Children of Promise

How can we ever be good enough for God?
Religion will traditionally tell us that, we have to reach a level of perfection before we can make it into Heaven or some type of Nirvana Haven.
Luke 5:30-32 -
30 And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying, “Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
31 Jesus answered and said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
So Jesus came for sinners.
Why not the righteous? Doesn't God want Good people?
What does make a person good enough?
Appearances, discipline, attitude or some type of superhero war medal cross.

Those who are well don't go to the doctor.
Religion says if I follow some set of principles and apply discipline towards the goal this will lead me to God.
There must be some truth to this as it takes a persons willingness and an obedience to be good.
However, the deception of a religious notion inspired by wrong doctrine, is a type of pride and the disciple compares himself and becomes better than others in his own eyes.
Romans 3:9,10 -
9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.
10 As it is written:
“ There is none righteous, no, not one;
and Romans 5:12 -
12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned

So the deception of false religious thinking is "I am OK, I have made it and am better than the no good person"
Gal 3:21,22 -
21 Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.
22 But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
The law does not give us life as we are all under sin.
The promise is given by faith.
Gods way of being right is a sinner who is converted to be right.

Gal 4:21-23.
21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law?
22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman.
23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise,
Born of the promise - Born of the flesh.
There is a contrast, between being born of the promise state and being born of the flesh state and that makes all the difference to be accepted by God.
Gal 4:28 -
28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise.
Now we can become Children of the Promise.

What does the promise consist of?
Gal 3:13,14 -
13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”),
14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
To be redeemed from the curse of the law which says you must be perfect or otherwise be condemned, we need to receive the promise of the Spirit by faith in Christ Jesus.
We become children of the promise, no longer children of the limitation of the first birth in our fallen carnal state.
Now it is by faith that we receive this standing and enter into a promise that is for sure.
The promise is that we now receive the Spirit by faith in what Jesus purchased for us, not by the works of the law, or a set of principles.
The law could not give us a life of righteousness, it only revealed our fallen state and our inability to live up to the standard of perfection.
We can now therefore, receive the promise of the Spirit that gives us a life of righteousness and freedom from condemnation by the law.
That is the spirit of life, the God kind of life.

Now lets back up a bit in Galatians and we will see that the question by Paul to the believers is who has bewitched you?
Galatians 3:1-7 -
1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?
2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
4 Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?
5 Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—
6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
7 Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.
We need to obey the truth and accept that Jesus was crucified for us and receive by faith what has been promised,
if we are to remain as children of the promise.
We received our salvation by faith as we knew that we were sinners separated from God and had fallen short, so we gladly accepted His free gift of salvation.
Now as you know children need to grow up and this is a natural process of development, so if we want to continue in the promise, we then continue to receive what we need by faith.
We must not stray from being children of promise and be deceived by doctrines of error which teach us our achievement of levels are by the works of the law, which is striving and gaining approval by our own merits.
If we work up our own righteousness in our own strength, our sacrifice now becomes a blemished lamb, as we are offering up to God works from a fallen nature which is soulish and self righteousness.
We can only go by faith to the perfect lamb of God who was sacrificed on our behalf and received the promises provided by Him, Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life.
Galatians 3:11 -
11 But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.”
Now we live by faith and it is accounted for righteousness and we are justified by the promise of the miracle working power of the Spirit of God.

How does this work in us?
Does it always work?
Why conflict?
Luke 5:36 -
36 Then He spoke a parable to them: “No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old.
A piece taken out of the new does not match the old.
Almost a dichotomy or a division of contradictory things combined together.
Luke 5:39 -
39 And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.’”
When you have tasted the old you will think it is better.
Understand the ways of the flesh and how we become familiar to them, we are used to wearing the old skin and the new is unfamiliar.
We are just used to being in the old ways, bent from perfection, habitual behaviours and we reason it all as being normal and anyway, Hollywood tells us that it all works out for the hero somehow, so we need to just accept how things are and live in a crooked world.
Gal 4:29 -
29 But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now.
You would think that someone who needs help would welcome someone who has favour and is being transformed, but it is not always so.
Gal 5:17 -
17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.
The flesh fights against the spirit.
So there is a bent drive in the flesh nature of man that just goes hard out on lust and does not want to know the ways of the spirit.
The child of the bondwoman lusts against the child born of the freewoman of promise - he is just different and the two don't mix.
The flesh nature child despises the child of promise, jealous of the one who is blessed from above and who receives the miraculous from God.
The old nature if permitted to rule and dominate our behaviour from within, will override what we are promised.
We may even think it is better because of that old familiarity.
The perversion of the old nature can even take on an appearance of good, which will impress others when convenient, for the motivations of selfish desires.

Gods plan and will for us is to live in the spirit and to be children of the promise, living from the purchase that Jesus made for us to enter His life.
Gal 5:16 -
16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
A way out is to follow the leading of the spirit and then, we will not follow the lusts of the flesh.
The flesh therefore, will always produce bad fruit, which is contrary to God.

Click on CHART LINK for description of the process.

John 3:19-21 -
19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

God is challenging us to go beyond who we were in the flesh, so we don't identify with it any longer. We take hold of His promise of the spirit for a higher, God kind of life.
We can walk in the power and ability of what the spirit produces for our life.
On the level of fallen mankind, we never match up to Gods higher dimensions in the spirit
- the spirit of life - a walk of power, or a way of faith beyond our imagination, above the restrictions of our familiar bent ways.
Anyone can live in their natural abilities and live a good old, bad nature life (life of contradiction), it is the natural thing to do - but in this fallen world, natural is restricted by a separation from the promise.

Now if we become children of promise, as children are in the natural, there needs to be a way that we are born into this promise.
We always have a choice when we receive the blessings of God, this promise is not something we have forced upon us where God twists our arm and makes us join His Kingdom.
Now as we are born outside His Kingdom and before we make the choice, we are part of the worldly system, so there is a way to enter the promise from the system we were born into.
When we believe in what Jesus has done for us and purchased for us, we repent of our old former ways, we then enter by the born again process, where the old ways of the natural fleshly birth are no longer the dominant thinking of our life. The way in then, is by faith in the promise and not by our own abilities from the natural fallen man.
John 3:5-7 -
5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
We now become partakers of Gods spirit, that He promised us, so we can take on His character and love, we are now His children of promise, redeemed from our old way of life.
There now is a way that we can live when we enter into the promises of God and just like natural children, we grow and develop into the ways of God and the family of our Heavenly Father.
So as we know with children, they can be very naughty and they go their own way at times, but we keep loving them and training them to have right values, even when they show at times that they want to hang on to the childish old ways, as the new and maturity is unfamiliar.
Our Heavenly Father is very patient and long suffering, He shows great mercy to us - so dont refuse His love continually, learn to surrender even when there is a struggle, as we learn to let go of the familiar. If we persistently refuse His love and guidance, it will only bring harm to us, as we stray habitually we move away from the promises,
to the curse of the law and the law is very harsh and has no mercy for the wayward.
How do we accept the promises? Again, it is by faith and trusting our Heavenly Father who loves His children.