The Gospel of Deliverance, Part 4
Follow Paul
By Tammy Lacock
“Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.” (Romans 16:25)
In this week’s podcast, Warren Litzman continues to express the importance of diving into the Apostle Paul’s epistles where he reveals the mystery, the final gospel, and tells us how we can live now. Christ revealed it only to Him, and Paul passes it on to us. May we follow Paul.
In Romans 16:25, Paul says now that we know the mystery, the final gospel, of Christ living in us as believers, our only hope of glory, God now has the power to “stablish” or train us up in this new knowledge. Now that our old lives have been “crucified with Christ” and we’ve had the revelation of Christ as our new life, our only life, it is time for us to grow up in Him. It is time to get to know Him as our new life.
By the help of the Holy Spirit, this is where we begin to have a mind-change, a renewal of our minds as Paul puts it. We are now born again of the “incorruptible seed” (1 Peter 1:23), and it’s time to know who we really are now with Christ as our new life. We are bona fide children of God. He is our Father, our only Father now.
Through our circumstances and situations of life, God teaches us who we are now in Christ. We begin to see that we no longer need to carry the weight of our trials and tribulations. Christ in us, our only life, can handle anything that comes our way. As we grow up in Him and get to know Him and love Him more and more throughout these times, we learn to let go, giving Him our burdens, and letting Him take over. We are perfect in our spirit, joined to Him in one spirit, but in our souls — where our minds reside — we are still maturing. The old life has been defeated but our minds are still holding onto it. Maturing means giving our minds over to Christ so our desires and choices begin to align with His. It means choosing to go to Him first and choosing to love Him above all other people and things.
Paul tells us in Galatians 1:9, “If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”
And in Romans 16:25, he calls it “my gospel” because his relationship to Christ is personal, and he wants us to see our relationship with Christ as personal and unique to each of us as well. His gospel is simple. God placed the incorruptible seed of Christ in each of us. Our old lives, the corruptible seed, passed away with Christ, and we arose with Him to an entirely new life in Him. He lives in us and is our new life. Now it’s time to get to know Him!
May we follow Paul and receive the revelation of His final gospel, the mystery of Christ living in us. And through the schoolhouse of life, may we have the radical mind-change Paul had, so that we, too, will continue to grow up in Him, knowing Him and loving Him more and more every day.
“Follow me as I follow Christ.” (1 Corinthians 1:11)
“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.” (Ephesians 1:17)