Hardwired to Christ: Renew your mind in 365 days, 1 question at the time

By Graeme Schultz

Hardwired to Christ is a daily devo­tional book which focuses on the union that exists between us and Christ; 365 questions about the most stunning spectacle in history – the cross of Jesus.
The author attempts to demystify the greatest mystery of all; ‘We have been joined to Christ’ – and in doing so challenges

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gobsmacked Publishing
• Release date: Jul 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9780994603074

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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Copyright © 2017 by Graeme Schultz.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Graeme Schultz/Gobsmacked Publishing

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Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:

Author: Schultz, Graeme

Email: [e-mail]

Title: Hardwired to Christ

Subjects: Devotional

Hardwired to Christ

Graeme Schultz —2nd Ed.

ISBN 9780994603067 (paperback)

ISBN 9780994603074 (ebook)

Typeset by bookbound.com.au

Author’s note

If there’s one question I hear over and over again from believers it is this; how do I get God’s help when I need it, what is the process for laying hold of the blessings and favour of God?

It’s a question I asked also when I was up against the wall, as the global financial crisis took its toll. Friends told me that God would get me through because I had served Him faithfully all my life, but I lost my life’s work in property development anyway.

I just didn’t know the key to engaging God into my point of need.

Something had to change, either God was real or I might as well chuck it all in. I determined to give it one last try; I determined to find what I was missing – if it was there. I determined to discover the process, the formula, the method for unlocking the reality of God into my daily life – if there was such a thing.

So day after day, week after week, month after month I sought the break-through, it was all I could do as I watched my financial security crumble around my feet. I prayed, I studied the word like never before, I cried out to God.

In the end just one thing stood out from all the rest fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith. But how does one do that? I believed in Jesus (always had), but how do you fix your eyes on Him? I prayed one simple prayer, I was a man at the end of myself – Father please show me Jesus.

Slowly, over many months I began to see Jesus, and the more I grasped His stunning work on the cross, the more I understood – there is no formula or key, process or method, there is just Him – and He lives in me. I don’t engage His interest in my need; He is fully engaged and has been for 2000 years. He is not a religious system; He is a person who made His home in me.

At last I can rest. No longer just a believer within the Christian system, now believing for myself – trusting, resting, surrendered to His love and goodness.

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Q1. Is God good?

Happy New Year, welcome to the year of renewing our minds!

Is God good? – seriously; I thought this book was going to be a bit deeper than that – of course God is good, otherwise why do we believe in Him?

Think about this; many Christians say that they believe God is good – but act as if He has a dark side. How often have you heard the statement ‘everything happens for a reason’? This statement implies that God sends us bad stuff – to make us into good people (and that we must find the reason). Most of the Christians I know think that God sends them good stuff and bad stuff so that they will eventually mature into grown-up Christians. It’s as if God is giving us a test to see if we can respond in a way that is pleasing to Him.

This question is one of three questions which we will look at over the next three days – these questions form the framework of our entire Christian response to life, and the first one ‘is God good?’ is the real make-or-break one. If we can’t get this one right it will affect every aspect of our Christianity. Our ability to walk confidently with God hinges, to a large degree, on this one question.

Christianity is not the melding of two covenants – Law & Grace. It is the abolition of the Old Covenant so that God’s kindness and favour can continually and unrelentingly flow through our lives. Ephesians 2:15 says that Christ abolished the law with its commandments and regulations – Hebrews 10:14 says we have been made perfect forever.

I spent much of my Christian life on the seesaw of ‘hope and doubt’. Hoping that I had done enough to attract God’s favour – but doubting my ability to actually measure-up. It wasn’t until I finally realized that God viewed my life through the lens of Christ’s righteousness / not my own, that my doubts were replaced with a quiet confidence. It was a confidence founded on Christ’s life, not mine – all I had to do was believe that he was so very good that he gave me righteousness for free.

God does not send good and bad so that we can participate in His self-improvement program – He has already made us perfect through Christ, no more improvement required.

Christ died and removed sin from me, and now God is completely and irrevocably happy with me. This is a huge leap for some; it sounds presumptuous and disrespectful, but give it time …

And now I live today, and forever, in the river of life – which is teeming with all God’s goodness.

Q2. Does God love me?

For the second day in a row this question seems a bit too elementary to be a part of a serious book.

