We believe in the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit was with the Father and with the Word of God in the first moments of the foundation of the world, hovering over the water in the beginning of the account of Genesis 1. 

The Holy Spirit was in the prophets of the Old Testament, from Abraham to Malachi. 

The Holy Spirit participated in the first moment of the incarnation of the Word of God, coming upon Mary after the visit of the angel Gabriel. 

The Holy Spirit came down on Jesus at his baptism, in perfect collaboration with the Father who spoke of his approval of his son. The Holy Spirit led Jesus in the wilderness, to be tempted by the devil for forty days, so that he could be successful in this temptation. 

The Holy Spirit was with the apostles and many others at Pentecost in the first moments of the birthing of the Church. 

In the same way, Jesus promised his disciples that we simply had to ask the Father for the Holy Spirit, and that we would receive him/her (read Luke 11:13). 

(in Hebrew the term ‘Spirit’ is sometimes masculine, sometimes feminine, and in Greek it is neutral - neither masculine nor feminine, so we can speak of the Holy Spirit as Him or Her. I don’t feel comfortable to speak of the Holy Spirit as ‘it’, although technically the Greek language would allow that). 

Not only did Jesus promise that the Father would send speedily the Holy Spirit to those who ask him, but he also promised that it would be better than having Jesus physically with us! (listen to John 16:5-7). How could that be? Well, when Jesus was on earth, he could be in only one location at a specific time, while the Holy Spirit has the capacity to be in many locations at the same time.

The picture shows a dove and fire, reminding us of two key images used in the Bible for the Holy Spirit (the dove at the baptism of Jesus in Mark 1:10, the tongues of fire at Pentecost in Acts 2:3-4). 
The dove remind us of the manifest presence of God, and that like a dove the Holy Spirit has a will and wants to guide us. 
The tongues of fire mentioned in Acts 2 remind us that God wants to speak to us and through us (tongue), and the fire help us remember that the Holy Spirit wants to purify us and empower us.

The purpose of the Holy Spirit is to make of us temples of God, filled with him/her (1 Cor 3:16, 6:19), so that s/he can fill us with the love of God (Romans 5:5) and allow this love to flow freely to God and to our neighbors (John 7:37-39, Mark 12:28-31). 

What is needed for the Holy Spirit, for the love of God, to flow freely in us and through us? We can find key parts of the answer to this question as we meditate on the purpose of a temple. A temple is a place where the presence of God is manifest, and where people can come and receive answers from God to their questions. This was what happened in the days of the temple in Jerusalem, where people came to be reconciled with God (sacrifices), to experience his presence and to hear him speak (therefore the Urim and Tumim of the high priests, as read in Numbers 27:21). 

Today, we don’t need anymore a physical temple of stone or gold, because God wants our body to be this temple (1 Corinthians 6:19), and Jesus is now the perfect High Priest (read Hebrews 5:1-10). If we had to summarize, the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to bring in us God’s presence and God’s guidance or voice. The Holy Spirit will not speak to us independently from the Father or from Jesus, because he will remind us what Jesus said and will teach us everything (read John 14:26 concerning this amazing promise that Jesus made to us). By the way, for us to learn implies that the Holy Spirit is able to communicate with us in simple and understandable ways. 

Presence and communication, two fundamental facets of love. The first and foremost purpose of the Holy Spirit is indeed to bring love in our hearts (Romans 5:5), so that we can communicate this holy love to God and to others.

The relationship between being filled with the Holy Spirit and hearing God is exemplified in many texts in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Hearing God and communicating what he says is at the heart of the gift of prophecy, as described in the Bible. When God shared some of the Holy Spirit that was on Moses with seventy elders, the first sign was that they prophesied (Numbers 11:25). When the Holy Spirit came on the King Saul, he prophesied (1 Samuel 10:6). In the same way, in the promise of Joel that Peter mentioned on the day of Pentecost we can read:

“And it shall come to pass afterward, 

that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; 

your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, 

your old men shall dream dreams, 

and your young men shall see visions. 

Even on the male and female servants 

in those days I will pour out my Spirit.” (Joel 2:28)

This is why, as we are filled with the presence and love of God, as we let this love flow in us and from us, the natural direction is to expect two-way communication with God. That is why Paul emphasized in 1 Corinthians 14:1, “Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.” If Paul exhorts all the Christians at Corinth to earnestly seek prophesy, it is not a question of status or pride, but a question of becoming always more a channel of God’s love. For this to take place, we need to hear from God, to be really guided by God through the Holy Spirit. This is what God promised for all children of God through Joel (Joel 2:28). This is the way Jesus taught us (John 14:26), this is the way he exemplified for us (see for instance Mark 1:12). 

