Choose Love (7 page)

Once you receive Jesus,
He
becomes your new foundation. The Bible says, “No other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11). Every day you walk with Him, you build on that foundation.

The great thing about a gift is that you can open it at any time. And you can start building on that foundation whenever you do.

When You Receive Jesus, You Receive Forgiveness for All of Your Wrong Choices

Our nature is nothing like God’s.

All of us are born with a sinful nature (Ephesians 2:3). Left to our own ways, “there is
none who seeks after God…there is none who does good
, no, not one…
the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes
” (Romans 3:11-12,17-18).

That’s the way we are.

However, once we accept Jesus, we receive complete forgiveness for all our past failures to live God’s way. From then on when we violate God’s rules, laws, and ways, we must simply come to Him with a repentant heart and confess it. And He forgives us every time. That truth does not encourage us to keep on sinning, because we know that as long as we are unrepentant it will always be a hindrance to our lives and keep us from all God has for us.

The longer we walk in right relationship with God, “the way
we
are” becomes more like “the way
He
is.”

No matter how good we think we are, every human is unrighteous in the sight of God. If we don’t know how bad
sin
is, it’s because we don’t understand how holy
God
is. And because His holiness and our sinfulness cannot be reconciled, we will spend eternity separated from Him. The only way we can live for eternity with God is to receive Jesus and have a spiritual rebirth. It is not something we can accomplish on our own. Jesus accomplished it with His death and resurrection.
He
did it. All we do is open up to receive Him.

If we don’t receive Him and are not born again in the spirit, we don’t have a relationship with God and cannot experience His kingdom and the fullness of His love in our life or in the life to come. If we do not have a relationship with God, it is by our own choice.

When You Receive Jesus, God Shares Himself with You

God is everywhere, but His presence and power are only revealed and seen by those who believe in Him and choose to have a close
relationship with Him on His terms. When we do that, He shares Himself with us.

One of the greatest signs of God’s love for us is that when we receive Jesus, He gives us His Holy Spirit to live in us and be with us forever. In this way God shares another part of Himself—the very essence of who He is—with us.

Jesus promised that after He ascended into heaven to be with His Father God, He would send “the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name” (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit was sent to dwell in all who received Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

The Holy Spirit is also referred to as the Spirit of Christ because God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one
.

The Holy Spirit in us is the sign that we are
His.
The Bible says, “You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His
” (Romans 8:9).

The Holy Spirit is the seal that says we are the Lord’s
.
It is a done deal and nothing can change that
.

One of the greatest tragedies is that many people know even less about the Holy Spirit than they do about God and Jesus. But
God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are one and inseparable.
People try to divide them up and leave one or more persons of the Trinity out, but God cannot be divided into parts. If we do not recognize His Spirit in us, then we cannot receive all God has for us.

Jesus died the death we should have died because He loves us. But He didn’t stop there. Now He is
with
us through the Holy Spirit who lives
in
us. We have been made righteous by receiving Jesus, and God sees the righteousness of Jesus when He looks at us. The Holy Spirit cannot dwell in an unsanctified body, but when we receive Jesus we become a sanctified temple for the Holy Spirit. Now God sends His Spirit to live in us. I’m not talking about spiritual gifts or manifestations or specific outpourings of the Holy Spirit. I’m talking simply about receiving Jesus and Him giving you His Holy Spirit to live in you.

Too many people won’t even mention the Holy Spirit as if He doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter, but He is our eternal connection with God. “No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now
we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God
, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:11-12).

We receive His Spirit so we can really know Him.

God shows His love for you by giving you His presence—His Holy Spirit, part of Himself—to live in you. What a precious gift of love.

When You Receive Jesus, You Receive Everything God Has for You

When
we
give Jesus everything we have, He gives us everything
He
has. But He requires that we seek Him for all we need.

As a child of God, that means you are part of the family business. As such you receive the power of Jesus’ name. Jesus said, “He who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And
whatever you ask in My name, that I will do
, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If you ask anything in My name, I will do it
” (John 14:12-14).

This means everything you need can be secured by praying in Jesus’ name.

We all can see how powerful the name of Jesus is when godless people don’t even want His name to be spoken unless it is said as a curse word. That’s not true of any other name. Why is Jesus the only name used as a curse word? It is because the realm of darkness fully recognizes the light of the Lord and tries to snuff it out. Evil works to tear down and destroy those who have the light of the Lord in them. It is proof that those who know the truth and reject it are aligned with evil. Our spiritual enemy knows exactly who Jesus is. “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!” (James 2:19).

