The word "regeneration" is translated from the Greek word palingenesia, palin means again and genesis is birth, the word simply means new birth. This word is only used twice in the NT, first in Matt. 19:28, spoken by the Lord in reference to His future millennial earthly kingdom. This is a time in which the Jews of the earth will have their mind opened [regenerated], to enable them to know their true messiah. Secondly it is used by Paul in Titus to apply a spiritual or heavenly positional context to Christianity, when he wrote; "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, [the reformed mans effort toward good] but according to His mercy He saved us.... by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit".
The washing is a biblical symbol for the believing man being cleansed by God's Spirit of his very nature, the man who is not acceptable. This is the believing reformed man, within his mind, coming to know a life based on God's mind and the actions He took upon the Cross. Thus doing away with any concept that he may become a instrument that can know or please God in and of himself. The reformed or righteous effort is the attempted remaking of who we are into something godly or the Adam of old, trying to do good to please God. Paul in Titus is calling for the believing man to be renewed and cleansed of the old by his intake of the very Word's of God. His thoughts washing us by His own Words to regenerate [make newly alive] our spirit by a inner all new conscious awareness that we have now become positioned in Christ for our life here. A life which requires no self righteousness [works] to live it out, only a new awareness! "If any man be in Christ he is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new" 2 Cor. 5:17.
Regeneration then, may be defined as an act of God whereby He bestows upon the believing sinner a new life. This life is God's own life, the imparting of His nature. Not by our actions or even attitude will we know it, but only as our perception allows us to see that which God sees in His Son. It is thus we become partakers by awareness, of the divine nature given by grace, "a new creation" 2 Cor. 5:17, "created in Christ Jesus" Eph. 2:10. Yet most settle for just being merely reformed men. Why?
The mindful condition of man has always ruled his direction in life; man is sinful, self-centered and always seeks his own way. Being a Christian does not change that. Our teachers and pastors have the same issues. Therefore the changed content of our mind, accomplished on our own, sought individually, is the key to a new life of freedom from a earthly provision. " I have been crucified with Christ" Gal. 2:20.
We tend to define ourselves and our faith through the content of our lives. All that we do, think, experience and even feel is content which may define us. This fate [self concern, worldly influence] takes up most peoples lives and absorbs their attention entirely and is in fact the common identity most choose. When we think of life we are usually referring to what we have, our blessings, what we have learned form others and then how we feel about it. But we often do not know who we really are identified [a biblical vision/revelation] as in God's heavenly view. We simply have ignored God's Word about it. "When they lifted up their eye's they saw no man except Jesus" Matt. 17:8. The content or self analysis of life is also made up of the circumstances of the past and our concern for the future controlling our thoughts. We have a ruler over all and it is ourselves.
What is there other than content then? If the Word of God can be trusted there is much more indeed! "To him that does not work, but believes on Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is granted for righteousness" Rom. 4:5. God has placed His children within a higher order, that of faith, in which the totality of their true lives is more than what they will ever experience; as their new life is founded upon faith [the reality and essence of God] in a new message for the newly created spiritual man. He, the real man, cannot be found in what he does on the earth or even in what he thinks about it. "Now we are delivered from the law" Rom. 7:8.
The problem for most is that they tend to think of and long for a experience. But all experiences are colored by the past and our limited earthly influenced perceptions. Even the spiritual life the Father has made for us contained in His Son is assessed by mans pre-programed prejudice. Our churches tend to promote this form of approach as spiritual. But really we have no spiritual life at all, when all is given over to content/experience, as in ourselves alone [what we feel and do] we are just dead men walking. "My soul waits upon God; for my expectation is from Him Ps. 62:5. If we endeavor to transfer the spirit life to thoughts, feeling and experiences it simply becomes more content. All of this of course stems from our internal sub-conscious and conscious mind and its various pre-conditioned formed concepts.
However we know that there is a formless power that has penetrated the content conditioned man. It is the believers task to allow that which is immaterial to become a new identity, align ourselves with it. This can be only done within the mind. We thus become a conscious/spiritual participant in the unfolding of His divine nature within our very own mortal bodies. "The Spirit takes what is Mine [Jesus'] and will make it know to you" John 16:15. Many fear the contemplation of a immaterial/spiritual life, as content still holds them back, it has become what they trust. The institutionalized church usually presents this content as the Christian life.
The trouble is that in content [seeking experience] we are simply trying to be suitable to God. Really in order to satisfy our own hearts. That is legality and bears the mark of making oneself the object; and not our Lord in heaven; as Paul taught. Who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places" Eph. 1:3. Going forward in the mere strength of humanity is unfortunately the common prescription of the church and what most Christians today accept as the christian life style. They have acceded too a earthly cultural position of life here with the hope of heaven as their reward. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast" Eph 2:8,9.
Unfortunately simply acquiring knowledge of God's truth alone will not lead us to our spiritual destiny. Often we are encouraged to be excited by freshly gained information. Made to be purposefully stimulated. Really so that we might be good workers for a earthly institution, and have a happy church experience, all with good and godly intent of course. However this is not God's way toward His regeneration! Paul said of his own ministry toward the local Christians; "My little children I travail in birth again [teach at a elementary level] until Christ be formed in you" Gal 4:19.
It is not the contentment or quality of our lives, the culture or the improvement of it's situation that God's grace call us unto. This should be obvious as we all suffer [some more some less] in this world and will all die! No we must discover that it is the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, Himself making us partakers of His own life that grace brings. We are being made into and have actually become new beings according to God. "If any man be in Christ he is a new creation" 2Cor. 5:17. However it is the very thoughts/content of our mind that keeps us from knowing His life in grace and restfulness while here in mortal bodies. How may we then gain the peace and freedom to enter into His new creation life now?
The key is to learn to be present in the new creation, the image of His Son we are held to within the mind of God. However if we are not prepared by His Mind/Spirit/Word within our own mind, the new mind, with God's new thoughts of us, we will always remain in Adams [earthly/mortal/fleshly] content and condition: thus subject to the world system and our own old mental dysfunctions, never honoring the sacrifice made by Christ Jesus to change us into His new creatures in conscious awareness or spirit. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not unto your own understanding" Prov. 3:5.
The Christian has a much greater calling than mere experience, or good deeds, even proper morals and attitude. But how will he live it and what can he expect from God's life? First it must be remembered that our Christian life is only lived out by the Lord Jesus Christ as He maintains the believer by His own Spirit. In other words it is not us that is doing it, it isn't even our life! The problem arises when we try to experience it, make it content, make it our own. "Thus saith the Lord...Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh [man's ways] his arm" Jer. 17:5.
Again we see that it is content, form, function, experience, that stand in God's way in living out His life through us. Few will sacrifice themselves, their ego and its attachment to the things of the earth to live outside themselves in the risen Lord; be consciously present in the moment that is His life by Spirit. And more sadly the church seldom teaches a new life though acceptance of spirit through a new recognition of being, as taught by the Father in His Word by Paul.
No now we are new men, new creatures, but the difficulty is in our apprehension of it! Why? It all has to due with our state of consciousness. Our minds apprehension is either of ourselves what pleases us, or of the Lord and what we are made into in Him by His Regeneration of us. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call [spiritual heavenly positional identification] of God in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 3:12.14.
We can never understand or experience His new life through thinking about it because what we think about becomes content; we will only want to feel something. This is self or ego! Self/the flesh has been rejected from God's life. "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God" Rom. 8:8. His order for us is formless spiritual, objectified in His Son in His personal view, and is transferred to us by His Spirit. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. Rom. 8:9. But we can see it, know it, even understand it, be conscious participants in it. How?
By first receiving it in abject weakness; thus eliminating ego from the reception because of such a great need. We may know this new immaterial conscious apprehension is true by His Word. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Cor. 9.. Lastly we may enjoy His new life by the faith we have come too from this Godly exercise. We will then have a new consciousness unfolding, His higher purpose for us. We experience His Regeneration. This is the Christian life! Whose life will you choose?
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Thursday, November 24, 2016
WALKING IN THE LIGHT
. "NOW YOU ARE LIGHT IN THE LORD....WALK AS CHILDERN OF LIGHT" Eph.5:8
It is the ego, the unconscious predisposed collective thought within ourselves that contains us as captured by the Adam of the earth's mindset and also serves to impede our walk in His light. In other words what we are and how we view all things including our spiritual life, is influenced even controlled by our very condition as Adam men. This is the mind pattern we allow ourselves to live in as earthly men. But is there another way, another choice and if so how will we find it?
The answer is yes as the Father has made a new way for us, His way. A new possibility for us earth bound creatures. But it requires a new perception of a new life, a spiritual life, strictly a internal one, and a new concept given by God's graceful provision. God has made the way clear for this never before known [prior to Christ's Resurrection] path for man by His Spirit. But a most valuable and necessary realization must come first: to allow ourselves to be enabled to see clearly that what we perceive, experience, think, within the confines of the earthly Adamic mind, is ultimately not who or what we truly are in the Fathers perception.
We have the privilege to discover that we cannot find our divinely created selves anywhere in that which only and continuously passes away; the ego the I, the Adam of the earth mentalities un-conscious concepts, which drive the Adam man's mind. No we must look elsewhere to find our new creation lives; "Set you mind on things above". We must therefore poses a new mind first for it's very perception. His thoughts of us have been given us by grace. Made available for acquisition of a entire new life. Then what holds us back?
The underlying emotion that traps us within the confines of the man in the world is fear. "Having therefore boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus" Heb. 10:19. The fear of being nobody, the fear of nonexistence, the fear of death. So we work naturally toward making that which we know so well [the ego/works/tradition] on earth define us. We will always choose the ego because of our lack of awareness of another way. But only the truth of who we really are, once intelligently realized, will set us free to be allowed to choose who we are made to be by the Father. But how will we find it? How will we live it once found?
Our identification is the key, the answer. Who we are announced to be by the self-centered ego all takes place in that which we perceive most valuable and available for use on earth, or our form and function. But no forms are permanent and no activity will survive or produces a living sanctification. "Present yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead" Rom. 6:13. So if we build our Christian life around the ego or self there will always be a sense of insecurity. Even though in our man made world we appear to be confident, we even may find some peace and comfort there. In other words we place trust in a temporal spiritually dead persona, a self construction, the inner man we were under sin; by pursuing the ego's earthly internal sub-conscious prescription. These are the works of men and have influenced what has become to often a carnal church. And seems the most prominent and current approach to Christianity today. One of a earth bound structure.
However There is a new man, a new personality, a new identification, awaiting us; one from which we may gain a divine incite. We will find it by the will of our faiths perception all by ourselves. But only when we are altered first by a deep and profound personal need toward God's destiny: the mental formula He has made for His children of His Son's inheritance. "The law of life in Christ Jesus" awaits. To know this and more importantly to live His life however we must look to His Words to guide the way!
There is little use in trying to force any spiritual issue in our lives or anyone else's. When our Father has us prepared for progress through our acknowledged weakness and the knowledge of His facts, we will then believe and we will then be able to "reckon" upon and rest in His revealed truth for living the new life.
Paul, God's great spokesmen to us, struggled with the exact same condition as us "sin, the world, the natural man". But through God's revelation he learned to live a new kind of life; a internal life formed by the Holy Spirit in him, he took on a new and conscious identification. He learned that no law was allowed nor any works would do as a means of producing either justification or sanctification toward the life in Spirit which God had made new for him. He discovered that the Cross had swept away any vestige of value to be found in the world or himself. He found our father had imparted a new life and nature to which nothing that applied to the old held any value. But we, as he was, are still found in a mixed condition. We have two principles in us, the old and the new. How may we separate them?
In Gal 2:20 Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ". Then he said; "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affection and lusts" Gal. 5:24. Both of these are judicial statements or God's view of us! It is true of us, but it is ours to make it true, appropriate it in ourselves individually. This is what Paul was saying in Philippians when he cried out; "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" Phil 3:14.
Then Paul told us; "You have died and your life is hid with Christ in God" Col. 3:3. Again this is a judicial statement or a truth concerning us strictly from God's point of view. In other words we are looked at by God as dead [annulled in Hs consideration], in the old Adamic order or natural world/earth/traditional centered ego-man. But he has also said, we are a new creation now.
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here" 2 Cor. 5:17. How is this true? Because we have been in His mind re-created in the image of the resurrected Son; a Man in heaven in the flesh. "Set you affection on things above, not on thing on earth" Col. 3:2.
So we may in our faith of that as true of us in God's view leave the old thoughts or Adam order morally as to identification behind. Paul's said; "You have died, [judicially] yet you live". Your new life is a hidden life; not in the sphere of our bodies. We have no order to conduct a institution on the earth to improve mankind. The Spirit life is not empirical, but a life of thought, of faith, a inner life only. A life that trusts and rests in the assurance of a brand new truth revealed to us as individuals by faith in the Word's facts. Yet a active practical life we may live here in the rest and assurance of the moment; as we occupy His thoughts of us. Sadly few have develop this kind of a spiritual life taught by Paul. Why?
Because we often fail to take to heart and are almost never taught Paul's exhortation in Rom. 6:1 in a practical and personal way. God told him to tell us...."Likewise reckon [count it internally as a absolutely living truth] yourself also [like Paul] to indeed be dead unto sin [Adam's earthly natural ego centered concept] but alive unto God in [we contained in God's mind sanctified or separated unto His Son's Person/Spirit as a represented fact for the active conduct of a life eternal by spirit or in our mind] Jesus Christ our Lord".
"We thus judge [holding this new thought firmly in mind], that if one died for all [Adam men on earth in their old concept or ego] that they which live [in new identification thought] should not henceforth live unto themselves [the old man's thoughts] but unto Him [aware that we are seen by God in Him] that died and rose again" 2 Cor.5:15. In other words our only thought of ourselves as those regenerated [new birth, a new beginning, a new order] in Christ is to be as God sees us as "in Christ". He is our only object to define the Christian life dwelling within us by Spirit or God's thoughts! But He can only be contained in or even found in faith's thoughts on our part; to gain a new personal identification He will supply. By that belief He is then honored to live through us morally, actively, practically, thus providing by Spirit the light to guide the way."That He might make known the riches of His Glory on the vessels [us] of mercy Rom. 9:23.
