IMAGE IMAGINED

      " As is the earthy, such are they that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they that are heavenly" 1 Cor. 15:48. Lately I have been made more aware of how our present personally embodied first Adam-self image controls our life. While I'm sure it seems, I have talked endlessly about the old man, and his effect on our spiritual understanding and therefore self image, I believe it is all important we continue to delve into the image he portrays in our Christian life. Just where does the rubber meet the road? How can we escape his power? We carry deep inside us fears, anger, and so called psychological weakness that are seemingly always present. We seek healing through groups and therapy, which is not necessarily bad. The church book store is filled with books on the 10 steps to a better you and smiling white toothed, long curly hairdo faces sincerely gaze into our living rooms promising happiness and prosperity, if their latest book is only read. If all this is working and if the latest road to purposes we are driving on is being paved successfully for us by the seeker friendly clergy, then why has our contemporary American christian culture come to what the latest studies all show, widespread biblical illiteracy, and a wordily life style? Something is clearly wrong. Do we take our Lords sacrifice and only enjoy the forgiveness, taking it for granted? Does the world of psychological helps offer more than the Word? Or can one read and derive true meaning and be internally changed by a scripture such as; " If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things [the controlling self image of our weak sin nature] are passed away; behold ALL THINGS are become new" 2 Cor. 5:17. If all things means, all things, then our self image is included, and that is where my Christian new nature needed help the most.

       "Beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory" 2 Cor. 3:18. Well my friends there you have it directly from God's mouth to your mind, we are changed into the very same image as the Son of God in Heaven! The trick here is to be able to behold and then live out that image. How do we do that? Well of course that can only be accomplished by the Spirit reveling this true image of ourselves to our spirit/mind. And how does that work? Why it can only be by the Word of God, and that by faith! How do we then receive it and realize it? By our spirits being attuned to Him.This requires what the Bible calls, walking in the Spirit. That would not be, being merely grateful for the grace of our salvation, or a goose bump feeling at church; we can get goose pumps at a Seline Dion concert. It would not be accomplished by a act like building a house for poor people, a good work. Its not even found in the intellectual knowledge of the scriptures alone that will provide this great gift. No, the image of us in Jesus Christ will be identified in our own self perception by faith, and our self perception of being positioned in Him in Heaven. The answer folks then is simple: we find out who we are in Christ and thereby in faith obtain His image, by being able to define Him, and our position in Him, becoming the occupation of our mind. The scripture teaches we cannot be in any other place but positioned and identified in Him in order to be with the Father. Yes we have other objects before us found in the old Adam personality, we can describe that as a poor dead mans self image, our sin. Do we really want to stay in that place? We have available to us a new image, by the understanding of Gods Word, when we acknowledge and count as true, our identification in Christ. In that revelation, The Lord Jesus will fill the vision of our souls image of ourselves with His personal being and personal image. I know this is true, because it happened to me!

      It strikes me as very reveling that the church has discarded so much of the Word of God, found in Paul's teaching on the image we must carry as the Father's only means of relationship with us; that of our life positioned in His Son. Paul's Gospel says; "You are NOT in the flesh [God does not see us in our Adam personality it is dead], but in the Spirit [His Holy Spirit which can only glorify the image of Jesus], if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you" Rom.8:9. As we can see this positional image is contingent upon the Spirit dwelling in us. This could be thoughts of as a place of containment of the new natures self image we occupy by faith in the Word of God written by Paul, and is simply a fact for all true Christians. Then why do we not easily appropriate it in our daily life's self portrayal?

      "For the things that are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal" This should give us a hint as to the problem. Then we read " Even though we have know Christ according to the flesh [in His earthly ministry], yet now we know Him thus no longer." So Here we have a answer. If we look at our Christian life from the platform of the natural man, things seen, there is no lasting image to behold: so in the contrary we must see our relationship with the Father with spiritual understanding, as that is unseen and therefore eternal. After all Jesus is no longer here in person, so where else are we to look but in His unseen presence before the Father and that by faith only? The second verse is telling us we can not even know Jesus in a natural earthly seen way. There is a new way which resulted from the Resurrection, a way of spirit, which is really our mind learning to understand our position and thereby we, are realizing how we are conformed into His image.

      The problem for me to begin to understand these very real and livable positional truths was; I for many years viewed and studied Biblical teaching from a place of death, the material things seen, natural first Adam personality, which we all must know was condemned to death at the Cross by Jesus Christ yet we still carry it, for we do sin. So how do we stop seeing things with Adam eye's and began to see who we are in the Eye's of God? The answer is simple, we pay attention to God's Word on the subject. Is there anything of us that is impossible for God to accept? It might come as a surprise there is. God cannot receive ANYTHING from the natural man, and here is the bad news; we all, even Christians are predisposed to living out our lives in a worldly natural fashion, which can never have eternal value before God. Yes God loves us, yes we are justified[saved] if we have been born again, yes He hears our prayers, and His grace flows upon us. But we
in the natural man personality are not sanctified in our minds as to our presence in His Son. The deal is done were just not aware of it. For me I came to discover in my despair, and then by a need which brought me to my knees, and it was then that The Holy Spirit displayed His Son, in opening the door to growth and maturity by my beginning to see the image of my life in the objectification of Jesus Christ in my minds vision of Christian reality. My new natures image now being imagined and taking on a present reality in my everyday walk.

      For me looking back at my life; being a Christian and not to have carried the image of Jesus Christ in my minds understanding, as to being positioned in Him, is like a man who buys a lottery ticket puts it in a drawer and then forgets it, in the mean while his number is drawn, he wins millions but never knows it. My friends it is my hope that you will be motivated enough by these blogs and mostly your own need to reach out to God in requesting He reveal Himself to you in your new natures understanding. The prayer of our Saviour was "And this is life eternal, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" John 17:3. To know God and His Son is Jesus prayer for us, to know means much more than a emotional devotion are mere awareness of salvation, the defining answer of that knowledge is found in our realized position in Christ. " But you are not living the life of the flesh [us now as Christians in the new nature], you are living the life of the Spirit[positioned in Christ], if the Spirit of God [really] dwells within you-directs and controls you, Rom.8:9 amp.

      I will end with a quote from J.B. Stoney, which say all that is necessary. "That sin in its root is in the flesh, I entirely admit; but my position now is, that I have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in me, and He manifests Christ in me, We find that Christ, according to the will of God, has brought to an end, judicially,, in His own death unto sin, the old man-and thus the believer is not in the flesh, but in the Spirit; and the Lord Jesus Christ is the exclusive delight and object of his heart".