It is as we are identified within our own conscious minds with the perfection and acceptance of the Lord Jesus before the Father that we may approach fellowship and worship within the Spirit of the Fathers true intention for us. Few come too our Father with this in mind though. Yes we may worship in joy and love as a experience and be satisfied, but are our thoughts of Him there in heaven representing us Himself and we as new creations wholly within Him? As the word reveled to Paul teaches us to do. "For as many of you who have been baptized into Christ [received the Holy Spirt/ born again] have put on Christ" Gal.3:27. Or do we merely seek blessing for our earthly needs for a momentary enjoyment or self fulfillment and then be on our way to our worldly pursuits?
It is only in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ that we may find our needs meant and the truth of who and what we have become in Him in Spirit as God's new creation. Where then are our thoughts to honor Him and what He has done by taking on our burden and accomplishing reconciliation with the Father in our stead? And by His actions the open door to His Spirit as life; found in personal identification and a awareness or apprehension of the position we hold within Him. A position declared by God but only seen in His Son, which we may consciously abide in by faith. How many Christian have any depth of thought as to what the "Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" even means in application to these facts. The truth is we will never know, until we come to the end of ourselves. But just how does that happen?
So much of Christianity today, and really from the beginning, is simply a culturally infused tradition. Todays church narrative is often a social gospel institutionalized in order to build a sense of community among those participating called kingdom building. Yes Jesus is at the center of these works based efforts done in word or symbol and of course love is in the minds and hearts of most Christians in there pursuit of changes and missions. And thankfully God's Grace does abound and His purposes will all be fulfilled no matter.
But where are we as individuals in conscious self introspection of what we have become in Spirit in the person of Christ Himself is really the question Paul has put forward? Are our thoughts in the participation of these traditions and cultural improvement missions of ourselves framed as a worker for Christ in kingdom effort, or of the Lord Jesus and us positioned and identified in Him in heaven, as our identification, as was taught by Paul? "For he that is entered into His rest, he also has ceased from works" Heb. 4:10. Paul was given a new Gospel he was a man who revealed what we truly are in Christ in Spirit, by a direct revelation from God, that stressed the importance of a mature spiritual understanding of our positional spiritual status being the basis for our mission outreaches in order to honor His word. And if so we must know a positional spiritual life as new creations through faith in God's word alone. Just as it has described us in the word, in the Fathers thoughts of us there with Him. Thus we honor Him in mind. "The communion of the Holy Spirt be with you all" 2 Cor. 13:14.
Yes we can know Paul's doctrine of Spirit identification by knowing the word as life in Christ explained; which tells us to; "put off the old man" and to "put on the new man" Eph. 4:22, 4:24. This is not a personal effort accomplished in ourselves by traditional church activities, good moral behavior or even bible study, or urging the saints to be more mission/outreach minded. Nor does it apply to anything we may ever become in the flesh. No all that we are or may become is objectified in Christ Jesus the Son who is in heaven. We must look to Him in subjectification by faith in His word as to His truth defining us made true only in Him. Him as "the new man" now applied to us in representation by the Father: never ourselves as earth creatures, never for good works alone and never for a happy feeling that we may be self satisfied workers in a well organized Christian community that we may develop a mission self-image by our own efforts.
In the creation of Adam God planted a man in total innocence, a man one with His God. That all changed when sin entered his mind though. In redemption however Adams progeny were planted in a entirely new Man, Christ Jesus, who is in heaven. This is the Man Whom we are to put on a heavenly or Spiritual Man. Not by actions or words but by bibical knowledge and a quite faith in the work and identification of another all together. Few Christians are ever taught these bibical facts as their personal identification though. No the effort is mostly confined to making a man on earth better, really in order to please himself.
These efforts often take the form of Cultural programs, out reach, missions and community enhancements, which often overshadow the "Law of life" found only in a personal awareness of His placement of us in a Spiritually conscious position of being in Him, and identification with Him where He is all by faith alone. This is the partaking of His Grace. We in Him, He in us, we where He is; in The Fathers thoughts, in heaven by spirit, in the mind of the Father, a place no sin can enter. A non-material place, but offering great hope for the soul on earth. No effort no action required, secured for eternity in Glory with Him by representation, we merely await the final transition. We only need to rest in His new Spiritual Law of life as we linger. "Set you affections on things above, NOT on things on the earth" Col. 3:2.
The man we put off is the old natured man. The means of off-putting is the recognition by faith and knowledge of our place upon the Cross with Christ Jesus in a co-death with Him. "For we have died [not changed] Col. 3:3. We are and always will be in the old man by condition here as we are in the flesh no mater our spiritual insite. This is the man the Father punished with suffering and death by representation. His Son was the propitiation or substitute for us, because of the Fathers love for His creation He took our place in that death. Therefore by this judicial action wholly in the Son we have been declared dead as natural men by God "For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God" Col. 3:3.
We will put Him on as a new creation by the knowledgeable understanding of our Spiritual co-status in His Death and also the Resurrection and Ascension of the Son of God; our participation in the divine nature according to the power of resurrection, all declared by God's word and known to us as position and identification by faith only. "But now in Christ [by spirit in thought ] you who were once far off [in the old man identification] are made near [in the new man] by the blood of Christ" Eph. 2:13. We know this as true and life by the word only and we live it in the mind by faith in the facts only. God's way is not our way we only need believe and have faith in what He has said for freedom to live above all circumstances here. "As is the earthly, such are they also that are earthly; and as heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly" 1 Cor. 15:48. It is the new creature we have become, the new Spiritual life in the Lord Jesus, with its fruit in us by the Holy Spirit, which alone is acceptable to the Father and honors Him, as He has contemplated and defines His own Son, with us in mind, as accepted within His Son, a spiritual position. Which is just as His Son is viewed, with us in mind, as new creations by Spirit, by God as He looks upon Him representing us on His right side. This is Christianity by Position and Spirit under His super abundant Grace.
