Is Your Personality Filled With Joy, Delight, and Freedom?

By Rev. Ernest O'Neill

Paul says, "I appeal to you by the tender pities of God," and what he means is this: God sees the way you and I are. He sees that the thing has got a bit off track, and He sees that your personality is not working with the same joy and delight and freedom as that of the birds and the animals. He sees that, and that's why God engaged in the greatest recall in history, even greater than General Motors or Ford. Just as all things were made by Jesus, including your arms and legs and eyes, and nothing was made without Him that was made, so God saw that what He had made had become perverted by our misuse of it, and He took you and all that had gone wrong with you and put you into His Son and absolutely remade you there. That's God's tenderest pity -- that He took all that you are and He remade you so that you would work right. That's what Calvary means. Paul says, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:3-4)

Loved ones, that has taken place and that's the deepest reason why Paul says, "I appeal to you through the tender pities of God, to live the way I'm going to outline." Why? Because your remade personality already exists on the shelves of God's heaven, and Paul is saying, "Live this way, because it will enable the Holy Spirit to manifest that renewed personality here on earth in your present life." That's it. Not "I appeal to you to live this way so that you will be renewed." No! "I appeal to you to live this way so that the renewal that has already taken place in heaven in you can be manifested by the Holy Spirit."

Let's say you bought one of those cars that was faulty and GM or Ford engages in one of their famous recalls, and they pull your car back in. You drive it into the factory. Why do you drive it out again after it has been repaired? Do you drive it out again so that you can repair it? No! The maker already repaired it; he already renewed it; he already put the fault right. You drive it out so that you can experience the benefit of the repair. That is what Paul is saying. "I appeal to you, by the tender pities of God that have enabled Him in His Son Jesus, not only to make you once but to absolutely remake you, I appeal to you to live the way I'm going to outline to you, not so that you will be changed but so that the renewed personality that has already been created in Jesus will begin to be manifested here in this world."