"But to the one who does not work, but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness" Rom. 4:5
When we receive life from the Lord Jesus Christ there was no work involved, no self effort, and there should be none in the manifestation of His life in and through us. Grace is all we have and all we will ever need. Faith in the bibles facts always proceed the manifestation.
When I was in the Army we used to sing a song while running: "up the hill, down the hill, over the hill, round the hill, air born rangers". Singing it caused great bravo and instilled feelings of bravery, but it did not make us air born fierce fighters. We were actually if anything by our song as stimulation, counterfeit fighters. The hope of the cadre was that the comradeship of the march and the words we sung would brings us to make a decision to become advanced infantry fighters. A sort of brain washing.
What we are in Christ and what we become in Christ are given purely by His grace or a free gift and can be engaged in only by faith. In the trying to be what we already are in our own effort we miss the great advantage of our failure, ["In my weakness He is made strong"] and therefore His grace and also the opportunity of faith. Any victory we have by trying is false under those conditions. In other words if a Christian has to work for his freedom it is not the real thing. "Now to the one who works, his wages are not according to grace, but according to what is [self centered] due" Rom. 4:4. The question we should ask ourselves; is anything due us? The answer should be yes, death. "For the wages of sin is death".
Death is what is due, but life is what we got! Praise God for His grace. The thought that should ever be before the Christian mind is; how do I live this grace driven life? This is not a will-less life but a effortless life, if grace is the supplier at least. The condition for life under which God by His nature has required for living in Him must be a sin free life. And if it is lived solely by grace and faiths facts it is just that. Any other way is counterfeit or self effort. Yes we might sin in our body or daily life, but grace given to us has done away with the judgement of it, and faith in the facts prove it. So by a grace life we are really entirely dependent for a life in the Spirit on the freeing work of the cross for forgiveness and for deliverance unto that life by our faith in the position we have been put in, not in any way by our performance. But is our singing together, exercising our sense's as we run the race possibly substituting a counterfeit bravo? Causing us to believe that we are actually living the grace supplied freedom life of Spirit? Is this the life of the law of the Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus? Do we know the difference?
I have attended one church or another for thirty seven years and until the past few years I never knew there even was a difference. Until the Lord in His grace heard my cry for something more than my self effort for life,[which always failed] a new horizon of reality at the top of the hill remained elusive. As Paul said; "I have not arrived but I move forward to apprehend that which I have been apprehended of [my position in Him] by Christ Jesus". Which I now know is my quest also and it can only be traveled driven by pure grace, arrived at in faith of facts! The study of the doctrine of position and identity in Christ opened a very refreshing door [please read the Green Letters by Miles Stanford]. Now guided by my positional reality I may find my way up the hill; allowing grace to led the way.
"Having predestined us [a position] unto the adoption of children [a position] by Christ Jesus to Himself [a identity] according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has made us accepted [a position and identity] in [a position] the beloved [a identity]. In Whom [a position] we have redemption through His blood the forgiveness of sin according to [a positional /identity] the riches of His grace" Eph 1 5-7. This is the position by grace we abide in, in the Lord Jesus: It is Spirit. We apprehend it and live it out only by faith. With Him as our positional and spiritual acceptance before God we will learn to expect less and less from ourselves. As we become fully established in our position of being Hid in Christ and in the Beloved, we increasingly reject self. This is then how we take Him as our identity and become our destiny of Christ's body on the earth.
Knowing myself as I do, and how it was for so many years that I used the motions, traditions and enthusiasm of the group handed down by its leaders, with good intention, as substitute for my true Christian identity. I now with a heavy heart carry a burden to share life with others. The life which can be found in the inner man of all saints; accepted in the beloved, a positional and mingled Spirit life. The danger of all of mans organizations that carry faiths torch is that the activity easily becomes the counterfeit. The natural goodness in the Adam man is always available: holding the flock in the grip of the old nature. Feelings of having the spirit by expressions/outward motion/enthusiasm in comradeship, and even a determined loyalty to the well respected doctrines. Spoken of by beloved past patriarchs and the brotherhood of the saints, are often a barrier to living a accepted by grace in the Beloved positional/mingled spirit of life. Which is provided for only in faiths effort. Engaged in moment by moment, and in no other way.
Words are not enough, good intentions have no true spiritual value. Only the broken heart and the fellowship of Christ's suffering will due. Before we can be the corporate body we must have the individual realization, the reckoning by faith, that we are dead in Christ. The old man is no more to be fed. A new man has been raised up and He is Christ. We are identified and positioned in Him for life. We are with Him in heaven because He is there representing us as a living intersession. He has dispensed Himself, entered us, to supply Himself on the earth, as our new creation self, He is here. All else, even if it produces good, is a counterfeit. "He that abides [lives their life by faith positioned] in me, and I [ in your awareness of your identity positioned in Me] in him brings forth much fruit: for without Me [as your identity before the Father] you can do nothing" John 15:4,5.
Up the hill over the hill round the hill grace filled Christian soldiers! The battlefield awaits but we may now be fully trained, no longer a counterfeit, by taking in the Spirit of life by faith; which is in Christ Jesus. It is by faiths action power mingled with our renewed spirit. Making ready our mind in a newness of identity. Life in the Spirit supplied to form the maturity of faiths position we hold in the heavenly by the ingesting of the Word of God! Victory only comes through the facility of Spirit. There is no place in glory for the goodness of the natural Adam. So let us run the race fully armored in His identity and always in the power of faiths position of us in His Spirit.
No comments:
Post a Comment