Wednesday, July 24, 2013

After the Rapture, Pt. 2


What will be judged? 

The eternal penalty for your sin has been taken care of.  When you trusted the blood of Christ at Calvary for your sin, and you trusted him as your Saviour by faith alone, you then have eternal life as a present possession; all your sins are forgiven; you are eternally secure; you won’t go to hell.

Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We have that distinction in this present dispensation by pure grace.  Once we trust in the faith of Christ, his faithfulness is to give us eternal life – God’s life.  We will live as long as God lives, which is forever.

Philippians 3:9
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

At Calvary he died for our sins, was buried and rose again.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;  And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:

But after salvation, our works, labour, and enduring to the end all come into play.  They are not in order to be justified unto eternal life because we are already eternally saved.  They are not so that we can stay saved because we are saved through the faith of Jesus Christ and we are trusting in what he did for us at Calvary.

But our faith does play a part after salvation.  We walk by faith.  We are to be active participants in our Christian life.

Philippians 2:12
Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

What is that?  Paul calls it the ‘work of faith.’  He talks about three things:

1 Thessalonians 1:3
Remembering without ceasing your [1] work of faith, and [2] labour of love, and [3] patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;

2 Thessalonians 1:3
We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth;

The love of God is manifest in all who are patient in tribulation.

2 Thessalonians 1:4
So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure:

Romans 5:3
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

The first thing we need to do after we place our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and what he accomplished at Calvary by his faith, is that we have to grow in faith; grow in Christ; grow in the mystery doctrine.  We don’t just [only] get saved by listening to Paul--that is only the beginning!

Colossians 2:6-7
As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.

We received him by grace through faith.  To do that we had to have faith in his word to us:  the apostle Paul’s doctrine, the mystery of Christ, the grace message.  Romans thru Philemon are the curriculum for our edification that we must learn in order to be fit for the Lord’s use...now and in eternity!

To grow in Christ, start in the book of Romans and work your way through to Philemon.  Read from Paul’s 13 books every day.  Send any questions you may have to me or any other stablished Pauline, grace brother or sister.

You need to build up the doctrine in your inner man by studying Paul’s epistles.  Faithful, bible-believing grace teachers will help you with that.  God doesn’t leave believers alone without preachers and teachers to help in your understanding.


To be continued…

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