Our life as sons and daughters of the living God, with all its consequent dignities and privileges, is entirely independent of us. All of who and what we are in total, as new creation beings, is made for us and completed in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. "And you are complete IN Him who is the head of all principality and power Col. 2:10. His life is made know to us, as our own true life, apprehended in Spirit, by faith in His Word. This truth is found by acquiring biblical knowledge and in no other way. The knowing that we are positioned [in the fathers estimation] in Christ in Heaven, by His Ascension there, in His new Creation Body of flesh, and knowing that the Fathers view which He has of us is seen by Him as He considers His Son alone is the Christians actual divine identity. Anything else or defining quality relating to self we may see in/as our Christian status is simply our own self delusion.
The question we then must ask is; are we alienated from our one true nature, which is the Fathers view, in any way by our own misguided self perceptions? Many do not seem to know what we are to the Father is none other than that of Christ Himself, according to the Word. "But now IN Christ Jesus you who were once far off are made near by the blood of Christ" Eph. 2:13. But unfortunately we are so often occupied and identified by much busyness, works, tradition, active service and emotions, and held back by a lack of biblical knowledge? Perhaps our entrenched occupation with the things of the world has stolen our true identify away from a conscious awareness of who the Word teaches us we actually are within Him, and thus countering us seeing Him as life's object in our own personal identification: The reckoned [counting biblical revelation as true] life which God intended for His children? As Paul said of himself we must also; "I long to know Christ and the power which is in His Resurrection" Phil. 3:10.
The more natural resources in our selves we count upon the less dependent we will be upon Him. We were not placed here as Christian men and women to build a kingdom for Jesus on the earth. Our home is manifested in Spirit as eternal and heavenly; known by believing what He has reveled in His Word. No other effort is required or even of any value to the living God. All service must stem from this thought in order to honor His destiny for us as ones living Christ Jesus' life out while on earth. "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God" 2 Cor. 3:5
If the bible studies of our churches taught the doctrine [study] of our spiritual reality as that of position and identification in Christ is also the identity of the saint, much more favored results would come from our service and ministry. The people of God must take up a separated position of spirit via faith in the truth of the Word, as it shows us our new creation life. It is on this ground, who we already are in Christ, that the Holy Spirit shows us our privileges and responsibilities. "And you are complete in Him, who is head of all principality and power" Col. 2:10
The Christian is delivered by Spirit, made possible in righteousness [right standing] only through Christ Jesus. His personal act upon the Cross, His Death, Burial, Resurrection and Ascension are seen and made by the Father to be as our very own; thus are we in Christ or really "unto His being". He not only relieved us of our quilt and sin in representation, found by a one time act of faith on our part, he also holds us in His being Spiritually, as a literal individual reality before the Father; which requires a ongoing pursuit of faithful knowledge to see and live out. We must come to know that for this identification to be known and lived we must always seek knowledge, and then by that knowledge hold ourselves in Him as life by a ongoing attitude of faith in that truth. How then will we be prepared for this new heavenly/spiritual life? "Set you affections on things above" Col. 3:2.
It can only come as we see and know the inadequacy of all of our human efforts. We must know that, by a acknowledged weakness, to ever be able to serve or know Him in any way that might be righteousness, by our own acts, as impossible. This is why the man centered cultural effort of kingdom building and the current emotional simulative effect favored by many falls so short in honoring His desire for us to truly know Him in the way He has provided in His Word. "Seek those things which are above, where Christ sits in the right hand of God" Col. 3:1
We are finite, the object of our conscious reality before God is infinite, contained in Spirit in the Fathers mind; the confidence to live His intended life for us is found in the apprehension of this truth, and its reckoned [counting it as true] application. Many Christian live a unfulfilled life and are miserable because they have given themselves over to self-occupation. They may be God fearing and conscientious but depend upon the worlds resources and have nothing to lift them out of their old Adam nature. Lack of knowledge is always a prominent feature in this man. However even though some may be aware of what the Word says of them many simply have not reached the end of themselves. They are always seeking to have something that will make them feel good happen. And perhaps even unknowingly are captured by a cultural and traditional collective self centered thought. "Let the word of God dwell in you richly" Col. 3:16.
The true spiritual Christian life however is based upon the knowledge we have of the position we hold in God's Son as He presents Himself to the Father in Heaven. Him seen as our existing life in Spirit by God. This is the paramount doctrinal theme set forth in the Pauline Epistles. "You life is hid with Christ in God" Col. 3:3. Knowing His truth from Paul's teaching will establish how we see ourselves identified in our minds apprehension of Paul's inspired words and will open the door to a new creation spiritual life of freedom and joy. But what is it we must reckon first and formost [count as true] before we may grow into our new identity?
It is now our privilege to think of ourselves according to what we are as "being" in the Lord Jesus Christ. And what we have become in and as that spirit being is always maintained by Him. As He is now not only our life in the Fathers eye's but our advocate and very person, as the standard required of a man in the flesh before a perfect God. To have this thought as our defining life however we first must come to know and do something of utmost eternal importance.
We must come to the place where we see intellectually and spiritually that we as men of the earth, in the self centered inheritance of the Adam race, are seen by God as annulled or dead. In other words we cannot be accepted in any way by God in the natural form as Adam men and women. We are only found as accepted in the new creation we have in His sight know by faith. Well what is left we might ask, and how do we overcome our all super invasive internal standards of physical and mental personal domination here in this place? Well what does God say?
Only that we simply reckon or count what He has said about us to be, and has infact made us to be, as true, that's all! What then must we reckon first as the platform of our new creation identification found only in Him? His Death, which is a represented death and our death with Him, which has establish us in spirit. Annulling all that is of the flesh, in God's sight, the old Adam man of the earth is dead "Even so consider [reckon] yourself to be dead to sin [sin is in the flesh], but alive to God IN Christ Jesus" Rom. 6:11.
There are dual truths found upon Calvary's Cross: His death to sin [its power] as Adam men, a judicially required payment, and our death with Him for forgiveness of the sins we will commit. For a complete deliverance from ourselves as sinful earth men. All known and to be known and lived out by a attitude of faith, and in no other way. "Without faith it is impossible to please God" Heb. 11:6. A deliverance found from the vary thing so completely rejected by the Father; our Adam man or natural existence, which is always and only sin. "For if you live according to the flesh you will die [spiritually]; but if by the Spirit [God's mind applied in your identification apprehend] you put to death the deeds [following our natural inclinations toward the thing of the world in self centeredness] of the body, you will live [in the mind of God]" Rom. 8:13. We are identified by God in His death, a dead man cannot sin; its power is broken, so in the spiritual sense, which is the only communion with God we have we are delivered from sin.
We only need a Reckoning reality to enter His Spirtual realm of life identification of our being in Christ positioned in Heaven within Him. A hope to be realized in the new creation body in our mind, a heavenly transformation we all should be waiting for with longing. And while waiting for our tangible new creation bodies in the transformation to come we become likened unto Christ Jesus,' in moral character, through a seeking heart. All while we wait in our flesh and our weakness, including suffering in the flesh, we gather His hope by a intelligent faith. All bringing about a life to now live, one of value and gain, in the Spirit only. All by faith, trusting Him, for what we will be and are now already seen to be by the Father in Christ Jesus. This is the Christian life!
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