The Holy Spirit is all about communication, communication of God’s love (Romans 5:5), communication of God’s guidance and teachings (John 14:26).

How can we experience the Holy Spirit’s presence in us? 

To receive the Holy Spirit, we have to repent, so that we can ask God’s help to be cleansed of any impure and unholy spirit that we have let come in ourselves. This is part of the purification (= sanctification) that God wants us to experience, so that we can welcome fully the Holy Spirit in us, so that we can welcome fully God’s love in us and overflow with this love to others. This is the holy and blessed joy that is sometimes called entire sanctification. 

Then, as temples of the Holy Spirit, we are invited to experience every day of our lives both the presence of God in us and the communication with God. We have to remember that when Paul said that ‘you are temples of the Holy Spirit’ (1 Corinthians 3:16), he was speaking with a ‘plural you’ - you all - and that therefore God will speak to us individually but also through other brothers and sisters in Christ, that is the beauty of the work of the Holy Spirit, so that we would not become haughty and self-sufficient. On one side, Jesus promised to be with us always (Matthew 28:18), but on the other side he encouraged us to not stay alone but to become his body on earth, the church, so that when two or three are united in his name, he would be in the midst of them (Matthew 18:18-20).

Therefore, let us remember that God, through the Holy Spirit in us, wants to fill us with his love and presence, that he wants to speak to us and with us every day, all the time (thus the call to pray without ceasing, stressed by Jesus in Luke 18:1-8 and emphasized by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:17). Let us remember that God can use different ways, different means for His amazing grace, to communicate with us. It can be through the still small voice in our hearts, through other believers, through non-believers or through His creation (Psalm 19:1-2). Once God even spoke through a donkey (see Numbers 22:27-30). Let us not put the Holy Spirit in a box, let us avoid compartmentalizing our lives and thus keep control over God. Let us stop being masters of foolishness in our attempts to control our lives, so that we can become servants of humility, friends of his love for this wonderful creation. This world desperately hungers for the revelation of the children of God, believers filled with the Holy Spirit, with the pure love of God and sharing this love with many.

We believe in Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ is the Son of the heavenly Father, from all eternity. He is in the Father and the Father is in him (John 14:10). Before his incarnation, before becoming human through Mary, he already was the Word of God, already one of the Triune God, with the Father and the Holy Spirit (John 1:1-14). With the Father and the Holy Spirit, there was a perfect Communion, perfect communication, listening and obeying each other (John 11:49-50). In his incarnation, the Word became flesh. In Jesus, God became human, demonstrating that a human could be perfectly united with God, that God could be perfectly united to humanity, a perfect communication and perfect communion. At the end of his life on earth, Jesus Christ accepted fully to die for our sins, to offer his human life as a sacrifice for our failures to remain in communion with God. He then ascended to heaven, and intercedes for us. He sent the Holy Spirit to reproduce in each willing human this perfect union with God that was in him. This union is manifested by love, an obedient love, a joyful love (listen to Romans 5:5).

The picture of Jesus kneeling and praying reminds us of two things. First, by kneeling, that when he came on earth he humbly relinquished his divine power so that all he would do on earth could be imitated by his disciples, so that he could show a way that all humans after him could follow, that is why one of his names is ‘the way' (John 14:6). He did not come as a master but as a servant, even washing the feet of his disciples. 

Second, he is praying, interceding for us, so that we find this way to be delivered from death and separation from God, so that we taste and see the eternal joy of continual fellowship with God. This wonderful work of love is communicated to us through the Holy Spirit that he sent on earth on the day of Pentecost, and the Holy Spirit is still here to accomplish in us the holy transformation Jesus demonstrated.

Jesus is the living proof of the amazing possibility for any human on earth to be united with God, to receive fully God’s love and respond by loving God with all our heart, soul and strength. This was the commandment of God already at the time of Moses (Deuteronomy 6:5). 
Yet, how can we learn to love God if there is not two-way communication? Jesus did not do anything without the Father showing him what to do (John 5:19-20). Jesus did not say anything without the Father telling him what to say (John 12;49-50). 
Do we need more guidance than Jesus, or less guidance?

