RECEIVING, NOT GIVING

We have given the wrong message to the world.
Our message to the world has been one of “giving and putting away;” we have told them what they must do, while the truth is that God does not ask the world to give up anything.
Someone might ask, “Doesn’t He ask them to give up their sins?” Never.
“Doesn’t He ask them to give up their wickedness and rebelliousness toward Him?” No.
It is not subtraction. It is addition.
It is not taking from, it is adding to.
God is the giver. We are the receivers.
“God so loved that He gave His only begotten Son.” (Jn. 3:16)
He never asked humanity to give anything.
He saw our poverty. He saw that the only things we could give would be things for which He had no use.

God is the Giver.
He gives only as a prince, a king, can give.
He does not ask us to give up anything, or to give away anything,
He does ask us to receive something.
The first thing He offers is Redemption from the fear of want, failure, weakness, of sickness or disease. He gives us a Redemption from all these.
It does not seem credible or even possible that it could be and yet it is true.

He offers us a Redemption from the works of the enemy.
How it thrills the heart to contemplate it!
Col. 1:13-14 gives us the amazing truth “Who delivered us out of the authority of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the son of His love.”
Let us notice carefully. He does not ask us for anything.
He has come of His own accord, at His own expense, and Redeemed us out of the authority of darkness, weakness, ignorance and failure, and He sends the Revelation to tell us the good news that we are Redeemed; not that we may be delivered, not if we will be good and give up our sins. No . We are already delivered out of the authority of darkness.
In that word “darkness” is the entire system of bondage, of Satanic hatred, bitterness and jealousy.

Everything that Satan is, is in that word “darkness.”
There is ignorance. There are tears. There is hunger. There is want. There is lack. There is sickness, pain and agony.
We are delivered out of it.
Who delivered us out of the authority of Satan’s dominion.
He has not only delivered us but He has translated us into the kingdom of the son of His love in whom we have our Redemption, the remission of our trespasses.
How it grips our hearts.
This is not the message that they have taught us to preach.
This is the reverse of it.

Nowhere does He tell us to go out and club the sinner, tell him what he must give up, what he must surrender.
If he takes Christ as a Savior, that is repentance. If he confesses Him as his own Lord with his heart, that is believing.
He not only asks us to receive this marvelous Redemption, but He asks us to receive Jesus as Lord.

This is like Ruth, the Moabite, receiving Boaz as her husband. The receiving of Boaz meant the end of poverty and want, the end of biting anxiety and fear, the end of hunger and suffering.
She became the mistress of that mansion on the hill. Those great olive orchards and the pomegranate, the peach and the orange, those great fields of wheat became her own.
She did not give up her poverty. She received his wealth.
She did not give up her loneliness; she received his fellowship.
She did not give up her weakness and anxiety and fear; she received his plenty, his protection, his care.

God comes to us. He asks us to receive Jesus as our Lord and joyfully tell the world that we have reached the end of weakness and failure, that we have found His strength, His fulness, His ability.
The word “Lord” has the significance of the bread provider.
He is our bread provider. He is our strength provider.
He is our ability provider.

“Of His fulness have we all received and grace upon grace.”
We are receivers.
We are no longer beggars crying that He come and bless us.
We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies.
We are rich with His riches.
We are full with His fullness.
We are satisfied with Him.
He is our risen Lord, our own.
He asks us to receive Eternal Life, His nature.
This makes us New Creations. We are created in Christ Jesus.
The old things of failure and weakness and sin are passed away and behold all things have become new. All these things are of God who has reconciled us unto Himself.
We did not reconcile ourselves. We had nothing to do with the reconciliation. We had nothing to do with the New Creation except to receive it.

It Is All Of God

We cannot grasp it. It is beyond us.
It is in the realm of the spirit, the realm of the riches of grace, of glory.
This New Creation makes us children of God Almighty.
God is now our Father. We are His children, we are in His family.
The wonder of it! The grace of it! The joy of it!
How it comforts and strengthens.
As we receive His Redemption we are free from the old bondage and habits. As we receive His Lordship and joyfully tell it to the world, we receive our Redemption.
Eternal Life links us up with Him.
We didn’t even ask Him for it.
We didn’t plead and pray and promise we would do certain things if He gave it to us.
All we had to do was to acknowledge the gift, and thank Him for it.
“But,” you say, “what about our sins?”
He put our sin away by the sacrifice of Himself.
We had nothing to do with it whatever.
We had been helplessly in bondage for years, and then one day someone came along and said, “Did you know He put your sin away by the sacrifice of Himself?”
We said, “Yes, we read it, but we never understood it.”

The thing that bound us to the Adversary and the thing that brought condemnation had been put away, our hearts were filled with joy.
“He bore our sins in his body on the tree.”
He was made sin with our sin that we might become Righteous with His Righteousness.
Sin no longer has any dominion over us.
“All we like sheep had gone astray. We had turned everyone to his own way” and the Father laid upon Christ all that we had ever been or done.
John the Baptist said, “Behold the lamb of God that beareth away the sin of the world.”
God has dealt with the sin problem.
He does not ask us to deal with it. He does not ask us to do one thing with it. He does not even ask us to be sorry that we were sinners.

Why? We were not to blame for being sin-
Is a man to blame for being born in a certain country? No. He had nothing to do with it.
We had nothing to do with our sin condition.
We could not even help committing the sins we committed. They were an outgrowth of a condition of sin in our nature.
Now He comes and tells us that He put that sin away, that He remitted all the sins we ever committed.
He is not asking us to do anything.

All Is Of Grace

He said, “By Grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, and not of works lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works.” Eph. 2:8-10
When was the New Creation a fact in the mind of the Father? When Jesus arose from the dead.
When were we justified and declared Righteous? When He arose from the dead and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Then this New Creation, and Justification, and Righteousness has been waiting for us all these years? That is the fact.
He does not ask us to do anything but just receive it.
If we have to pay Him for our Redemption it is no longer of grace but of works.
“By grace are ye saved on the ground of faith and it is not of works lest any man should boast.”
Sonship is a gift.
Redemption is a gift.

Eternal Life is a gift. The New Creation is a gift. The Holy Spirit is a gift. Jesus was a gift.
God so loved that He gave His Son. Jesus is a gift, the Father’s gift We do not pay for a gift.