"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!
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Sunday, August 28, 2016
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.
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