Foundation & The Key

The Foundation

The element that brings about reconciliation, healing, and restoration is Jesus Christ, our common Head, and his love and compassion as we allow it to be ministered to us and through us. He is the only true Foundation on which we can be successfully established. Jesus alone is the center and foundation of what it means to be a Christian and a part of God's Family in the fullest sense. He alone shows us the Father and what it means to be and to live as a child of God, spiritually begotten of the Father through Baptism and the Holy Spirit. With the Father, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to bring to our minds all that he taught us and to empower us for his ministry through us to the world around us. We, the Church, the Family of God, are called to be and to be seen as the Ministering Body of Christ. It is because we have forgotten this central truth that the Church is so divided.

 The Key

The key to the ministry of reconciliation, healing, and restoration of all things in Christ is to be "Christ where we are." "Christ where we are" means CHRist In Service To where we are. If we function with this attitude and on this foundation, we will see more and more of the Family of God coming together in unity as the sign of hope that the world can believe and accept. The world needs to know that Jesus is not an ism or a label or a denomination but is a Person who is alive and active today in those who bear His Name and are Christened or anointed with the same anointing of the Holy Spirit as he was. What a call! What a challenge! This won't happen overnight, but it is happening. Old foundations are crumbling all around us. God is laying a new and surer foundation in each of us who will let him.

The blood of our natural family flows through us and gives us the right to the reconciliation, healing, and restoration of the members of our own family. We have both experienced this in our own lives. Stronger than that is the Blood of Jesus Christ that flows through all of us who have been reconciled to the Father and have become his Family because Jesus shed his Blood for us. It is this Blood-relationship that makes us truly one in Christ.

We do not always agree with our natural family members, nor do they with us. We do not always understand each other, though we must try to. What is important is that we are family! This is more so with God's Family. What the world needs to see is that, beneath all the labels that Christians use to distinguish and sometimes isolate one another, there is a Family, moving and ministering together in unity as the Family of God, made one under God our Father, in Jesus our Brother, and through the Holy Spirit, the Bond of Love, Power, and Unity who holds us all together.

Jesus began his life and ministry in and through a family. May we work together to become the Family of God that he came to establish.

How to be Reconciled to God

1. Jesus says to you, “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above (by God the Father). No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh (human nature) is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:3, 5 & 6).

  • Have you been born from above by God the Father through the Holy Spirit and Baptism?

YES (  ) NO (  ) I DON’T KNOW (  )

2. God so loved you that he gave his only Son so that, if you believe in him, you may not perish but may have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn you but to save you. If you believe in him, you are not condemned. If you do not believe, you are condemned already because you have not believed in the Name of the only Son of God. If you believe and are baptized, you will be saved. If you do not believe, you will be condemned (John 3:15-18; Mark 16:16).

  • Even though you may have been baptized or even may have attended church most of your life, can you remember a time in your life when you personally and deliberately felt sorrow or regret for your sins, turned to God, confessed your sins, asked for forgiveness, and made a personal profession of faith in and acceptance of Jesus as your Savior and Lord from your heart?

YES (  ) NO (  ) I’M NOT SURE (  )

3. If you believe in the Son, you have eternal life. If you disobey the Son, you will not see life but must endure God’s wrath. Jesus says, “I am the gate for the sheep. All who come before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved and will come and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came so that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 3:36; 10:7-10).

  • Have you ever surrendered your will completely to God and committed

your life to the lordship and authority of Jesus Christ in order to follow him,

whatever the cost?

YES (  ) NO (  ) OFF AND ON (  )

4. Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me because I am gentle and humble in heart. You will find rest for your soul. My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” “I appeal to you, therefore, by the mercies of God, to present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may judge what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Jesus again says, “Listen, I am standing at the door, knocking. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come into you and eat with you, and you with me. To the one who conquers, I will give a place with me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Matthew 11:28-30; Romans 12:1 & 2; Revelation 3:20 & 21).

  • Are you willing to commit or to re-commit yourself to Jesus Christ as the only true foundation of your life and to let him give you the power, by his Holy Spirit, to be what he has called you to be from all eternity?

YES (  ) NO (  )

As an acceptance of this invitation, pray the prayer of surrender that follows. It may not all apply to you but make it your own where it does.

The Prayer of Surrender

Jesus, I acknowledge that I was born in a condition of separation from God because of the Original Sin of disobedience by our first parents and am, therefore, a sinner by nature and by choice. In your Word, the Scriptures, you have said that “it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, loose living, hostilities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. All these evil things come from within, and they corrupt a person” (Mark 7:20-23; Galatians 5:19-21).

No wonder my life is such a mess! It is full of many of those things, and I have been content to do nothing about them. But, Jesus, you took all these upon yourself and died on the Cross, even though you were never guilty of any of them yourself. By your death on the Cross, you bridged the gulf between man and God. You became the bridge over which I can cross from death to life and, thus, be brought to friendship with my Father. You desire to save me from this human nature and from eternal damnation. You want to give me instead a share in your divine nature and make me a member of your Family.

Jesus, I am tired of going nowhere. I acknowledge that I am really not in control of my life at all. I have been letting all these things that you said are part of my human nature control me. I admit, Lord, and agree with you that I have not made much of my life to this point.

Jesus, I am truly sorry for and regret my sins. I turn away from my sinful nature and life. I turn around from the direction I have been going and ask your forgiveness for my stubbornness and my unwillingness to let you be Savior and Lord. Jesus, have mercy on me and forgive me, a sinner!

I give up my struggle to be somebody when, in reality, I now realize that I am nothing apart from you. I surrender to you, Jesus, and to your perfect plan for my life. I accept and acknowledge you as my Savior and Lord. Bring me to friendship with your Father so that I can know him as my Father also.

Fill me with the abundant life for which you died and rose from the dead. Make me the new creation that you want me to be (1 Corinthians 5:17 & 18). Fill me with new life and power through your Holy Spirit whom you and the Father have sent and through whom I also can say, “Abba, my Father, my Daddy.”

Bring forth in me the fruit of your Spirit: the fruit of love, of joy, of peace, of patience, of kindness, of generosity, of faithfulness, of gentleness, of self-control (Galatians 5:22 & 23).

Thank you, Lord Jesus. And, when I slip back into one of the sins of my old human nature, which I will at times, help me turn quickly to you and ask your forgiveness because you have promised to forgive me if only I confess my sins, express my sorrow and regret for them because they offend you, turn away from them, and turn back to you (1 John 1:9).