Note from Jesus

Dear Beloved,

What controls you? I don’t want you mastered by any substance, destructive habit, or sin — whether public or secret. You are meant to be free. The Father designed you and made you to live in this freedom. When you became My disciple and were re-made, you were given the Holy Spirit to liberate you to become all that you are meant to be (Romans 8:13-14; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; Galatians 5:1; Galatians 5:13).

I want love to be the guiding and controlling force in your life. I do not want fear or compulsion, and certainly not bondage to addictions, to control and destroy your life. I want to liberate you from those traps that lead to both spiritual and physical bondage. Your love for Us — Father, Son, and Spirit — along with your love for your neighbors can help you freely decide how to live a life that is both blessed and a blessing to others. This lifestyle has always been Our design for our people (Genesis 12:1-3). Living like this is what both the Old Testament and the New Testament teach (Matthew 22:36-40).

I died for the forgiveness of your sins and was raised to bring you back into a right relationship with your Father (Romans 4:25). You shared in My death, burial, and resurrection as you called on My name in baptism because of your faith in Me (Romans 6:3-11; Acts 22:14-16; Romans 10:9-13). As Paul said, you were made into “a new creation”. To emphasize the point, he added: “The old life is gone — and see — a new life has begun!” You are now alive in Me to live for Me through My power at work in you. That means you should no longer view people from a merely human point of view.

This gift of a new life comes from the Father. He didn’t sit idly hoping for you to return, but he “pursued” and “brought” you into a “restored… relationship” with Us. But My gift of new life is not just for you. I want you to share this new life with others. I want you to help people around you to realize that their broken relationship with Us can be healed. This healing comes through My sacrifice on the cross and my triumph over death when I rose from the dead and left behind an empty tomb. I want you “to proclaim the message that heals… broken relationships with God and each other.”

As a new creation, you have been re-created in love and re-made to “embody the very righteousness of God.” You are my agent of grace and my missionary of love in your world. I gave you your circle of influence — the people you know and the relationships you share — to be a place of your redemptive work in the broken world that needs My healing. When you see people, I want you to see them through the eyes of the Father’s saving love. No longer view people from a merely human point of view. I want you to think about how you can share My grace with them and how you can invite them to find new life in Me.

Verses to Live

What controls your life? With the Father’s help, the controlling force and the inexhaustible and enabling power of the Father’s love can be yours through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). Use that love to be My agent of reconciliation!

You see, the controlling force in our lives is the love of the Anointed One. And our confession is this: One died for all; therefore, all have died. He died for us so that we will all live, not for ourselves, but for Him Who died and rose from the dead. Because of all that God has done, we now have a new perspective. We used to show regard for people based on worldly standards and interests. No longer. We used to think of the Anointed the same way. No longer. Therefore, if anyone is united with the Anointed One, that person is a new creation. The old life is gone — and see — a new life has begun! All of this is a gift from our Creator God, Who has pursued us and brought us into a restored and healthy relationship with Him through the Anointed. And He has given us the same mission, the ministry of reconciliation, to bring others back to Him. It is central to our good news that God was in the Anointed making things right between Himself and the world. This means He does not hold their sins against them. But it also means He charges us to proclaim the message that heals and restores our broken relationships with God and each other.

So we are now representatives of the Anointed One, the Liberating King; God has given us a charge to carry through our lives — urging all people on behalf of the Anointed to become reconciled to the Creator God. He orchestrated this: the Anointed One, Who had never experienced sin, became sin for us so that in Him we might embody the very righteousness of God.

(2 Corinthians 5:14-21)

Response in Prayer

O Father, thank You for re-creating me and working through me. I invite the Holy Spirit to complete His work of transforming me to be like Jesus. I open my heart to receive the love You pour into it through the Spirit. I release all of myself to the lordship of Jesus without reservation to be used to be Your ambassador and agent of grace and reconciliation. Use me to share Your grace and mercy. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

‘A Year with Jesus’ is written by Phil Ware.

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All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Voice™. © 2008 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.