Total Access

Total Access

• NFL Total Access is the only live, nightly show, dedicated to NFL football! NFL Total Access gives fans inside access to all 32 teams, including the latest NFL news and reports from coast-to-coast. Watch exclusive interviews with players and coaches and behind the scenes footage from inside team facilities. Link to Website

• The city of St. Louis and surrounding communities have multiple sites for what they call Total Access Urgent Care. 
  • At Total Access Urgent Care “patients…have access to on-site X-ray,
    CT imaging, ultrasound, lab testing, IV hydration, and much more.”
    Their “Mission is to provide fast, friendly, and affordable healthcare in every community.” 
    Link to Website
  • They’re not only accessible to individuals but also to communities…at any time for any situation.
    TOTAL ACCESS!!!
• Some of you may know what it’s like to have an open-door policy at school or work. An opportunity to meet with your boss or teacher and ask or share anything you’d like.  

 
Limited and at time Denied Access

• Why My Access is Denied to Certain Websites? Many countries, organizations and educational institutions block websites for different reasons. For example, you can’t access social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter…Similarly, schools and colleges restrict social access inside campus as a policy to control students.
  Link to Website
• Cable companies offer differing packages that allows their customers total access to whatever package is chosen and purchased. Unpaying customers are denied access.

 
The Bible offers each person a Total Access Package.
What are some package benefits if your names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life?

• Philippians 4:3; Revelation 3:5; Revelation 13:8; Revelation 17:8; Revelation 20:12; Revelation 20:15; and Revelation 21:27.

 
Benefits…
Total Access to Christ.

• Ephesians 3:11-12 (ESV) This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.
• Romans 5:2 (ESV) Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
• Ephesians 2:18 (NKJV) For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.
• The word “We” refers to those adopted by Christ individually and corporately regardless of race or social status.
  • Ephesians 1:5 (NLT) God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
  • Paul’s meaning of “in Christ” has both a personal and a communal aspect. The personal element is beautifully summarized by Adolf Deissmann who states, “Christ is Spirit; therefore He can live in Paul and Paul in Him. Just as the air of life which we breathe is ‘in’ us and fills us, and yet we at the same time live and breathe ‘in’ this air, so it is with St. Paul’s fellowship of Christ: Christ in him, he in Christ.” The result of the incorporation of the believer into Christ and Christ into the believer is the manifestation of “every spiritual blessing” necessary for the believer’s spiritual health (Ephesians 1:3). Additionally, F. F. Bruce summarizes the communal element by explaining that being “in Christ” breaks down social and racial barriers between Jews and Gentiles. In other words, just as the Hebrew of Hebrews obtained new life in Christ through faith and not the law, Gentiles also have the opportunity to participate in God’s community through faith and not the law. However, even beyond the Jew and Gentile community, Craig Keener notes that Paul’s emphasis on a corporate unity in Christ necessarily expands to “all ethnic, cultural, and earthly kinship connections.” …An explanation of “in Christ” to a curious non-believer starts with an understanding of the inner self. Every human has a body, but humans are also born with a spirit and when individuals confess their need for a Savior, then God, in the form of the Holy Spirit, joins their spirit through faith (Romans 8:16). The incorporation of God into the individual’s life provides the inner power to live healthily from the inside-out due to the righteousness of God residing within the new believer (Romans 3:22). The implications of receiving the gift of God’s righteousness are staggering (Romans 5:17). Specifically, the new believer no longer needs to attempt to find their value and worth from outside themselves in the things of the world such as their performance, other people’s opinions, or external circumstances. Instead, believers can rely on the righteousness of God within them to complete them (Colossians 2:10). The result is that the new believer has the opportunity to experience true freedom for the first time in their life (Galatians 5:1). https://www.livestransforming.com/pauls-meaning-of-in-christ/
  • Your perspective about everything changes when you're IN Christ.

Total Access to Spiritual Blessings.

• Ephesians 1:3 (NIV) Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
  • What is the spiritual blessing?
    • The blessing of God at work in our lives…every kind of blessing whether past, present, or future.
      • Pas (BAGD p. 784) everything belonging, in kind, to the class designated by the noun, every kind of, all sorts of.

Total Access to Contentment.

• Philippians 4:12 (NIV) I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.
  • In Gordon D. Fee’s book Paul’s Letter to the Philippians (p. 433), he “points out that the Apostle Paul ‘learned to accept whatever came his way, knowing that his life was not conditioned by either [having a need or having plenty], and that his relationship to Christ made one or the other essentially irrelevant in any case.’”
    • Autarkas (BAGD p. 152) – content, self-sufficient.

Total Access to Return Thanks.

• 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NKJV) in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
  • Charles A. Wanamaker, in his book The Epistles to the Thessalonians on p. 200 “To thank God at all times is to see God working in every situation to bring about the divine saving will. This is not to say that God causes suffering and affliction, but to acknowledge, as Paul does in Rom. 8:28, that God works for the good of the elect through every situation. For this reason the Christian is obliged to give thanks to God at all times.”
  • Pas (BAGD p. 783) totality, in everything.
  • Eucharisteo (BAGD p. 415) to express appreciation for benefits or blessings, give, thanks, express thanks, render/return thanks.

This Thanksgiving Season…

• As a Believer, take some time to Reflect and Return.
  • Reflect on all that God has allowed you access to, and then take time to Return or express your thanks to Him for all He’s done, is doing, and will do in your life. Practice giving thanks on a daily basis in every situation faced and allow it to become habitual. 
• As an Unbeliever, Access to these packages are limited and at times denied until you accept the invitation to Salvation in Him.
  • No better day, than on Thanksgiving to become a lifetime follower of Christ. Will you accept that invitation today? Visit this website if that’s a step you’d like to take today https://stepstopeace.org/