Thus by applying God's thoughts of ourselves given to us by Paul's revelations we become whole. No longer a fragment or the Adam of the earths ego's perception. Our new nature progressively emerges; which is one nature with God. " Be ye perfect" [original Greek is whole] just as Christ commanded. In other words be what we already are in God's sight!
Knowing this new self is rooted simply in BEING, instead of lost in a earthly conception or rooted in the worlds manifestation of the Christian life. The new life is found just as Paul said; "Always bearing about in the body [mind] the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal bodies" 2 Cor. 4:10. Paul is saying of himself he is reckoning it true because he has found all that we are in and of ourselves as natural earth creatures is simply sin.
Paul learned the hard way; he was troubled, perplexed, persecuted, forsaken; yet not distressed and certainly not destroyed. As his life was identified by his daily death "for Jesus sake". So death and life go together. However few practice the death part preferring a life they are taught by the Adam world.
God has given us a new life to practice in these mortal bodies, a life by/of His nature. But we cannot have it except as we keep the old life in death or under nullifying power or inactive; as too spiritual identification. God will place us, just as Paul, in His new life by our weakness. "Most gladly, therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me .... for when I am weak then am I made strong" 2 Cor. 12:9,10. It is thus we at enabled [given the authority] to walk in the light!
.
It is the ego, the unconscious predisposed collective thought within ourselves that contains us as captured by the Adam of the earth's mindset and also serves to impede our walk in His light. In other words what we are and how we view all things including our spiritual life, is influenced even controlled by our very condition as Adam men. This is the mind pattern we allow ourselves to live in as earthly men. But is there another way, another choice and if so how will we find it?
The answer is yes as the Father has made a new way for us, His way. A new possibility for us earth bound creatures. But it requires a new perception of a new life, a spiritual life, strictly a internal one, and a new concept given by God's graceful provision. God has made the way clear for this never before known [prior to Christ's Resurrection] path for man by His Spirit. But a most valuable and necessary realization must come first: to allow ourselves to be enabled to see clearly that what we perceive, experience, think, within the confines of the earthly Adamic mind, is ultimately not who or what we truly are in the Fathers perception.
We have the privilege to discover that we cannot find our divinely created selves anywhere in that which only and continuously passes away; the ego the I, the Adam of the earth mentalities un-conscious concepts, which drive the Adam man's mind. No we must look elsewhere to find our new creation lives; "Set you mind on things above". We must therefore poses a new mind first for it's very perception. His thoughts of us have been given us by grace. Made available for acquisition of a entire new life. Then what holds us back?
The underlying emotion that traps us within the confines of the man in the world is fear. "Having therefore boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus" Heb. 10:19. The fear of being nobody, the fear of nonexistence, the fear of death. So we work naturally toward making that which we know so well [the ego/works/tradition] on earth define us. We will always choose the ego because of our lack of awareness of another way. But only the truth of who we really are, once intelligently realized, will set us free to be allowed to choose who we are made to be by the Father. But how will we find it? How will we live it once found?
Our identification is the key, the answer. Who we are announced to be by the self-centered ego all takes place in that which we perceive most valuable and available for use on earth, or our form and function. But no forms are permanent and no activity will survive or produces a living sanctification. "Present yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead" Rom. 6:13. So if we build our Christian life around the ego or self there will always be a sense of insecurity. Even though in our man made world we appear to be confident, we even may find some peace and comfort there. In other words we place trust in a temporal spiritually dead persona, a self construction, the inner man we were under sin; by pursuing the ego's earthly internal sub-conscious prescription. These are the works of men and have influenced what has become to often a carnal church. And seems the most prominent and current approach to Christianity today. One of a earth bound structure.
However There is a new man, a new personality, a new identification, awaiting us; one from which we may gain a divine incite. We will find it by the will of our faiths perception all by ourselves. But only when we are altered first by a deep and profound personal need toward God's destiny: the mental formula He has made for His children of His Son's inheritance. "The law of life in Christ Jesus" awaits. To know this and more importantly to live His life however we must look to His Words to guide the way!
There is little use in trying to force any spiritual issue in our lives or anyone else's. When our Father has us prepared for progress through our acknowledged weakness and the knowledge of His facts, we will then believe and we will then be able to "reckon" upon and rest in His revealed truth for living the new life.
Paul, God's great spokesmen to us, struggled with the exact same condition as us "sin, the world, the natural man". But through God's revelation he learned to live a new kind of life; a internal life formed by the Holy Spirit in him, he took on a new and conscious identification. He learned that no law was allowed nor any works would do as a means of producing either justification or sanctification toward the life in Spirit which God had made new for him. He discovered that the Cross had swept away any vestige of value to be found in the world or himself. He found our father had imparted a new life and nature to which nothing that applied to the old held any value. But we, as he was, are still found in a mixed condition. We have two principles in us, the old and the new. How may we separate them?
In Gal 2:20 Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ". Then he said; "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affection and lusts" Gal. 5:24. Both of these are judicial statements or God's view of us! It is true of us, but it is ours to make it true, appropriate it in ourselves individually. This is what Paul was saying in Philippians when he cried out; "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" Phil 3:14.
Then Paul told us; "You have died and your life is hid with Christ in God" Col. 3:3. Again this is a judicial statement or a truth concerning us strictly from God's point of view. In other words we are looked at by God as dead [annulled in Hs consideration], in the old Adamic order or natural world/earth/traditional centered ego-man. But he has also said, we are a new creation now.
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here" 2 Cor. 5:17. How is this true? Because we have been in His mind re-created in the image of the resurrected Son; a Man in heaven in the flesh. "Set you affection on things above, not on thing on earth" Col. 3:2.
So we may in our faith of that as true of us in God's view leave the old thoughts or Adam order morally as to identification behind. Paul's said; "You have died, [judicially] yet you live". Your new life is a hidden life; not in the sphere of our bodies. We have no order to conduct a institution on the earth to improve mankind. The Spirit life is not empirical, but a life of thought, of faith, a inner life only. A life that trusts and rests in the assurance of a brand new truth revealed to us as individuals by faith in the Word's facts. Yet a active practical life we may live here in the rest and assurance of the moment; as we occupy His thoughts of us. Sadly few have develop this kind of a spiritual life taught by Paul. Why?
Because we often fail to take to heart and are almost never taught Paul's exhortation in Rom. 6:1 in a practical and personal way. God told him to tell us...."Likewise reckon [count it internally as a absolutely living truth] yourself also [like Paul] to indeed be dead unto sin [Adam's earthly natural ego centered concept] but alive unto God in [we contained in God's mind sanctified or separated unto His Son's Person/Spirit as a represented fact for the active conduct of a life eternal by spirit or in our mind] Jesus Christ our Lord".
"We thus judge [holding this new thought firmly in mind], that if one died for all [Adam men on earth in their old concept or ego] that they which live [in new identification thought] should not henceforth live unto themselves [the old man's thoughts] but unto Him [aware that we are seen by God in Him] that died and rose again" 2 Cor.5:15. In other words our only thought of ourselves as those regenerated [new birth, a new beginning, a new order] in Christ is to be as God sees us as "in Christ". He is our only object to define the Christian life dwelling within us by Spirit or God's thoughts! But He can only be contained in or even found in faith's thoughts on our part; to gain a new personal identification He will supply. By that belief He is then honored to live through us morally, actively, practically, thus providing by Spirit the light to guide the way."That He might make known the riches of His Glory on the vessels [us] of mercy Rom. 9:23.
Thus by applying God's thoughts of ourselves given to us by Paul's revelations we become whole. No longer a fragment or the Adam of the earths ego's perception. Our new nature progressively emerges; which is one nature with God. " Be ye perfect" [original Greek is whole] just as Christ commanded. In other words be what we already are in God's sight!
Knowing this new self is rooted simply in BEING, instead of lost in a earthly conception or rooted in the worlds manifestation of the Christian life. The new life is found just as Paul said; "Always bearing about in the body [mind] the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal bodies" 2 Cor. 4:10. Paul is saying of himself he is reckoning it true because he has found all that we are in and of ourselves as natural earth creatures is simply sin.
Paul learned the hard way; he was troubled, perplexed, persecuted, forsaken; yet not distressed and certainly not destroyed. As his life was identified by his daily death "for Jesus sake". So death and life go together. However few practice the death part preferring a life they are taught by the Adam world.
God has given us a new life to practice in these mortal bodies, a life by/of His nature. But we cannot have it except as we keep the old life in death or under nullifying power or inactive; as too spiritual identification. God will place us, just as Paul, in His new life by our weakness. "Most gladly, therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me .... for when I am weak then am I made strong" 2 Cor. 12:9,10. It is thus we at enabled [given the authority] to walk in the light!
.
Sunday, November 6, 2016
TO TELL THE TRUTH
"Truth is received in the mind, assimilated in the heart, and manifested in the way in which
we live it out"
"As the result of the work of His cross and resurrection, eternal life is received complete by those who believe. But while that life is victorious, incorruptible, and indestructible, the believer has to come by faith to prove it, to live by it, to learn its principles, to be conformed to it. The life in itself in the believer needs no addition, so far as quality and quantity are concerned. So far as power, its glory its potentialities are concerned nothing can be added to it. But the course of spiritual experience, of spiritual life, is to discover, to appropriate, and to grow in all that the life represents and means".
However the discovery and living out of the Spiritual life is often impeded by a instrument that seeks experience for its justification, namely the human mind of the first Adam or old flesh man referred to in the bible. The I [ego] we identify with and within which we are programed by our past to be. We are all conditioned to want something, feel something expect something, this is simply the pre-programed un-conscious mind at work. Yet the bible teaches in order to enter the new life He has made we need to be something all new. "The mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God; for neither can it be; and they that are IN the flesh cannot please God" Rom. 8:7,8.
This new non-flesh man we must come to be and know is the new creation man God has made in heaven in Spirit. This new mans life though is only reveled first by a great need, or the self noted failure of the earthly Adamic personality [the flesh] to please God. Then recognized by a knowledge of a new creation by Spirit. And lastly lived out through faith in what we are in the new man God has made us to be in that Spirit. A faith in which we have learned and come to know the new man we are made into as "Hid in Christ". A spiritual life gleaned only from the Word of God and lived out by faith. "The Spirit of truth....will lead you into all truth" John 16:13.
The Word tells us the very thoughts of God which forms our spirit. And therefore a opportunity to gain a knowledgeable mental formation of the life we have in Him. A mental position given by God that we then may transfer to ourselves, to define our very existence. This is the faith image that we will encounter by His Spirit life in us; once the old I, the flesh, the natural ego, the very existence of the first Adam, is put to death within our consideration as having any value. Just as He has declared it to be in His Word and in His mind as judicially annulled. God does not reference or hold to account this old man whom He has positioned in death through the work of His Son in any way what so ever!"So that we render a service which, instead of being old and formal, is new and spiritual" Rom. 7:6b, Wey.
What we have become now and newly in God's estimation has no form as it is Spirit. But we are physical and earthly in the first Adam persona which we live in, in condition. That is why we are spiritually restricted in the Adam man; who can only think in its accustomed formula. That of the flesh or self-centered Adam of the earth. We must leave this man behind by changing our thoughts of Him. Securing in our mind any contemplation of the natural or carnal Christian Adam man as having any value towards God. In fact the more you make your thoughts of him the more you solidify his identity in you. By dwelling in him we are cut off from the spiritual dimension God has made for His children. "We have received....the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given us of God" 1 Cor. 2:12.
In order to have His new spiritual awareness we must learn to "not to think" of our spiritual life in terms evaluated by what we are familiar with in the here and now in our earthly Adam identification and condition. Or even of what we think we will be in the splendid by and by for that matter. For His true life we can only live by what He has said to us in His Word now in the moment, by faith. In other words by trusting entirely in Him for identifying in us what we are to Him as to who we really are. This thought when truly dwelled upon gives us a new power: we then may relinquish gladly our old identification, to enjoy His new life. To gain the produce of His life is the surrender of our life, "reckon it as dead". We then will discover the new creation man just as shown to us in His Word! "Seeing that we have died to that which once held us in bondage [the flesh], the law [the flesh life of works] has no hold over us" Rom. 7:6a, Wey.
The Word of God says we now live in God's mind and ours also as spirit; despite our feelings to the contrary that prescribe a experience. The Father now declares life is ruled by a new law: "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus". We have been remade in spirit by the power or application of this spiritual law to create a new reality which God has established. We are formed into another man, a new man, a second Adam just as seen in His Son in His sight. Unlike the first or old in every way. We only must appropriate him. He is a Man who exists in perfection before Him, a Man in the flesh. Christ Jesus the object of all of God's thoughts toward us has become our image in God's view. Then by His power, in honor of our faith of that as true His identity is transferred to us by the Holy Spirit. 'Old thing have passed away; behold, all things are become new' 2 Cor. 5:17.
In us He appears not as a physical form a man made to do good works; even though He is manifested in our mortal bodies while we linger here. We can only live this spirit life made by His design by faith in His accomplishment as motivation. It is really His life becoming manifest in us by our trust which He honors then with spiritual growth. Not for a remade flesh Adam man here to change things in pleasing God. No now we have been newly made in Gods view into spirit. Nothing can ever be added of any value to reconstruct the Adam persona of old to form a new life. The crucified and dead Adam can never glorify Him in any way. " I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus: Phil. 3:14.
We all know flesh cannot enter, so spirit [the thoughts in the present moment of our mind] is the only alternative for His life within us here. We now are found made by God into a second inheritance [His Son's] one of SPIRIT. We enter and live in Him in the spirit of our mind. But we have a condition, the flesh we must deal with. So while here, and in order to honor what God has done, we must learn that we really have two men: two personality's, even two natures to choose from. It is essential that the Christian know this, so that he can make the distinction between the two and then choose God's spiritual path."The spiritual did not come first, but the [old man] natural, and after that the [new man] spiritual" 1 Cor. 15:46.
The spirit man is not made for for performance sake but to honor what God has done within us. How? By opening our eyes to all that is contained in His Mind for us as life just as spelled out in His Word. With this new knowledge we then may gaze into the glass and see His image as we view ourselves, existing in Him within His Son, all experienced by faith. We operate in this new life by simply counting it true. Nothing more! God then can work through our newly informed sub-conscious producing great peace, joy and a service not done in vain. A God ordained triumph over the Adam condition. "But we all, with unveiled face, [having been enlightened] beholding as in a mirror [our new self vision] the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit" 2 Cor. 3:18.