Christlikeness will necessary imply to learn to walk in the presence of God - in Spirit, as Jesus did, and very frequent dialogs with God.
Without frequent messages from God to us, at best it is a dedication, like the dedication to a noble pursuit, but we cannot speak of a real love. The capacity to love God became fully available in Jesus Christ, and now through faith in Jesus. This is the foundation of the wonderful message Jesus came to teach us on earth, the good News. We don’t need anymore to be enslaved to death, through sin - this breaking of our communion with God. Since eternal life is in God, by remaining in communion with God through obedience and love, death loses its power over us. This power was fully broken through Jesus’ atonement, so that Jesus’ life would defeat death, so that he could preach the Good News of this victory through his life, through his death on the cross, and through his resurrection. 

This victory, this good news, is available to each of us, the good news of the kingdom. Because of Jesus sacrifice for us on the cross, we can be delivered from the life of sin and separation from God and holy love. We can again be united with God, his pure love and eternal life, and walk with Him in the same way Jesus walked, because Jesus is the way, the life and the truth (John 14:6). 

The devil, the father of lies, tries to enslave humanity through fear, through the fear of death (read Hebrews 2:14-15). Yet, these lies have been defeated through Jesus' life, through his death, through his resurrection, and through the power of transformation and purification made available by the Holy Spirit.

Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe that it is possible for you to be united with God, following the way Jesus opened to all humans? Do you believe that through God’s power and love you can be free from sin and death, no more missing the goal of your creation? 

If it is the case, I invite you to repent (see article on Repentance), to put your trust in Jesus, to learn listen to him and follow him (see article on Listening to Jesus), so that you learn from him, so that you learn with him to love God and to love your neighbor.

In this way, the power of Jesus’ atonement (see article on Atonement) is released in you and you can joyfully understand why Jesus’ message is called the Good News. 

In this process, reading the Bible will be of great help, as you discover in many stories of the Bible how God calls us humans to a life of freedom in him, a life of love and communion with him. In this process, you need to have other fellow pilgrims, walking with you on this holy and joyful path, the path of Jesus Christ.

We believe in the Triune God

In the Christian faith, we believe that God is three and unique - triune. He is unique because there is only one God. Yet there is plurality in this God, a plurality in unity. There is perfect unity and harmony between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father created our universe, in union with the Son (who is also Jesus, the Word of God) and the Holy Spirit.

The picture of a triangle helps to remind us, although very imperfectly, that God is triune, three in one: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.   

 

Some people say that the Christian faith is polytheist, that it teaches there are three gods. This is simply foolish and not true. What they don’t realize is that by pushing their position they confirm that they don’t know God, who is for them more a conceptual idea than a God they relate to and can communicate with. In some ways, it is a form of deism - a faith in a God that created and spoke to people in the past, but who does not really interact with his creation today. It is a god of the past, who could interact with this world before but who cannot speak anymore - like if a loving God would stop speaking. It is then at best a god of paper, a god of traditions. 

The Christian faith emphasizes the fact that God is alive, and that we can come to know him, that there is a spiritual world and that God wants us to become aware and wise in choosing to welcome him as our real Lord - master of our reality. It is very naive to think that only with the help of a book - even the Bible or any other ‘sacred book’ -we can have God as our master. This leads us only to construct an idea of God, a god of paper. Without the Holy Spirit we only have a set of attribute and a description of a God of the past. It is even more foolish to think that we will be able to love God with all our heart and soul and strength, with the only help of traditions and scriptural verses. 

Without regular interactions with God in prayer - not just praying alone and repeating sets of fixed words, but speaking and listening to God, faith is really a veiled atheism or deism, a way to hide our lack of faith in a living God that can and wants to interact with his creation today. 

As you learn that God is alive, that prayer is not simply a set of words to repeat but an invitation to an encounter with God and a dialog, you begin to discover the God described in the Bible, how He really is the Creator of the universe - the Father. We also can discover how Jesus is the way to the Father, how he can deliver us from this separation from God, how by following his guidance - through the teachings of the New Testament in particular - we can enter in a lively relationship with the Father. Through Jesus’ teaching we then are invited to welcome the Holy Spirit, to ask for the Holy Spirit to fill us, so that we can experience forgiveness - real forgiveness of sin - and be filled with God’s love ( see Romans 5:5). 