Every Christian knows the general truth about God’s love. We know ‘God is love’ and we know from John 3:16 ‘God so loved the world’ – but then we go on to base our self worth in what we do, how we look, how good a parent we are, our contribution to church or charity. That is because, as much as we appreciate the new covenant that came with Christ – it is difficult to escape the gravitational pull of the Old Covenant as we live out our daily lives.

The Old Covenant has left an indelible imprint on our mind that goes something like this; ‘God’s love flows into my life as I attempt to live a life worthy of Him’ the more genuine I am in my devotion and service to God / the more His love and pleasure is released to me. It certainly is the way of the world to function this way, and it takes a huge shift in thinking to escape from it. Taking a general truth and making it a personal reality are 2 different things.

The fact is that God’s love is able to flow freely in our lives because Christ released us from the curse that was over us.

That curse was a ‘works-based’ practice of performing religious activities – even good ones like prayer, bible study and worship. Christ satisfied the law’s requirements, and I am now free from of any expectation I might think God has of me. In fact the more I try to win God’s favour by doing good, the more I diminish the complete work of Christ.

I’m free from the obligation to do good things to attract God’s favour, and this freedom releases me to a life of good works – now motivated by God’s Spirit within me.

God says; come to me confidently clothed and identified in Christ – when you do that my pleasure and favour are released like a flood.

Perhaps the saddest part of the legacy we inherited from Adam is that we have lost the ability to approach God unless we are clothed in good works or religion. Adam opted for a life defined by his juggling of ‘good and evil’ – it gave him security and confidence. But God didn’t intend for it to be that way – he wanted us to be defined by our confidence in his unconditional love.

Imagine God is behind a one way mirror, constantly enjoying us because He views us in complete union with Christ His precious and perfect Son.

Now that’s what I call ‘the GOOD news’ … .

Q3. Can I trust God’s word?

‘God’s Word’ is such a loaded statement in the mind of a Christian. Just the mention of it and Christians will give a passionate defence of their point of view.

Pre or post tribulation / literal 6 day creation / wearing hats in church – these and a hundred more subjects have become the theological battle ground of Christendom through the ages.

The question is not whether our doctrinal position is the correct one, but whether the whole point of the Word of God is about something far more important than doctrinal positions.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t have correct theology. What I am saying is that Christ came to give us LIFE (John 10:10), and it would be an insult to the sacrifice Christ made, to reduce the very life He came to give us, to mere theology. Christ lives in us, his life has brought us back into union with his Father – this is so much more than a theological position we hold, it is a daily reality for us as we live as sons and daughters of the Most High God.

The point I am making is this – have I sufficiently processed the two previous questions ‘is God good’ and ‘does God love me’, that I am ready to entrust my very existence into His words. Am I at the point where if God says; ‘never will I leave you, never will I forsake you’ – Hebrews 13:5, that I will let go of fear and begin to rest in His goodness.

One of the mistakes we Christians make is thinking that God’s Word needs defending, as if winning a debate about a doctrinal position somehow makes it true. God’s word is proven to be true when we take the risk of believing it in our everyday lives and situations – when we take the message, and by faith lose ourselves into its fidelity.

Back to the original question; ‘can I trust God’s word?’

We have to believe something – if our circumstances are saying God doesn’t care, but His word says; ‘I do care – just look at Christ’s sacrifice’, then we have a choice to make – will we take the risk of resting in His word?

It is a big step to go from a theologically based Christianity to faith based Christianity. It may seem reckless and perhaps even unwise to risk so much … the alternative may be an even bigger risk!

Q4. Why did Christ come?

For starters here are a few statements about what He didn’t come to do …

He didn’t come to build the church. He didn’t come so we could go to heaven when we die. He didn’t come to pass on to us the great commission. He didn’t come to provide us with an example of how to live – I’m not trying to shock you, this is heading somewhere.

Although all of these are important and wonderful, they are the overflow of why He came. It is like when you fill a glass with fresh, pure water – eventually it will overflow.

The reason Christ came was to give us life (John 10:10), not that we would have a life – which is a noun, but that we would have life – the verb. The Greek translation for that life is vitality – it is the pure undiluted energy of heaven. It’s the same life that God has, not the flesh and blood kind of life – but spiritual life. He didn’t come so much to give us a glass of pure water as the need arises, but to give us continuous rivers of living water that well-up into eternal life.