Really what we have become in Christ is in the realm of the un-manifested for practical purposes. We have a deep struggle with that concept as Adam conditioned men: proven by so much effort put into having a self centered experience. Also we can note it [the desire for proof by action] by what we have built; the obvious commercialization and the institutional like formations that many of our religious communities have adopted. Which generally simply follows the worlds example. In other words we attempt to look like what we expect [have been taught] God expects of us, so that we might recognize something familiar in order to please the first Adam mans need for personal justification. This is the works and law of man, the flesh mind of the old Adam. "For you were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls" 1 pet. 2:25.
We cannot escape this old man, only deal with him. Buy putting him in the place of death as God has. Our old Adam based ideologies and learned colloquial belief systems do not reflect the new man God has created. In order to find him [the new personality] we must change our mind as to who we are entirely. "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" Phil. 3:14.
The main barrier to that change is that the world has influenced the church and it has been lead down a road that has fostered what is unfortunately become a widely recognized biblical illiteracy, to the churches great shame. Even some might see it as embracing superstition and a alignment with the world, i.e. charismatic experience, encouraged emotionalism, cultural changes. kingdom building, psychological first aid, emphasis on works, and a lot of diversionary worldly entertainment. All of these in themselves tend to serve the needs of a class of men of the earth who can only recognize the old man as their quide. Men who perceive as proper the fulfilling of what is really a religious life purposed toward Christianity. All while operating within the confines of the first Adam mind. Which through no fault of its own simply follows the information that the spiritually dysfunctional Adam man is predisposed to. "For we walk by faith NOT by [worldly perception]sight" 2 Cor. 5:7
Our leaders mean well and are often loving Christian men and women yes but their hermeneutic [the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, especially of the Bible] is earthly.This type of thinking, to please the Adam man, requires [for justification] a man who has changed; the impossibility of the first Adam reworked. No this can never be as he is dead in God's sight. So there is a restriction upon their spiritual view, as their focus is upon the management of men's affaires; reflected in the attempted manifestation of a spiritual life controlled by the established pre-suppositional earthly Adam mans sub-conscious thought toward accomplishments on earth. "Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain" Phil. 2:16.
They miss heaven, the spiritual life which God has designed. They embrace the practical they have come to know here. Their reward in this world is seen as imminent, therefore more appealing to a first Adam mind set. However to live in the second man or new Spirit, first we must study and come to know the Word. Then we must recognize the loss or death of the old man. We then must wait and often suffer in the old, to have the new. However this is not the type of life favored or even possible of the Adam man [carnal Christian] who is mentally engaged with this world.... to tell the truth. So the question is which man will we choose? "Thou will show me the path of life" Ps. 16:11.
we live it out"
"As the result of the work of His cross and resurrection, eternal life is received complete by those who believe. But while that life is victorious, incorruptible, and indestructible, the believer has to come by faith to prove it, to live by it, to learn its principles, to be conformed to it. The life in itself in the believer needs no addition, so far as quality and quantity are concerned. So far as power, its glory its potentialities are concerned nothing can be added to it. But the course of spiritual experience, of spiritual life, is to discover, to appropriate, and to grow in all that the life represents and means".
However the discovery and living out of the Spiritual life is often impeded by a instrument that seeks experience for its justification, namely the human mind of the first Adam or old flesh man referred to in the bible. The I [ego] we identify with and within which we are programed by our past to be. We are all conditioned to want something, feel something expect something, this is simply the pre-programed un-conscious mind at work. Yet the bible teaches in order to enter the new life He has made we need to be something all new. "The mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God; for neither can it be; and they that are IN the flesh cannot please God" Rom. 8:7,8.
This new non-flesh man we must come to be and know is the new creation man God has made in heaven in Spirit. This new mans life though is only reveled first by a great need, or the self noted failure of the earthly Adamic personality [the flesh] to please God. Then recognized by a knowledge of a new creation by Spirit. And lastly lived out through faith in what we are in the new man God has made us to be in that Spirit. A faith in which we have learned and come to know the new man we are made into as "Hid in Christ". A spiritual life gleaned only from the Word of God and lived out by faith. "The Spirit of truth....will lead you into all truth" John 16:13.
The Word tells us the very thoughts of God which forms our spirit. And therefore a opportunity to gain a knowledgeable mental formation of the life we have in Him. A mental position given by God that we then may transfer to ourselves, to define our very existence. This is the faith image that we will encounter by His Spirit life in us; once the old I, the flesh, the natural ego, the very existence of the first Adam, is put to death within our consideration as having any value. Just as He has declared it to be in His Word and in His mind as judicially annulled. God does not reference or hold to account this old man whom He has positioned in death through the work of His Son in any way what so ever!"So that we render a service which, instead of being old and formal, is new and spiritual" Rom. 7:6b, Wey.
What we have become now and newly in God's estimation has no form as it is Spirit. But we are physical and earthly in the first Adam persona which we live in, in condition. That is why we are spiritually restricted in the Adam man; who can only think in its accustomed formula. That of the flesh or self-centered Adam of the earth. We must leave this man behind by changing our thoughts of Him. Securing in our mind any contemplation of the natural or carnal Christian Adam man as having any value towards God. In fact the more you make your thoughts of him the more you solidify his identity in you. By dwelling in him we are cut off from the spiritual dimension God has made for His children. "We have received....the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given us of God" 1 Cor. 2:12.
In order to have His new spiritual awareness we must learn to "not to think" of our spiritual life in terms evaluated by what we are familiar with in the here and now in our earthly Adam identification and condition. Or even of what we think we will be in the splendid by and by for that matter. For His true life we can only live by what He has said to us in His Word now in the moment, by faith. In other words by trusting entirely in Him for identifying in us what we are to Him as to who we really are. This thought when truly dwelled upon gives us a new power: we then may relinquish gladly our old identification, to enjoy His new life. To gain the produce of His life is the surrender of our life, "reckon it as dead". We then will discover the new creation man just as shown to us in His Word! "Seeing that we have died to that which once held us in bondage [the flesh], the law [the flesh life of works] has no hold over us" Rom. 7:6a, Wey.
The Word of God says we now live in God's mind and ours also as spirit; despite our feelings to the contrary that prescribe a experience. The Father now declares life is ruled by a new law: "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus". We have been remade in spirit by the power or application of this spiritual law to create a new reality which God has established. We are formed into another man, a new man, a second Adam just as seen in His Son in His sight. Unlike the first or old in every way. We only must appropriate him. He is a Man who exists in perfection before Him, a Man in the flesh. Christ Jesus the object of all of God's thoughts toward us has become our image in God's view. Then by His power, in honor of our faith of that as true His identity is transferred to us by the Holy Spirit. 'Old thing have passed away; behold, all things are become new' 2 Cor. 5:17.
In us He appears not as a physical form a man made to do good works; even though He is manifested in our mortal bodies while we linger here. We can only live this spirit life made by His design by faith in His accomplishment as motivation. It is really His life becoming manifest in us by our trust which He honors then with spiritual growth. Not for a remade flesh Adam man here to change things in pleasing God. No now we have been newly made in Gods view into spirit. Nothing can ever be added of any value to reconstruct the Adam persona of old to form a new life. The crucified and dead Adam can never glorify Him in any way. " I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus: Phil. 3:14.
We all know flesh cannot enter, so spirit [the thoughts in the present moment of our mind] is the only alternative for His life within us here. We now are found made by God into a second inheritance [His Son's] one of SPIRIT. We enter and live in Him in the spirit of our mind. But we have a condition, the flesh we must deal with. So while here, and in order to honor what God has done, we must learn that we really have two men: two personality's, even two natures to choose from. It is essential that the Christian know this, so that he can make the distinction between the two and then choose God's spiritual path."The spiritual did not come first, but the [old man] natural, and after that the [new man] spiritual" 1 Cor. 15:46.
The spirit man is not made for for performance sake but to honor what God has done within us. How? By opening our eyes to all that is contained in His Mind for us as life just as spelled out in His Word. With this new knowledge we then may gaze into the glass and see His image as we view ourselves, existing in Him within His Son, all experienced by faith. We operate in this new life by simply counting it true. Nothing more! God then can work through our newly informed sub-conscious producing great peace, joy and a service not done in vain. A God ordained triumph over the Adam condition. "But we all, with unveiled face, [having been enlightened] beholding as in a mirror [our new self vision] the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit" 2 Cor. 3:18.
Really what we have become in Christ is in the realm of the un-manifested for practical purposes. We have a deep struggle with that concept as Adam conditioned men: proven by so much effort put into having a self centered experience. Also we can note it [the desire for proof by action] by what we have built; the obvious commercialization and the institutional like formations that many of our religious communities have adopted. Which generally simply follows the worlds example. In other words we attempt to look like what we expect [have been taught] God expects of us, so that we might recognize something familiar in order to please the first Adam mans need for personal justification. This is the works and law of man, the flesh mind of the old Adam. "For you were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls" 1 pet. 2:25.
We cannot escape this old man, only deal with him. Buy putting him in the place of death as God has. Our old Adam based ideologies and learned colloquial belief systems do not reflect the new man God has created. In order to find him [the new personality] we must change our mind as to who we are entirely. "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" Phil. 3:14.
The main barrier to that change is that the world has influenced the church and it has been lead down a road that has fostered what is unfortunately become a widely recognized biblical illiteracy, to the churches great shame. Even some might see it as embracing superstition and a alignment with the world, i.e. charismatic experience, encouraged emotionalism, cultural changes. kingdom building, psychological first aid, emphasis on works, and a lot of diversionary worldly entertainment. All of these in themselves tend to serve the needs of a class of men of the earth who can only recognize the old man as their quide. Men who perceive as proper the fulfilling of what is really a religious life purposed toward Christianity. All while operating within the confines of the first Adam mind. Which through no fault of its own simply follows the information that the spiritually dysfunctional Adam man is predisposed to. "For we walk by faith NOT by [worldly perception]sight" 2 Cor. 5:7
Our leaders mean well and are often loving Christian men and women yes but their hermeneutic [the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, especially of the Bible] is earthly.This type of thinking, to please the Adam man, requires [for justification] a man who has changed; the impossibility of the first Adam reworked. No this can never be as he is dead in God's sight. So there is a restriction upon their spiritual view, as their focus is upon the management of men's affaires; reflected in the attempted manifestation of a spiritual life controlled by the established pre-suppositional earthly Adam mans sub-conscious thought toward accomplishments on earth. "Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain" Phil. 2:16.
They miss heaven, the spiritual life which God has designed. They embrace the practical they have come to know here. Their reward in this world is seen as imminent, therefore more appealing to a first Adam mind set. However to live in the second man or new Spirit, first we must study and come to know the Word. Then we must recognize the loss or death of the old man. We then must wait and often suffer in the old, to have the new. However this is not the type of life favored or even possible of the Adam man [carnal Christian] who is mentally engaged with this world.... to tell the truth. So the question is which man will we choose? "Thou will show me the path of life" Ps. 16:11.
Sunday, October 9, 2016
THE ATTATUDE OF DEATH
God's life is in you, you just cannot see it unless you die.
We all have a hard time with death. It is very unsettling to a species that knows life only as material and physical action as its basis and it's experience for existence. It seems no matter how we deal with death, i.e. worldly diversion, intellectualism, philosophy. Even in the entertaining of a hope of a continuance of the life that we know in heaven we will still struggle.
We are left unsettled by deaths inevitable encroachment. The truth is as humans we only know what we know and expect what we have known, anything beyond this place and time is simply a hope. As a matter of fact the moment we form a descriptive thought in the Adam natural man's conditioned mind we fall victim to the flesh, men that we are we process all through the senses. The ego and self always prevail. In other words we always opt for the material, the established way. We are a species made for the earth. Everything within, including our inner life conscious conception, is marked by that fact. A fact which must be taken into account if we wish to really know God. "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die."
The fact of mans fall and certain death [spiritual and physical] is why the Father had to make the self acknowledged announcement of the recognition of the death of our natural man, the man who fears death, so paramount for us to enter His life. We must escape the old and dead man of sin. The man we know so well who we count upon to explain life's experience, the earthly man. .It seems he must find his way to God through deaths door by God's design. Why has God made this image of the death of what we are here in the natural the necessary vision of our inner mans conscience for the discovery of life. A spiritual destiny by God's making which He has declared vital to know Him: really a divine revelation we must possess to enter His new creation life? "Hid in Christ in God".
Our own obsvered acceptance of death unto all that is within the natural man contemplated and counted as true is the foremost thought He has put forward for our finding and then abiding in the true spirit of the Christian life. Which is really the life of His Son. All for our growth into the peace He has made for us in the new creation life we have in Him. A life entered and dependent upon our understanding of what God has called us to be in spirit. The Spirit life He has recreated us in when we were born anew: made and reveled by knowing of and then living out in awareness the death of the Adam man of the earth. It seems now God demands by His very nature, as expressed in His Word, that we knowingly adopt by faith His own thoughts of us. That is seeing [reckoning] first the Adam man as dead, annulled, non-existent, just as he is in the Fathers Mind. "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering being made conformable to His death Phil 3:10.
And thus a command is given for the spiritual man to adopt a new life definition. First and foremost of death to the man in the world. To focus upon his own death as a earth creature or a non-presence in the divine. Just as seen in God's concept of the failed Adam man. And thus entering the door of His redemption as created new for the living out of the new spiritual creation life in thought; now on earth and forever. He has made this spiritual concept available, and only to be apprehended in His Spirit, within our mind, guided by the reality of faith. In other words there is no provable earthly action we may take to reflect or justify, gain approval toward, what we have become spiritually made to be, as ones now beheld by Him within His Son Christ Jesus. A position of grace. His true recognition of His creatures in the identification of their life in His Son. But first death must come. "Has made us alive together with Christ" Eph. 2:5.
A life God has made for us in spirit and which we now occupy in what really is another dimension. One of spiritual form. A life which exists entirely in His minds perception and now ours by His Word, via His Spirit. Not the empowering of a reformed activated Adam for works purposes here for His pleasure. No we are actually objectified before God now and perceived in another Man, Christ Jesus. And we are inclusively alive spiritually in His person. By His Spirit it is His life that operates in us subjectively, or so says the Word of God. As Paul taught; "I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended in Christ Jesus" Phil3:12.
