"Victorious Faith" -Too

"Thou breakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness." (Psalms 74:14) Interesting enough, Pastor Bryan mentioned something about the parting of the Red Sea yesterday at church, saying, "Some people might say that the portion of sea that God parted was only 18" deep, so it wasn't such a big deal; but if so, then that's amazing, because God drowned the whole army of Egypt in just 18" of water." Matthew Henry uses this verse as that point in time when the children of Israel were delivered from Egypt, and it very well may be just that. But, if you haven't figured it out yet, I like to go exploring the Scriptures; kind of like an "Indiana Jones" looking for artifacts, I like to connect dots and put things into current context. Hey, did you realize something about that first "Passover" when Israel was taken out of Egypt; it might not seem like much, but it is just as amazing as the parting of the Red Sea. Well, the general point is that of God passing over the houses that were marked with the blood; in other words, He did not look inside to see if they had followed His directions, He simply saw the blood on the doorposts, and He passed over that household. Talk about attention to detail, well this is like the opposite of that! Maybe you don't see things quite the same; but God really does look at us through Rose Colored Glasses! Sure, we have sins that we all deal with, but God sees the blood of His Son when He looks at those of us who have excepted His free gift of salvation. In Isaiah 1:18, God says, "Come now, and let us reason together: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." We might not be perfect, but we are perfect in the eyes of the Father! Abraham was not perfect, by any means; but when it came to being the father of God's chosen people, he was perfect to God. Look at Romans 8:1, which follows that portion of Scripture where Paul says, "O wretched man that I am!" The meaning of that text gets so misused in so many ways, mostly by those who would like to justify their sins; when in fact, the true meaning is that of being "justified by Christ," which has nothing to do with our sins being justified at all! Sin is never justified! On the contrary, sin is always to be dealt with in one way or another; it just so happens, that Jesus died on the cross so that are sins could be forgiven, not justified. We on the other hand do get justified; as long as we are washed in the blood of Christ, then we are just as if we had never sinned. But that does not mean we get to sin because our sins are justified; it means we get to be righteous because our sins have been removed, and we get to walk in the Spirit; the perfect Spirit of God...
"Well then, since God's grace set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! Don't you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living. Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:15-23) NLT