The eternal principle that governs how God works in relation to His creation is that everything must revolve around Him. He must be the center of it all. It has to be all about Him.
Beloved, once you get a hold of that principle, your viewpoint about living the Christian life and doing the works of God will be radically changed.
This teaching will shed light on that powerful truth so that you can make much of it either in your Christian life or ministries.
God Is The Great Initiator, Planner, And Creator
God as the great Initiator, Planner, and Creator of all things does everything through His Son, by His Son, with His Son, and ultimately for His Son by the power and might of His Spirit in order for Him to be glorified by His Spirit through His Son Christ Jesus (Colossians 1:16; John 1:1-3; Hebrews 1:3; 1 Corinthians 15:27-28).
This principle is based on God Almighty fulfilling His will through His Son who is the exact imprint of His being by the power of the Holy Spirit who is known as His Spirit.
This foundational principle is the eternal glue that unites the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit together to one purpose. It governs everything God is doing in relation to His creation.
Therefore, the truth that governs living a Spirit-filled life is to have God Himself through His Son Christ Jesus by the power of His Spirit empowering you to submit yourself to His will.
This powerful truth also applies equally to doing His works. So doing the works of God is to have God Almighty Himself through His Son by His Spirit of power doing His works through you.
Everything He is doing is always kept to a standard that perfectly fits whom He is.
Therefore, no other ability, might, or power is able to empower you to live the Christian life and to do His works apart from His Spirit.
The standard or principle by which something can be carried out is confined strictly within the Godhead.
It can be best summarized that way:
All things are from God, and through Him, and to Him alone as the source of all things.
Why God Must Be The Center Of It All
In order for something to have eternal value in His sight, He must be the core foundation of it. It must be done for His glory through His power.
We’re just vessels through which He carries out His will. His Spirit prepares and empowers you and I so that His will can be fulfilled through us.
Therefore, it’s all about God Himself working through us in order to fulfill His sovereign will in cooperation with our submission to His Spirit indwelling us.
As stated earlier, since the very principle or standard by which something could be fulfilled is kept at the Godhead, only God the Father could initiate the plan of redemption of mankind.
Only Jesus could offer a sacrifice deemed acceptable and sufficient in the eyes of God.
No human could have done what Christ did on the cross on behalf of mankind.
That’s why salvation can be found in no one else other than Jesus. There is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which they can be saved (Acts 4:12).
Only the Holy Spirit is able to empower people on the basis of Jesus’ atonement to live a life deemed agreeable in the eyes of God.
Only the Spirit of God is able to empower people to do works deemed acceptable in the sight of God.
Only by the grace of God through Christ Jesus being applied by the Holy Spirit man can be saved.
Living For God By His Power
When dealing with God in the area of our walk with Him, He will always hold us up to His own standard as the supreme Creator.
His standard in that area is centralized on these two pillars: holiness and righteousness.
In (Peter 1:16), He says that we must be holy because He is holy.
Living a holy life isn’t some type of suggestion given to us by God. It isn’t based on human feelings and reasonings either.
It’s a command. It’s an obligation that God has imposed on us. He is adamantly insistent in that regard in His Word.
Sadly, many have embraced a liberal approach concerning that issue. They’ve developed their own perspective about how God wants them to live.
They are trying to live for God on the ground of their own terms, which is a recipe for eternal disaster.
But when looking at the Word of God, it leaves us with no shadow of a doubt that believers must live holy lives through sanctification and consecration (1 Corinthians 6:11; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; Hebrews 10:10).
We are commanded to lead holy lives in His sight as people who represent Him on the face of this earth. Our ways of life must be reflective of whom God is.
What Does It Mean To Live For God?
One major issue that may be quite strange about God’s stance concerning living for Him is as followed:
He knows perfectly that we don’t have the inherent ability to live life up to His own holiness and righteousness standard due to human weaknesses.
But He has never told us to just do our best or do what we can.
Moreover, He hasn’t told us either that as long as we try, that will be just enough to please Him.
He hasn’t lowered His standard one bit to make things easy for us by allowing us to have it our ways in desperate situations.
He has instead placed a great deal of emphasis on His ways that we have to conform our lives to regardless of the situations or circumstances we are in.
The message that God is communicating to us is that He’s not looking at living up to His standard through the lens of our own sinfulness, human weaknesses, or imperfection.
He is looking at it through the lens of the requirements of His own divine standard predicated on the truth that He is a holy and righteous God. Such standard was manifested plainly through Christ.
This very standard was later imputed to us at salvation when God Himself imputed our sinful ways to Jesus through justification.
He then sent His Spirit to preserve, enforce, and manifest continually what we inherited through Christ.
He is looking at it through the lens of His Spirit working in us on the ground of Jesus’ atonement by means of His divine grace to keep us in a state deemed agreeable in His sight.
He’s also looking at it through our willingness to cooperate daily with the Holy Spirit in order for Him to manifest His standard in our lives, so that the power of the salvation we received from Him could permeate every aspect of whom we are as we grow in the knowledge of the truth.
The issue here has nothing to do with human ability. It has to do with us giving the Holy Spirit the chance to empower us to lead a life pleasing and honoring to God that will vindicate the atonement of Christ Jesus.
Living For God Isn’t Ours
Just as God declared to the Israelites in (2 Chronicles 20:15), the battle is not yours, but God’s; the ongoing battle to lead the Christian life isn’t ours, but God’s.
That’s how we need to see it.
In this regard, the Christian life isn’t our own way of life. It’s, in fact, the life of our Savior and Lord Christ Jesus living in us through the Holy Spirit by means of the truth.
Just as apostle Paul declared it in (Galatians 2:20), “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”
Your Christian life is similar to a building being under construction. Jesus is the Owner of that property. He paid it in full.
He has already laid the foundation at the moment you came to Him in faith.
All the necessary materials and tools that will be used to construct that building have already been provided by Him through grace.
The Holy Spirit is the Builder who has the blueprint which He received from Jesus that will ultimately build it.
Your job is to cooperate with the Holy Ghost as He is building your Christian life from the bottom up.
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