That is we seek God's concept of ourselves, we learn it from the bible and it is made available to us through faith in what He has said. So it is not beyond our ability to know or even to experience what He has made us to be newly. But again first must come the realization of our own self centered ego's necessary death. A death found in knowledge of His Word and only known by faith; for God's objective truth to be our Christian subjective motivation, as a perception of our true life! How may we accomplish that or better how is that accomplished in us? We might even go so far as to learn what the bible actually says about deaths benefit as realized in us and in the eyes of our God for guidance. "Rooted and built up in Him and established" Col. 2:7
Perhaps we may by the Word then come to believe in the bible doctrine of reckoning [believing/contemplating as truth] upon the death of the Adam man, the man God cannot except. Just as taught by Paul. Was Paul's teaching given simply to empower the Adam conditioned man to carry on a kingdom work on the earth so he might display God, by being a good worker and a moral paragon here? Or was it given so we might honor God by trusting Him for a complete new internal self awareness, one of spirit? The reality of our new existence is grounded only by trust that the old nature is dead before God, not only judicially, but also absent from His mind. So no improvement of this man is necessary for His pleasure. But how do we change our mind about who we are coming to know ourselves as? Ones "hid in Christ".
A new and Spirit induced internal mental acquisition so vital. Which is acquired by the contemplation of a new truth as taught by Paul. That in doing so we may experience the joy and freedom of a conscience that is convinced by faith and faith only that what He says of us is true. That is we are one in Spirit with His Son. His heavenly new creation formed in His mind. We enter His life by allowing ourselves to simply be [rest in] what He has made us to be in His thoughts. No action on our part is required. What we are and are to be is un-manifested as to any practical reality we live in now. But how do we discover and live in the new reality we are in the Fathers vision of us?
The work and life of God in the Christian is yielded to and empowered as the Cross with our co-crucifixion and death of the Adam nature with Christ Jesus is taken as a actual truth applied to us. That He and therefore we died to sin, the flesh and the world. Yes this fact must become the attitude of our heart and mind as a life producing reality. "Oh retched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" Rom. 7:24.
It really is all in the attitude, which is all that we have after all, being of a earthy condition. Our minds perception changed to His mind's perception being the only pathway to Him. We cannot live His new life out in any activity no matter how sincere! Or even form a mental image to rely upon. He has only left us with faith and knowledge to work out our salvation. "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord" Rom. 7:25.
The great sacrifice of God's Son did not change us as to condition, but it did place us in a new spiritual position. One requiring faith to please Him. Biblically/spiritually we are now seen in Him by Him only where He is. A concept we may approach by faith. The faith which is God's reality made to be formed in us. A concept that will bring us to a all new perception of life. We only need risk the loss of everything we have built in our programed Adam conscience to gain it."What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ".
The peace that comes with this knowledge is contained in a Spirit developed new conscience awerness, a mental position influenced and based upon intelligently and faithfully accepting God's concept of oneself as a all new creation being in spirit. For that to happen the old nature, the fleshly concept of ourselves, the dead Adam personality, must die in attitude. Be seen without value as to condition or position before God. Come to be seen as a instrument in itself incapable of pleasing God. This new attitude of death of the old being is the entrance to faith's essence of the reality of the new Spirit life living through us. Or His true life within us! All else while benefiting under Grace is simply works, law and self, which can never please God."Walk in [dependence upon] the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill [live a earthly life in concept] the lust of the flesh" Gal. 5:16.
So if a new life within the identity of His Son is our hearts desire. And is motivated by our love toward God, combined with a great need, then we must seek death by the application and acceptance of our Adam mans complete devaluation in God's view as His word declares. We then may enter His estimation of ourselves by objectifying our Lord as life just as the Father has done toward us as inheritors of His life. In doing so we will acquire and experience unbridled liberty. Really what the bible declares is a heavenly life lived in our current mortal bodies. Living in the presence or now of a spiritual life. Made available by a mental attitude of death to the man who is in the world. Really what is the discounting of Adam's efforts and his consciences of sin, guilt and works or any righteousness toward God by his own natural abilities. "That you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding" Col. 1:9.
Many would exclaim this seems so hard or what does this mean to me? What will I be? What will I be like? How will I feel? Really what's in it for me asks the Adam condition man? After all we really are all concerned even consumed with our life here as men. We just want to be happy, it is only natural. However these are not the questions or attitude that will lead us from glory to glory in His honor. These are the questions of a man enclosed and captured in the natural Adam condition. Not the new spiritual and free man who has arrived at God's destination in his apprehension of a new life of spirit/identification by attitude, patiently contemplating and resting in the new identity we have been made into in His mind. "I press toward the make for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" Phil. 3:14.
What then must we do to receive so great a gift? We must find death before death find us. The death we seek is the death of the ego or the self. A mental effort not of thought or reason, but of resting in a fact, a reality of Spirit. We only need be what He has made us, all else is death. No action is required! We of this age have been thoroughly conditioned to be self centered, materially oriented, or literal in our expectations and group experience is our place of safety to work this out. A worldly pattern of a formation of acceptance. The place we find comfort with others who are like us. Which often only serves to bolster our Adam condition and is thus detracting from the Life of Christ living through us as God's ideal. Humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time" 1 Pet. 5:6.
The writer of the Gospel of position/identification/heavenly life "Paul" had no such intention for his charge. He wasn't even capable of it, at least spiritually speaking. The life philosophy or world view of the man who God assigned to explain Christianity, Paul the Apostle, was motivated by ancient Greek thought instilled in his mind by God's design. He was devoted and internally dependent upon a spiritual observation of life in His evaluation of Gods' revelation to him of the position of His Body. A mystery never before conceived of, even by God's chosen people. "Heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ" Rom. 8:17.
They [the Jews]were after all a a earthly religious people by God's intention. We however are not, if the bible is true. So a separation from the old earthly Jewish way must prevail. Spirit and the invisible, a life eternal, is now reveled. Showing the new spiritual direction toward what Paul termed a heavenly position and a internally livable condition for all [the Church] those who inherit God's life in spirit. To be lived out individually as a rested in perception and then applied to the Body of Christ in action from that positional spiritual advantage. "Of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us....sanctification" 1 Cor. 1:30.
This does not mean Paul's view was philosophically obscure or not real or would not bear results on earth. No of course not! Christ Jesus life is living through us Here in a practical way also. But first must come from within a formed image driven by faith in the immaterial reality of a new creation life. This is God's creative power at work changing [conforming] us. Which is now given to us as partakers of His life and stewards of His creation; the Body of His Son on earth. Applied to us is the nature of God seen in His Son just as conceived [all in Him] throughout eternity past, and in heaven and now is cast upon the earth within us all by His Spirit. We are now completely new creatures; begun, formed and made in Him. It is thus we are joint heirs of eternal life within His Son. "God has chosen you from the beginning to salvation through sanctification [separation] of the Spirit and belief of the truth" 2 Thess. 2:13.
Why on earth do we now think what God has done for us in heaven should be displayed into what amounts to temple building or becoming kingdom earth dwellers for Jesus on earth while ignoring His Spirit in applying His identification to our existence? Where is our internal visions origin from we must ask? Remember the world, its systems, the developed culture we are all so instilled within and devoted to, the life we all emulate in condition, is under the auspiciousness of Satan.
Yes he has been crushed, but the Adam man among all Christians remains fully capable of sin and even great evil in going his own way. The spirit of the enemies' deception remains and continues to influence our cultural and Christian world view. We so easily fall its victim. The spirit of the prince of the power of the air wishes for us to stay in the flesh conflict position and identification here so we will not glorify our true God. This is how he empties our spirit on the ground.
Paul struggled with his own nature as we but was rescued from that death trap, not be thinking through what he must do, or how he would be effected in His natural condition. Or even worrying about how to go about encouraging others to grow a material organization on earth. NO! His message was not too reason it out, develop a intellect toward what might be accomplished on the earth. He did not seek to think through things in a effort to establish something to be materially represented, a earthly goal.
Paul made no effort to display Gods glory here in establishment of a perceived orthodoxy or any methodology. Yes those things will come in a material world no matter what. And yes they are covered by grace and may even be done with good intention toward God. But under what vision were they built, heaven or earths? We will miss His true glory if we find our satisfaction in accomplishment here. As we can so easily observe, nothing survives on this plane of existence.
The question is, is it through the old Adam or the New Man, by Spirit or Law and works? Our is it by resting like Paul, trusting in the unseen, the promise and hope of the invisible by faith? Pure trust in what God had given him by the Holy Spirit. All in dependence, even unto physical death, upon the life work and finality of the accomplishment of Someone else toward God in his stead. Thereby trusting faithfully in the incorporation of his [Paul's and ours] being unto [has entered into life with] another Man, Christ Jesus; inclusively represented where He is. Just as the bible states and leaving us only with faith's means for experience. "For we walk by faith not by sight" 2 Cor. 5:7.
We are to do the same as Paul, take the same attitude of death of the old nature by faith just as Paul. In order to embrace a concept by faith of a spiritual and heavenly life. Nothing more nothing less. We simply accept it, not attempt to form it or construct it in our mind. Especially we are not to think about this process toward any felt or materially matriculated experiential value. Which would only serve to take us back to the man who is dead to God; all that is the Adam mans condition. No we simply are now newly what He has made us to be in Spirit and nothing more. We have been saved and are to rest in the attitude of the death of the old so that we might live unto His Spiritual new life, now and forever! What is your attitude?
We all have a hard time with death. It is very unsettling to a species that knows life only as material and physical action as its basis and it's experience for existence. It seems no matter how we deal with death, i.e. worldly diversion, intellectualism, philosophy. Even in the entertaining of a hope of a continuance of the life that we know in heaven we will still struggle.
We are left unsettled by deaths inevitable encroachment. The truth is as humans we only know what we know and expect what we have known, anything beyond this place and time is simply a hope. As a matter of fact the moment we form a descriptive thought in the Adam natural man's conditioned mind we fall victim to the flesh, men that we are we process all through the senses. The ego and self always prevail. In other words we always opt for the material, the established way. We are a species made for the earth. Everything within, including our inner life conscious conception, is marked by that fact. A fact which must be taken into account if we wish to really know God. "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die."
The fact of mans fall and certain death [spiritual and physical] is why the Father had to make the self acknowledged announcement of the recognition of the death of our natural man, the man who fears death, so paramount for us to enter His life. We must escape the old and dead man of sin. The man we know so well who we count upon to explain life's experience, the earthly man. .It seems he must find his way to God through deaths door by God's design. Why has God made this image of the death of what we are here in the natural the necessary vision of our inner mans conscience for the discovery of life. A spiritual destiny by God's making which He has declared vital to know Him: really a divine revelation we must possess to enter His new creation life? "Hid in Christ in God".
Our own obsvered acceptance of death unto all that is within the natural man contemplated and counted as true is the foremost thought He has put forward for our finding and then abiding in the true spirit of the Christian life. Which is really the life of His Son. All for our growth into the peace He has made for us in the new creation life we have in Him. A life entered and dependent upon our understanding of what God has called us to be in spirit. The Spirit life He has recreated us in when we were born anew: made and reveled by knowing of and then living out in awareness the death of the Adam man of the earth. It seems now God demands by His very nature, as expressed in His Word, that we knowingly adopt by faith His own thoughts of us. That is seeing [reckoning] first the Adam man as dead, annulled, non-existent, just as he is in the Fathers Mind. "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering being made conformable to His death Phil 3:10.
And thus a command is given for the spiritual man to adopt a new life definition. First and foremost of death to the man in the world. To focus upon his own death as a earth creature or a non-presence in the divine. Just as seen in God's concept of the failed Adam man. And thus entering the door of His redemption as created new for the living out of the new spiritual creation life in thought; now on earth and forever. He has made this spiritual concept available, and only to be apprehended in His Spirit, within our mind, guided by the reality of faith. In other words there is no provable earthly action we may take to reflect or justify, gain approval toward, what we have become spiritually made to be, as ones now beheld by Him within His Son Christ Jesus. A position of grace. His true recognition of His creatures in the identification of their life in His Son. But first death must come. "Has made us alive together with Christ" Eph. 2:5.
A life God has made for us in spirit and which we now occupy in what really is another dimension. One of spiritual form. A life which exists entirely in His minds perception and now ours by His Word, via His Spirit. Not the empowering of a reformed activated Adam for works purposes here for His pleasure. No we are actually objectified before God now and perceived in another Man, Christ Jesus. And we are inclusively alive spiritually in His person. By His Spirit it is His life that operates in us subjectively, or so says the Word of God. As Paul taught; "I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended in Christ Jesus" Phil3:12.
That is we seek God's concept of ourselves, we learn it from the bible and it is made available to us through faith in what He has said. So it is not beyond our ability to know or even to experience what He has made us to be newly. But again first must come the realization of our own self centered ego's necessary death. A death found in knowledge of His Word and only known by faith; for God's objective truth to be our Christian subjective motivation, as a perception of our true life! How may we accomplish that or better how is that accomplished in us? We might even go so far as to learn what the bible actually says about deaths benefit as realized in us and in the eyes of our God for guidance. "Rooted and built up in Him and established" Col. 2:7
Perhaps we may by the Word then come to believe in the bible doctrine of reckoning [believing/contemplating as truth] upon the death of the Adam man, the man God cannot except. Just as taught by Paul. Was Paul's teaching given simply to empower the Adam conditioned man to carry on a kingdom work on the earth so he might display God, by being a good worker and a moral paragon here? Or was it given so we might honor God by trusting Him for a complete new internal self awareness, one of spirit? The reality of our new existence is grounded only by trust that the old nature is dead before God, not only judicially, but also absent from His mind. So no improvement of this man is necessary for His pleasure. But how do we change our mind about who we are coming to know ourselves as? Ones "hid in Christ".
A new and Spirit induced internal mental acquisition so vital. Which is acquired by the contemplation of a new truth as taught by Paul. That in doing so we may experience the joy and freedom of a conscience that is convinced by faith and faith only that what He says of us is true. That is we are one in Spirit with His Son. His heavenly new creation formed in His mind. We enter His life by allowing ourselves to simply be [rest in] what He has made us to be in His thoughts. No action on our part is required. What we are and are to be is un-manifested as to any practical reality we live in now. But how do we discover and live in the new reality we are in the Fathers vision of us?