Christ didn’t come to give us an example of how to live in this fallen world – He came that we might be injected with so much heavenly life that we are no longer a part of this fallen world. Colossians 1:13 says; ‘He has conveyed us from the kingdom of Darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love’. He came that you and I would become eternal beings right here and right now – no more waiting.

When Adam sinned all of mankind became a race of the spiritually dead. We were dead in so far as our union with God was concerned – but Christ came and removed every hint of my sinful condition so that I could be spiritually alive to God forever.

Yes, I go to heaven when I die, but heaven is also my inheritance right now. Yes, Christ is the best example of a life well lived, but God has given us His Holy Spirit so that we can be uniquely and individually alive in God now.

God has so completely perfected us through Christ, that we are now able to live spontaneously in the life of the Spirit … WOW! That’s why Christ came – so that we live abundantly from the life that flows from God’s heart into us.

Let’s not mistake the overflow (our works), for the inflow (Christ’s righteousness).

Q5. What is my relationship to God now?

Over the years Christianity has built up a diverse and complex understanding of our relationship with God.

Religion will develop notions about just about anything and everything, based on our man made perspective – rather than Gods perspective. This means that our relationship with God has become defined more by what we do, rather than what He has done – e.g. servant, leader, slave, beggar, miserable sinner, whatever …

The fact is that once a person is born again, we become children of God. John says in John 1:13 we are born of God. Being ‘born of God’ means that we become an entirely new race of beings – those who have been transformed by Christ’s death into Gods’ sons and daughters – ‘joint heirs with Christ’.

It’s a hard thing to get your head around ‘being a son or daughter of the Most High God’, but Jesus takes it a step further, in John 14:20, Jesus says that I (Jesus) am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Paul further clarifies this in Galatians 2:20 when he says I no longer live but Christ lives in me.

Both of these scriptures go beyond relationship as we normally understand it – they actually say that a divine union takes place, whereby my spirit, and the spirit of God, are so welded together as to be inseparable.

There is no counterpart in the natural realm to help us understand this union, because it is a relationship which is not limited by time or distance. Rather it exists on the basis of the holy and righteous nature of God – which he gives to us as we place faith in Jesus. Jesus removed our old nature – and in its place gave us the nature of God.

From the eternal perspective we are never again seen as an individual …

… and then Paul goes on to say "the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God". What Paul means is this; he engages with that eternal reality by faith. In other words; what is true in the heavenly realm is transferred into the earthly realm by faith. This eternal union is perfectly clear to the angels in heaven, and also the powers of darkness – it is a fact in full view to them. What is also clear to them is whether we are living out our lives by faith in that fact.

If we are born again, we are hidden with Christ in God … now that’s relationship.

Q6. What is eternal life?

For many Christians eternal life is the goal of their faith – it is the prize at the end that we get for sticking at it, the reward for being a good Christian.

We also seem to have been handed down the impression that eternity is a never ending church service where we sing in God’s choir in our seat somewhere in the middle, third row from the back. Added to that, we also view it as an extension of our earthly lives, one of reunions with loved-ones, and conversations with the saints of old.

It’s as if the reason we are Christians is so that we go to heaven when we die / and not to hell. I’m not denying that is a pretty compelling reason, because nobody wants to spend eternity in flames. But is that really an accurate view?

God’s word deals with the subject of eternal life as ‘here and now’, rather than ‘forever by-and-by in the sky’. John 5:24 says "whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life; he has crossed over from death to life John 17:2 says now this is eternal life; that they may know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent".

Eternal Life begins the day we are born again, we are transformed into eternal beings at the moment of conversion – our spirit is made alive in Christ, we are instantly made perfect, eternal sons and daughters of God. The outcome of this radical transformation is that our spirits suddenly know God and Jesus His Son. The Holy Spirit comes into us to fully reveal to us the person of God.

Our natural mind requires a process of renewal, but our spirit is now in every regard a heavenly being. The darkness of not knowing God is now completely overwhelmed by the light of the revelation of Him.

Eternal life does not mean I am sitting in Gods choir in the baritone section looking at God on His throne in the vast distance.

It means I am lost forever in the sublime wonder of God’s glory and goodness, so absorbed in His majesty that my heart responds in awe.

