By Pastor Harry

ANOTHER CLAIMS TO BE THE MESSIAH, WARS RAGE, VIOLENCE FILLS THE STREETS OF MAJOR CITIES, FAMINES STRIKE AGAIN AS CROPS FAIL, BANKS FAIL, FLOODS, HURRICANES AND TORNADOS RAGE, EARTHQUAKES SHAKE NATIONS.

Did these come from today's newspaper headlines or from the local TV news?  No, but they sure sound like it. These headlines came from the Bible. They were written almost two thousand years ago about this generation, and if you look around, you can see they surely are coming true. When you read the newspaper or see the news on TV, with all the violence and destruction going on in the world today, do you ever think how much longer can all this go on? The Bible in Matthew 24, Luke 21 and Mark 13 talks about the last generation and describes what would be happening just before the Lord Jesus returns to this earth. Are you ready for the day when the Lord comes back? This is a question we all need to ask ourselves.

As Christians how should we be living our lives? If we are going to have the victorious life we must ask this question of ourselves, "are we willing to pay the price?" And what is the price? When Jesus lived on earth He obeyed His Father in all things. He never followed His own will in word or deed for one moment. He was never overcome by temptation. He never sinned, but obeyed God in all things even the death of the cross. This is the price we must pay if we are going to be his disciples. As Christians, have we obeyed God wholly? Have we never sinned, or have we never followed our own will? Can you say that you don't love the world not even a little? We may say that we don't outwardly but I am afraid that in our hearts we still secretly love it. Who among us has never fallen to temptation? Not one of us has been able to live up to the standard of life that God has set for us. Yet if we are to be overcomers all these things must be true in our lives. The Bible tells us that we are to obey God in all things, that we should not love the world, nor sin. Neither should we follow our own will, nor be overcome by temptation. This sure seems impossible to me, how about you? There is no way for me to live a life like this or is there? The Bible tells us that God has laid out a standard for Christian life. We know we should live up to that standard but we cannot. God is not going to  lower His standard. So if we are going to make the grade we will have to be raised to meet His standard. So now we see that in ourselves we cannot meet God's standard but Praise the Lord there is One who can and that One is Jesus. We know we ought to be perfect but we can't. So here is what we know; (1) We now that God has commanded a standard of life for Christians to live by. (2) We know we are not able to live up to that standard. (3) We know there has only been one who could meet God's standard, that One is Jesus. As Paul said in Romans Chaptger 7 "that which I would do I don't." "O wretched man that I am." Paul came to kow that he needed a life transplant, that his life could never meet God's standards. We need to realize that only God can live God's life. We need a life transplant if we are going to be overcomers. Since Jesus is God, only He can live God's life. In Philippians 1:21 Paul writes "For me to live is Christ." Notice that Paul here does not say for me to live "like" Christ nor does he say to "imitate" Christ or to follow Christ as our model. "Paul said, "For me to live is Christ." Let us say you have an orange tree in your yard. One day your orange tree looks across the street and sees a lovely lemon tree and says to itself, "I am going to grow me some of those lovely lemons." You hear it in your yard groaning and straining to grow lemons but when the fruit appears on the tree they are oranges not lemons. Why? It is because the orange tree does not have the right life within. If it is going to produce lemons it needs a life transplant. Only the lemon life can produce lemons. No matter how hard the orange tree tries it cannot bring forth lemons. It may read every book it can get on the lemon life. It may attend every conference on how to produce lemons and buy every tape it can get. It may paint its fruit yellow and put on the most expensive lemon perfume money can buy. But, the only way that tree will ever live the lemon life and bring forth lemons is if it has a life transplant. So it is with Christians, there is no way we can live up to God's standard of life, even though we read the Bible, pray and live a good life. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with our trying, repenting or crying out to the Lord that we want to follow Him and to obey Him in all things. What's wrong with us is that we are not living by the right life, Christ's life. You see, when Jesus died on the cross He took away all our sin. When He came up out of the grave, He was made our life. Praise the Lord Jesus is now our life! Paul in Galatians 2:20 says, "but Christ lives in me" it was Christ living in Paul that gave him the strength to go through and do all the things he did.  