All that we are or ever can be comes from the heart of the Father. But in order to experience it we must connect with His love, and not merely the benefits of it. Otherwise we will not be established in His intent for His believing children. Which is nothing less than the very identity of His Beloved Son Christ Jesus. "He [the father] has chosen us in Him [the Son] before the foundation of the world" Heb. 10:19. His love has made us clear [by viewing and judging us wholly within His Son] of all that stands against us as sinful pilgrims on the earth; so that we may experience Him freely as life in spirit. "He said to me, My Spiritual strength is sufficient, for it is only by means of conscious weakness that power is developed" 2 Cor. 12:9. Yes His is a new kind of love and not just known or found among His gifts or in the grace which we receive in His service on earth. Nor even in His greatness and power in which we may glory in, in worship.
No the paramount thing for the Christian is gaining the knowledge of just what He [Jesus] is in Himself to us; those who have received His Spirit! Or how has He formed himself in our beings in thought or apprehension by Spirit. "Being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the consul of His own will". Eph. 1:11. If true then what is it then that stops us from making this clear for the conducting of life here in a way which honors who He has made us too be within His Son? Knowing Him as a present and lived spiritual reality, for conducting life here and now, as mental position, Him as our very identification in thought and contemplation. To know if this has become or is yet to be a reality we only need ask ourselves are we satisfied with the man or women we are now in Christ? Or are we in need of His spiritual growth? Perhaps we should listen carefully to Paul.
Paul said of his Christian experience and life; "I count ALL things as loss for the excellency of THE KNOWLEDGE of Christ Jesus my Lord". The all was the world and his vision of his place in it and included the relying upon his own spiritual intellect. Paul had also not found his spiritual adequacy in the acquaintance he had with the Lord, in his gratefulness for his own salvation, or even considered his spiritual relationship with Christ Jesus as the final reality. Not finding any divine descriptive satisfaction in a service rendered and a job well done. No much more was required of him for the knowledge and living of the Christian life, and of us also.
If it was as simple as raising your hand at church to receive Jesus in order to live the Christian identity then we could all just enjoy the pot luck and good old fashioned fellowship and afterglow as we sway to and fro to the music and continue on the road toward our own and the worlds cultural enhancement, really what is our own self satisfaction. Paul saw these same issues in the early church as well as in himself as he said of himself ["for I do the very things I would not do"]. And we also need more of The knowledge of Spirit to honor Him in this current life.
Paul showed us, by the Fathers inspiration, that the new life consisted of a much deeper mindful obligation, requiring or honoring no action or works of the Adam man. A new life, one of a new identification in conscious thought. A new conscious awareness, which is described for us in God's word's. "Now you are [spiritual] light in the world" Eph. 5:8a. Words mostly ignored, by a shockingly biblically illiterate congregation. Who are often enabled by a professional institutional clergy, dedicated to caring on many programs, so all may remain in a place of self comfort and satisfaction. All done [I say sincerely] no doubt with good intention and Christian love.
So then how may we gain the mind of Christ as we are commanded? "Walk as children of light" Eph. 5:8b As I've said many times, first must come need. After which must come a change of mind, provided by individual and private scriptural study. Our mind must be prepared for a new realization, a new identity, learned from Paul Himself, alone in our room. How? Well some understanding of our very nature must come first, how our mind works must be understood before His identity is transferred to us in any awareness. A spiritual mental process must be developed for freedom from slavery to ego, form and ritual. A release from our natural Adam nature [form, content] must be sought. Which along with Paul requires the conscious loss of all that is of the earth. This is accomplished merely through conscious knowledgeable observation.
A knowing escape from a earth bound tyrant who will always attempt to fight with all his power. Which is a consuming and a resident power within, the ego. Self will always seeks to control and maintain that control over our defining qualities. There is no escape from its influence as long as we remain on earth. Why? In order to hold us to things which glorify the flesh attracting feeling and emotions for it's verification as our identification, a false invalid and dead I.D.. This was Satan's program from the beginning for mans diversion from God's identity, his former oneness with Spirit. Adam was thus encouraged to seek his own way and thereby losing his spiritual oneness with his creator God. By that self centered act we all became captured in identification to form, a form of the flesh and the world. A form which will always sin. So we simply must find another way.
