THE WISDOM OF GOD THROUGH THE CROSS OF CHRIST.

DAILY DEVOTIONAL.

DAY THIRTY EIGHT.

1 CORINTHIANS 2:12.   Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

Without the Spirit of God, that being the Person of the Holy Spirit we cannot understand the things of God, Paul says here that we have not received the spirit of the world, the spirit of the world is in direct opposition to the things of God, but we have received the Holy Spirit so that we can understand the things that God freely gives us. It's important that we also understand the context in which we find this verse, in the first five verses of this passage Paul explains that when he was in Corinth all he would preach was Christ and Him crucified because he wanted their faith to be in nothing else, that their faith would not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. The Gospel of Christ and Him crucified is the power of God unto salvation to all who will believe. The wisdom of the world looks at the cross and mocks it, to the spirit of the world Christ and Him crucified is ridiculous. We have been given the Holy Spirit so that we can know the wisdom of God, the Bible says that Christ has been made wisdom for us, He is our sanctification, our righteousness, and our redemption, 1 Corinthians 1:30 This is all available to us because of what He did on the cross. If we place our faith in anything else other than Christ and Him crucified and in what Jesus did for us through His death and resurrection we walk away from the wisdom of God and follow after the wisdom of the world because the wisdom of the world or the wisdom of man will say that we can earn our own salvation, or we can work this all out in our own minds and even walk in the things of God in our own strength and according to our own understanding. So in the context of what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 2 it is so vitally important that we understand why we have been given the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is the One who will reveal to us the true wisdom of God through what Jesus has done for us through His death and Resurrection, it is only through the revelation of the cross that we can live victorious lives in Christ. AMEN.   

SANCTIFIED THROUGH THE BLOOD OF JESUS.

DAILY DEVOTION.

DAY THIRTY SEVEN.

HEBREWS 13:12.   THEREFORE JESUS ALSO, THAT HE MIGHT SANCTIFY THE PEOPLE WITH HIS OWN BLOOD, SUFFERED OUTSIDE THE GATE.

The word sanctify means to be made holy, to be set apart for God's purpose. This verse shows us that it is through the shed blood of Jesus that this is made possible. There is no other way, we cannot earn it, you and I cannot be made holy by our own efforts or good works. Sadly too many try to do this, they try to live a holy life in their own strength only to continue to fail and come under guilt and condemnation, which does not come from the Lord, the enemy is the accuser of the brethren. 1 Corinthians 6:11 gives us a major key to this, "And such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God" In the previous verses Paul lists a number of sins and lifestyles that would keep people out of the kingdom, and then he said, "Such were some of you" in the rest of that verse Paul explains that we have been washed from our past sins and lifestyles, sanctified, set apart for God, justified, made righteous in the name or authority of Jesus and sealed by the Holy Spirit. We are now new creations in Christ, made the righteousness of God in Christ. Because of what Jesus did for us through His shed blood on that cross our old life now has no authority over us, As Paul said in Galatians 6:14 through the cross of Jesus he has been crucified to the world and the world to him. The world should no longer have any attractions to you or authority over your life. We live our sanctified lives in the power of the Holy Spirit because we know that our old man has been crucified, that sin no longer has dominion over us, we are free from the power of sin and we have yielded ourselves to God through the power of the Holy Spirit, walking in the Spirit and so not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh. It is so important that you and I get the revelation of what Jesus did for us through His death on the cross, without the cross we have absolutely nothing, we should be able to say like Paul did in Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" When we know that we have been crucified with Christ we know that there is no life in us worth living, that it must be the life of Christ in us working in and through us, it is by faith that we know that we are in Christ and that He is in us. This is the key to living a sanctified, holy life. AMEN.