With many people, when they first become Christians, there is an initial thrill of discovering Jesus to be alive -- and relevant. They experience excitement in learning new truth about His purpose and ability to bring meaning and quality into everyday life. Often, they are overwhelmed with an exhilarating feeling of a fresh experience of God. But soon, it tends to slip away. Why does this happen? How is it rectified?
Before we become a Christian, it is the Spirit of Christ (Holy Spirit) who draws us to Jesus, enabling us to become a Christian. Many know Him to be the “Author” of our faith, but fail to recognize that He is the “Perfecter” of our faith, or as some translations say, the “Finisher” of our faith. They have allowed Jesus to begin His good work in making them good Christians, but believe it’s their job to finish the work. As a result, many people continue to struggle, trying their best to please God. Again and again, they are frustrated, unable to maintain their initial momentum, and are left with the underlying fear that nothing is changing.
Paul writes to the church in Colossi, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him…” (Colossians 2:6). Our ability to continue to live in Christ are on the same grounds as those upon which we received Him; that is through a genuine attitude of repentance and faith. To the church in Philippi, Paul writes, “I always pray with joy … being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).
The Bible is intensely alive with statements that speak about Christ as the life and source of all spiritual activity. It is this that makes Christianity far more than just another religion and far more than a never-ending struggle to live a quality life, which in our honest moments we recognize to become humanly impossible. Christianity is not an escape from reality, but a plunge into reality where, by the Indwelling presence of Christ, we begin to live as God intended. The Christian life is not what we do for God, but what God will do for us. We still go about our everyday business, but with a difference. Just as we received Christ in faith, we bring Him into every aspect of our lives, seeking His will in all things, and trusting His sufficiency. Dependence on the very life and activity of Christ within us, not just as the “Author,” but as the “Perfecter, Maturer, and Finisher” of our faith is the essence of Christian living. It is the resurrected life of Christ that indwells us. We, in our humanity, do not have the resources to bring about the moral transformation of ourselves. Christ is the only person who has fulfilled the demands of the Law. In every instance, in every encounter in His life, He did not sin, no not one. He is the embodiment of practical moral behavior as it bisects the world system around Him. The power, the Holy Spirit, as He descended on Jesus at the time of His baptism and never left Him, that allowed Jesus to live a completely moral life. Having fulfilled the demands of God, Jesus was the only humankind that as the God/Man was therefore a fit sacrifice for the sins of mankind. His sacrifice on the altar of the Cross paid our sin debt to the Trinity. Belief in Jesus’ resurrection, and coming to Him in repentance and faith, we are born again unto life eternal. In this transaction, Christ became our sin and we became His righteousness. The Spirit that descended upon Jesus now indwells each Christian. The Holy Spirit’s ministry to the Christian is to transform him/her into the moral likeness of Jesus. In this transformation, it is you and I, who have become partakes of the divine, who are actually being changed from what we once were (sinners separated from God by our sin) into what the bible now calls ‘saints’. We are no longer referred to as sinners ever again in the Scriptures. We are not yet sunless as Jesus was, but through the indwelling and power of the Holy Spirit, we are being literally changed in our cores to be moral/sinless. We are not likely to achieve the end of this in this lifetime, but through what theologians call “progressive sanctification” we will be completed, we will be like Jesus.
It sounds almost too easy, too good to be true, but our sanctification requires our cooperation with the Holy Spirit’s indwelling ministry. Relax, the weight of your transformation is not on your shoulders, but is God’s responsibility. It is only His power that can change us. Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit, follow His guidance, choose obedience over disobedience and trust God to fulfill/complete want He has declared to those who follow Jesus as both Savior and Lord.