THE LIFE OF CHRIST IN THE LIFE OF THE BELIEVER

How do we know that Jesus Christ is a person? How do we know that He died on Calvary? How do we know that He ascended into heaven? How do we know that He is coming back again? How do we know these things? By faith in the Word of God-the Bible-that is how!

The apostles who walked with Jesus did not believe the Bible. The Bible was not even written then. How could they believe it? Our faith is base on the Word of God. That is the reason why I harp on the Word so much. This is why I stay on it, because everything we believe concerning spiritual matters is predicated on the Word. The reason why many Christians are missing out on the things of God is because they are waiting for a feeling. They have been going by an emotion, and their prayer life, their Bible reading, their commitment to Christ are all predicated on some kind of feeling.

In fact, these Christians can be described by the words of an old song: "Every time I feel the Spirit moving in my heart, I will pray." And, some of them have not felt the Spirit moving in twenty years, so they have not prayed.

Don't misunderstand me. I am not saying that you will not have some feelings. I am not saying feelings will not come when you pray, but if you wait until you have a feeling in order to pray, you will not pray as often as you should! Satan will see to that-he will see to it that your feelings don't come. No, you should pray because the Word says to pray without ceasing.

Some Christians are waiting to get the "Bible-reading" feeling, and then they will study the Scriptures. They don't understand that they are supposed to read the Bible because the Word says, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV).

As I stated before, the faith of the apostles when they walked with Christ during His earthly ministry was based on their senses. Our faith is based on the Word of God. If you base your faith on anything other than the Word, you are going to be up the creek in a boat with no oars.

First Corinthians 15:1-4 says:

1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand,

2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you; unless you believed in vain.

3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,

"According to the Scriptures"-the Word-not according to a feeling, but according to the Word!

When Jesus walked the earth, some of the people believed He was the prophet Moses had talked about. Moses had said that in the latter days God would raise up a prophet for the Jews like himself and that unto him would be the gathering of the people. This was, of course, referring to Jesus. Some even went so far as to accept Him as the Messiah, but they did not believe He had died for them or was going to rise again for their justification. As I said before, no one could experience righteousness until after Jesus' resurrection.

The Bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23); and every man who is outside of Christ (whether Jew or Gentile) is spiritually dead. Spiritual death does not mean non-existence. In other words, when we think of something as being dead in the English language, we think of the thing as being non-existent. Spiritual death means a life apart from God. As far as God is concerned, for the spiritual dead person, it is as though he does not exist. I have used this illustration before, but I think it is apropos and it gets the point across.

I am sure you have heard the term "color blind." What does it mean when we say a person is color blind? It means that certain colors do not register on that person's optic nerve. It does not mean that he cannot see or that he is totally blind; it simply means he cannot distinguish certain colors.

Spiritual death is like being color blind. When a man is color blind, he can see, but he cannot see a particular color. When a man is spiritually dead, he is alive, but he is dead to God. The spiritually dead man is considered color blind as far as God is concerned. He looks in God's direction, but his "spiritual" optic nerve does not see God, just as the color-blind man's optic nerve does not see a particular color.