This condition we find ourselves in would be very interesting and revealing to observe, if one were to see it from the Father's mind view that is. But just how may we see His view? By searching with deep desire each day for the revelation of our life as defined by God's word. We may find our being present in His thoughts by our knowledge from His Word of His Son's presence in Heaven, representing us. In other words practicing who we are, not by example or rule, but by Faith in the identification and representation of another. Which was accomplished for us entirely free of obligation, no strings attached. For the express purpose of experiencing eternal life starting now. In other words grace!
One might then ask how is that kind of life accomplished and lived as a active life style. A conscious existing awareness of Jesus Christ The Son as your personal life. The answer is; not in any easy way! Humbleness is required first of all; no light tasks for the self centered soul. That the flesh never will give up pride is a hard second lesson we must learn. Seems we're stuck right there. This means the answer cannot come in the form of the life we exist in as defined by its actions [flesh life]. So our mind then enters with reason and intellect to solve the problem. But it encounters the same problem, the flesh/soul/personality sometimes called sin-nature, will meet us there also.
All this miss- treatment [ordinary life] seems a conspiracy to force upon us a new or renewed intellectual/spiritual/ mental commitment, which one finds in realizing the utter weakness in overcoming the person who we are; that is the life we experience in our bodies, as to action and world interaction. It seems life is always spoiled by sin. Not to mention the interference and constant reality of the human provision needs, ones own personal welfare and its preoccupation's. We are up to our neck in flesh. How can we escape?
We must come to learn this is the inherited nature of our ancestry, called Adam and the flesh; in other words, who we are. Just what are we learning from all this frustration? Well I have come to see by necessity that Adam and my flesh are two different things. Linked yes but separate. What a relief to see this! Let me explain.
Who mankind was by his inherited nature in Adam included the flesh [mans natural nature of sin] but the man or women we were in Adam as defined by our relationship with The Father was done away with by Jesus Christ death upon the Cross, for all of mankind in a judicial manner. This truth to be enjoyed must be accessed only by faith. However the flesh still remains. In other words our physical/mental actions in this life are influenced by the Adam man still. There is no strength or power in ourselves against "the law of sin which is in our members [flesh]" Rom. 7:23. We only need deliverance and have received it to the Fathers satisfaction, when we accepted Christ as Saviour. "There is, therefore, now no condemnation [because the Adam we were to God is dead] to them who are in Christ Jesus" Rom. 8:1. All realized by faith. Which is the only place of victory one will ever find in this life. But alas, the flesh still lingers.
Few that I have met in my Christian experience see that the death of Adam or the old man, pronounced by Jesus Christ as the freedom it is. This is because we have not denied the old man in a scriptural induced faith, and there is no growth without self denial. In faith of the Word he is pronounced dead, that is where life begins."It is written". Even fewer know that we have a New Man, a new inheritance in The Resurrected Christ by the same means. A new platform of life on which to stand, one of Spirit. Why is that truth so difficult to translate into our actual life? Because of the flesh which rules us, that why!
We may have the freedom faith provides by trust in the completed work of the Cross according to knowledge and faith; though few it seems really come to know this in true freedom. But no matter the maturity of the believer the flesh will always lurk in the wings. Why has God allowed such a relief as salvation from death by the sacrifice of His Son for us and left us in such a condition?
The on going work of God in conforming us necessitates the lingering of the flesh, our nature. By His work on the Cross we received deliverance or redemption from what we were in Adam. Yes a one time event, but an on going process. This process requires the flesh. We suffer in this life which is natural. We also often follow the false gifts the world and our own fleshly desires tell us we must have. The result is always disappointment. Disappointment leads to seeking relief, and relief is found in faith, and then growth. There you have it! Therefore we should expect to receive revelation from our very condition. Paul cried out for deliverance from his condition of sin. He found it in identification in his mind with Jesus Christ's death. Looking outside himself for the answer to a risen Lord. All we seek in Christ before The Father for life here is found in this personal positional identification which only Paul directly taught.
"So then I of myself with the mind" as Paul stated in Romans seven, found the new creation that he and we are in, which is positional [what we are in spirit as to life is seen by God in His Son] by faith. The New Adam's spiritual inheritance to us "the new creation" self. It is with his mind he operates in his spiritual faculties; which include the soul/personality of reason, imagination, sensibility, which are now being renewed in all Christians by the Holy Spirit day by day as they are in the Word. My friends this is the only hope we have here in our thoughts for His deliverance from our condition. There is no need to fight the flesh, this is law. We must thank him for our troubles which serve to drive us to Him. Never are we qualified by our behavior, even when doing godly works. Traditions will not help us enter His rest, even when performed with godly emotion and good intent. The Word of God precludes all this earthly behavior; which has become the marker of collective institutional Christianity. We are; "Partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world" 2 Peter 1:4. The place we will find our true ongoing apprehended relationship with the living God is only to be accessed by our mind in the realization of the position we hold in The Fathers sight seen by The Word's revealed definition of who we are. Every other effort is a performance of our condition. My friends no greater joy may be found than that of a heart conscious position of a presence in Jesus Christ!
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