As we learn to really encounter God in prayer, in fellowship, in worship, we discover through our interactions with Him and through reading the teachings of the Bible that He really is Father, that he really is the Son - the Word of God, and that he really is Holy Spirit. This plurality in God is not a weakness of the Christian faith, but a key to its strength. Because of this harmonious and united plurality, there is love in God, love between the Father and the Son, love between the Son and the Holy Spirit, love between the Father and the Holy Spirit. 

Once we discover that the God described in the New Testament is not a God of the past but a living God who wants to interact with us in the same way he interacted with humans in the stories of the Bible, we are ready to enter on this amazing journey of the Christian faith. This journey brings a discovery of real love, peace an joy. It is also a journey in which suffering is no more a god that terrifies us, but becomes a part of our learning to love others. The God of the Bible wants us to discover what real love, what pure love, what true love is, even at the cost of suffering. The gods of this world sometimes want us to flee suffering out of fear and anguish, even to the cost of avoiding love.

Do you believe in a god of paper, of tradition, or a living God that invites you to real fellowship every day of your life? Do you know how to live this real communion with him, to enter in this intimacy. 

If it is not yet the case, do you want to discover this loving God, through the path opened by Jesus, and receive forgiveness of sin and be filled with the Holy Spirit? If this is your desire, God is waiting for you, longing for this fellowship - he has created you for this very purpose. I invite you to humbly ask God, in faith, to show you if there are things you do that displease him and to take the path to change (see article on repentance for more details). Then forgive others for the wrongs they did to you, so that God forgives you also. Then invite the Holy Spirit to guide you, in particular as you discover more about who God is through the pages of the Bible, as you learn to dialog with God (see the guide on learning to listen to Jesus). This journey cannot be experienced alone, you will need to discover how the other believers in the God revealed in the Old and New Testament, the Church, can encourage you to grow in this wonderful life with God, how you can disagree with grace, how you can help others in this journey in God’s love, how to become part of the people of God and become a light in this world. 

May the peace of God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, bless you with all heavenly blessings, through the real presence and love of the Holy Spirit in your daily life. 

 

We really believe in a triune God. 

Christian Holiness and Entire Sanctification

Entire sanctification is a term used in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 by Paul, to describe how we should consecrate ourselves completely to God so that He sanctifies us completely, body - soul and spirit.

Sanctification means that something is given to God, so that God purifies it and can use it for His purposes. In relational terms, it is surrendering for instance a part of our life to God and letting God guide us and rule over this domain. This implies that we then listen to God and do what he tells us to do in this domain, not acting anymore independently from him in this domain. The notion of sanctification can be directly connected to the notion of lordship, how we are invited to have Jesus be the Lord (the master) and us be his servants. 

Entire sanctification implies that we surrender the mastery of our lives in all the domains to Jesus, the Son of God, to the Father and to the Holy Spirit. 

What Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5 is that this entire sanctification, this total surrender followed by a guidance from God in all domains is not only possible but what God desires for each of us.

This means that we can indeed listen and follow God in all domains, thus accomplishing the goal of our creation. The goal is not in a specific task to accomplish, but the way we walk in this world. As sin was described in the previous text on Sin, original and personal, it meant missing the mark, not listening to God and not doing what he wanted us to do. The deliverance from sin is not so much a list of things we don’t do, but rather what we do: to listen to God and to obey Him, so that we learn to love God and to love our neighbor. Jesus clearly stated in Matthew 7:21: It is not the one who says to Jesus Lord, Lord who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of his Father who is in heaven. To do the will of God, we need to hear, listen and obey to God, not only in the teachings received in the Bible, but in the guidance of his voice every day. Entire sanctification is about this listening and following in all domains, that involves an every moment intimacy with God - the unceasing prayer that is clearly emphasized by Jesus (Luke 18:1-8) and by Paul (1 Thessalonians 5:17, just before the verses 23-24). This unceasing prayer is a way to describe this continual intimacy with God that Jesus so beautifully demonstrated to us on earth, he who did not say anything without the Father telling him (John 12:49-50) and did not do anything without the Father showing him (John 5:19-20). 

This life with God, this sanctified life, can also be described as knowing Jesus and the Father, as Jesus tells us in John 17:3, “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.“ Jesus spoke in Aramaic, and in aramaic the verb for ‘to know' is the same as in Hebrew (yada, ידע). This verb does not mean an abstract knowledge but a relational knowledge, like when we say that we ‘know' someone. What we mean when we say that we know someone is that we spend time with the person, that our will is harmonized with their will enough to have peaceful times together. To know God means that we spend time with him in prayer, speaking and listening.

