What If?

What If?

Have you ever ask the question “What If”?  What if I had been born in China? What if my parents had been rich?  What if I had gone to better schools?  What if I had been a twin?  The “What If’s” could go on and on and I am sure they do for many people.

This past week a friend told me about a Psalm he had read that had calmed his spirit.  He was worrying about our Country and other stuff like illegal Immigration.

My friend was reading in Psalm 91.  It is titled in my English Standard Version of The Holy Bible as, (My Refuge and My Fortress).  Now that title should get your attention.  If you are like me you need a personal refuge, a place you can run to and be safe.

So I began to read Psalm 91, and was overcome with the thought, “What If,” what if I believed what I was reading?  How would my life be different?  What if, I believed the opening verse, it says; “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.”  Before you judge me too harshly let me state that at the age of 27 years of age I bowed my knee to the Lord Jesus Christ and ask him to forgive me and to come into my life.  Before that I was a Baptist, after that I became something very different; I had a new identity, being a Baptist was no longer important, I was loved and accepted and acceptable to God. 

Now back to “What if”, shortly after I entered into a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, I met Ken Ryan.  Ken was a local oilman and that may have drawn me to him at first.  But you were not around Ken long before you knew you had met a man who walked in integrity.  Proverbs has a lot to say about a man like Ken, Proverbs 10:9 “Whoever walks in integrity walks securely.”

Ken loved to invest in men like me.  He would spend time with me, studying the Scriptures, and often he would ask the question, do you believe what you just read?  My answer was a quick “Yes” and Ken would say something like I wish that was true.  I was greatly offended by Ken’s remarks, surely he knew that I loved Jesus and believed that the Bible was true.  Ken would always make this statement; “If you believed the Scriptures you would obey them, you would act by faith on what the Scriptures have revealed to you.”  I must tell the truth, I did not like Ken very much at those moments, but I loved Ken Ryan.  He has blessed my life, and has become one of my heroes.

I hope it is becoming very clear that God has been talking to me about my unbelief for many years, and has sent many men into my life to arouse my thinking to “What if.”  Do you recall earlier, where I talked about getting a new identity?  Something happened that changed me at the age of 27 in Victoria, Texas, in a hotel room where I was staying.  That night without my knowledge, Galatians 2:20 happened in my life.  It was many years later that I began to understand the truth that is found in verse twenty.  It states, “I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

That night, I became a vessel that God moved into and my identity changed forever.  Let me be quick to say that the power is not the vessel, but what is stored in it.  An example is pie, I like pies, but I’m not that hung up on the vessel the pie comes in.  It was years before I had any understanding of this truth.  And now I still ask; “what if,” what if I acted on my true identity in Christ?

This is a small sample of what the Scriptures say about our identity in Christ:

Romans 3:24   You are now justified and redeemed

Romans 6:7    Free from sin’s power

Romans 15:7   Accepted in Him

1 Cor. 1:30      Have wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption

1 Cor. 2:16      Mind of Christ is in you

1 Cor. 6:17      One with the Holy Spirit

2 Cor. 5:21      We have the righteousness of God (cannot get more righteous)

Gal. 4:7           A son/daughter and heir of God

Eph. 1:3          Blessed with every spiritual blessing

Eph. 1:4          Chosen, holy, blameless before God, Redeemed, forgiven

Eph. 1:13        Sealed in the Spirit   

“What If” you and I acted like Jesus tells the truth, and began to act like who God says we are?  How would your life change?  Would you live in fear?  Would you worry about today or the future?  Would you tell others about Jesus?  The answer should be yes, because your actions would match up with your beliefs.  You can be in a room with many TV’s, but unless you turn them on, you will not see or hear anything.  God is living in your vessel, if you are in Christ!  He is waiting for you and me to believe, we can talk about knowing the truth of being crucified with Christ, we can believe it in our brain, but brain understanding is not spiritual understanding.  He is waiting for you by faith to act on the truths you have in your brain.  It comes down to telling God, I’m tired of knowing it in my head and not in my heart, I want the Holy Spirit to reveal to my heart, the truth of being crucified with Christ.

Dan Stone and David Gregory in “The Rest of the Gospel” make this statement: “Without revelation, and knowledge from the Holy Spirit, we’re not going to have an experiential understanding of the unseen and eternal realities that are ours.”  In the next paragraph they state; “Our battles in the visible realm force us to finally ask the right question.  Until we recognize that the right question doesn’t focus on the externals of life, we’re never going to experience the unseen and eternal.  When we finally realize that the right question has to do with the life within us, then the Holy Spirit will come along with an answer.”

My dear friend, that is the answer we have been searching for, the Holy Spirit’s job is to be a revealer of what He has seen from God the Father and God the Son.  Look at 1 Corinthians 2:9-12, Jesus told us very clearly that [The Holy Spirit] will not speak on His own initiative, look at John 16:13-15.  So “What If” we quit trying to do it in our minds and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal it by faith, in the Son of God, who lives in our earth suit.  This I know, it will not happen until we give up on the external, your flesh and mind trying to understand the unseen and the eternal realities that are already ours.  So, “What If”!

From the Back Porch, (6-13-2007)

Bob Rice