When we leave this earthly life and pass though the veil of death, all of the longings and yearnings of our earthly existence will be overshadowed by the unspeakable joy of finally seeing God as he truly is – we will see with clarity the union of love that Jesus died to give us.

And we have it now …

Q7. What is my reason for being here?

We know that Christ’s reason for coming to earth was to give us life, so it follows that our reason for being here is to have Christ’s life.

Jesus talks about this life a lot in the book of John. In John 5:18 he says; just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.

This life is not the life we know of as a flesh and blood person, which is sustained by oxygen, food, water etc. – it is a form of life completely unknown in the natural realm because it is divine, continuously flowing, unlimited divine life. Jesus had been granted this same life that the Father had. It is the life that created the universe with the power of a word, and ultimately the life that would raise Jesus from the dead after he was crushed by the sin of mankind.

Jesus then goes on to express His dismay at the religious leaders of Israel; who though they knew about eternal life from the scriptures, they refused to come to Him to have that life – John 5:39-40.

Clearly Jesus was saying to them, the Father has given me life and I can give it to you – all that is required is that you believe.

The same message is conveyed to all men in John 6:57, just as the living Father has sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of Me. Jesus stands between us and the Father as a channel for the unlimited life that is in the Father, he invites us to believe Him and draw on that life as our daily food.

To grasp the full reality of this truth is nothing less than mind blowing. Jesus didn’t come to give us an occasional sip of the elixir of life when we are sick or sad; he came to give us the same unlimited access to the Father and His life – which He (the Son of God) has.

We miss the point of it all when we reduce this astounding flow of life from the very throne of God, to a parade of man-made good works and religious practices. We are here to be the objects of God’s love quite apart from any response we might make – and when we finally grasp that, then works of the spirit flow naturally and spontaneously from us, out to a needy world.

Q8. What work does Jesus want me to do?

There seems to be so much to do in the kingdom of God. A few things that immediately come to mind are; helping the poor and needy, serving in the church, using my gifts and talents effectively – not to mention prayer, worship, bible reading … .

Jesus was asked this question in John 6:28 and His answer was very surprising, he said The work of God is this: to believe in the one He sent. He didn’t add anything, not even the great commission. It’s an interesting contrast to the rich young man in Matthew 19:16 who asked Jesus a similar question; in that case Jesus told him to sell everything, and give it to the poor, and follow Him.

My reading of the 2 verses is that Jesus answered the questions in the context that they were asked. The rich young man said just give me a list to satisfy and I will do it – Jesus lifted the bar way up high to prove that we can’t satisfy God by our own efforts. Then in John the question was asked in the context of people who were helpless even to provide for their own need for bread – in that case Jesus was free to describe the real path to satisfying God – HIMSELF.

The reality for us is that any good work, no matter how religious in appearance, is just dirty rags unless it overflows from the revelation of the one who is truly good – Jesus. That’s why it is so important for us to ‘know’ that God is good, that he loves me, and that His word can be trusted – otherwise we will always default to the position that there is something we should be doing to have God’s favour.

The good work ‘believing in Jesus’ is a seriously loaded statement – because to believe in Jesus we really do begin to let go of striving, and fear, and self-effort.

Should we read the bible, pray, worship, and help the needy? Sure, why wouldn’t we? But we never do these things to satisfy God – that task required something far more robust than human effort. It rested entirely on the shoulders of Jesus. His life and death has brought me back into God’s unconditional favour, there is no outstanding activity God requires of me – now or in the future.

‘Believing’ is resting in the fact that Jesus has done it all on my behalf … He has made me perfect!

Q9. What is faith?

There is probably no subject in all of Christianity more discussed and speculated about, than faith.

My observation is that most Christians see faith as something we do that causes a response from God. A religious activity or determination that compels God to release something from heaven – to us on earth. A mustering of conviction, fervour and positive confession that God looks upon and say’s ‘they have now reached the point of spirituality where I can direct my favour towards them’.

When many Christians are in dire straits they direct (at the problem / and at God) a force of spiritual activity and energy that they believe will cause a response from God. It is as if faith is something that we generate by digging deep and then firing our arsenal of heavy weapons at a stubborn object.

I have been in situations where praying loud, punching the air, jumping, marching, praying early, praying late, was thought to move God. Others have said that confession brings possession – and if we just keep declaring it, then it must happen.

In reality, faith is the confidence ‘that at the cross Jesus smashed the power of satan and broke free all of the goodness and blessings of heaven over our lives’.

