There is simply no other place for us to live than in our consciousness. A redundant statement perhaps but never the less true. My wish above all is to be of a consciousness of my presence in Jesus Christ, and I would hope this is the wish of all Christians. If it is not that on a moment by moment basis I feel I am missing the very fruit of the true Christian experience. If the world is a thing which I tolerate as a natural place to be, and I only run to Christ as a refuge, then I am cutting off the fruit of life desired for me by the Father. "Partakers of the divine nature" 2 Pet 1:4. A life which is His Son in His planned image for me. A image held of myself in Christ by both He and I. Anything else is falling short. Converted means to change to be of Him; which is far different than mere attendance and duty or allegiance to a organization or institution.
The question I have been asking myself lately is how may I live in a current awareness of His presence. Which is really, if truth be told, my desire to not be bothered by the burden of the flesh. I simply wish to be happy. But how can I be happy to the degree I wish if I sin? The answer is I can't. My mind is controlled to a large degree by my desires and my desires are often worldly; the result always then a let down.
I had hoped that my bible study efforts, new found positional awareness etc. would accomplish a lasting comfort. Really I wished for a joyful experience. I want to skip through life a most happy man; which I now know is my selfish desire to be free from my old man. But it is not to be, at least every moment each day! There must be a reason for that and it must be one of The Fathers planing. Why is it that I am bothered by the things that I know are passing away? Where will I find relief?
This morning as I read my devotional The Lord provided a answer. It helped me immensely and I hope it will you..... "If the consciousness of what we are in ourselves, sinful and self centered, has any other effect than, while it humbles us, to increase our adoration of what our father is, we are off the ground of pure grace. The immediate effect of such consciousness should be to make our hearts reach out to God and to His grace abounding over all". What we are in ourselves, are members of a fallen race, subject to the flesh. To allow that weakness to be the tool that builds the Christian house requires some insight, but most of all faith and knowledge. Otherwise we will simply fall victim to the ways of the world and consider it normal.
As I've said many times; to know Christ as life, we must reside upon the co-crucifixion of our Adam man with Jesus upon the cross. This is the only position which the Christian may enter into understanding of his place in The Fathers view and plan. Which is entirely heavenly. To come from any other reasoning is behaviorism or earthly. In other words we cannot enter into the heavenly with Christ, in this realm, as His body, by programs and the performance pressure of how we function in the flesh by service and good works. This is not faith. It is simply not biblical! "Strengthened....according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long suffering" Col. 1:11 Grace is the ingredient which makes our presence before Him by faith possible, its free, no requirements other than faith, but grace comes first. His grace affects us but is first for Him, as it naturally emanates from His being. To take advantage of His gift of grace we must become aware of it. The lessons we learn in the suffering of the flesh will mark the way.
The act of salvation is a deliverance from one position, unacceptably sinful, to another, which is full acceptance in The Son, by the Spirits work in us. We might gain a new moral conviction when saved, but we must have more than that. Really we want to be holy, but we never arrive! Therefore we have a consciousness of our own failure. What are we to do? Now we must find our enjoyment in something else. But what? We may see it in maturity in our new position, in awareness of our heavenly nature in Christ. By His presence before the Father as a Man we become free. It was the Crucifixion of a man that made us so. We only need believe in His accomplishment, for us, as us. We my friends are not righteous in any way. Nor are we free to be anything else than sinful in our natural state. But in faiths mind, the place of spirit, He is all that we need, and He stands as us in the view of the Father. We will find all this freedom and enjoyment as it is meant to be by always placing what we are as sinful men and women seen as being done away with upon the Cross. The sacrifice of God for us! " God forbid that I should glory, except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" Gal. 6:14.
There is always much talk of the Crucifixion being accomplished for us. And we as Christians should live by the Resurrection, which establishes our eternal life shown by example in Christ. Both of these facts are to be seen as a co-action, in other words we are involved in them in spirit, a mental apprehension only. Simply a biblical God directed fact. "That I may know Him...being made conformable unto [out of the realm of] His death" Phil. 3:10. But seldom is there talk of a co-burial. Remember He suffered death and experienced it for us He lived in that death by burial for three days. He knew going to the Cross He would die, imagine God dieing for us. This my friends should be taken as a true truth of the establishment of the death of what we are in the flesh. He became a man like us. That man [us] was buried. We must set ourselves and our mind's definition of Christianity aside in the faith of these co-acts. We will realize a great power and freedom by living in His death. But it is the continued co-action of the flesh, synonymous with the inherited Adam nature that enables us to know this freedom. We suffer, we are guilty, we sin, and therefore acquire need. Let us use these gifts to the flesh from the evil one to catapult us to The Spirit where we may abandon this world by a mental heavenly ascendance in understanding, and live in a conscious awareness of Him as our life as a heavenly position which we too hold; always giving thanks for our circumstances, knowing that the fruit will be a new consciousness in awareness of eternal life and victory.
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