The work and life of God in the Christian is yielded to and empowered as the Cross with our co-crucifixion and death of the Adam nature with Christ Jesus is taken as a actual truth applied to us. That He and therefore we died to sin, the flesh and the world. Yes this fact must become the attitude of our heart and mind as a life producing reality. "Oh retched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" Rom. 7:24.
It really is all in the attitude, which is all that we have after all, being of a earthy condition. Our minds perception changed to His mind's perception being the only pathway to Him. We cannot live His new life out in any activity no matter how sincere! Or even form a mental image to rely upon. He has only left us with faith and knowledge to work out our salvation. "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord" Rom. 7:25.
The great sacrifice of God's Son did not change us as to condition, but it did place us in a new spiritual position. One requiring faith to please Him. Biblically/spiritually we are now seen in Him by Him only where He is. A concept we may approach by faith. The faith which is God's reality made to be formed in us. A concept that will bring us to a all new perception of life. We only need risk the loss of everything we have built in our programed Adam conscience to gain it."What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ".
The peace that comes with this knowledge is contained in a Spirit developed new conscience awerness, a mental position influenced and based upon intelligently and faithfully accepting God's concept of oneself as a all new creation being in spirit. For that to happen the old nature, the fleshly concept of ourselves, the dead Adam personality, must die in attitude. Be seen without value as to condition or position before God. Come to be seen as a instrument in itself incapable of pleasing God. This new attitude of death of the old being is the entrance to faith's essence of the reality of the new Spirit life living through us. Or His true life within us! All else while benefiting under Grace is simply works, law and self, which can never please God."Walk in [dependence upon] the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill [live a earthly life in concept] the lust of the flesh" Gal. 5:16.
So if a new life within the identity of His Son is our hearts desire. And is motivated by our love toward God, combined with a great need, then we must seek death by the application and acceptance of our Adam mans complete devaluation in God's view as His word declares. We then may enter His estimation of ourselves by objectifying our Lord as life just as the Father has done toward us as inheritors of His life. In doing so we will acquire and experience unbridled liberty. Really what the bible declares is a heavenly life lived in our current mortal bodies. Living in the presence or now of a spiritual life. Made available by a mental attitude of death to the man who is in the world. Really what is the discounting of Adam's efforts and his consciences of sin, guilt and works or any righteousness toward God by his own natural abilities. "That you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding" Col. 1:9.
Many would exclaim this seems so hard or what does this mean to me? What will I be? What will I be like? How will I feel? Really what's in it for me asks the Adam condition man? After all we really are all concerned even consumed with our life here as men. We just want to be happy, it is only natural. However these are not the questions or attitude that will lead us from glory to glory in His honor. These are the questions of a man enclosed and captured in the natural Adam condition. Not the new spiritual and free man who has arrived at God's destination in his apprehension of a new life of spirit/identification by attitude, patiently contemplating and resting in the new identity we have been made into in His mind. "I press toward the make for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" Phil. 3:14.
What then must we do to receive so great a gift? We must find death before death find us. The death we seek is the death of the ego or the self. A mental effort not of thought or reason, but of resting in a fact, a reality of Spirit. We only need be what He has made us, all else is death. No action is required! We of this age have been thoroughly conditioned to be self centered, materially oriented, or literal in our expectations and group experience is our place of safety to work this out. A worldly pattern of a formation of acceptance. The place we find comfort with others who are like us. Which often only serves to bolster our Adam condition and is thus detracting from the Life of Christ living through us as God's ideal. Humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time" 1 Pet. 5:6.
The writer of the Gospel of position/identification/heavenly life "Paul" had no such intention for his charge. He wasn't even capable of it, at least spiritually speaking. The life philosophy or world view of the man who God assigned to explain Christianity, Paul the Apostle, was motivated by ancient Greek thought instilled in his mind by God's design. He was devoted and internally dependent upon a spiritual observation of life in His evaluation of Gods' revelation to him of the position of His Body. A mystery never before conceived of, even by God's chosen people. "Heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ" Rom. 8:17.
They [the Jews]were after all a a earthly religious people by God's intention. We however are not, if the bible is true. So a separation from the old earthly Jewish way must prevail. Spirit and the invisible, a life eternal, is now reveled. Showing the new spiritual direction toward what Paul termed a heavenly position and a internally livable condition for all [the Church] those who inherit God's life in spirit. To be lived out individually as a rested in perception and then applied to the Body of Christ in action from that positional spiritual advantage. "Of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us....sanctification" 1 Cor. 1:30.
This does not mean Paul's view was philosophically obscure or not real or would not bear results on earth. No of course not! Christ Jesus life is living through us Here in a practical way also. But first must come from within a formed image driven by faith in the immaterial reality of a new creation life. This is God's creative power at work changing [conforming] us. Which is now given to us as partakers of His life and stewards of His creation; the Body of His Son on earth. Applied to us is the nature of God seen in His Son just as conceived [all in Him] throughout eternity past, and in heaven and now is cast upon the earth within us all by His Spirit. We are now completely new creatures; begun, formed and made in Him. It is thus we are joint heirs of eternal life within His Son. "God has chosen you from the beginning to salvation through sanctification [separation] of the Spirit and belief of the truth" 2 Thess. 2:13.
Why on earth do we now think what God has done for us in heaven should be displayed into what amounts to temple building or becoming kingdom earth dwellers for Jesus on earth while ignoring His Spirit in applying His identification to our existence? Where is our internal visions origin from we must ask? Remember the world, its systems, the developed culture we are all so instilled within and devoted to, the life we all emulate in condition, is under the auspiciousness of Satan.
Yes he has been crushed, but the Adam man among all Christians remains fully capable of sin and even great evil in going his own way. The spirit of the enemies' deception remains and continues to influence our cultural and Christian world view. We so easily fall its victim. The spirit of the prince of the power of the air wishes for us to stay in the flesh conflict position and identification here so we will not glorify our true God. This is how he empties our spirit on the ground.
Paul struggled with his own nature as we but was rescued from that death trap, not be thinking through what he must do, or how he would be effected in His natural condition. Or even worrying about how to go about encouraging others to grow a material organization on earth. NO! His message was not too reason it out, develop a intellect toward what might be accomplished on the earth. He did not seek to think through things in a effort to establish something to be materially represented, a earthly goal.
Paul made no effort to display Gods glory here in establishment of a perceived orthodoxy or any methodology. Yes those things will come in a material world no matter what. And yes they are covered by grace and may even be done with good intention toward God. But under what vision were they built, heaven or earths? We will miss His true glory if we find our satisfaction in accomplishment here. As we can so easily observe, nothing survives on this plane of existence.
The question is, is it through the old Adam or the New Man, by Spirit or Law and works? Our is it by resting like Paul, trusting in the unseen, the promise and hope of the invisible by faith? Pure trust in what God had given him by the Holy Spirit. All in dependence, even unto physical death, upon the life work and finality of the accomplishment of Someone else toward God in his stead. Thereby trusting faithfully in the incorporation of his [Paul's and ours] being unto [has entered into life with] another Man, Christ Jesus; inclusively represented where He is. Just as the bible states and leaving us only with faith's means for experience. "For we walk by faith not by sight" 2 Cor. 5:7.
We are to do the same as Paul, take the same attitude of death of the old nature by faith just as Paul. In order to embrace a concept by faith of a spiritual and heavenly life. Nothing more nothing less. We simply accept it, not attempt to form it or construct it in our mind. Especially we are not to think about this process toward any felt or materially matriculated experiential value. Which would only serve to take us back to the man who is dead to God; all that is the Adam mans condition. No we simply are now newly what He has made us to be in Spirit and nothing more. We have been saved and are to rest in the attitude of the death of the old so that we might live unto His Spiritual new life, now and forever! What is your attitude?
Sunday, September 18, 2016
REDEMPTIONS ROAD
My Church has recently been preaching a series of sermons on our culture. Effectively encouraging Christians to go forth and change the world for Jesus by their biblical realizations, or what God expects of them. Referring to this as a kingdom work. Really what it seems they are saying is; if you are a Christian you will behave and respond in a biblical way to the affairs of life in building a kingdom here on earth as the body of Christ. Of course this concept of good works and Christian compassion as presented is referenced by a scripture reading and certainly is not a bad suggestion nor necessarily un-Christian like, at least in our current works/good neighbor/ kingdom come perception of Christianity. But is this God's intent as a constrictive Christian virtue for the individual in His Redeemed Church? Also is our physical/earthly attitude and behavior what brings Him Glory as we travel redemption's road in life or must something else come first?
Is it God's plan to mount a mass of committed soldiers to accomplish on earth a kingdom, to display His will for this place? What is actually a physical earthly accomplishment as the measure of His life and influence. Making the Christian effort to change things here for the better a part of a mandate of His redemption; even perhaps as more or less paving the way for the return of our Lord. Is this why the Son came to earth suffered and was rejected? Was it effectively to empower the church to carry on His earthly ministry in His physical absence?
He the true Messiah, was turned away by a earthly people for religious/political purposes. Why? Because they [the Jewish people, including the disciples] were looking for someone to institute a change here on earth. First and foremost freeing them from Roman rule. Then the elevating of the Jew to the highest status of a earthly position "a theocratic earthly institution" which they, by God's authorization of course, co-control with the their earthly King. A kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven". This would be a kingdom by Law. We now call what they rejected the coming millennial kingdom. And many today are still working under its auspices or the law in preparation for His return.
But these were earthly men, not under grace, so this place was their destiny. It is not however ours. He [Christ] failed to bring into being what they expected in their timing. So they [Jewish leaders] had Him murdered by a earthly government with the direct official complicit involvement of those Jewish religious leaders and ultimately the approval of many of the Jewish people of that locality themselves. They all sought a kingdom on earth, as many Christians still do today.
Those facts, the results of the actions of those of old. and the Churches earthly sullied and conflicted history, along with the Word's positional expressly heavenly announcement of the Church in the Pauline gospels, should leave us with a question as to how God would actually have us conduct ourselves today. A identification very different in this the age of grace on earth than the perception of a earthly accomplishment. Or just what have we been redeemed unto? Are we to build or enhance a kingdom here? And just what is redemption in biblical terms and why was it even necessary?
Redemption means to free someone from bondage. It often involves the paying of a ransom, a price that makes redemption possible. The Israelites were redeemed from Egypt. We were redeemed from the power of sin and the curse of the Law [Gal. 3:13] through Jesus [ Rom 3:24; Col. 1:14]. We were bought with a price, namely the blood and the death of Christ Jesus. This was a judicial act it did not reform or remake us or even empower us as Adam men, giving us a new status [reformed] in and of ourselves for performance sake! The root of the word in the Greek is one of freeing a slave. In our case providing us a judicial freedom before God; from slavery to sin and it's results as consequence of mans fall. A sin condition which still prevails in all men as a consequence of the natural mans physical/self-centered instinct or indwelt sin ["sin is in the flesh"] propensity. Without judicial redemption from the natural there is no salvation for that man of sin. So then what are we redeemed unto? "For it pleased the Father that in Him [Christ Jesus] should ALL fullness dwell" Col. 1:19.
Now as judicially free, in God's perception, we have a new liberty provided by grace [remember here we still are indwelt with sin in our condition]. However we stand in the light of life before the Judge of heaven and earth now as new creatures by Grace. We are not changed we are NEW! We are seen in Christ Jesus, a wholly spiritual position. We are by His act indwelt by His Spirit [thoughts/mind] for a life [in His estimation] as entirely new redeemed creations; by His making. Not empowered to make changes here! A existence we cannot conceive of in any physical/emotion/feeling remedy, nor are any works involved. We are not placed in a position to or commanded to build a kingdom here by work/actions/traditions and doctrinal obedience. No the Word declares we are now entirely of heaven. Grace holds no place for a foundation built upon flesh efforts. "Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty [Him as our life] with which Christ has made us free" Gal. 5:1
He has made us entirely redeemed to a heavenly/spiritual status. Really in kingdom building works we are working toward what is a physical sign of our hope and although not a bad thing, we must never the less ask; are we in that self effort providing clear passage towards a true hope in which our spiritual produce is our true character? Always to glorify and honor Him; in our perception of who we really are spiritually, in Christ as ones true to His Word. And for that honoring to be only built upon our faith of that Word. Or the Words revelation of His Redemptive truth for us spiritually. What He has made us to be in the Son, His object or intention toward us. "Changed into the same image from glory to glory [faith's knowledge] even as by the Spirit of the lord" 2 Cor. 3:18.
He Christ Jesus is now our identification exclusively in the sight of God. We seen as God judges His Son, who is perfect; who became our sin judicially, and was qualified to bear that sin and nullify all sin for judicial purpose, by God's will for all of mankind; through the bearing of the shame of sin unto death and the trusting by faith that His God would return Him to eternal Glory. It is thus, in that image of perfect justice brought to and for us by another in Whom we now have identity before God. We are now represented by Him, "Hid in Christ", the Fathers righteous view of us. We are seen by God in no other way!
While redemption has taken us from a old sinful place [the flesh] in the Fathers eyes, it has also brought us to a all new place in His view. We must take the new position consciously however by a knowledgeable faith perception only. All things of the what is now the judicially/spiritually annulled earthly life are gone from God's sight. The new position and identification we hold as Christians is based upon the wondrous fact that men, in the person of Jesus Christ, is gone up to the Father into heaven. Making us as Paul described, heavenly creatures. "Give your minds to the things above" Col. 3:2.
As I have stressed in the past Paul's letters were not all written to teach us how to conduct ourselves corporately as a religious group, but to urge us to leave the worldly and Jewish traditions we so enjoy and the things of the earth which we are so prone to adopt as religious emblems. A action which serves only to hinder us from the spiritual liberty of the heavenly sanctuary we have been taken into spiritually in Christ. "Having....boldness to enter into the Holiest" Heb. 10:19.
It is only when the believer faces the despair of the non-value of his human action and dependence upon the well worn path of the flesh both in his religious pursuit and the world that we may enter His true rest. There are now no barriers to His heavenly abode, a dimension of Spirit, of the mind. Before us is a effortless life by the provision of the grace of another's actions, we only need believe. Redemption's road has taken us to a entirely new place far away from the kingdom on earth and the Law. The Church is a heavenly body. In other words redemption has not only delivered us but it has given us something new, but available and only to be know by faith in His Word; by Paul's specific doctrine [teaching]of our position and identification in Christ in the spiritual realm. "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith" Heb. 10:22.