A key element of the sanctified life is that Jesus becomes really our Lord and teacher, which means that we don’t only say ‘Lord' but that we do what this implies: we obey him and the Father. In a relationship between a servant and a master, who is the one speaking the most? The master (= lord). In a relationship between a student and a teacher, who speaks the most? The teacher. If we want to call Jesus our Lord (=master) and teacher (read Matthew 23:8-10), it means that we start by listening to him more than speaking. In our prayer life, this implies that we speak less and listen more.

The entirely sanctified life involves a consecration of all of the domains of the life, which implies that at a practical level we will live every moment in the presence of God (entire sanctification of the time). This is exactly what God wants, that we walk with him. As Abraham walked (imperfectly) with God and became his friend, as Jesus walked a perfect life with the Father, always saying and doing what the Father wanted, we are invited to this amazing walk with God. We are invited, as individuals and as community, to live as bearer of God’s kingdom, as temples of the Holy Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 3:16 or 6:19). Jesus does not want only that we learn to obey as servants, but as we learn to be servants he wants us to become friend with him and the Father, as mentioned in John 15:12-15. This means that we are really united with God, in constant fellowship, with us listening to God and God listening to us and doing what we ask. This is the amazing authority that God wants for every one of his children. It was first accomplished in Jesus through his atonement (for more clarity, read a text on this subject here), and the Holy Spirit has been sent by Jesus to replicate this miracle of love in each of us, as children of the heavenly Father. The entire creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God (Romans 8:19). The creation has been subject to futility, to our futile plans, but God wants us to come to this total surrender of our self-centeredness, for us to be then filled with his Holy Spirit, so that we become mature children of God.

The picture of a heart with the fiery dove in it reminds us that entire sanctification is about welcoming the Holy Spirit to rule in all domains of our life, in all the moments of our lives. This involves the purification symbolized both by the white dove and by the fire. It also involves power - as the fire gives energy. It also involves guidance (the dove has a will, it is not a thing). The Holy Spirit wants to guide us in all domains, so that we learn everything from God, as Jesus clearly taught us: the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you (John 14:26). This continuous sensitivity to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, this entirely sanctified life, implies both obedience and love, they are two facets of a same reality. The love of God is poured in our lives through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us (Romans 5:5), and the Spirit wants to guide us in all things.

This is the goal of the creation, this is what was accomplished in Jesus Christ. This is what the prophet Jeremiah promised would come through a new covenant - a new testament (see Jeremiah 31:31-34, the text from which we have the term ‘New Testament’). This is what the prophet Ezekiel promised (see Ezekiel 11:19-20, 18:31, 36:26-27), tying strongly together the coming of a new spirit in us with a complete listening and obedience to the Father.

Being filled with the Holy Spirit implies obeying to God. There is stability and joy in this. Yet, disobeying God implies that we reject the guidance of the Holy Spirit who will then move away, as the Spirit departed from the temple (see Ezekiel 10:18-19). This departure happened after Israel’s repeated disobedience, as it could happen after our repeated disobedience. If we continue to communicate with God in prayer, to listen to him and do what he tell us on a daily basis, we have stability in God and don’t need to be concerned. As Jesus said, knowing him and the Father, walking as children of light is the assurance of eternal life, the life with God. Will we sometimes struggle with a specific direction the Lord wants us to take? Probably. Yet, if we struggle with God and don’t close the door to the Lord, we will remain in this blessed fellowship with God and learn.

In the New Testament, Jesus and Paul often speak of maturity (also translated ’perfection’, the Greek word teleios - τελειος). This maturity is about a mature relationship with God, when we listen and do what he tells us. It is another way of describing the kind of relationship with God we reach after ‘entire sanctification.’

There is necessarily a moment when we surrender all the moments of our lives to God and learn to walk with Him at all times. Like when a person dies, there is a process but there is also a moment when the death is declared. This moment can be called entire sanctification. In itself this moment is not the goal, it is the door to the goal. The goal is what we can call Christian holiness, or the ’Spirit-filled life,’ or more simply ‘life with God.'

The previous text, about justification-regeneration-adoption, spoke about the entry in this blessed relationship with the Father and with Jesus as our Lord and Savior. As we learn to walk with God as our Father, with Jesus as our guide, we can realize that some of the areas of our life are still places were Jesus is not Lord, and we need to surrender these areas. 

