Take it. It's Yours!

[aiki]

Hebrews 3:12-14
12 Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.
13 But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end,
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It's been calculated that when the Israelites under the leadership of Joshua entered the Promised Land, they only ultimately occupied about a tenth of the territory God had given to them. The description of the boundaries of the Promised Land in the OT encompassed roughly 300,000 square miles but the Israelites only obtained about 30,000 square miles of this territory. Even today, the Jews do not possess all of the land God intended for them to have.

The Promised Land of the OT is symbolic of the spiritual inheritance given to every born-again person in Jesus Christ, their Savior and Lord, an experience of "milk and honey," of spiritual abundance (John 10:10; Ephesians 3:20-21; 1 Timothy 1:14; 1 Peter 1:3). Too often, though, Christians neither know nor obtain all that is theirs in him. Many remain in a spiritual wilderness, in fact, wandering about among the rocks and tumbleweeds of self-effort, frustration and sin, wondering why their spiritual experience is so dry and hard.

It wasn't until the Israelites actually walked into the Promised Land to occupy it, taking the land from those already dwelling it and settling into it, building homes, farms and cities, that they truly possessed and enjoyed the abundant land God had given to them. Every step into the Promised Land, however, was a step of faith. This is key: It was by faith that the Israelites entered into the land God had given them; they trusted God's promise and acted in accord with it. Only after they did was God's promise real to them.

So, too, the born-again believer; they "walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7; Hebrews 11:6; Romans 1:17) as a common, constant feature of their fellowship with God. In His promises to, and declarations about, His children, they must daily exert faith, trusting that what God has said is so whether they feel it is or not, or experience the truth of what He has said about them. This, of course, necessitates that the Christian know who they are in Christ and what is their spiritual inheritance in him (2 Peter 1:3-4; Romans 10:2-3; Romans 15:14; Ephesians 1:15-19, etc.); they can't enter the "Promised Land" if they don't know there is one; they can't be all they are in Christ when they don't know who they are in him.

Knowing the truth and trusting in it, the born-again believer takes corresponding action (James 2:18-26). This is the business of appropriation. By faith, the believer lays hold of what is theirs, spiritually, as a co-heir with Christ. Imagine for a moment being the inheritor of ten million dollars. The money sits in a bank account waiting to be used, but you never make a withdrawal from your funds. You just can't bring yourself to believe the money is actually there, can be withdrawn, and used. You don't feel like a millionaire; you don't live like one. And so, you never make a withdrawal on the money you possess. An odd scenario, right? Quite improbable. Well, Christians live like this all the time spiritually, never "making a withdrawal" on the riches of their inheritance in Christ (Acts 20:32; Ephesians 1:11, 18; Ephesians 3:9; Colossians 1:12, etc.), living perennially in spiritual poverty, wandering the wilderness of sin and death.

When, though, the born-again believer trusts in who God says they are in Christ, the Christian finds that this reality has a profound impact on the material character of daily, mundane living. Spiritual truth, it turns out, is deeply practical. This was the case for the Israelites when, finally, they entered the Promised Land and it so for the modern born-again believer. The Israelites didn't obtain merely an intangible, mystical, state-of-affairs when they believed God and entered the land of Canaan, but came to possess a physical, practical reality: land, fertile and expansive, full of the resources necessary for contented, joyful, abundant living.

The Christian who appropriates what is theirs in Christ, finds, too, that their living is affected in very concrete ways: Sin subsides, its power over them broken through the work of Christ at Calvary (Romans 6:1-11; Galatians 2:20; Galatians 5:24, etc.); holiness increases, a joyful separation from the World, the Flesh and the devil developing more and more over time; the work of the Spirit becomes evident, his "fruit" growing abundant and large in the character and conduct of the appropriating believer (Galatians 5:22-23; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Ephesians 5:9). And as these things manifest in the life of the believer, the best consequence of all is achieved: rich, happy, peaceful fellowship with God out of which flows freedom from contentions, hurts, fears, and sinful lusts which war against the soul.

So? What are you waiting for? By faith, start making withdrawals, friend, on the riches that are yours in Jesus! Enjoy the abundance of the "Promised Land" that is yours as a co-heir with Christ! (Romans 8:17; Ephesians 2:6)

 

[aiki]

Practically, what does appropriation look like? For the Israelites, it meant physically entering the land of Canaan and making a home there. Battles were fought, journeys undertaken, homes and cities built, choices were made. There was nothing passive about the Israelites walking in faith in Jehovah and appropriating what He had given to them. But their activity was of a particular kind, operating upon a very specific dynamic. The Israelites were to be a nation under a theocracy, under God-rule, all the time. When they migrated out from under this dynamic, disaster soon followed. The Israelites took the Promised Land because God had first given it to them. They fought the inhabitants of the land in God's power and under His direction; when they didn't, defeat was the result. They lived in observance of God's laws, purifying and separating themselves in every area of their living from the pagan nations surrounding them unto God; when they didn't, broken communion with God was the consequence, as well as sin, corruption and death.

So, too, the Christian today. Appropriation, laying hold of one's life-changing, spiritual inheritance in Christ, rests upon loving, daily submission to God's rule, upon His constant control of one's thoughts, desires and actions, upon a holy, righteous life oriented around communion with God. In this dynamic, the believer lays hold of what is theirs in Christ, by faith counting it so (Romans 6:11), by an act of the will, taking concrete steps in reflection of what they believe is the truth about themselves as "new creatures in Christ." And when they do, they discover, as the Israelites did, that what God has said is true actually is.

For example, a Christian man is, say, tempted to look at porn. He knows, though, that he is "dead to sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ," that "the old man is crucified with Christ that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth he should not serve sin." (Romans 6:1-11) By faith, he lays hold of this spiritual reality, counting it to be so in the face of the temptation to look at porn. And so, his response to the temptation goes something like this:

"I am a new creature in Christ, I am dead to sin and alive unto God, no longer bound under the impulses of my flesh. I never have to look at porn again. In Jesus Christ, I am free from the power of all sin. This is who I am. This is who I choose to be. God, bring me into a full experience of this truth by your power. Amen."

In tandem with submission to God (Romans 6:13-22; Romans 8:13-14; James 4:6-10; 1 Peter 5:6-10; Romans 12:1) and a life free of unconfessed sin, the Christian man stands unmoved on the truth of his position in Christ, by faith trusting in the Spirit to bring him into a full, concrete experience of that position in his condition, his daily living. As the Christian man does this, making it his habit to encounter temptation in this way, the Spirit moves to progressively conform him to the truth upon which he is standing.

If the temptation rises immediately again, the Christian man (or woman) stands again upon the truth of who they are as a new creature in Christ, submitting once more to the control of the Holy Spirit, and doing so as long as the temptation to sin presses upon him (or her), their mind turned from the temptation to the truth of their identity in Christ, fixing upon him. (2 Corinthians 3:18; Hebrews 12:2-3)

"Faith is believing a thing is so,
When it appears it is not so,
In order for it to be so,
Because it is so."

This is the life of faith, friend. Live in it. By faith, take hold of it, counting on the promises of God to you, and begin to experience the amazing truth of your life in Christ.