Paul had a life transplant he did not live by his natural life but it was Christ that lived in him. Paul could do nothing on his own it was Christ in him. In verse 21 Paul said, "I do not frustrate the grace of God." In other words Paul surrendered his life to Christ. He stayed out of the way so Christ could live through him. This is the price we must pay if we are to be His disciples. We must surrender our lives wholly to Jesus not holding back anything for others or ourselves. We have to be clear on this matter. We need a life transplant. God does not call us to be Christians in the way you would teach a monkey to dress and eat like a human. To train a monkey to imitate a man is a burden on the monkey because it does not have the human life within. The monkey would rather live the monkey life, swing in the trees and eating bananas than to be trained to live like a man. Today in Christianity we see a lot of people letting others make monkeys out of them. In my many years as a Christian, I have seen some come to the Lord that have been famous in the world i.e. singers, musicians, boxers, football and baseball "stars." Some Pastor or Evangelist gets a hold of them and begins to dress them in a monkey suit. They are just babies in Christ but they are dressed up to look like a mature Christian. Like the trained monkey they mimic the right words going through the motions, but there is no life experience behind what they say or do. They are put out on the front line and are not ready, they have not even learned to crawl yet. They end up backslidden and burned out. They are tossed aside while the Christian monkey trainer looks for his next victim to build his or her ministry. Again we must be clear that we cannot live up to the standard God has set for us. For us to try to live up to God's standard is like me asking a six-year-old child to carry a hundred-pound weight around on his shoulders all day. That would be impossible, as it is also impossible for us to live up to God's standards. If only we could truly believe that we cannot meet God's requirements. We then would surrender our lives to Christ and let Him live through us. You see God does not want us to try to live the Christian life, but rather to surrender to Him so He can live His life through us. Mary, the mother of Jesus, gave Him a body in which to express God's life while here on earth. Likewise, if we surrender our lives to Him today He will be able to express that same life through us. To be holy and not follow your own will, to love the Lord with your whole heart and obey Him is not something you can try to do or imitate. We must depend completely on Christ the one God has given to us to live His life through us. Christ keeps the law for us and lives in us so we too can keep the law of God. On one hand He died for us on the other hand He lives in us. On the cross Christ accomplished salvation for us. Now He is implementing His accomplishment in us. On the cross He justified us. Now living in us He makes us righteous. Because Jesus obeyed God in all things, now by living in us, He causes us to also obey God in all things. He not only did everything for us He also does all things in us. In Phil. 2:12 we are told to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling so we set out to do it but we soon find that we cannot. We need to read verse 13 also which says that "It is God who works in you both to will and to do." We must first let God will and work in us then we can will and work. God works in us then we can work. How many times have you cried to God "I want to obey you. I don't want to love the world. I want to follow you not myself but it seems impossible for me." Yet if we are willing to pay the price, that is , to surrender fully to Christ, He will live His life through us and we will overcome. This is full salvation, God working in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Full salvation is no more or no less than surrendering yourself and accepting fully the Christ that God has provided. God didn't call us to deal with sins one at a time but to receive the one who has dealt with them all at once. He asks us to accept the one who has overcome all things, Jesus. Let us go back to the example of the orange tree. This time let's say you do not like oranges so you set out to get rid of them all. You begin to pick the oranges one at a time then you shake the tree to make them fall faster. Soon with great pride you stand back looking at your tree and there is not one orange on it. You go telling everyone how you have gotten the victory over your orange tree. Then one day much to your dismay you look out your window only to see that more oranges have grown on your tree. You run out and begin to frantically pick the oranges again hoping that no one you know sees what you are doing. God has not called us to be fruit pickers. If you want to get rid of the fruit you have to deal with the root. God has already laid the axe to the root of sin. If the root is cut there can be no more sins. He has given as all things in Christ. All that we ever need is ours. 1Cor. 1:30 says, "but of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness and sanctification and redemption." What ever we need Christ is. Do you need love, patience, and humility in your life? No. What you really need is more of Jesus. If you have Jesus you have all you need for the Bible says He has been made all things to us. If you can see that Christ truly is all you need then you have learned the secret to living the Christian life. When we see that our whole being is corrupt and fleshly; but Christ is holiness and He is our sanctification that there is no one who is victorious without Him, then we will fall on our face and cry out to God, "I surrender myself fully to you and receive all that you have provided in Christ." Then Christ, Himself becomes our victory. Praise the Lord!

Lord Jesus help us to pay the price, help us to let go of all the things of this world that we might live a life that expresses you in all things. Lord, we want to be ready when you call, not holding on to anything but you. Amen!