Form/content is the opposite of the freedom which we are called unto now by God's Word. We must inquire in the new revelations of Paul for the answer toward discovering a new freedom of spirit. "In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, and you are complete in Him" Col 2:9,10. One devoted to acquiring a completely new identification, counting the old Adam one dead and now by faith viewing ourselves in the very person of Christ Jesus the Son of God. Our redemption unto a new never before existing creation."That we should serve in newness of Spirit" Rom. 7:6. Jesus the God Man before the Father, and us incorporated within Him. We are now new heavenly creatures by His Spirit living in us. God lovingly acquiring us as individuals, intact in self awareness, but now positioned in the life of Christ Jesus; in His sight in the very person of His Son who is in heaven, us inclusive at His right side in His Spirit or thought.
We have been brought [through the blood and the cross] into Him, into His perception of mankind as accepted in Love through Jesus the Son, not merely made His handiwork for a job here. We now are heirs by Spirit of all that is His Son in Himself. We can know it as life by faith in that truth. He is sovereign yes, we are created, but now we exist in His person in spirit according to His declaration. "Being made free from sin, you are the servants now of righteousness' Rom 7:6a. He Christ Jesus is our Godly representation by the Fathers plan. We may experience this new life by faith only. We are set aside with/in His Son [in heaven] by the Father, at His right hand. Thereby releasing us from the great loss of Adam's garden; making a new mind and outlook possible as we sojourn here. All this has been accomplished by Spirit and we now though in the flesh live by His loving grace, just where He has positioned us by faith and by spirit/thought only. This is the only life a Christian has. Praise His name forever! How then may we recognize and then live this redeemed life in experience here and now?
Resistance to the new Spirit life is the natural function of the first man as the earthly Adam creature we are. We simply must feel things to know they are real, or so we think. But non-resistance is the key to knowing His power as life. As we first come too desperately need a new life, and then form it by trusting Him we may develop, by the Holy Spirit, a new consciousness or spirit; we must as the old one is dead to God. "Seeing that we have died to that which once held us in bondage" Rom. 7:6b. If we are living or abiding naturally in the old personality we will be held to the prison of the ego or form. We, in this case, are not free but controlled by the ego's unconsciousness or what is the driving force of the flesh naturally moving forward for self satisification. This is the function of the mind in it's natural form and just as Adam was living in a cursed self centered world we have inherited his ways being in his likeness. "Sin is in the flesh". How will we escape?
The Father has provided a way by His Word to form a renewed mind. "For you surly know that what is genuine in you faith produces a patient mind that endures" James 1:3. But first, or along the way, we must abandon any confidence we have in the world or the flesh. Experiencing weakness, in the suffering loss of any confidence in our actions, or any accomplishment on our part, must be present to approach the new spiritual creation life of the new mind, as prescribed by the Father in His Word. As a mater of fact the Holy Spirit will see to [weakness] it in order too form us into the spiritual image of Christ Jesus The Son; a mental acquisition of the Spirits function, as seen from the Fathers view, for a heavenly eternal life, wholly on His terms, starting here and now held by us first in knowledge then by faith. The likeness is found in our fellowship in His suffering as His Cross opens the door to life. "Seeing that we have died to that which once held us in bondage" Rom 7:6a.
But alas the modern institutional churches seem to be occupied with making the flock comfortable in their natural earthly state. Not teaching our sanctification from it [the sin nature] in Christ Jesus : "For He is our sanctification". Little seems to be known or taught that we are found only in a all new heavenly spiritual nature all of Christ, which we may acquire by the Word and faith only. All of which is based upon the foundation of faith in another's life and actions, a learned acquisition of the mind. Namely that of a spiritual life that is all of Christ Jesus alone; whom we look to as a object for our living of that life, not for a example to follow, but in total trust of a present identity by Spirit in Him established forever. All held in place by not regarding any value in our feelings and the actions of our earth dwelling personality, which is the old dead nature.
Because we all have been conditioned to respond to the old form, content and action, the church usually teaches from the old testament and the first three books of the new as the gospel [good news] for the flocks reassurance and comfort. However these verses are addressed to man on the earth or form, [they are to us not for us] and the law always applies at that strata. Paul taught only His newly reveled gospel. A heavenly [spiritual] application free from the Law, which was the all new revelation of Spirit and a all new never before reveled way to God. Not found in old books nor applied to us directly in first three new ones . A new way was reveled after The Acts not only to know God but to actively be of Him in nature; by the faith we may find in Paul's teachings; that we have been transferred and newly created into His Spirit, by and within His Son. May we all find the new way and thereby enter into conscious eternal life starting now! "Study to show yourself approved".
