The Beautiful Life

UV 2201/10000 The Beautiful Life
Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
Hebrews 10 v 38

We are set right with God by faith in the supreme sacrifice of Jesus. Having been so justified or straightened, we ought to live straight lives, in alignment with His will as expressed in His Word and as revealed by the Spirit of God. The manger leader or manager lives and leads in accordance with the revealed will of the Lord. Such a life is a pleasing offering to the Lord. The Lord invests such a person with His spirit. This explains why manger leaders and managers have the spirit of excellence. The delights in showing the faithful both mercy and grace.

The manger leader lives by faith and hope in the promises, precepts and commands of the Lord. He has implicit and explicit faith in the Word. He sustains himself in this world by inner sight and does not live by the information provided by the senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste or smell. His senses are in fact subjected to the patterns or templates indicated in the Word. The manger leader believes that his whole life is an invisible tabernacle or residence or temple of the Lord. Everything he says or does is dedicated to this overarching design of the tabernacle. Like Bezalel, a skilled and versatile master craftsman he is always overshadowed by the invisible but tangible presence of the Lord. He is guided and gifted by the genius of Jesus and not the genius of the enemy of our souls.
The uni-verse also contains a warning that no man having accepted Jesus as Lord and Saviour should live contrary to His teachings or the Word. Such a life of disregard or disrespect of the commands and promises of the Lord invites divine displeasure. It is a denial of the greatness of the sacrifice of Jesus. We cannot live a double life- one of faith and one of denying what faith teaches us. Justification by faith should always be followed by sanctification by faith. We need to hold onto our faith in the midst of tests, trials and tribulations with hope, persistent faith and patient endurance. Such a life is one of integrity and righteousness. It implies that we are not to be mere hearers but doers, people who daily apply, practice and trust the Word. The Lord promises in a psalm that He will “beautify the believer with His salvation.” The result of being justified by Christ and sanctified by the Spirit is that our lives and our testimonies would be full of power, beauty and grace. We are called to live the beautiful life that is pleasing to the Lord.

Prateep V Philip