Encounter Recovery Ministries Unknown

There is nothing more contrary to Christ than an abusive preacher. And today, there are more than a few popular preachers within so-called conservative evangelical-reformed circles who believe they can verbally abuse you in their preaching, even to the point of making threats against you personally. -I will come down there and rip you- says one popular preacher. Please discern and reject such men.

The storyline of your relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit did not begin at your conversion, but in eternity past with God's choosing you to be holy and blamless before him in love. God's electing purpose for you was that you would share in the love between the Father and the Son. This means God did not elect you because you needed redeeming, but he redeemed you because were elected in love. The Father sent the Son into the world to redeem those elected to holiness and love for eternity.

It is God's eternal purpose to create a people who share in his glory and display his own holiness. This purpose was made known to Israel, and fulfilled in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, and is now at work in those who belong to him. If you are in Christ, you are God's holy people living by the power of the Spirit of holiness. You are a new humanity shining like lights in a dark, fallen world.

The glorious -good news- we call the -gospel- is that God has included us in Christ's own story. From before the foundation of the world, God has chosen you -in him- so that his birth, his life, his ministry, his death, resurrection, and ascension, is now your story as well for you were and remain by grace, -in him.-

Most church-goers have never heard the good news of transformation in Christ Jesus. This indifference toward gospel sanctification on the part of today's preachers is appalling. You should grieved and even outraged by this spiritual neglect. Working to bring about Christ-like sanctification is the primary work of pastors and elders, and yet, it is largely dismissed in modern churches. In this episode, we look closer at who you are in Christ as set forth in the New Testament.

One of the hardest things to convey to new converts is the glorious news that who they now are in Christ is the true self, the new creation in Christ. Many just assume they remain vile sinners even after they come to Christ, but that is a great error. The old self was crucified with Christ, and the new self is to be worked out in very practical ways in their thinking and conduct. Be who you really are in Christ- That's the message of the New Testament.