The motivation for justification is to be reconciled with God and to receive the life of the Spirit in us. Then, the motivation for this radical consecration and entire sanctification is death to our independence, death to self-centeredness and life without God. It is logical that you have or will experience these two key steps in the blessed life of communion with God as separate moments. Yet, what is the most important is not so much these moments but the sanctified life - the holy life - in which you walk with God, the joyous and continual fellowship with Jesus and the Father through the indwelling Holy Spirit. 

Christian holiness is about the stability in this relationship, how we can welcome walk with Jesus continually, in all the areas of our life. It is not a matter of us being strong, but rather for us to learn that without Him we are weak (2 Cor 12:9-10) and decide to keep our hand in the hand of God - so that with him we are strong. When we are with God, all things become possible (Mark 9:27). We can know God and inherit eternal life when we walk with Him. As we learn to listen and obey God, through the Holy Spirit in us, we then discover that God obeys us in return. The miracles of God’s love can become the norm in our daily lives. It is what Jesus demonstrated so clearly in his life (see for instance John 11:41-42), it is what Jesus promised to us if we learn the obedience of faith in God (read Mark 11:22-25, John 14:12-14, and Romans 1:5 for the important expression ‘obedience of faith’). The clear guidance and power of God's love is then manifested through our purified and sanctified hearts. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matthew 5:8). The clarity of communication with God, through His voice, visions, dreams and all the means of His grace is a manifestation of this purified relationship with Him. 

This entirely sanctified life, this Christian holiness, implies that we have learned indeed to keep a listening relationship with Jesus and his Father through the Holy Spirit. Holiness implies that we are separated from sin and united with God. This means that we don’t listen to God only in one area or in one way, but that we learn to listen to God through the Holy Spirit in all domains and all the time: when we read the Bible, when we pray, as he speaks to us through the whole creation, through humans, through sermons, through all the situations we experience. This is this life of prayer that Paul emphasizes in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. This is the life of uninterrupted prayer that is the clearest manifestation of a real faith in him - an obedient faith, as described in Luke 18:1-8.

Have you reached this simple and radical faith of every moment, where you not only believe with your head but also with your heart? Have you learned to live all your life in the presence of God, with the testimony of the Holy Spirit remaining in your heart?

If it is not yet the case, if this is what you want, I encourage you to take a moment of prayer with God, to surrender all the domains of your life to Him. Ask him in prayer if there is a specific domain that needs to be surrendered, and then surrender it in faithful obedience and ask him what He wants you to do and do it. Ask him if there is something you need to forgive to someone, so that he forgives to you also (see Mark 11:25). Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you, as Jesus promised us He would (Luke 11:13). Then learn to practice listening and obeying to the soft and beautiful voice of our Lord, as his sheep, as his servant, so that one day you will be called a friend of God, a pure temple of His love, a shining child of God. This is the promise for every human, this is the desire of the heavenly Father for every human, this is the goal from the creation of the world.

Justification, Regeneration and Adoption

Justification means that God forgives us when we repent of our sins and decide to follow Jesus as our Lord and Savior. 

This means that we first recognize our failure to be righteous by our own strength (Romans 3:23), and that we need and accept Jesus' help and guidance in our life. To be righteous means that we don’t sin anymore, which implies that we maintain a living and healthy relationship with God that involves a constant connexion and frequent two-way communication, as it was described in the previous texts on sin and on atonement. To be righteous also implies that we not only have communication with God, but that we do what He tells us - we obey (read Mt 7:21), for instance putting into practice the Ten Commandments (see Ex 20).

The picture of the gavel, this judge’s small wooden hammer, reminds us of God who chooses not to condemn us but rather forgives us - justification, because he now sees hope in us through our repentance and decision to trust Jesus as our Lord and savior, as our guide to stop harming others and learning to love, because Jesus has paid the penalty for our sins on the cross and shows us the way of the life with God.

Justification starts by recognizing our failure to do God’s will (to be righteous), the recognition of our need of God’s grace, continues by repentance and trusting God to guide us through Jesus' Christ. Jesus' atonement - his life and his death on the cross for our sins - are the foundation of this reconciliation, of God’s forgiveness. When welcome Jesus as the one who saves us from this broken relationship with God (which leads to eternal death), we also have to welcome him as our guide and Lord, so that we learn to maintain this relationship of life. This means that we welcome God’s teachings as communicated in the Bible, specially the biblical teachings of Jesus in the New Testament, that we enter into a personal relationship with Jesus as our Lord and master. Jesus saves us through his sacrifice, and wants to lead us in all things through the Holy Spirit. For this to happen, Jesus uses his church as a key part of his work, to remind us of his teachings, to show to us how to live with him and the Father, to help us to live together as a community, to come in communion with him and remain in this living relationship.

