Lately I've become very excited by the direction my blog is taking me. My writing has allowed a entrance to the person I always secretly wished to be, namely a rebel an adventure a risk taker, but was constrained by my own self centered prison, held in by a weakness inherent in my natural man, captured by my own natural demons and sin, with which I had become comfortable sharing my spiritual space; only to remain voluntarily captured. Thank you Lord for giving me a frustration, followed by a great need to break away from a carnal Christianity! And, thank you, my blog victims, for your most kind and tolerant attention in my venting this to you and sticking with me. I am realizing that we live in a age where knowledge has become trivia, and one can say almost anything and get a approving audience. In this modern world our lives are like trash cans, filled with information to overflowing, and therefore knowledge has been marginalized. I now see that to really be a Christian things must be said and thought that carry coast, the radical path. The soothing contemporary journey will no longer satisfy. My life must now be conducted in a manner where a price is expected to be paid and a loss of a worldly manner is cast aside. Millions have died in proclaiming their faith in Christ, so whats a little risk and maybe some humiliation to me. His is a Gospel of the non-natural if looked upon in its profound depth, in what it calls us to be. A worldly well informed comfortable contemporary flock has been victimized by a cheap grace so easily available in our environment of ease and feel good christian culture. Well one mans radical is an others hero. So my friends lets take a great adventure down the highway of sin, blood and death and see where it leads. Perhaps we will discover a hero along the way!
Sin must be dealt with this we know for the bible tells us so! We all know, are at least should, that we were justified by Jesus death on the cross. Most of modern Christianity simply rests in comfort there. This position we were placed in was accomplished entirely by someone else; like if your classmate in college did your term paper, you got an A and then your degree, well you have the diploma, but the true credit lies elsewhere. The gift we received in this justification is reconciliation, which brings us back to the place God desires man to live, in spiritual innocence with Him in His Glory. Even though this all was accomplished and is a done deal we still carry the sense of sin, and the church has done a mighty fine job of soothing this feeling. The problem with feelings they go away then we are again left locked in a room with a sinner. Is this a revolving door the Christian must continually go around and around in? The whole trouble, in my observation is,we are encouraged by christian culture and our worldly nature to try to sense the gift of salvation. Much of the problem I believe is in that we are reckoning [counting it true] with out knowing it. Knowledge must come before any truth can be relied upon. Reckoning must be recognized by a divinely reveled fact; if not faith has no Strong foundation upon which to stand. Knowing the purpose of the blood of Christ shed for you, will help to hold up and expand the platform of justification on which we rest.
"But with precious blood, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot, the blood of Christ" 1 Peter 19. Just prior to this statement Peter talks of the redemption the Christian Jews received from a vain way of life [church tradition] handed down from their fathers. This vain manner of life also applies to us, yes we were relieved by the blood of Christ, but as the ancient Christian Jew was we are prone to return to vanity despite salvation and the presence of the Holy Spirit; so we are weak in that area also, even though we have been called now by so much more available knowledge, to a holy life. Now what do we do? I have heard in church for years the term washed in the blood, and we even drink it symbolically at the Lords Table, so understanding just how this image can be applied to our growth must be important to the Father; as He has so strongly indicated in His Word. So how are we to see our Saviours blood washing over us, and then grow from this knowledge?
"For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the alter to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul" Lev. 17:11. Life then is in the blood, this is the symbol, and physical reality God choose to use to convey the importance of its value in atoning for our sins. It's interesting to note the above verse refers to the soul, mans personality or his self conscious which will be relieved from quilt by this atonement. The people first introduced to Christianity knew the symbolic nature of using blood to receive atonement by sacrifice.This was Gods way for His people to sooth their souls, or guilt in their human personality and in His deeming this atonement by shedding of blood they could carry on in relationship and approach The Father. Should it be any less for us? God became a man with blood flowing through Him for a reason. Just as it was in the Temple Sacrifice the blood of another, and thereby opening the way to worship the Living God In Christ"s shedding His blood for us; we now, as the ancients, can approach God, not on our merit are any attainment we have accomplished; it is only by the way of the blood shed for us by Jesus Christ and this for the remission of sin just as in the old world animal sacrifice only then it was temporary. It's the sin principle contained in our souls that God has chosen by His Son's blood to be dealt with in this sacrifice, now a permanent Representative act. However while clearing our conscious of condemnation of sin and thereby we see justification and a boldness to approach God, it does not eliminate the old man, the flesh- Adam personality in us as human creatures; which is in no way acceptable to The Father. Remember the bible tells us flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of God, it is only in spirit by faith in who we are in His Son! Therefore only death can deal with this man who still sins.
