He Makes Us Worthy!

From time to time I have written bible studies, usually as a way of consolidating the things I have learned. I’ll be posting them from time to time. Hopefully, others will be encouraged to think and study on them too. I’ll put them in a different font to help separate them from my daily musings.

He Makes Us Worthy!

Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy...Luke 21: 36
Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, II Thessalonians 1:11

Lots of times Satan would have us believe we are the worst of the lowest, the scum of the earth. He even uses the Word to beat us down and pile such a load of Guilt on us that we can hardly lift our heads to pray, never mind live a triumphant life. We go through our days under such a burden of guilt and unworthiness that he has us defeated before we ever endeavor to triumph. He uses tangled scriptures to make us feel that we can never live a life free of sin, that we simply are such foul, fallen, fleshly creatures that we have no chance of ever being anything more. He tells us that it is only the grace of God that saves us because we have to go on sinning because of our nature.

We must keep in mind however, that Christ died to make us worthy. He died to make us the sons of God and heirs to His Blessings. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Galatians 3: 5 - 6, 27 If we have put on Christ we have a new nature, no longer that foul and unworthy one to whom Christ extended His mercy before we ever knew him, but we are become heirs and co heirs with Christ. And as such we can lift our heads and rejoice in the power of God in us. Our worthiness doesn't stand in ourselves but rather That [our] faith ... not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

It is to Satan's benefit that we walk constantly under a burden of powerlessness and guilt. Some denominational doctrines teach us that we can never be free of our sinful nature that we are constantly sinners, only constantly forgiven by Christ. We must thus spend our prayer time seeking forgiveness for our “secret” sins and “unknowing sins, constantly petitioning the Father to have compassion on our “sinful” nature. We have no strength to do a work for God. We have no confidence to rebuke the powers of Satan because we have no victory over our own unworthiness. And in so doing we deny the very power that God wants to give us.

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. II Corinthians 4:7 Our earthen vessel may indeed be weak but the excellence of the power that allows us to live triumphantly and worthily is of God. Through that power we can live without sin.