We were looking yesterday at the incredibly rich inheritance that Jesus bought for us by His death on the cross. We were considering the fact that we can draw on that inheritance as we turn and thank Jesus for what He has done for us. Our thanksgiving becomes an expression of our confidence and trust that the Lord will pour into us what we need of that inheritance, as we walk with Him daily.
As I woke up this morning I felt that the Lord wanted me to put that into practice today by thinking through the day and naming some of the things that I was going to be needing in order to live the day as He would. As I scanned the day ahead, looking at the things that I was going to be doing, it wasn’t difficult to name those things.
There was quite a list including, patience, wisdom, strength, guidance, boldness, self control, and the ability to live unoffended. And then I thought, I would also like some joy and laughter, Proverbs 31:5, even some rest and relaxation, Psalm 23:2,3. The list seemed to keep growing, and so I also added grace for the unexpected, which is of course closely linked to confidence to walk with the Lord in all that the day would bring.
Thanking the Lord that all these things were already mine in Christ, released the faith to receive from Him moment by moment as the day progressed. I then realised that I also needed the Holy Spirit not just to release these things to me as they were needed, but to remind me to turn to Him in expectancy and faith as the day progressed and as each new situation arose.
Paul when teaching about the life in the spirit wrote this ‘We cry Abba Father. The Spirit Himself testifies that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs- heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ… Romans 8:16,17. So today, let us draw on our inheritance confidently, as ‘joint heirs with Him’.
Paul also writes in that same passage of his letter to the Romans that ‘The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.’ This ‘revealing of the sons of God, – that’s you and me – will take place fully at the end of the age, but let us avail ourselves of our inheritance now, today, and draw from it all that we can by the power of the Holy Spirit.
We can live today being transformed more and more as we draw on the life of Christ within us. Paul encouraged the christians that they had ‘taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator’, Colossians 3:9. He used the past tense because the new has already come through the cross and resurrection of Jesus.
Both the created world and, the unseen world, that ‘great cloud of witnesses’, Hebrews 12: 1, are waiting to see God’s children live on the earth as He intended, bringing honour and glory to Jesus. It is surely a time to ‘Arise and shine for our light has come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon us’, Isaiah 60:1. We can do this more and more as we appropriate all that Jesus has purchased for us on the cross by staying in thankfulness, and so positioning ourselves to receive all that He has bought for us.