And so be it, by the choice of the sovereign God the Creator of all things, sin is dealt with by the loss of His Son's blood. By that same sovereign choice He did away with our old nature in the death of Jesus Christ His only beloved Son. "For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus sake, that the life also of Jesus might manifest in our mortal flesh" 2 Cor. 4:11. This verse puts us up against the wall, as we are told by God to manifest the life of His Son in the here and now and the tool or key is our own conscious awareness of death. Who's death? Jesus death. How can we get this done? The answer is in finding the position we are placed in by God by this sacrifice to deal with sinful mankind. We are forgiven by the blood only to discover we are left in the body of a sinner, that is our nature. Therefore we need deliverance. Again our sins are dealt with by the blood but we ourselves are dealt with by death on the Cross.
In the death of Jesus on the Cross the bible tells us we all died. Without seeing this position by faith in God's word which tells us this, we cannot grow spiritually; we will simply remain carnal, the sanctification process is cut short right where we live. This knowledge when reckoned upon, a command to count this fact as true, produces a understanding of our identification with the Holy Son of God in His death, which resulted in a position we find ourselves in before God. In that identification by faith in the Son's death we gain power to live in spiritual maturity. It really is a revelation from God. It is not that we reckon ourselves to be dead and therefore we are dead; that would be coming from the natural mans reasoning. It is because we have died, because we see by faith and knowledge in the declared biblical facts what God has done for us in His Son is finished. It is from the realization of our own death having been accomplished in Jesus Christ as the Federal Representative of us to The Father that identification/position and spiritual growth is acquired Standing upon this grounded fact by faith we will be able to live in victory because we will find that what is true of Him becomes our own experience " as He is so are we in this world". In contrast if we look to what we are in ourselves we are destined to live in the old carnal man. We arrive to the goal of glory in Christ only by faith in this revelation knowledge. Then we become aware that we are; "alive unto God in Christ Jesus".
We have all heard of the Old Covenant, made to the ancient Jewish tribe, which promised them the land and more.Then there was the New Covenant which also was to the Jews establishing God's plan for a future for them in the kingdom promised here on earth; but there is little talk of the Eternal Covenant. " Now the God of peace, He who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepperd of the sheep, in the blood of the eternal covenant" Heb. 13:20. And also shown when Jesus declared at the last supper "This cup is the New [eternal] Covenant in My blood" This promise or covenant was made between God and His Son, but includes us, and involved blood and death. Jesus by His obedience of faith in Gods promise that He would be Resurrected allowed Himself to be sacrificed. As a man on the cross He felt the same emotions we might and even asked His Father why had He been forsaken, that had to be the ultimate suffering for a man who walked the earth in oneness with The Father. The Eternal Covenant which Christ relied on carried with it in His Resurrection our inclusion. Jesus acted in the roll of a High Priest in conveyance of all the promises inclusive in His promise from The Father to Him and His Church body by the Eternal Covenant in His Blood. This is where eternal life dwells my friends. Everything for us as Christians starts with, and is found in all that Jesus Christ was in his Life on earth as a man, to His representing us to God on the Cross, and the promises of the Eternal Covenant fulfilled in His Resurrection. My friends we no longer need settle for a sinful old Adamic existence a carnal, milk feed Christianity; if by faith in the great promise from the Father to the Son we seek understanding in His blood shed for us, and His death as ours. By His obedience, we are now positioned in Him in Heaven for ever, and now have the power by His Holy Spirit to live as new men with total reliance on the promises given to our New Adam, Jesus Christ! This is now our nature, this is now our new life of liberty and freedom. The road we travel is from sin, to blood, to death. A hero will be found on this path.
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