"The Father has left us as much dependent [faith's realizations] on the Lord Jesus' work for our deliverance as for forgiveness. It is wholly because we died with Him on the cross unto sin and unto the whole legal principal, that sin's power is broken". Now we have a new life, a new attitude, a new mind, on redemptions road. "To him that works not but believes on Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" Rom. 4:5.
Is it God's plan to mount a mass of committed soldiers to accomplish on earth a kingdom, to display His will for this place? What is actually a physical earthly accomplishment as the measure of His life and influence. Making the Christian effort to change things here for the better a part of a mandate of His redemption; even perhaps as more or less paving the way for the return of our Lord. Is this why the Son came to earth suffered and was rejected? Was it effectively to empower the church to carry on His earthly ministry in His physical absence?
He the true Messiah, was turned away by a earthly people for religious/political purposes. Why? Because they [the Jewish people, including the disciples] were looking for someone to institute a change here on earth. First and foremost freeing them from Roman rule. Then the elevating of the Jew to the highest status of a earthly position "a theocratic earthly institution" which they, by God's authorization of course, co-control with the their earthly King. A kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven". This would be a kingdom by Law. We now call what they rejected the coming millennial kingdom. And many today are still working under its auspices or the law in preparation for His return.
But these were earthly men, not under grace, so this place was their destiny. It is not however ours. He [Christ] failed to bring into being what they expected in their timing. So they [Jewish leaders] had Him murdered by a earthly government with the direct official complicit involvement of those Jewish religious leaders and ultimately the approval of many of the Jewish people of that locality themselves. They all sought a kingdom on earth, as many Christians still do today.
Those facts, the results of the actions of those of old. and the Churches earthly sullied and conflicted history, along with the Word's positional expressly heavenly announcement of the Church in the Pauline gospels, should leave us with a question as to how God would actually have us conduct ourselves today. A identification very different in this the age of grace on earth than the perception of a earthly accomplishment. Or just what have we been redeemed unto? Are we to build or enhance a kingdom here? And just what is redemption in biblical terms and why was it even necessary?
Redemption means to free someone from bondage. It often involves the paying of a ransom, a price that makes redemption possible. The Israelites were redeemed from Egypt. We were redeemed from the power of sin and the curse of the Law [Gal. 3:13] through Jesus [ Rom 3:24; Col. 1:14]. We were bought with a price, namely the blood and the death of Christ Jesus. This was a judicial act it did not reform or remake us or even empower us as Adam men, giving us a new status [reformed] in and of ourselves for performance sake! The root of the word in the Greek is one of freeing a slave. In our case providing us a judicial freedom before God; from slavery to sin and it's results as consequence of mans fall. A sin condition which still prevails in all men as a consequence of the natural mans physical/self-centered instinct or indwelt sin ["sin is in the flesh"] propensity. Without judicial redemption from the natural there is no salvation for that man of sin. So then what are we redeemed unto? "For it pleased the Father that in Him [Christ Jesus] should ALL fullness dwell" Col. 1:19.
Now as judicially free, in God's perception, we have a new liberty provided by grace [remember here we still are indwelt with sin in our condition]. However we stand in the light of life before the Judge of heaven and earth now as new creatures by Grace. We are not changed we are NEW! We are seen in Christ Jesus, a wholly spiritual position. We are by His act indwelt by His Spirit [thoughts/mind] for a life [in His estimation] as entirely new redeemed creations; by His making. Not empowered to make changes here! A existence we cannot conceive of in any physical/emotion/feeling remedy, nor are any works involved. We are not placed in a position to or commanded to build a kingdom here by work/actions/traditions and doctrinal obedience. No the Word declares we are now entirely of heaven. Grace holds no place for a foundation built upon flesh efforts. "Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty [Him as our life] with which Christ has made us free" Gal. 5:1
He has made us entirely redeemed to a heavenly/spiritual status. Really in kingdom building works we are working toward what is a physical sign of our hope and although not a bad thing, we must never the less ask; are we in that self effort providing clear passage towards a true hope in which our spiritual produce is our true character? Always to glorify and honor Him; in our perception of who we really are spiritually, in Christ as ones true to His Word. And for that honoring to be only built upon our faith of that Word. Or the Words revelation of His Redemptive truth for us spiritually. What He has made us to be in the Son, His object or intention toward us. "Changed into the same image from glory to glory [faith's knowledge] even as by the Spirit of the lord" 2 Cor. 3:18.
He Christ Jesus is now our identification exclusively in the sight of God. We seen as God judges His Son, who is perfect; who became our sin judicially, and was qualified to bear that sin and nullify all sin for judicial purpose, by God's will for all of mankind; through the bearing of the shame of sin unto death and the trusting by faith that His God would return Him to eternal Glory. It is thus, in that image of perfect justice brought to and for us by another in Whom we now have identity before God. We are now represented by Him, "Hid in Christ", the Fathers righteous view of us. We are seen by God in no other way!
While redemption has taken us from a old sinful place [the flesh] in the Fathers eyes, it has also brought us to a all new place in His view. We must take the new position consciously however by a knowledgeable faith perception only. All things of the what is now the judicially/spiritually annulled earthly life are gone from God's sight. The new position and identification we hold as Christians is based upon the wondrous fact that men, in the person of Jesus Christ, is gone up to the Father into heaven. Making us as Paul described, heavenly creatures. "Give your minds to the things above" Col. 3:2.
As I have stressed in the past Paul's letters were not all written to teach us how to conduct ourselves corporately as a religious group, but to urge us to leave the worldly and Jewish traditions we so enjoy and the things of the earth which we are so prone to adopt as religious emblems. A action which serves only to hinder us from the spiritual liberty of the heavenly sanctuary we have been taken into spiritually in Christ. "Having....boldness to enter into the Holiest" Heb. 10:19.
It is only when the believer faces the despair of the non-value of his human action and dependence upon the well worn path of the flesh both in his religious pursuit and the world that we may enter His true rest. There are now no barriers to His heavenly abode, a dimension of Spirit, of the mind. Before us is a effortless life by the provision of the grace of another's actions, we only need believe. Redemption's road has taken us to a entirely new place far away from the kingdom on earth and the Law. The Church is a heavenly body. In other words redemption has not only delivered us but it has given us something new, but available and only to be know by faith in His Word; by Paul's specific doctrine [teaching]of our position and identification in Christ in the spiritual realm. "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith" Heb. 10:22.
"The Father has left us as much dependent [faith's realizations] on the Lord Jesus' work for our deliverance as for forgiveness. It is wholly because we died with Him on the cross unto sin and unto the whole legal principal, that sin's power is broken". Now we have a new life, a new attitude, a new mind, on redemptions road. "To him that works not but believes on Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" Rom. 4:5.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
SPIRIT NOT SIGHT
"What is true in spirit is more real and palpable than what we see. What is passing in our hearts and minds is more than we are in reality. More than what our bodies are occupied in".
The word spirit or the spiritual life has always been somewhat of a mystery to me. Sometimes I think I have it other times its a far off place. Why has God made this so and just what then is spirit? Can we analyze it, break it down, count on it as the firm corner stone of our faith in action? As Christians we really have only one place to seek the answer, the Word.
1 Cor. 2:9-14 gives us the place to start our search:"What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard and what no human mind has conceived The things God has revealed to us by His Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit".
The Bible teaches us that there are three spiritual classes of men: In the Greek we learn best the difference. First we are taught of the psuchikos, [see James 3:15, Jude 19] meaning of the senses, or the natural man, the Adam man un-renewed. A un-removed original man not having the new birth whose full trust is in the worlds systems and his own self behavior.
Second the pneumatikos or the spiritual man, that is the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God [see Eph. 5 18-20]. This is the man who by faith is confident of his identification as one who is hid in Christ, a practical heavenly/spiritual position. Biblical spiritual truth is his motivation for life. His place in life here on earth is spiritual in his relationship with the Father. He does not consider himself justified by habit or works nor is he committed to be busy with the earthly kingdoms call. This man is occupied within himself, or identified knowingly, in God's personal perception of the believer, as seen in eternity in the image of the Son; first by knowledge of his spiritual/of the mind position in Christ then by faith; in the invisible and immaterial glory of a heavenly or spiritual reality to be fully enjoyed in the here and now as well as in future glory. This man a believer there by God's grace, shown him intelligently by personally studying the Word and thus awareness of spiritual reality. This believer is acutely aware by faith of being seen now by God within and manifest by Christ Jesus at His Own Right side.
Third is sarkikos, meaning the renewed man but who is still walking according to the flesh [see Rom. 8]. He is the Christian who has remained a babe in Christ spiritually, he is carnal or fleshly, of the world, And like the natural man is still struggling with feelings, not spiritually mature. A man who does not know his heavenly position. A man who is seeking to fight sin within himself, who has not realized his true freedom. Thus actually depending upon self-centeredness, or the remaking of the old and dead Adam man in resisting indwelling sin. Thus he is often occupied with service, works and morals, trusting his own observations senses and intellectualism, or simply following others examples. Seeking definition of his Christian life by actions, habit, ritual and emotions. "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ" Phil. 3:8.
The Greek word for Spirit is pneuma which has a similar meaning to the word ruach in Hebrew. Pneuma; to breathe, or blow, primarily denotes the wind. Or breath; the Spirit which, like the wind, is invisible, immaterial, and powerful. In Hebrew, the original inspired language of the Old Testament, the word for Spirit 'Ruach' cannot be construed as a person. It is a force. It is invisible and like wind, because it can be felt or experienced, but not seen. It is the breath of God which disperses His life-force, His energy and His intentions, His mind. It is God's Spirit which is omnipresent, but also can be directed in specific ways for specific purposes. It is not His actual Person (which remains incorporeal and outside of the physical dimension) but His Spirit...His Mind, His thoughts that manifests itself in the world, or which comes to dwell in the hearts and lives of His people.
Unfortunately this concept has primarily been lost in what has become expected of the church on earth. Which has evolved into more or less a experiential carnal manifestation. Most in Christianity are urged to engage in activities which are almost entirely external to themselves in order to evoke feelings of belonging. Works, laws, disciplines, all to under gird a commitment to the group. Fashioned after a team like effort which is sarkikos or carnal in nature. In much of today's church teaching personal inward spiritual intelligence [mental awareness of the new creature we are by position in Christ heavenly as life] is a very rare thing. In other words few are taught to wait upon a inward mature thoughtful manifestation, wholly developed by the Spirit, first requiring knowledge of His Word for the Spirits full release as to identification, and then a restful patience for growth, often which also includes suffering in the flesh for God's preparation of the soul.
It is by the embracing of law [anything outside of grace and spirit] that a Christian is set apart from intimately knowing God's Spirit as defining his life. How so? Because the Church fails to teach freedom by death from the old nature and a new creation awareness by Spirit as a mental obligation for development. We might be encouraged to be obedient, to enjoy secular inspired activities/programs such as making the world a better place in the Church social processing. Substituting activities [good works] as indications of belonging to Him.
We may even be asked to follow the ten commandments as a guide for proper Christian living. The Church also teaches the walk of Christ Jesus while He was on the earth as a example of how we should carry on. But He was under the Law on earth as were those to whom He was addressing Himself. But unlike them a perfect Man, unlike any other before Him therefore qualified to keep the Law. We are not! Where does that leave the believer today, who is not seeking [needful of] a heavenly spiritual life? One who is continually under the entrenched indwelling sin nature of the condition we all remains in, in the flesh and having no other way? He has only his hope for a vague future in heaven [a completely mystical and unimaginable concept to a earth dweller] so in conscience he is remaining of the earth. Attempting to make his way here to prove himself. This is earthly religion under the Law. "Set your affections on things above, not on things of the earth" Eph 2:13.
The Law and the earth which we are so subject too was is and will always be [in the millennium] the place for the un-renewed Jew who is not a new creature [by Spirit] according to the bible, and never will be. God provided a visual fomentation for worship and justification in the temple in times of old by a disciplined behavior as He will on earth again someday upon His return. However the Christian is no longer under a earthly realm and the Law as Christ was while on earth. As we are now under grace which is heavenly, because Christ died unto the Adam man of sin and Ascended to heaven as a New Man and by God's Grace we are united with Him there. Not on the earth any longer as to any expectation ever by the Father. The Word says; "Through Him we both [born again Jew and gentile alike] have access by One Spirit unto the Father".
The end of all Jewish earthly things; dedications, consecrations, priesthood figures, sacrifice, pageantry, traditions, rules, discipline's were taken away by the Cross of Christ Jesus. But is still mistakenly widely practiced today as simply proper traditions. God is no longer dealing with men by a sensual and visible religion. Now it is the Holy Spirit that forms us and Himself in our thoughts by spirit. Outside of this position [in the physical] we remain simply carnal and will always seek the lower element of emotions, experience and self righteousness and Law. Leaving the reformed Adam man with only himself to reason out his place. "As is the earthly, such are they that are earthly; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly 1 Cor. 15:48.
The Father has brought us, both Jew and gentile, to Himself as a family by Spirit. Scripture confines the Body of Christ to that which follows the death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus by Spirit not by sight. We are not complete however in the souls application of spiritual truth, we are in process. "In Whom you are built together for a habitation of God through Spirit "Eph. 2:21,22.
The flesh is in us to by sure, but as a foreign thing. We are not in it before God, and not identified with it in any way by Him. But we are wholly identified with Christ Jesus in whom sin was never found. We are in Him as He is where He is found, and that is in heaven. " The Spirit bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God; and if children then heirs" Rom. 8:16,17. Why would we need more? Walk by Spirit not by sight!
P.S. I personally struggle deeply with these concepts but I trust God that as His Word declares He will reveal Himself through the effort. I simply have no other choice!
.
The word spirit or the spiritual life has always been somewhat of a mystery to me. Sometimes I think I have it other times its a far off place. Why has God made this so and just what then is spirit? Can we analyze it, break it down, count on it as the firm corner stone of our faith in action? As Christians we really have only one place to seek the answer, the Word.
