners and condemned to hell, not because we are righteous in our own merit, but because of the very hope we preach.
Superlative: [O]f the highest kind, quality, or order; surpassing all else or others; supreme; extreme: superlative wisdom.
via Dictionary.com
It is almost a wrong label to call the Kingdom superlative. It is Beyond that. John the Baptist was the superlative of human attainment. A life of solitude, of extreme separateness and consecration to the Lord was his. Jesus gave the man this testimony, and the comparison to the Kingdom.
Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Matthew 11:11
John was a man, a prophet, of the Old Covenant, under the law and order of Moses. He signified the demarcation point between Old an New Covenants. As the Law came through Moses, and Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ, the exchange between the two marked the transition from the age of the Old Testament and the coming of the Messianic Age.
The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.
Luke 16:16
Now there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8:1
And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Hebrews 9:22
There is no condemnation for a believer. For the sinner, condemnation is assured (John 3:18), but for those who are justified by faith, we live in the freedom of Christ (Galatians 5:1).
So we have a distress. We find that we do sin. And, this may bring guilt, pain, shame, regret. Yet, these are not the right of the New Testament believer. We come to a conjunction, a crossroads of choice. Do I believe the Scriptures, or do I believe the pain of the shame, the guilt, and the condemnation.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus;
Romans 8:1
But, there is condemnation for those who are not in Christ. Jesus said,
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
Mark 16:16
Jesus said that those who do not believe in Him, the Son of Man who was God Himself, would be eternally condemned, bound in an eternal hell for Eternity. Paul, writing later, said that it was on the six foundations of the Christian faith, without which, one could not move on to maturity (Hebrews 6:2).
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
John 14:6
It doesn’t matter what version you read it in, Jesus is the way, He is THE Truth, and He is the life, the only life. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all that believe (1 Peter 1:5).
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