And this has all happened already – 2000 years ago. God has no more work to do, nothing more to release to us, no more healing, provision, restoration to give. He gave it all when Jesus died; it became ours when we were born again.

All that remains is for us to receive that which is already ours. We do this by becoming convinced (believe) that it is already done. If we think that there is some spiritual activity yet to be accomplished by us, to get God to let go of His blessings – then we have not grasped that the thing Christ accomplished on the cross, was the total release of every good thing that God has for us.

Faith then is a quiet confidence, an absolute assurance, that Jesus has done enough for every need. In fact, the more we engage in outwardly demonstrative activities to resolve the issues of life on earth / the less we are convinced that the work of Christ resolved the plight of humanity, and was freely given to us.

We can’t have it both ways; believing in the efficacy of the blood of Christ / yet applying our spiritual fervour to release it, doesn’t make sense. If it is done, then it is done – our part is to simply rest and believe.

Think about it …

Q10. What is grace?

Like faith, grace is an often discussed aspect of our Christian life.

Let’s start by saying that Grace has got nothing to do with us – other than that we are the beneficiary of it. God set about the process of delivering grace to us before we were born, sinned, believed or rejected Him. Irrespective of who we are, or what we have done, every human being is an equal recipient of Grace. That is because God’s motivation for grace was completely independent of us; it is only based on His choice to provide a way for every person to know Him and His love.

God’s grace is this; that Christ lived, died, and rose again, that I might have all of God’s goodness and favour at no cost. Romans 5:17 says we receive God’s abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness. It is a freebee, no cost, zip, nuda – a gift to you whether you want it, and accept it, or not.

There is no qualification required from you to receive it, even the act of believing is not a ‘work’ but simply a genuine choice to acknowledge in your heart that it is true. Having believed it, a radical transformation takes place that we also have no part or say in. The Holy Spirit comes and takes up residence in us and we instantly become citizens of heaven (dare I say as perfect as God himself), completely without cost or effort on my part, but at the highest cost imaginable on Christ’s part.

In the first covenant that God gave to Moses, there was a list of rules for mankind to satisfy.

In the second covenant, Christ satisfied every one of these laws on our behalf and at no cost to us – THAT IS GRACE.

I would go so far as to say that it is an affront to the sacrifice Christ made, if we try to please God on the basis of our own efforts, apart from the magnificent work of Christ.

Grace contains within it an echo from the days when Adam and Eve first walked on the earth – it is a way to live without the constraints of doubt and fear because it is founded solely on God’s loving and giving nature. And for us who live in this present day it is a divine dare; dare we cast ourselves headlong into the arms of God, clothed only in the virtue of Christ.

God wants us to believe that He is that good.

Q11. What is the connection between grace and faith?

Let’s start with a well-known scripture; For it is by Grace you have been saved through Faith, not of yourselves; it is the gift of God – Ephesians 2:8.

We know that salvation (and for that matter all the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross) is ours for free … GRACE. We also know that not everyone has that salvation, which means there is a process involved in getting it … FAITH. Christ died so that every person on earth can have every benefit in heaven, this gift is for everyone if they want it – all they have to do is say ‘Yes, I will have it’ – unfortunately many do not choose to do that.

To understand this better we need to go all the way back to Adam. When Adam fell, he exercised his free will and chose to live his life independently from God. In effect he said ‘I think I can do better on my own God, I am not willing to trust you with my life anymore’. As Adam was created in God’s image with his own free will, God was helpless to stop him – and the result has been a planet populated with people who have lost the ability to know, or trust, or walk with God.

God gave every person on the planet another chance to know and trust Him when Christ broke the power of sin over our lives at the cross – this was the magnificent Grace of God given freely for us all. Man continues to have a free will to choose to trust God with his life, and God continues to be helpless to stop us if we choose not to. He will never overstep our right to decide to believe (have faith).

The connection between Grace and Faith is simply this: God has done everything for free to enable us to partake in all the goodness and blessing that He has for us, and we have a choice to make – whether we want it / or not.

The important thing for us is to discern the difference between the way of Adam / and the way of God. Adam overlayed the free gift of God with the qualification of human effort – he insisted that God’s love, favour and blessing, be conditional on the performance of man. God never intended it to be that way – his way was based on his giving nature, quite apart from our performance.