1 Cor. 2:9-14 gives us the place to start our search:"What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard and what no human mind has conceived The things God has revealed to us by His Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit".
The Bible teaches us that there are three spiritual classes of men: In the Greek we learn best the difference. First we are taught of the psuchikos, [see James 3:15, Jude 19] meaning of the senses, or the natural man, the Adam man un-renewed. A un-removed original man not having the new birth whose full trust is in the worlds systems and his own self behavior.
Second the pneumatikos or the spiritual man, that is the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God [see Eph. 5 18-20]. This is the man who by faith is confident of his identification as one who is hid in Christ, a practical heavenly/spiritual position. Biblical spiritual truth is his motivation for life. His place in life here on earth is spiritual in his relationship with the Father. He does not consider himself justified by habit or works nor is he committed to be busy with the earthly kingdoms call. This man is occupied within himself, or identified knowingly, in God's personal perception of the believer, as seen in eternity in the image of the Son; first by knowledge of his spiritual/of the mind position in Christ then by faith; in the invisible and immaterial glory of a heavenly or spiritual reality to be fully enjoyed in the here and now as well as in future glory. This man a believer there by God's grace, shown him intelligently by personally studying the Word and thus awareness of spiritual reality. This believer is acutely aware by faith of being seen now by God within and manifest by Christ Jesus at His Own Right side.
Third is sarkikos, meaning the renewed man but who is still walking according to the flesh [see Rom. 8]. He is the Christian who has remained a babe in Christ spiritually, he is carnal or fleshly, of the world, And like the natural man is still struggling with feelings, not spiritually mature. A man who does not know his heavenly position. A man who is seeking to fight sin within himself, who has not realized his true freedom. Thus actually depending upon self-centeredness, or the remaking of the old and dead Adam man in resisting indwelling sin. Thus he is often occupied with service, works and morals, trusting his own observations senses and intellectualism, or simply following others examples. Seeking definition of his Christian life by actions, habit, ritual and emotions. "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ" Phil. 3:8.
The Greek word for Spirit is pneuma which has a similar meaning to the word ruach in Hebrew. Pneuma; to breathe, or blow, primarily denotes the wind. Or breath; the Spirit which, like the wind, is invisible, immaterial, and powerful. In Hebrew, the original inspired language of the Old Testament, the word for Spirit 'Ruach' cannot be construed as a person. It is a force. It is invisible and like wind, because it can be felt or experienced, but not seen. It is the breath of God which disperses His life-force, His energy and His intentions, His mind. It is God's Spirit which is omnipresent, but also can be directed in specific ways for specific purposes. It is not His actual Person (which remains incorporeal and outside of the physical dimension) but His Spirit...His Mind, His thoughts that manifests itself in the world, or which comes to dwell in the hearts and lives of His people.
Unfortunately this concept has primarily been lost in what has become expected of the church on earth. Which has evolved into more or less a experiential carnal manifestation. Most in Christianity are urged to engage in activities which are almost entirely external to themselves in order to evoke feelings of belonging. Works, laws, disciplines, all to under gird a commitment to the group. Fashioned after a team like effort which is sarkikos or carnal in nature. In much of today's church teaching personal inward spiritual intelligence [mental awareness of the new creature we are by position in Christ heavenly as life] is a very rare thing. In other words few are taught to wait upon a inward mature thoughtful manifestation, wholly developed by the Spirit, first requiring knowledge of His Word for the Spirits full release as to identification, and then a restful patience for growth, often which also includes suffering in the flesh for God's preparation of the soul.
It is by the embracing of law [anything outside of grace and spirit] that a Christian is set apart from intimately knowing God's Spirit as defining his life. How so? Because the Church fails to teach freedom by death from the old nature and a new creation awareness by Spirit as a mental obligation for development. We might be encouraged to be obedient, to enjoy secular inspired activities/programs such as making the world a better place in the Church social processing. Substituting activities [good works] as indications of belonging to Him.
We may even be asked to follow the ten commandments as a guide for proper Christian living. The Church also teaches the walk of Christ Jesus while He was on the earth as a example of how we should carry on. But He was under the Law on earth as were those to whom He was addressing Himself. But unlike them a perfect Man, unlike any other before Him therefore qualified to keep the Law. We are not! Where does that leave the believer today, who is not seeking [needful of] a heavenly spiritual life? One who is continually under the entrenched indwelling sin nature of the condition we all remains in, in the flesh and having no other way? He has only his hope for a vague future in heaven [a completely mystical and unimaginable concept to a earth dweller] so in conscience he is remaining of the earth. Attempting to make his way here to prove himself. This is earthly religion under the Law. "Set your affections on things above, not on things of the earth" Eph 2:13.
The Law and the earth which we are so subject too was is and will always be [in the millennium] the place for the un-renewed Jew who is not a new creature [by Spirit] according to the bible, and never will be. God provided a visual fomentation for worship and justification in the temple in times of old by a disciplined behavior as He will on earth again someday upon His return. However the Christian is no longer under a earthly realm and the Law as Christ was while on earth. As we are now under grace which is heavenly, because Christ died unto the Adam man of sin and Ascended to heaven as a New Man and by God's Grace we are united with Him there. Not on the earth any longer as to any expectation ever by the Father. The Word says; "Through Him we both [born again Jew and gentile alike] have access by One Spirit unto the Father".
The end of all Jewish earthly things; dedications, consecrations, priesthood figures, sacrifice, pageantry, traditions, rules, discipline's were taken away by the Cross of Christ Jesus. But is still mistakenly widely practiced today as simply proper traditions. God is no longer dealing with men by a sensual and visible religion. Now it is the Holy Spirit that forms us and Himself in our thoughts by spirit. Outside of this position [in the physical] we remain simply carnal and will always seek the lower element of emotions, experience and self righteousness and Law. Leaving the reformed Adam man with only himself to reason out his place. "As is the earthly, such are they that are earthly; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly 1 Cor. 15:48.
The Father has brought us, both Jew and gentile, to Himself as a family by Spirit. Scripture confines the Body of Christ to that which follows the death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus by Spirit not by sight. We are not complete however in the souls application of spiritual truth, we are in process. "In Whom you are built together for a habitation of God through Spirit "Eph. 2:21,22.
The flesh is in us to by sure, but as a foreign thing. We are not in it before God, and not identified with it in any way by Him. But we are wholly identified with Christ Jesus in whom sin was never found. We are in Him as He is where He is found, and that is in heaven. " The Spirit bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God; and if children then heirs" Rom. 8:16,17. Why would we need more? Walk by Spirit not by sight!
P.S. I personally struggle deeply with these concepts but I trust God that as His Word declares He will reveal Himself through the effort. I simply have no other choice!
.
Sunday, August 7, 2016
CONTEMPLATIONS CALL
You, however, are not under the control of the human nature but under the control of the Spirit, since God's Spirit lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of the Messiah, he does not belong to him" Rom. 8:9"
It is pictures rather than propositions, metaphors rather than statements, which most often determine our spiritual/mental/philosophical convictions and thus our Christian world view. We receive a image in our subconscious mind and therefore results the consequent conscious actions we take. Many of our Christian life discovery's are derived from traditions engaged in, impressions and influences, snippets heard here and there. We are thus held captive in the mirror of our mind.
Some images are accurate some not, but all are capable of being formed/studied/ contemplated and lived out by the non-empirical process of the mind's intuition. But thankfully despite the vast formative rush of words and pictures merged into our conscious awareness, and then indulged in, some right some wrong, we make our way by God's grace. But the experience never the less effects how we can acknowledge the notion of the mind in conscious awareness, as the mirror of the life of the Spirit. It effects the way we can know our place in God's providence. What is really our contemplation of God, who we are to Him in our minds eye and therefore the direction of our soul.
If our thoughts are misplaced or inaccurate the presence of knowledge that is actually true of our God Christ Jesus is limited. The result is the door to the importance of the process of living His life as one manifested in truth, as His new creation, is Held back. Many never, to their great loss, learn a immaterial inner and sedulously [preserving or constant effect] sought biblical true exercise, largely because it is too much work for them. As they must, to live His life responsibly, attend to gaining truth through His Word in a way that favors Him in reality. However to live this kind of life, a new creation life, requires a seekers heart which is only acquired by admitted weakness.
It is the combination of Christ Jesus' true narrative from His Word and His Spirit within and our capacity of contemplation of His truth, thoughts as well as studious knowledge, which forms the affection of our soul. It is so sad how few it seems will take the time [have deep enough need] to develop either one. The truth is so many do not because they have little need within. Mostly finding themselves settled in, in their comfort and traditions or their occupation with themselves and the world.
I believe we have come to admire the surroundings and atmosphere allowed by grace as simply His communications with us as expected. His taken for granted provision for our contact with Him. Rather than occupying His Word in contemplation by faith in it's revelation of Himself to us. Him formed in our inner man, a spiritually true life. However in our emotional satisfaction of our social and worshipful provision we tend to see a certain godliness we think of as approved. A taken for granted proper method, forming a image which we have adopted of habit as His church. If it looks good and feels good this must be God's way for us.
The loss is ours if His Word has not built our thoughts of Him individually in a diligent needful accuracy, as to our heavenly position. And then unto a faith experience of a new creation life in identification of His Son. It is our loss if we loose the beautiful picture of His Son as the very true and only living or eternal identification of ourselves in our inner man. His Word tell us this is just as the Father finds us in Christ Jesus who is at His Right Hand. We pictured perfectly in the mirror of His mind, His thoughts of us empowered as He observes His Son.
The believer must come to know that position; where the death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ has forever placed him before he can acquire an intelligent worship, be an accepted servant, or a effective wittiness. We may then move forward as reflections of God, by honoring Him in a intelligent faith in complete dependence upon His divine providence. Unfortunality we often rely on a collective experience urged along the path of feelings and emotions; usually engaged with a organization attempting godliness but really often its direction is dependent upon mans selective and worldly judgment and conditional comfort. We now have as result largely institutions dedicated to pleasing man and their traditions.
Many simply rest with the thought of their sins pardoned thinking themselves on the Christian path of life, but know nothing of a personal attachment to the Risen and Ascended Lord Jesus Christ in heaven, or of a faith that lives in the invisible established in a mature spiritual contemplation. The heavenly walk with the Father is not their experience as their works are earthly and often influenced by cultural expression.
We struggle in our own strength, faith wanes and waxes; religious habits are kept up; but there is often little evidence we as a church have entered into His glory in the contemplation of His Word. Specifically the image of a new creation being developed. "The power of the world, the spirit of its literature and the temptations of business and pleasure, all unite to make up a religion in which it is sought to combine a comfortable hope for the future with the least possible amount of sacrifice in the present." This is the place many find themselves in the translation provided them of the Christian life by their commitment to what is effectively a man designed collective organizational process they assume as God's direction for them.
As humans, the way we process and react to information is influenced by both the biology of our brains as well as our social and cultural norms. Let's face it Christianity in its spiritual essence is unprovable, using any scientific biological means that is. That is why God presented us with His Words for the contemplation of His reality individually and internally, wholly within our mind to be taken in a contemplative process. A learned process! So it stands to reason if we do not first have a great need to know, followed by a firm commitment to learn this truth on our own, we loose the message He has for us in the privacy of our minds.
The result is the grace that saves us from death and judgement, with present forgiveness of sins, is clouded with uncertainty. So much so that the fullness of grace in seating us in the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven is rarely heard of, much less known and believed as a present realty, by a knowledgeable contemplative studious faith process. It is no wonder then that we accept the established traditions, "the ground of a earthly people". Aligning ourselves with the very place that rejected our Saviour.
We have developed a earthly system as if that is what we should be in experience and practice, rather than what God has established since Christ has come here and gone back to heaven, paving the way for a spiritual existence. The world it's ways and our habits of worship all conspire to block the true reality of our eternal redemption, eternal life and present seated position in Christ before the Father. All of which are found only and lived exclusively in a mental conception of our abiding rest and peace of a complete salvation represented by Christ Jesus and us positioned heavenly in Him. And all available to us here and now. Happy are they who receive in their simplicity these blessed spiritual realities as beyond all question. Knowing them as contemplations call from our great and faithful loving God and Father. "For the law [heavenly reality] of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law [earthly reality] of sin and death" Rom 8:2.
It is pictures rather than propositions, metaphors rather than statements, which most often determine our spiritual/mental/philosophical convictions and thus our Christian world view. We receive a image in our subconscious mind and therefore results the consequent conscious actions we take. Many of our Christian life discovery's are derived from traditions engaged in, impressions and influences, snippets heard here and there. We are thus held captive in the mirror of our mind.
Some images are accurate some not, but all are capable of being formed/studied/ contemplated and lived out by the non-empirical process of the mind's intuition. But thankfully despite the vast formative rush of words and pictures merged into our conscious awareness, and then indulged in, some right some wrong, we make our way by God's grace. But the experience never the less effects how we can acknowledge the notion of the mind in conscious awareness, as the mirror of the life of the Spirit. It effects the way we can know our place in God's providence. What is really our contemplation of God, who we are to Him in our minds eye and therefore the direction of our soul.
If our thoughts are misplaced or inaccurate the presence of knowledge that is actually true of our God Christ Jesus is limited. The result is the door to the importance of the process of living His life as one manifested in truth, as His new creation, is Held back. Many never, to their great loss, learn a immaterial inner and sedulously [preserving or constant effect] sought biblical true exercise, largely because it is too much work for them. As they must, to live His life responsibly, attend to gaining truth through His Word in a way that favors Him in reality. However to live this kind of life, a new creation life, requires a seekers heart which is only acquired by admitted weakness.
It is the combination of Christ Jesus' true narrative from His Word and His Spirit within and our capacity of contemplation of His truth, thoughts as well as studious knowledge, which forms the affection of our soul. It is so sad how few it seems will take the time [have deep enough need] to develop either one. The truth is so many do not because they have little need within. Mostly finding themselves settled in, in their comfort and traditions or their occupation with themselves and the world.
I believe we have come to admire the surroundings and atmosphere allowed by grace as simply His communications with us as expected. His taken for granted provision for our contact with Him. Rather than occupying His Word in contemplation by faith in it's revelation of Himself to us. Him formed in our inner man, a spiritually true life. However in our emotional satisfaction of our social and worshipful provision we tend to see a certain godliness we think of as approved. A taken for granted proper method, forming a image which we have adopted of habit as His church. If it looks good and feels good this must be God's way for us.