People who misuse His name will never know the power to accomplish great things when they pray. It is a serious offense to speak His name without the reverence due Him. Those who do will sadly never know all God has for them.

When You Receive Jesus, He Gives You Victory over the Enemy

Jesus came to deliver us from the dark realm of our spiritual enemy. God “
has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love
” (Colossians 1:13). Contrasting Himself with the enemy, Jesus said, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.
I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly
” (John 10:10).

A big part of the abundant life Jesus came to give us includes our authority in spiritual warfare that is established on the foundation of Jesus’ death on the cross. In laying down
His
life, He won victory over death and hell for
us
. Now He has given us power over the enemy when we pray in His name.

Jesus said He did not come to judge or condemn people, but rather to save and free them. Jesus freed us from whatever enslaves us. He said, “Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:34). And we cannot dwell in God’s house as a slave of sin.

Jesus said, “
If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed
” (John 8:36). This means His freedom is final. His freedom has been entirely secured for us. With His death and resurrection, we don’t ever have to be enslaved again.

During the first couple of years after I received Jesus, I was set free from anxiety, depression, fear, and sadness. It happened as I fasted and prayed and believers prayed for me. This freedom is what God has for all of us. Because Jesus broke the power of the enemy, I didn’t have to be enslaved by darkness again.

We never have to walk in darkness. Even when we get into dark times or dark situations, God’s light is always there to be found.
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.
He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life
” (John 8:12). Jesus came as a light to keep us from living in darkness. We have to trust that His light in us can never be put out.

Jesus came as the light of the world, but “men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). Those who are attracted to the dark do not want to give up their self-serving ways. We who love God want the light of Christ to expose anything in us that is attracted to the dark side in any way because that will keep us from being all we can be.

Jesus came to give you life in all its fullness. The enemy comes to rob and destroy you. Jesus came to give you His light and eternal life. The enemy comes to give you darkness and death. Choose to receive the gift of life
God
has for you.

When You Receive Jesus, He Gives You Life Forever with Him

This life is not all there is. You are going to live forever. Our soul will exist eternally, either in a stage of separation from God, or in eternal life with Him. Being separated from God is hell. That’s what hell is. No one spoke about hell more than Jesus did. It’s where the person who refused God will understand what God wanted to spare them from experiencing.

Heaven is being with God forever.

If you have received Jesus, one day you will have a resurrected body and eternal life with Him. The resurrection of Jesus guaranteed our own resurrection after we die. In many ways we are always being prepared for eternity. That’s why we must choose heavenly rewards over earthly rewards. We must choose to love and serve God over all else.

The Bible says that when you die you will be instantly with the Lord. Jesus said He has prepared an eternal place for you. It’s where nothing can harm you, where every need is supplied, where there is
no more suffering, sickness, or struggle. He said, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.
In My Father’s house are many mansions;
if it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you
. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself;
that where I am, there you may be also
” (John 14:1-3).

What a magnificent promise the God of love has made to you.

The promise is that on your last day on earth, when you take your last breath, God will raise you up and bring you to your eternal home with Him. “God, who is rich in mercy,
because of His great love with which He loved us
, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and
raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places
in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-6).

In light of all that, I would say for all of us who have received Jesus, the best is yet to come.

When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead after he had been in the tomb three days, He said, “
I am the resurrection and the life
.
He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live
. And
whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die
” (John 11:25-26).

After He said that, He asked the people watching, “Do you believe this?”

He still asks the same question of us today.

Do you believe Him? Do you believe He is the resurrection and the life, and if you receive Him you will never die?

Was He crazy? Or is He the Son of God?

One of the best-known verses in the Bible by those who believe in Him is something Jesus said. “
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life
” (John 3:16).

The word “loved” here means a love that desires only the greatest good for us. The promise of life forever with Jesus cannot be minimized. God gave us Jesus because He loved us. He gave us Jesus
so we could be restored into a relationship with Him. God’s love is expressed to us by giving us His best.

When You Receive Jesus, You Receive More Than You Can Imagine

It takes a lifetime of growing in the Lord in order to truly understand all that Jesus did for you. I know this because I have been walking with Him for decades, and still He lets me see more and more of Him and the extent of the gifts He has given me in His sacrifice of love.

The thing is, we need spiritual eyes to see it all. The Bible says, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of
man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).

Jesus gives you an eternal fountain of living water that springs up inside you
.
It is from the indwelling Holy Spirit who provides a continual source of life
.