Adam added conditions where there were none – and Grace removes them.

GRACE PROVIDES IT – FAITH RECEIVES IT.

Q12. Where is God?

Where is God? is an interesting question. It’s a question that is fundamental to a healthy prayer life. Even when we are on the telephone we subconsciously create an impression of the person we are talking to. We attempt to do the same with God; we try to locate Him – in heaven, in nature, in our hearts, in eternity!

The fact is that God is beyond our ability to resolve in intellectual terms. People have tried hard over the years to explain God’s presence in human terms, (i.e. ‘he is as close as your next heart beat’). Human reasoning will never sufficiently explain the nature of God if we limit ourselves to the earthly concepts of time, space and distance.

For example; eternity is not time multiplied by infinity, because eternity has nothing to do with time. That’s why Jesus said; before Abraham was born, I Am! – John 8:58. Jesus was telling us that renewing our minds is not just coming up with bigger concepts of God, it is letting go of earthly thinking altogether.

So instead of asking; ‘where is God?’ maybe we should ask; ‘where am I?’

Colossians 3:2-3 says; Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. So, the answer is ‘I am hidden in God’. When we know that we are hidden in God, it is not so important to know where He is – as long as I am in Him. I am always loved, always secure, always positioned for His favour and blessing.

When Christ died, and we subsequently placed faith in what he did for us, we were instantly transported into the perfect presence of God. We never have to reach out for Him, or seek Him, or pursue Him. Faith in Jesus brings us into the Father’s perfect presence constantly and forever.

Many people attempt to live out their Christianity on the basis of their 5 senses. Unless they can somehow feel Gods presence – then He is not there. But God is not primarily perceived through our physical senses, he is perceived in our spirit as we place our confidence in the ability of the sacrifice of Jesus to present us into the presence of the Father.

I remember a bumper sticker from many years ago; it read ‘if you don’t feel close to God – guess who moved’. It seemed right at the time, but it suggested that our feelings are the measure of God’s presence.

God’s word says He will never leave us or forsake us – maybe He is daring us to put our faith in His word, not in our feelings.

Q13. Does everything happen for a reason?

I’ve heard this statement recently; ‘everything happens for a reason’, it sounds alright until you think about what lies behind it. As with all matters relating to ‘renewing our mind’ we need to go all the way back to our root beliefs. Behind this statement are 2 basic root beliefs: ‘because God is all powerful He is behind everything that happens’ and; ‘the point of everything that happens, is to change me into a better person’.

Let’s start with the first one; it stands to reason that an all powerful God can do anything – that is unless the release of His power requires another trigger. God gave dominion of the world to man through Adam, when Adam sinned he gave that dominion to satan. When Christ died He raided hell and took back that dominion for us; we now have access to that dominion through faith in Christ.

The trigger is our faith; and in the context of the earthly realm in which we live – God cannot do anything without its activity.

So in fact everything happens because it is a part of this earthly system – the only thing that changes that, is our faith.

The second one is also flawed; circumstances do not change us into a better person, if they did there would be no counsellors and psychiatrists. We are changed into a better person by the amazing benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection. Hebrews 10:14 says; By one sacrifice he has made us perfect forever. We do not improve by the effects of the things that happen to us – rather; because we have been made perfect by our faith in Jesus, we have the courage to live better lives.

This change that was accomplished by the sacrifice of Christ has done its work at the very core of our being, it has transformed the deepest part of us (our spirit) – from the sinful self-based nature we inherited from Adam, to the righteous and holy God-based nature which is ours in Christ.

God didn’t leave us on such shaky ground as to depend on the random events of life on earth as his workshop for making us holy. He crafted a solution far more robust than the troubles and pain of life on earth – his Son would suffer the punishment meted out by the failed experiment of Adam, so that we might escape that punishment.

We know God says that everything works together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purposes – that means that if we rest in God’s love everything will be resolved for our good, we become people who are benefactors of the work of Christ, not the vagaries of a fallen world.

Q14. Does God have a great cosmic plan?

Another way to ask that question is ‘does everything that happens to us, fit into a greater plan, which God is bringing to pass – that we can’t see?’

