"BUT NOW" - YESHUA CHANGED EVERYTHING

"But Now" Podcast

BUT-NOW---YESHUA-CHANGES-EVERYTHING.pdf

“BUT NOW”

From the junkie shooting up in a litter strewn parking lot, to the stridently atheistic professor, to the hassled woman who has had multiple abortions, to the raging street protestor, everyone has an appointment with God for a complete turnaround.
Everyone who encounters the Lord has a before and an after – a past and a “BUT NOW.” Everyone fails and falls. None of us can boast, but with Jesus EVERYONE can come from the ashes of their failures to a totally new start. His death and Resurrection and His placing the life of His own Spirit into the hearts of those who believe in Him changes everything!

Today the church world-wide is re-awakening to its roots in Judaism. It is discovering that Christianity is in fact built entirely on the promises and prophecies given to the Patriarchs and the Prophets. To see our deep rooted connection with Israel forever changes our understanding of what Christianity is. It will remove the soil of ignorance in which the poisonous weed of Christian anti-Semitism was able to grow and it reveals our eternal debt to the Jewish people.

However, in rediscovering our link with Israel, we need to remember that the “BUT NOW” of the New Testament and work of Yeshua changed everything. He brought His own people, and all who believe on Him, from the testimony of guilt to the testimony of forgiveness and reconciliation. He lifted them, and all who would come to Him, from the curse and misery of their past into the “BUT NOW” of present and future blessings. He did, what the Law could not do, what the prophets had foretold would happen. He fulfilled a hundred prophecies, and, without in any way being unfaithful to the Law and the prophets, completely changed the way we can now relate to God, Our Heavenly Father. Yeshua’s death on the Cross, by successfully providing permanent atonement for the sin of Israel and the sin of the world, removed the separation between us and God and makes it possible for all to come home to Father God as sons and daughters. This is the greatest “BUT NOW” of history. In the past we were alienated by our sin, guilt and shame, BUT NOW those who come to God, Our Heavenly Father, through Him can live in full freedom and in the highest blessings of His love and mercy. Furthermore by implanting the Spirit of God into the hearts of those who receive it, Jesus changes the very nature of who we are.

The New Testament repeatedly uses the phrase “BUT NOW” to contrast the ENTIRELY NEW relationship we have with God in the light of the work of Messiah Yeshua. They sum up this contrast in the repeated phrase “BUT NOW.” “But now” means everything has changed: “That was then – but this is now.“

In the past both Jew and gentile lived in guilt before God because of their sinful Adamic natures and behavior. BUT NOW God has provided permanent atonement for all by transferring our guilt onto Jesus, and His righteousness onto those who come to Him.

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”(Ephes.2.13)

“But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3.21-23)

In the past we were slaves of sin - bound by the law of sin, entwined in our fallen nature, BUT NOW we are set free from slavery to sin and made slaves of God because God’s own life has come into us through the Holy Spirit.
“But now that you have been set free from sin and become slaves to God, you have the consequence of a holy life, and the outcome is eternal life.” (Romans 6.22)

In the past we restrained our behavior by commandments and religious observances, BUT NOW love - the essence of the law - has been placed in our hearts, because God Himself has come to live in us and we serve God in the spirit.
“BUT NOW we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.” (Rom. 7.6)

Believers can easily get angry and judgmental with people whose behavior is wild, crazy rebellious, dysfunctional and stubbornly opposed to God, as we see in much of our society today. We want to write them off - but God never does. The entire church was made up of people who were once that way, BUT NOW have been transformed. EVERYONE in God’s kingdom has a past of failure and missing God’s best either in religion or wild living or in rebellion. These are the ones He is bringing home to a new beginning today - to a “BUT NOW.” With the sin of the past left on the Cross we are fully reconciled with God and pass from darkness to light.
“For you were once darkness, BUT NOW you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” (Ephes. 5.8)

In the past Jew and gentile struggled to live upright lives with a fallen, sinful, broken Adamic nature but could not. BUT NOW God’s own Spirit - the Spirit of Christ - has come within all who receive Him and is producing the life and ways of God’s own nature in us. This is the mystery of the gospel hidden for generations and ages BUT NOW made known - God Himself coming to live within us by His Spirit. We can now be indwelt by God’s own Spirit who has come within us to express His own nature.
“I became a minister of … the mystery of Christ in you, the hope of glory which has been hidden from ages and from generations, BUT NOW has been revealed to His saints.(Col. 1.27)

Many people in this generation have been written off as “nobodies” ‘losers’ and disqualified by social class or ethnic background, BUT NOW, through Jesus, they are being brought from outcast to royalty. God is touching many of those who were living in darkness and making them His own special people - His own priests and kings.
“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people BUT NOW are the people of God, who once had not obtained mercy BUT NOW have obtained mercy.” (1 Peter 2.9-10)

Let us continue to tell everyone about God’s “BUT NOW.” Let’s tell the outcasts, the frustrated, the dysfunctional the suicidal, the abandoned, the outsiders about God’s “BUT NOW.” No matter how much anyone has been messed up by sin they deserve to hear about God’s “But Now.” The way is open for ALL to receive full complete and perfect restoration to God’s mercy, care and blessing because of what Jesus did.

What a difference Messiah Yeshua makes!