Just what does it really mean to be a Christian? We all seem so caught up in just being ourselves so much of the time. Do we really by biblical standards that is, even know? Or is it the case that in dealing with our anxieties, personal short comings and worldly concerns and of course the weekly promptings of ceremonial liturgical urgings, we give most of our attention to the sinful Adam mans personality? Thereby attempting to alter his identification in order to create a good worker/servant so that we might have a satisfactory earthly explanation of our Christian life that suits the standard we have assumed we must arrive at in order to please God.
In so doing we hardly have time to contemplate the biblical described new inner man we are commanded by God to nurture. The new creation spiritual life wholly in Christ the bibles says we have become by faith; needing no self improvement to qualify for. I think few Christians ever think in such terms. At least in my 35 plus years as a active Christian I have know very few. If this were not so then all the sermons preached on what we should be and the great preponderance of church issued psychological and counseling programs and training sessions expressly designed to improve what we are in the Adam flesh by changing our conduct or attitude and morals would not seem to be so necessary.
The man we have become by the bibles declaration in Christ needs no training or urging to serve and work to become what he is already in Spirit "hid in Christ". Only a realization of the bibles revelation of his new nature, then faith in that truth is necessary, all else will naturally follow. "We are no longer servants [as under the law] but a son; and if a son, then an heir [to all that Christ is] of God through Christ" Gal. 4:7.
By the way to discover the alternative to the self life or the disclosure of self, in order to cast aside our natural selfish burden; the entry way to the new inner man, we are in Christ, requires a direct personal motivation prompted by the Holy Spirit. A overwhelming need; for the new life's spiritual\biblical introspective thought; in order to thrive and grow as one who has inherited all that is Christ. Jesus Said to His disciples; "Out of your inner being shall flow rivers of living water". Just what does that mean? Is this living water something that flows from you by simply who you have been made into in the new birth, your redemption? Without a revelation of a new heavenly life positioned in Christ. A spirit of directed biblical faith to live by.
By this knowledge the minds definition of ourselves [our very being] takes on a new creation attitude of the life we now have in Spirit, in Christ. Identified with Him by our own self introspection as heavenly beings. God's perfect view of us which we now have awareness of, a heavenly new life. "He has created us through our union with Christ Jesus for doing good deeds which He before had planned for us to do" Eph. 2:10, Wms.
A Godly man, Wm. Kelly once said; "The saint in proportion as he counts himself dead [co-died by representation with Christ] unto sin and alive unto [knowing himself positioned there in Him] God in the Lord Jesus Christ, and as he enjoys fellowship with Him [within the identification we have in Christ], lives above himself and his circumstances. There [by this mind set] is [comes] the virtue by which the Christian is said to be dead and risen.... the new life, [which many Christians do not actively apprehend or have ever embraced consciously] a life the Holy Spirit communicates to all who believe. Only the believer feels what is unlike Christ [as when one engages the world]; but he rests in who he is to God [by knowledge and in faith] and this makes him happy and free".
This new life would take the form of a internal freedom a condition which the living God has prescribed and then created for us that we may experience it. It is simply His life. We enter it only in our minds by a faith that excepts His new life for us as a condition of the heart or mind. A condition which exists in a invisible form, assessed only by faith. We enter this dimension only in the expectation of the invisible. Not a altered behavior, or by the social moral worshipful crowd we associate with as the proof.
The fruit of the new minds revelation is much more than mere service, duty, morals, traditions, training, repetitions, godly intuition or even worship. Our life has become, [taken on] a spirit which is now alive or re-born. A brand new life which is wholly in Christ. One in which we must grow into by faith thereby allowing the Holy Spirit to convert our soul into knowing just who we are as new men; in order to carry out the Life of Christ on earth. Our very function and purpose. We do this by gaining knowledge....we feed our minds with the things of God from His Word. We then may rest in the Holy Spirit living the life of Christ within us. Thus we are members of a new race which has come to be called Christianity, we may live this life freely by desiring nothing else. After all it is the life of God....we must express it, as His Will be done.
Do you my vast reading audience wish to be free and know the Lord in power so you might live anew? I hear the crowd now all in unison say 'yes of course we do'! Well then dear saints simply pray this prayer: Dear Lord please empty me of myself by showing me your new creation life. Take away my home, my possessions, my family, my health and any hope I may have of a successful life and golden retirement or any other earthly attachment which may deviate my minds understanding from who I am now newly in Christ as a heavenly spiritual being. Leave me in deaths emptiness as too the earthly man I am by condition as your Word commands. Show me how to live here in knowledgeable death toward that old dead man. So that I may have and be made available for the glorious promise you have by grace given; of a new life one of having a personal, individual realized intimate presence with you in my very personal identification while here on earth. One in Glory with your Son; enjoying the same fellowship you have with Him there in heaven. May I gain the faith to enter into that place.. So that I may now partake of [see and know] the new creation life in Christ just as you see your Son and myself as one at your right hand. Living that life by receiving this gift of faith, that my life is also His life all together in you. The gift your Word declares we must have in order to please you, for I am "Hid in Christ in God".
No comments:
Post a Comment