I have noticed that ‘God’s Plan’ is central to the theology of a lot of Christians. Many people are very conscious of not getting outside of God’s plan or missing God’s plan. Some even put fleeces before God like Gideon, as if every step we take is somehow ordained by God. I heard someone say recently that ‘God must have an important plan for them because satan is trying so hard to make their life difficult’, the subject is further confused by doctrines of predestination and election.

The bible must be interpreted through its consistent teachings, not isolated side roads. The main themes of the bible are that God loves all people, and Christ came to give us all salvation and life. Christ died for the salvation of every person on the planet, it seems odd that God would then select some to have it and some not to. Terms like election have lost their real meaning as we try to fit God into our earthly mindsets, we are so eager to build rigid doctrines that we misunderstand His vast wisdom.

‘God’s plan’ doesn’t appear all that often in the New Testament, it does however appear in the context of renewing our minds. Romans 12:2 says; be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then (as a result of) you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is. We get a view of God’s will as an outcome of the process of renewing our minds.

The fact is that God is not hiding His plan from us, or being secretive about what He has in mind – His plans are fully revealed in Christ, and we are in Christ.

God had just one plan for humanity all the way back in the Garden of Eden, and that plan has remained intact until this very day – his plan is that we would hide ourselves in his unsearchable love and favour. God sent Jesus to the earth to reconstruct the bridge between him and us, and now we are invited to dine every day at the table of his goodness.

By placing faith in Christ we lift the lid off God’s wonderful hidden treasures, we gain access instinctively to the heart of God – and His plans become written on our hearts without us even realizing it.

I guess you could call it a great cosmic plan – ‘me hidden with Christ in God’.

Q15. What actually happened at the cross?

I love that question. It’s important to know what actually happened at the cross, so we know how to respond to it, and what to expect from it.

We know that Christ died for our sins – but what does that really mean. Are our sins the central theme of the cross, or is there more?

Let’s start with God’s objective; 2 Corinthians 5:18 says; All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ. I think God’s sole purpose at the cross was to reconcile mankind to himself; he did this by removing the issue that was separating us from Him – sin. So it seems fair to say then that God is not preoccupied with sin – rather it was an issue to be resolved so we could again be in relationship with Him. It follows then that Christ, at the cross, once and for all, opened the way for us to be reunited.

Again in Ephesians 2:16 it says; "we are reconciled to God through the cross".

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that sin is not a problem; it has caused disarray to every aspect of human existence over the millennia since Adam and Eve took leave of God’s presence. But the real problem is that sin is the currency of the kingdom of darkness – and righteousness is the currency of the kingdom of light. God wanted us back in his kingdom with him, so he had to deal with the sin problem – and give us his righteousness in its place.

This is permanent, not subject to the vagaries of our up-and-down lives – look at verse 14, ‘He has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility’ – it’s destroyed, it no longer exists, we are totally reconciled with God forever.

That’s why it is called the good news. Peace between us and God has been fully negotiated, signed off, and enacted as a treaty written with Christ’s own blood.

Have you ever been reconciled with an estranged loved one or friend? All of the past hurt is forgotten, and when the longing for relationship is satisfied again, the issues of the past become insignificant, swallowed up in the anticipation of a wonderful future together.

This is the reconciliation that Christ enacted at the cross. Hebrews 12:2 says; who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross.

The thing that happened at the cross is that Christ satisfied His greatest longing – the Joy of reunion with His beloved – you, me and every believer.

Q16. What exactly is my union with God?

The plan that God used to bring me into union with Him was so radical that it can easily be lost in the clutter of our Christianity. It’s based on even more than Christ’s purchase of my eternal freedom by dying on the cross – he went much further and took my sinful nature and nailed it on the cross with Him. He took the rebellious and lost nature which was me, into himself – and we were both crucified on the cross.

That may sound freaky until you check it out in God’s word. Galatians 2:20 says; I have been crucified with Christ and Colossians 3:3 says; For you died – so it’s clear that Christ did more than exchange his righteousness for my sin. He went beyond that and killed my sinful, Godless, lost nature – forever.

If that’s all true, then who am I?

Both the above scriptures go on to describe who we are now. Galatians 2:20 I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God and Colossians 3:3 your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

At the exact moment in time that we received Christ into our life, something spectacular took place, something so radical it unravels all our previously safe theology. The instant that I believed, my old nature died with Christ on the cross – what followed was the birth of a brand new being. The old me died so that I could be born of God – John 1:13. I am now a member of a new species, a brand new creation, the old is gone, and the new has come – 2 Corinthians. 5:17.

