Living Anti-Christ?
By Mike Rule

As an anti-body attacks a virus, so Christ in a believer confronts any thought or behavior that is anti-Christ. We are not suited to live in a way that opposes His nature. Remember, Jesus said that not one bit of the law was being removed. Jesus did not come to revoke the law; He came to fulfill it. We are not removed from the law’s power because the law is put in charge to lead us to Christ. Instead, Jesus gives us the power to do what we could never do before.

The law leads an unbeliever to Christ. It does the same for believers. Jesus did not come to make things easier on us; He came to “up the ante” and show us how impossible it is to live the Christian life on our own. He said the issue is not in our behavior but in the motives of our hearts. In other words, it's not what we do but WHY we do what we do that reveals our character. If it's not done with a perfectly pure heart, God rejects it. We can look to the law and try to fulfill it in our own strength, or we can look to the law and continually let our weakness push us closer to Christ. However, we cannot just ignore the law. Again, Paul stated that the purpose of the law is that it leads us to Christ.

Paul also clearly wrote in Romans 5 that because of sin, God's grace abounds to us. Shall we then continue to live in sin so that grace will abound? Certainly not! Romans 6 makes it clear that we are not suited to live in sin any longer. Scripture clearly states that the wages of sin is death. In Christ we are freed from the eternal wage of sin, but every believer knows by experience that if we sin, we invite death into the here and now. Our misery proves it to us. Sin is its own punishment, and we punish ourselves further by not living according to the nature of Christ in us. If you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear, you will discover that this is a tremendous blessing because it is Jesus’ way of showing us we are not suited for sinning. Our failures and resulting misery direct us to Him. We are so much better off than we have ever realized!!!!

John shares that the commands of God are not a burden to us. We do not have to work hard to fix ourselves. However, we cannot ignore the commands either. They must be embraced or we slip into yet another form of self-righteousness. I know this by experience because for years I was one of the biggest “grace legalists” around. If someone was teaching law or works, I rejected them because they were not teaching grace. But God showed me that I was self-righteously anti-self-righteous and legalistically anti-legalistic. He reminded me through Paul that if I do not have love, I am nothing. We have nothing to fear in His commands! They are a blessing always leading us to Christ! Praise God for that! And AMEN!

Verses for Reflection

Let there be no thought that I have come to put an end to the law or the prophets. I have not come for destruction, but to make complete. (Matthew 5:17 BBE)

He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." (Act 1:7, 8 MKJV)

What if God, desiring to let his wrath and his power be seen, for a long time put up with the vessels of wrath which were ready for destruction: And to make clear the wealth of his glory to vessels of mercy, which he had before made ready for glory, Even us, who were marked out by him, not only from the Jews, but from the Gentiles? As he says in Hosea, They will be named my people who were not my people, and she will be loved who was not loved. And in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there they will be named the sons of the living God. (Romans 9:22-26 BBE)

But before faith came, we were kept under Law, having been shut up to the faith about to be revealed. So that the Law has become a trainer of us until Christ, that we might be justified by faith. (Galatians 3:23-24 MKJV)

Happy is the upright man! for he will have joy of the fruit of his ways. Unhappy is the sinner! for the reward of his evil doings will come on him. (Isaiah 3:10-11 BBE)

For this is the love of God, that His commands we may keep, and His commands are not burdensome; (1 John 5:3 YLT)