The picture of a little baby reminds us of the regeneration, the new birth, that God gives to those who are justified through Jesus death for us and through his guidance. 

As we die to our lethal independence from God, as we welcome Jesus as our guide and Lord to maintain a listening and obedient relationship with him and the Father, God regenerates us - we become born again, and God is no more limited to a set of stories written on the pages of a Bible or shown in a movie, but becomes for us a living God who wants to communicate with us on a daily basis. Our spiritual life fully begins. In the past, we perhaps followed some principles on what is right, because of Biblical teachings or ethical teachings given to us, but now we follow the guidance of a living God. It is the difference between obeying a code of law and responding to the love of a living God who interacts with us.

The picture of a dad with his son reminds us of our adoption as children of God. 

Another way to describe this regeneration or new birth, is the fact that God adopts us as his child. As a father with his child, God wants to care for us by guiding us, to help us avoid unnecessary suffering and to provide for all we really need. This means that as we welcome God’s gracious justification through Jesus' death on the cross for our sins, we become children of God. Since we don’t see God in the same way we see physical human beings, we have to learn to relate to God through impressions in our hearts, through images and words coming in us. This is what this new birth and adoption is all about, learning to be and live as a child of God. The Bible contains the key teachings on how to remain in fellowship with God as our Father. The Holy Spirit enables us to experience and live this reconciliation with God, this two-way communication, following Jesus' teachings. The Church is the community of believers in Jesus where we can learn to live with God and with each other in love and truth. 

In all this, Jesus is really the way, he is our guide and will teach us. Not as a dead prophet who has only teachings written long ago for us, but as the living Son of God who can guide us to the Father in our everyday life. As he promised, he is with us up to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20), and wants to shepherd us with his love: my sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me (John 10:28). He wants to speak to our hearts and teach us His love in all we do, as we discover His creation, as we interact with His church, in all we do and live in this world. 

Justification, regeneration and adoption is really this full entry in the living relationship with a living God. How to maintain this relationship of life, how to be stable in this intimacy with God, how to gain victory over sin in all the areas of our life and fully reach the goal of our creation, will be the heart of the next teaching on Christian holiness and entire sanctification.

Repentance

What is the meaning of repentance?

Does it mean simply saying ‘sorry’ when we did wrong?

Does it mean stopping to do what is harmful to others or to me?

Does it mean more than that?

The word repentance comes, in the Old Testament, from the verb in Hebrew ‘shouv’ that means to turn away, to return. In the New Testament, the word 'repentance' in Greek is 'metanoia' and means to change your mindset, to turn about, conversion. 
Repentance means to turn away from sin, from actions that miss the goal of our relationship of love with God or our neighbor, and to move toward this goal of love. 

Repentance is the first step to follow, for those who are estranged from God, who either don’t know Him or have moved away from a loving and joyful relationship with God, for those who don’t know or have forgotten the dialogs of grace that each person can experience daily with the heavenly Father, for those who don’t know or don’t experience anymore the tender and peaceful presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit. 

This key step of repentance begins with God’s grace, which opens our eyes to the fact we are away from God, that we have come to do things that destroy us and others, that damage our relationship with the creator God, the heavenly Father. As we realize the love of God lavished on us through the creation, whether it is in the shining sun or in the kindness of a person, the facets of God’s love are so numerous that they cannot be counted. As we become aware of God’s grace and of the ways we cut ourselves or others from this wonderful grace, from the flow of God’s love toward His creation, we will want to turn away. 

For turning away from sin, from all that harms relationships with God, our neighbor or God’s creation, we have to repent. We have to stop doing what is wrong and harmful to us or to others, and replace it with what flows from God’s grace. 

The apostle Paul would say: let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need (Eph 4:28). Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear (Eph 4:29). 

James would say: Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. (James 4:7-8)

John the Baptist would say: let your repentance produce its fruits. (Matthew 2:8)

We can clearly see that this biblical concept of repentance involve much more than saying we are sorry or that we stop practicing evil. If we don’t take the path of replacing a bad action by a good one, then at best it is an incomplete repentance or fruitless repentance, that risks to leave us open to repeat the bad action and feel defeat and despair. This is not God’s will for us, he does not want us to always battle and never win. God wants us to win the victory over sin, he wants us to reach the goal of our life - this joyful and peaceful relationship with him, with our neighbor (as much as it depends on us) and with God’s creation.