My union with God is that I am now lost in Him.

Our intellect struggles to process this information, but the fact remains – I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. When the Heavenly Father, or anyone in the realm of the spirit, looks upon me, somehow they see Jesus – so profound is the union that took place.

It is one of the defining aspects of the spiritual realm that separates it so clearly from the natural realm; the essence of God – his holiness, goodness and righteousness are completely infused into us by the simple act of believing. Life on planet earth has no equivalent; independence defines the whole human race.

But my union with God is different – I am a participant in his nature.

I am not saying that my individual identity has vanished, but rather, it has become so interwoven with Christ’s virtue that it is divine perfection, inseparable from him for all eternity – WOW.

Q17. What is righteousness?

Ok, this one is familiar to us – it’s all about ‘right living’ isn’t it?

It’s about Christ coming to give us an example of how we should live our lives – isn’t it?

It’s about asking ourselves ‘what would Jesus do’ at each crossroad in our lives – isn’t it?

All of the above would be true if we were still living under the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was based on right living – but time and again mankind failed to live up to the required standard.

Then came the New Covenant where Christ satisfied all of the expectations of the Old Covenant on our behalf. He even went so far as to take the punishment for our sins upon himself as well. This New Covenant is based on right believing / not right living. We receive righteousness by believing in Christ, it’s automatically transferred to us as a result of believing.

Where does that leave me today? Many would say ‘Surely the sacrifice of Christ covered all my sins while I was an unbeliever, but now that I am a believer it is my responsibility to live righteously before God’ After all I wouldn’t want to be in sin when Christ returned – and be excluded from eternal life! … This is Old Covenant thinking.

It is hard to grasp that we can be righteous – without doing righteousness, we are used to linking our behaviour to our righteous status. In reality they are two separate matters, our righteousness is a gift from Christ, and our good behaviour is the spontaneous overflow of that gift.

John 5:24 says; he who hears my words and believes Him who sent me has eternal life, and shall not come into judgement, but has passed from death into life. In other words, as soon as I believed ‘my right living’ became irrelevant as it relates to eternity and my relationship to God. He will never again look at my life and shake His head in disappointment; He will never again say ‘I wish He would try just a bit harder’.

All of God’s expectations of me are fully satisfied in Christ.

My choice to live an honourable and good life is simply a grateful response to the free gift of righteousness I received from Christ. If this were not so I would always doubt myself, wondering if God was satisfied or disappointed.

Remarkably, the indwelling Christ also produces holy living in us – but only as we lift our eyes off ourselves and our performance, and fix them on Christ and his performance.

When God looks at me He sees the perfect righteousness of Christ looking back at Him … YES!

Q18. How can I be sure I’m saved?

I guess for most people some sort of tangible proof would be helpful. Something like; all of our circumstances being in order, or always feeling happy or … something tangible like that.

The bible only speaks of one tangible proof that I know of; the gift of the Holy Spirit. 2 Corinthians 5:5 says; the Holy Spirit was given to us as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. We know that at the moment of believing in Jesus we received the Holy Spirit. The next verse goes on to say therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. We live by faith not by sight.

It is interesting to notice that Paul, in the same passage, refers to a guarantee / and also to living by faith. In effect what Paul is saying, is that if you choose to have faith … then the Holy Spirit will manifest the reality of His presence in our lives. It seems to me that our assurance is a compounding thing.

Conversely, if you have doubts about your salvation and Christ’s work … then those doubts limit the Holy Spirit’s ability to manifest Christ’s life in you. So; assurance follows faith.

When you get right down to it, faith is always the forerunner to evidence – and if you have faith then you are able to rest in God, whatever the circumstances (or evidence), are trying to tell you.

The process of ‘believing’ has been linked to rational thought in such a way that we find it hard to believe if the evidence is not sufficiently compelling. But that is not how believing works – it’s not based on intellectual reasoning, but a deep witness in our hearts that God can be trusted. At times our intellect and our inner witness are in conflict – so we default to the safe ground of logical reasoning and miss the opportunity to be carried by the Spirit.

So whichever way you cut it, Christianity is a leap into the unknown. God has chosen to make himself known to us through the risky adventure of faith. Many people delay the decision to throw their whole lot in with God; they wait for a bit more proof, one