FAITHFUL IS HE

"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Faithful is He that calleth you, Who also will do it."  (1 Thessalonians 5:23,24).

God's salvation is perfect and all-encompassing.  Christ is able to save completely (or as the King James says, "to the uttermost") those who come to God through Him.  (Hebrews 7:25).  Saint Paul's prayer and desire for the Christians in Thessalonica - and for you and me as well - was that we be sanctified wholly, and that our whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless until Jesus returned. 

Many Christians are living far below their potential, however.  They are besieged by habitual sins that keep them in a state of guilt, anxiety, frustration, and doubt.  They find themselves overcome by the very things that Christ came to save them from.  Lust, drunkenness, anger, bitterness, greed, pride - many of these things and more beset them until they are convinced that this is the normal state of the Christian.  But Christ came to deliver us from our sins, and give us power to live changed lives.  We are told that God's divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness.  There is, therefore, nothing lacking in the supply of grace that God has made available to you and me.  Grace is not a blanket for our sins that makes everything that we do alright; it is the power to overcome sin and temptation as well as the forgiveness for past sins.  It is an unlimited resource that we access by faith in the finished work of Christ.  Furthermore, God has given us many precious promises so that by believing in the validity of these promises we can tap into His very nature and thereby escape the corruption that is engulfing the world.

For those who are yet struggling with sin, Paul provides a simple remedy.  He says, "Faithful is He that calleth you, Who also will do it."  Just as God was faithful to call you, and you have trusted in and rested in that call, now trust also in the fact that Christ Himself will do in you what He called you for in the first place.  "But be holy in every part of your lives, for the One Who has called you is Himself holy.  The scripture says: Ye shall be holy; for I am holy.."  (1 Peter 1:15,16 Philips).  The very same faith that you exercised in Christ when you accepted Him as your Savior, you can now employ to believe that He can give you power over every sin.  You had no problem trusting that He could forgive your sins; now trust that He has delivered you altogether from those sins!  Christ is not just the Author of our salvation; He is also the Finisher!  You are complete in Him!  Oh, how we need to place all our faith in Him so that we can receive all of the salvation that He has purchased for us with His life!
 
"This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles [or unbelievers] walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.  But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness."  (Ephesians 4:17-24 NKJV).

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