One could be tempted to say: I achieve repentance by my own strength. This attitude is fundamentally flawed, because it denies the fact that if we become aware of our sins - of missing the goal of our creation - it is only because of God’s multi-faceted grace in this world. 

It is also a mistake because even the decision and capacity to change and come closer to God is supported by God’s enabling grace, God’s prevenient grace, that sustains our efforts to move away from sin and move closer to God. 

It is the awareness of the coming of God’s love, of his kingdom of peace and love, that ushers repentance into our lives. As God comes closer to us, he invites us to get closer to him. Jesus said, following John the Baptist: repent, for the kingdom of Heaven has come near (Matthew 3:2, 4:17). When God comes closer to a situation or person, in his righteous love he will remove all the lacks of love, and if we hold to sin we could end up judged and condemned so that we stop harming God’s creation. This freedom of choice that God gives us in his love has a painful element: if we reject this generous love, God will not force us and will let us experience the consequence of the rejection of his love: spiritual and eternal death. What some call God’s deliverance from evil, other call judgement and condemnation, while it is simply God coming to visit a situation. If we hold to sin, when God comes closer it will involve our condemnation, whether it is ultimate condemnation at the point of death of estrangement and diminution of life and peace during our earthly life. If, when God comes closer to us through his grace, we recognize our sins (our lack of love or ‘missing the goal’), then God invites us to enter on the path of repentance, a joyful path that will lead us to be delivered from evil and to the blessed fellowship with God and his creation. 

Once we get a clear picture of what repentance means, it becomes joyful, it is turning away from a path of death and entering toward a path of life. Does it require energy and commitment? Yes. Does it involve God’s grace? Absolutely, from start to end.

The picture of the returning arrow illustrates simply this turning away from sin, and turning toward God. Sin is to miss the goal of our creation, this loving relationship with God and our neighbor, and to repent is to welcome this goal and pursue it through the prevenient and enabling grace of our loving God.

As we follow the promptings of God's grace and enter on the joyful path of repentance, we prepare for the next key step that can be described with three words: Justification, regeneration and adoption. 

Grace

What is Grace? 
  How to describe it?
  What is meant by God's grace?
  Have you experienced God's grace today? How?
  How can we receive it?
 

In the New Testament, the word ‘grace’ comes from a Greek word that means ‘a beneficent disposition toward someone, favor, grace, gracious care/help, goodwill’ (in Greek, ‘charis’, definition taken from the Greek reference dictionary BDAG).

It is often described as an ‘unmerited favor’, which in simpler language means: a gift.

Once we understand the meaning of atonement, this reconciliation between man and God through Jesus' life and death, it is important to understand the first foundation for experiencing ourselves this reconciliation with God. 

This first foundation is God’s grace. In our relationship with God, we have to grasp the fact that all starts with God, not with us. God has created us, and he has provided in many ways even if we did not realize it - what we call 'God's providence.' He makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. He initiates ways in which we can respond to him. 

We don’t reach God, it is God who reaches us first and then enables us to respond to him. It’s what some call ‘responsible grace’. This is God’s grace toward us, his love always in action. Can we reject his grace? Yes. But the most important question is: can we receive his grace? And the answer is a resounding YES!

We are in a world where many people say that nothing is free, that you have to pay for everything. Well, the good news is that it is not the case, many things are free. For instance, the air is free, the rain is free, the sun is free. Can we spoil these free gifts, these graces of God, or stop receiving them? Yes. Yet, the very moment when we would stop completely to receive God’s grace we will die.

This concept of 'grace' is so foreign to us that we sometimes have to add the adjective 'prevenient': 'prevenient grace' emphasizes that we receive God's grace before we do anything. God's grace, at its foundation, is prevenient - which means that it comes before we do anything.

In this world, many gods or idols claim our attention, yet they don’t invite us to simply receive, they want to ‘make deals' with us, to make exchanges, to get something from us, so that we give something in order to receive something else.

Once we understand that God’s grace is the foundation of this world, of our existences, we can start to understand the ways we can interact with God. It all starts with God, with His multifaceted grace that shines in each of our days, and we simply have to learn how to respond to God’s wonderful grace. 

The first step of this response to God’s grace will be illustrated in the next article on repentance.