Dressed For the Bema
Since Easter my pastor has been speaking on a series called “ALIVE!” Pastor Mike of Northwest Hills Community Church described how we are all dead in our transgressions at one point and then for the one who believes Jesus died in her place, for her sins, God makes her Alive! She has been placed into Christ and thereby gained a new identity. She is no longer identified with sin, guilt, and shame, but now is identified with Christ’s righteousness, new life, and freedom. Pastor Mike described how we are to live in our new identity believing what is true about us. We are to “put on” our new identity and choose to not live in our “old identity” of sin and thereby sin, living contrary to our new God given identity. A good word! As we walk in the Spirit, clothing ourself in Christ, we will not choose to sin and act in sinful ways. Galatians 5:25 summarizes this well, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” If our identity is now in Christ, let us walk in this new identity.
As I was reading this week I came across this great article that takes this thought one step further to our eternity. We believers will be “judged” at the Bema seat of Christ (II Cor 5:10) for our works here on earth. We have a secure eternity with Christ, but our reward when we get there will be based on our stewardship of what He has given us here to use for His glory and His mission of reaching others with the Good News of Christ. Let us press on in our righteous garments of Christ!
Article Snippet: Dressed for the Bema
Grace in Focus – May/June 2018 by Bill Fiess with Pam Esteven
Apart from Christ, our lives will not produce righteous acts worthy of God’s approval. In encouraging the believers in Rome to “put on Christ” (see Rom 13:14), the Apostle Paul used a word regularly employed to describe putting on a garment. We must “put on Christ” if we want to live lives that produce works pleasing to God. Jesus and His Word are the only sources from which God-approved works flow; they do not flow from self, a lesson the Laodiceans badly needed to learn. (In summary he says) Are you planning now what you will wear at the Bema? Do you need to update your spiritual wardrobe?
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