What God has done:
All Praise be God, the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. God has enabled us to glorify His name through the leading of His Holy Spirit. This empowerment is not the result of what we have done but what God through His mercy has done for us in His Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is using us to spread the knowledge of Him which produces holiness in those who submit to it.
Now, it is important for us to recognize, what God has done through the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ in order for us to be made right with Himself. We were drenched in our sin, were pleasing the desires of our flesh–the desires that are not pleasing to God, and were running against His Holy will. The Lord Jesus Christ, through His sacrifice made us right with God in order for us to be holy and be made free from the bondage of our fleshly desired which do not produce righteousness.
Therefore, God has given us His Spirit, who lives within us and is leading our lives in a manner where the glory is being brought to God the Father and the work of Christ is being made vivid in our lives. We have been given with a task of sharing this very Good News with those who do not know God and what God has done for them in Christ Jesus.
Called to a Radical Faith:
It is important for us to make it very clear from the beginning the difference between what Christ has done on our behalf and how we are viewing Christianity in this day and age. I am refraining from using the terminology “western world” as the view of Christianity, without Christ, is spreading throughout the globe. We must take some time and look at the term Christendom and Christianity in order for us to grasp a deeper meaning of what God has done on the behalf of humanity–created in the image of God.
Christendom:
Christendom began when Constantine favored Christianity as an ideology. “The term ‘Christendom’ has come to be particularly applied to that period of Christian history in which Christian religion was an integral and fundamental part of the social order. It has been more loosely used of the Christian world as a whole. On the narrower interpretation, to be a full member of society one also had to be a member of the church. The turning-point in Christian history which changed the relationship of the church to the state from one of hostility or grudging acceptance to one of privilege and mutual affirmation, was the conversion of Constantine, c. 312 AD. The arrival of a Christian emperor in time changed the whole relationship of the church to the state. The possibility of a society which conformed to Christian values seemed to be open to the whole of society and not just to the church within it. Thus in practice as well as in thought much more attention had to be given to the respective roles and relationships of the church and of the state as different aspects of the one Christian social order.“¹
Christianity:
Christianity began with the Incarnation. “Neither the noun ‘incarnation’ nor the adjective ‘incarnate’ is biblical, but the Gk. equivalent of Lat. in carne (en sarki, ‘in flesh’) is found in some important NT statements about the person and work of Jesus Christ. Thus the hymn quoted in 1 Tim. 3:16 speaks of ‘he was manifested in the flesh’ (so RSV, following the true text). John ascribes to the spirit of antichrist any denial that Jesus Christ has ‘come in the flesh’ (1 Jn. 4:2; 2 Jn. 7). Paul says that Christ did his reconciling work ‘in his body of flesh’ (Col. 1:22; cf. Eph. 2:15), and that by sending his Son ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’ God ‘condemned sin in the flesh’ (Rom. 8:3). Peter speaks of Christ dying for us ‘in the flesh’ (sarki, dative of reference: 1 Pet. 3:18; 4:1). All these texts are enforcing from different angles the same truth: that it was precisely by coming and dying ‘in the flesh’ that Christ secured our salvation. Theology calls his coming the incarnation, and his dying the atonement.”²
We must accept what God has done through Christ on our behalf regardless of the popular view. If you have been nominal Christian–you were born into or were adopted by a Christian family, were married into a Christian family, or concluded yourself Christianity being the popular view; I will encourage you to place your trust and faith in Jesus Christ and serve Him whole-heatedly. For God has called us to imitate His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ and we cannot imitate Christ if we have not place our trust and faith in Him.
In order for us to worship God, we must be declared righteous, and in order for us to be declared righteous, we must be redeemed. God has constructed the plan for our redemption through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ; by believing in Him as the Savior who has freed us from the bondage of sin, we are then declared righteous and only then can we worship God as we ought to.
¹Ferguson, Sinclair B., and J.I. Packer. New dictionary of theology 2000 : 133. Print.
²Packer, J. I. “Incarnation.” Ed. D. R. W. Wood et al. New Bible dictionary 1996 : 501. Print.