Living Benefits of Being a Christian

Living Benefits of Being a Christian Most everyone is aware, believer and nonbeliever alike, of the death benefits of being a Christian. The bible tells us, and we have been proclaiming for 2000 years, that Christians go to heaven and not hell because of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. But how many of you, believer and nonbeliever alike, are aware of the living benefits of being a Christian? Living benefits are those blessings that God gifts us by his grace for our faith while we are alive. Some speak of this as our Christian experience. The Apostle Paul goes into great detail about these benefits, especially in his book of Romans, but he also unpacks bits and pieces throughout his epistles. In the Book of Ephesians, Paul gives us an outline of these benefits. Now, before I present the scripture, I would like to point out that this piece of scripture is called by some “meat” scripture. That is, this piece of scripture contains quite a bit of complicated spiritual concepts that leave people craving explanation. Folks will talk about “meat” or “milk” scriptures. This is not just a made-up concept, Paul uses it to describe heavy spiritual concepts (meat), or basic spiritual concepts (milk). What I will be doing here is taking meat scripture and pulling out a milk outline for your consumption. I do this for two reasons: first so that you will have an idea what these benefits are. If you have the Spirit inside you it will help you understand your Christian experience better. If you don’t have the Spirit inside you, maybe it will help open your heart to the Spirit. Second, I hope to entice you with the outline to explore the explanations that you find yourself craving. Most of them are unpacked in Romans but if you ever get stuck let me know and I would be happy to help guide your exploration. Here is the scripture: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Christ Jesus, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment – to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession – to the praise of his glory. – Ephesians 1:3-14 From this scripture do you see the outline of benefits (blessings)? 1. Adoption to sonship (we become children of God, members of his family) 2. Redemption (chosen from the world) 3. Forgiveness of sins (Christ paid for them on the cross, so we are seen as clean even though we are not) 4. God’s grace (unearned favor – God helps us, provides for us, takes care of us, loves us and protects us because he chose us NOT because we earned it) 5. Mystery of his will (this refers to the gospel – that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose on the third day) 6. Unity of all things (refers to God reconciling all people to himself through Christ) 7. Predestined plan (refers to the bible, the accumulated scriptures that tell us his plan for mankind from the beginning to the end) 8. Included in Christ (refers to the body of Christ which is made up of all the believers everywhere and is also the churches everywhere, all of it together is the body of Christ and we are all part of it) 9. Holy Spirit is a deposit (if you have the Holy Spirit inside you are saved, his presence is a deposit guaranteeing that we are written in the Lamb’s book of life, have our citizenship in heaven, have eternal life and a home waiting for us in heaven not made by human hands. In short, the Spirit is proof to YOUR heart that you are already saved, if indeed He is inside you) It would be very easy to turn each one of these points into sermons of their own. Truth is, they all have been turned into sermons many times over the centuries from many different perspectives. My point here isn’t to get into a discussion of those perspectives but to give you an outline that whets your appetite to learn more about each one and go searching in your own bible. Keep in mind that all these benefits (blessings) are given to us while we are alive, still walking, and are part of your Christian experience, again, if the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in you. Our troubles, however, start when we start trying to determine if someone else has the Holy Spirit inside of them. The truth is, we don’t know. We can guess. We can see signs. I am known for saying that the Holy Spirit can tell the Holy Spirit in someone else in the same way that a drug addict can tell another. But even that is not assured. People can fake very well. It is for that reason that I offer this outline so you can gauge the Spirit’s presence within yourself and I encourage you not to try to gauge whether another has the Spirit inside. That is between that person and Jesus Christ just as the Spirit’s presence in you is between you and Jesus Christ. If he is inside you, you know. My point here is to keep you from judging others by whether they have the Spirit or how surrendered someone is to the Spirit. That is not for us to judge but for God only. Our mandate is to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. Whether you detect the Spirit inside someone or not, love them anyway. Amen