Advanced Payment- how many of us have had advanced payments at some point in our lives? Not necessarily just monetary, but in other ways too. Has someone ever given you an advance of something with the expectation of your eventually seeing more? Try a few samples, there are more where that came from. Here's part of your order, the rest is on the way. An advance on a paycheck may be given by someone who expects something in return for give that advance to you, but not always. Sometimes people will give you an advance on your expected future work without making you pay for the advance. You've heard of singers and actors, as well as authors getting advances from the people they are working for, with the expectation of getting payment in full upon completion of their concerts, movies, etc. Authors will often get advances on expected income from future sales. Why am I going on and on about Advanced Payments? Because we are given an advanced payment on our inheritance in Christ! We are!
Right now we can get an advance on eternal life, our inheritance, I'm not making this up, this is God's word, His truth! What a marvelous truth it is that we can study and pray on. We are told to pray for this Advanced Payment as well…
Luk 11:13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
Yes, the Holy Spirit is our Advance Payment on our Eternal Life, right now! The Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance until we are redeemed!
Read the following enlightening excerpt, and may God bless us all with the Holy Spirit of promise, right now!
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'The Saint's Inheritance
We will now consider the saints' inheritance and see if in that we cannot also preach Christ and Him crucified.
There was an inheritance promised to Abraham and his seed. It was promised to him and to his seed that they should be heirs to the world. That seed is Christ and all who are in Christ. The earnest, the pledge, of that inheritance is the Spirit of God.
"In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory." Ephesians 1:13, 14.
The Spirit of God is the advance payment on our inheritance, and then Paul prays that "the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead."
The whole gospel has reference to the inheritance of the saints. That inheritance is obtained, not by the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.
If we are Christ's then are we heirs according to the promise. What is there in the preaching of the saints' inheritance, if we do not carry with it Christ, as the one through whom that inheritance is obtained? He is the One "in whom we have obtained an inheritance." The promise to Abraham was that in him should all the nations of the earth be blessed. In making that promise to Abraham, Paul says that God preached the gospel unto him. See Galatians 3:8.
Gal 3:8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.
Can we preach Christ in the resurrection? The resurrection goes with the promise of the inheritance. When God gave the promise to Abraham, he staggered not at it, but was fully persuaded that what God had promised He was able to perform. He had faith in God to raise the dead and that faith was shown in perfection when he offered Isaac on the altar. So his belief in the promise was based on his belief in Christ as the resurrection and the life. In Christ is the law and the Sabbath; in Him is the inheritance. Christ crucified and risen again is the means by which we can obtain that glorious home.'
Excerpt EJ Waggoner
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