The loss is ours if His Word has not built our thoughts of Him individually in a diligent needful accuracy, as to our heavenly position. And then unto a faith experience of a new creation life in identification of His Son. It is our loss if we loose the beautiful picture of His Son as the very true and only living or eternal identification of ourselves in our inner man. His Word tell us this is just as the Father finds us in Christ Jesus who is at His Right Hand. We pictured perfectly in the mirror of His mind, His thoughts of us empowered as He observes His Son.
The believer must come to know that position; where the death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ has forever placed him before he can acquire an intelligent worship, be an accepted servant, or a effective wittiness. We may then move forward as reflections of God, by honoring Him in a intelligent faith in complete dependence upon His divine providence. Unfortunality we often rely on a collective experience urged along the path of feelings and emotions; usually engaged with a organization attempting godliness but really often its direction is dependent upon mans selective and worldly judgment and conditional comfort. We now have as result largely institutions dedicated to pleasing man and their traditions.
Many simply rest with the thought of their sins pardoned thinking themselves on the Christian path of life, but know nothing of a personal attachment to the Risen and Ascended Lord Jesus Christ in heaven, or of a faith that lives in the invisible established in a mature spiritual contemplation. The heavenly walk with the Father is not their experience as their works are earthly and often influenced by cultural expression.
We struggle in our own strength, faith wanes and waxes; religious habits are kept up; but there is often little evidence we as a church have entered into His glory in the contemplation of His Word. Specifically the image of a new creation being developed. "The power of the world, the spirit of its literature and the temptations of business and pleasure, all unite to make up a religion in which it is sought to combine a comfortable hope for the future with the least possible amount of sacrifice in the present." This is the place many find themselves in the translation provided them of the Christian life by their commitment to what is effectively a man designed collective organizational process they assume as God's direction for them.
As humans, the way we process and react to information is influenced by both the biology of our brains as well as our social and cultural norms. Let's face it Christianity in its spiritual essence is unprovable, using any scientific biological means that is. That is why God presented us with His Words for the contemplation of His reality individually and internally, wholly within our mind to be taken in a contemplative process. A learned process! So it stands to reason if we do not first have a great need to know, followed by a firm commitment to learn this truth on our own, we loose the message He has for us in the privacy of our minds.
The result is the grace that saves us from death and judgement, with present forgiveness of sins, is clouded with uncertainty. So much so that the fullness of grace in seating us in the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven is rarely heard of, much less known and believed as a present realty, by a knowledgeable contemplative studious faith process. It is no wonder then that we accept the established traditions, "the ground of a earthly people". Aligning ourselves with the very place that rejected our Saviour.
We have developed a earthly system as if that is what we should be in experience and practice, rather than what God has established since Christ has come here and gone back to heaven, paving the way for a spiritual existence. The world it's ways and our habits of worship all conspire to block the true reality of our eternal redemption, eternal life and present seated position in Christ before the Father. All of which are found only and lived exclusively in a mental conception of our abiding rest and peace of a complete salvation represented by Christ Jesus and us positioned heavenly in Him. And all available to us here and now. Happy are they who receive in their simplicity these blessed spiritual realities as beyond all question. Knowing them as contemplations call from our great and faithful loving God and Father. "For the law [heavenly reality] of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law [earthly reality] of sin and death" Rom 8:2.
Sunday, July 3, 2016
STUMBLING UPON HIS GRACE
"And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him [Christ Jesus], having forgiven you all trespasses" Col. 2:13.
There could be no greater testament to God's grace [unmerited favor] toward us than the declaration of the above bible verse! But can that very grace act as a stumbling block to our progress in the spiritual godly life we are so directly instructed to gain; from a intelligent appraisal of His Word? "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman who needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" 2 Tim. 2:15
There is a condition common to man, that is, "the truth hurts". Could this be the case with our reception of grace? Yes we need all the grace we can get granted, but we might not be in a very good position to receive it. That is a question whose answer we must seek, a problem we must solve, for any hope of growth in a Christ centered life.
The more precious the truth brought to us by the Spirit the greater the injury; when presented to those not in a state of spiritual knowledge to profit by it. Yet His grace covers all of our deficiencies regardless does it not. Unfortunately so many simply remain basking in its warm waters quite comfortably. Having long dined upon his grace sumptuously allowing it to fatten up the old nature, having little understanding of the new.
"For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus" Eph. 2:10. Our old nature, the one which requires so much grace, the basking one, cannot be His workmanship, that should be very apparent. Then what are we to do about it? Just continue to rest in His grace? Or maybe get comfy with ourselves, our sins, and let the socialization and entertainment aspect of church assure us toward eternity. Or worse, simply give up and say I am in the world, it is what it is, I am what I am, God will work it all out.
Well the fortunate truth for us is His grace covers even this sort of standard Christian approach to life; as His grace is the product of His Love covering us from the moment we first believed. For me however there must be more. Why? Because I learned something from the bible, and so did Paul; "In me; that is in my flesh, resides nothing good". What does that mean? It means that all that is emanating from our self centered nature [the one under grace] is considered sin and therefore God cannot, as restricted by His Holy nature, accept anything from it. Well how then has God accepted us? How has He shown His glory in us? By recreating us into a new spiritual creation, which qualifies for His Holiness that's how. Now He may fellowship with us. But is our grace comfort holding us back from our reception of His reception of us? "You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit [of the mind], if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him". Rom. 8:9.
First for us to benefit or even acknowledge His new creation, we must come to consider the old one dead. How? The only way possible, His way....His criteria for evaluating the Christian life: "For we are alive though we are continually surrendering ourselves [us in the flesh condition] to death for the sake of Jesus" 2 Cor. 4:11. In other words we must consider ourselves dead as Adam men just as He does, "in faith". Dead as self centered individuals for relationship purposes with God, having had the crucified Adam man personality put to death in His perception; all within and by the action of His Son Christ Jesus. Then upon seeing this we may perhaps learn that all He has for us; the wonderful truth of our existence in His sight, is to be held in a intelligent responsible faith of His Words declaration of the new creation we became by His [Christ Jesus] act. As seen by the Father Himself. His estimation of us as seen in His Son only. This is the positional truth and identification doctrine exclusively taught by Paul. Really God's message to Christians for their own personal apprehension of their new creation identity.
His Word is clear; it is not our soul that is changed for His reception, but our mind. His Son by the example of His very death has identified us as what we are to identify ourselves as, really "dead men walking" as to this world. Our new abode is accessed by a realization in spirit or mind that we are all new resurrected heavenly creatures. A thought to be held firmly by faith only, never by merely feelings or even intellect. And certainly not justified/displayed by our actions. "The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace" Rom. 8:6.
Yes moral changes take place in our soul/flesh under His Grace; we become better in behavior, i.e. language, honesty, pay most of our taxes, embrace family unity, do not watch R rated movies a lot, give our money to the church and perhaps even adopt some modern newly learned conservative values. Maybe even consider a little flag waving for a christian nation as a rallying cry. These worldly accepted Christian traits when described as our Christian nature really declare us as in the flesh. After all that is what is expected by the world and we meet their expectations well. Which only proves one thing; the old nature can be influenced, is trainable. Many see this altered behavior as the primary marker and function of the church, a earthly mission if you will of re-making the flesh. In other words the spiritual or the immaterial is not the definer of their life.
We all should bear in mind however the flesh nature is never changed into something acceptable or holy. Yet many have come to expect this sort of a chosen portrayal. Which really features a dependence upon or the opportunity at least for stumbling spiritually and in fact is actually made available to us by His Grace. We take His mercy for granted as byproduct of His love for us. Which we in the flesh take selfish advantage of quite liberally. His kindness in love allows this, as He knows we are of the flesh condition while upon this earth. And we can never escape it while here, except in the faith of our mind. "Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him' Ps. 37.7.
However it is the very presence and failure of our earthly self which grace covers and which directs our will toward His will. The suffering which emanates from that failure is His allowance for our benefit. A failure very necessary for us to live in realization of, and thus a driving force toward Him. Then the beginning of opening the door to a new creation life lived consciously comes, awareness of our heavenly existence, the spiritual life, the mind's effort. Above all that is of the world, a immaterial existence governed in thought. To go there we must come to know the total inadequacies of our own efforts. There is but one Man, one Object before God, in the Flesh, fully accepted: Christ Jesus the Lord. If we are to believe the bible is God's true word we must come to know we simply do not qualify. At least by anything we might do and certainly never in the flesh. But oh how hard we try! "God is a Spirit all who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth".
This worship is not simply waving your hand while lookin above when singing a song. It is acquiescing to His Lordship over all that we are. The spirit in us is our thoughts as developed toward His identification in us made before Him by His Son. And the truth is what He has declared in His word about our co-relationship with Christ Jesus the Lord in heaven, at His right hand. When we know Him as life in this way the stumbling road is made smoother toward a Christian reality.
There could be no greater testament to God's grace [unmerited favor] toward us than the declaration of the above bible verse! But can that very grace act as a stumbling block to our progress in the spiritual godly life we are so directly instructed to gain; from a intelligent appraisal of His Word? "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman who needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" 2 Tim. 2:15
There is a condition common to man, that is, "the truth hurts". Could this be the case with our reception of grace? Yes we need all the grace we can get granted, but we might not be in a very good position to receive it. That is a question whose answer we must seek, a problem we must solve, for any hope of growth in a Christ centered life.
The more precious the truth brought to us by the Spirit the greater the injury; when presented to those not in a state of spiritual knowledge to profit by it. Yet His grace covers all of our deficiencies regardless does it not. Unfortunately so many simply remain basking in its warm waters quite comfortably. Having long dined upon his grace sumptuously allowing it to fatten up the old nature, having little understanding of the new.
"For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus" Eph. 2:10. Our old nature, the one which requires so much grace, the basking one, cannot be His workmanship, that should be very apparent. Then what are we to do about it? Just continue to rest in His grace? Or maybe get comfy with ourselves, our sins, and let the socialization and entertainment aspect of church assure us toward eternity. Or worse, simply give up and say I am in the world, it is what it is, I am what I am, God will work it all out.
Well the fortunate truth for us is His grace covers even this sort of standard Christian approach to life; as His grace is the product of His Love covering us from the moment we first believed. For me however there must be more. Why? Because I learned something from the bible, and so did Paul; "In me; that is in my flesh, resides nothing good". What does that mean? It means that all that is emanating from our self centered nature [the one under grace] is considered sin and therefore God cannot, as restricted by His Holy nature, accept anything from it. Well how then has God accepted us? How has He shown His glory in us? By recreating us into a new spiritual creation, which qualifies for His Holiness that's how. Now He may fellowship with us. But is our grace comfort holding us back from our reception of His reception of us? "You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit [of the mind], if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him". Rom. 8:9.
First for us to benefit or even acknowledge His new creation, we must come to consider the old one dead. How? The only way possible, His way....His criteria for evaluating the Christian life: "For we are alive though we are continually surrendering ourselves [us in the flesh condition] to death for the sake of Jesus" 2 Cor. 4:11. In other words we must consider ourselves dead as Adam men just as He does, "in faith". Dead as self centered individuals for relationship purposes with God, having had the crucified Adam man personality put to death in His perception; all within and by the action of His Son Christ Jesus. Then upon seeing this we may perhaps learn that all He has for us; the wonderful truth of our existence in His sight, is to be held in a intelligent responsible faith of His Words declaration of the new creation we became by His [Christ Jesus] act. As seen by the Father Himself. His estimation of us as seen in His Son only. This is the positional truth and identification doctrine exclusively taught by Paul. Really God's message to Christians for their own personal apprehension of their new creation identity.
His Word is clear; it is not our soul that is changed for His reception, but our mind. His Son by the example of His very death has identified us as what we are to identify ourselves as, really "dead men walking" as to this world. Our new abode is accessed by a realization in spirit or mind that we are all new resurrected heavenly creatures. A thought to be held firmly by faith only, never by merely feelings or even intellect. And certainly not justified/displayed by our actions. "The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace" Rom. 8:6.
Yes moral changes take place in our soul/flesh under His Grace; we become better in behavior, i.e. language, honesty, pay most of our taxes, embrace family unity, do not watch R rated movies a lot, give our money to the church and perhaps even adopt some modern newly learned conservative values. Maybe even consider a little flag waving for a christian nation as a rallying cry. These worldly accepted Christian traits when described as our Christian nature really declare us as in the flesh. After all that is what is expected by the world and we meet their expectations well. Which only proves one thing; the old nature can be influenced, is trainable. Many see this altered behavior as the primary marker and function of the church, a earthly mission if you will of re-making the flesh. In other words the spiritual or the immaterial is not the definer of their life.
We all should bear in mind however the flesh nature is never changed into something acceptable or holy. Yet many have come to expect this sort of a chosen portrayal. Which really features a dependence upon or the opportunity at least for stumbling spiritually and in fact is actually made available to us by His Grace. We take His mercy for granted as byproduct of His love for us. Which we in the flesh take selfish advantage of quite liberally. His kindness in love allows this, as He knows we are of the flesh condition while upon this earth. And we can never escape it while here, except in the faith of our mind. "Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him' Ps. 37.7.
However it is the very presence and failure of our earthly self which grace covers and which directs our will toward His will. The suffering which emanates from that failure is His allowance for our benefit. A failure very necessary for us to live in realization of, and thus a driving force toward Him. Then the beginning of opening the door to a new creation life lived consciously comes, awareness of our heavenly existence, the spiritual life, the mind's effort. Above all that is of the world, a immaterial existence governed in thought. To go there we must come to know the total inadequacies of our own efforts. There is but one Man, one Object before God, in the Flesh, fully accepted: Christ Jesus the Lord. If we are to believe the bible is God's true word we must come to know we simply do not qualify. At least by anything we might do and certainly never in the flesh. But oh how hard we try! "God is a Spirit all who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth".
This worship is not simply waving your hand while lookin above when singing a song. It is acquiescing to His Lordship over all that we are. The spirit in us is our thoughts as developed toward His identification in us made before Him by His Son. And the truth is what He has declared in His word about our co-relationship with Christ Jesus the Lord in heaven, at His right hand. When we know Him as life in this way the stumbling road is made smoother toward a Christian reality.
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