There is no greater hinderance to progress in spiritual growth than a religious system: the personal work of God in the inner man, in order to bring us to a intelligent understanding of our position in His Son is hampered by our tendency to substitute emotion, moral improvement, cultural change and planed activity for spiritual progress. This worldly course now permeates our current christian culture and institutions, and is the result of the saints being what the Bible calls"dull of hearing": not knowing, by the word of God, the new creation truth of what we have become positionally in Christ, and not knowing how that applies to our life in the here and now as Christians. A truth which was revealed clearly in the Word by Paul to be our exact condition; in this the present dispensation of God's administration of Grace. "Being justified freely by grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" Rom. 3:24. Often we conduct ourselves in a approved and culturally accepted Christian like fashion but mature spiritual growth is sacrificed for feelings and traditions, which please the crowd but are really worldly in nature.
In our modern culture we are constantly seeking a place in this world where we feel satisfied and are improvement bound. Therefore what is provided is a atmosphere which will please man to that end. However this is not Christianity. Moving from one place of worship to another in order to find a certain feeling, good music, eloquent words or a pleasing setting is mans self-centered personality at work for his own pleasure or comfort. History is clear, the church on earth as a organized institution, has often failed for the most part to produce saints who have a personal understanding of the new creation they are shown to be in the bible. "I have been crucified with Christ, and I myself no longer live" Gal 2:20. Not knowing the truth of a life defined as "in Christ", as their life's faithful commitment by knowledge and in faith. Little encouragement is offered the saints to become spiritually/biblically mature in their new creation "hid in Christ" self identity as Christians, which the bible clearly defines, by their local church. Why?
The believer having received " the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" in reconciliation [being saved] comes under the moral influence of a new "law", one of Spirit under Grace. This new life we now have always works in direction of self judgment as we must come to see that under His redemption and righteousness our new life is applied to us by God through His Son alone, not our own feelings of completeness, accomplishment or even feelings of godly fellowship or bible knowledge: His life provides a signifyingly and often overlooked result; simply His Spirit in us as our life's definition. We may now know what and who we are in God's mind and that our own vision of personal self worth has no value toward God. " I certainly do count everything as loss compared with the priceless privilege of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" Phil. 3:8.
By His Spirit with biblical knowledge and in faith we now we have a source for a new identification; by a mental acquiescence to that truth. Yes we may now know His thoughts. Which can be known to us by a doctrine revealed by Paul, which taught that when we are needful enough His Spirit will open up a all new divine life in us as individuals, a new identification for our Christian life. " For as the suffering of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds by Christ" 2 Cor. 1:5. We now by this new life, in faith and knowledge may have a heavenly source of overriding satisfaction and strength, for the true Christian experience. No longer are we mere men of the earth building a kingdom here by works, we are now partakers of a divine life in His glorious kingdom of Spirit; seen by faith, lived by intelligent mature identification as ones living actively in a knowingly sanctified life in spirit, for as He is in Heaven we are now like Him on earth. But we must know such a life in our new creation spiritual existence is seen by God entirely in another Person only. Then how can we know it as a experience?
The very first principal of knowing Christ Jesus as life in Spirit is to need too beyond any other thing. In other words we must find Him "as life" in our weakness. As knowing Him as mere men in work, service or determination we cannot ever measure up to His divine life, or really even know it. Even though, thank God, we really do have His life: in spiritual identification and position before , a God who definiens all things by the actions of His Son, under His divine Grace for all eternity. Its just that few seem to know Him as a positional reality; as their defined existence before God in the present as a mindful experience. "And you are compete in Him, Who is the head of all principality and power" Col. 2:10. We therefore in order to find our true self in spirit must find deliverance from what we are as earthly men and women; in our consciousness definition of who we are in order to see in ourselves as having His life now, in a new conscious awareness of our Christianity! All made possible by His Grace, now we may begin acquiring a new self identification from His Word; to possess His spiritual life in experience here and now. But how? " Blessed are they that seek Him with a whole heart " Ps. 119:2.
Delivered is a word seldom heard in todays churches, but the bible is clear we are to know deliverance from our very nature, the one we inherited from the first Adam. " It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives [as a defining self reality] in me" Gal.2:20. We may do this in only one way; by reckoning by faith the old Adam man as dead, not gone as we still sin, but see ourselves dead in the natural and to the flesh, in God's sight. All done by faith in the Word only, as this is God's reckoned and Word revealed view of His saints. "Crucified with Him" Rom. 6:6. We are not seen by Him for, heavenly spiritual purposes, as natural men and women, but only in the Person of His Son. As He sees us only in the nature [God became flesh] of the second Adam Christ Jesus, our new inheritance. A new Man in the flesh, Who died and then overcame death on our behalf! "Put on the new Man" Eph. 4:24. If this is true then where is our new life now to be found in that experience?
The saint in proportion as he counts himself dead to sin [delivered] and alive to God [sanctified within Christ] enjoys fellowship with Him; by knowing his position of oneness in Spirit with Christ Jesus: just as we are seen in the Son by the Father; this is knowing God's mind regarding us His children. "For we worship God in spirit [mindful understanding], and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confident in the flesh [works, traditions, emotions] " Phil 3;3. By taking on a knowledgeable biblical faith in spiritual intelligence we may now live above the circumstances here and even our human sin nature. "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves [works traditions emotions] to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency [we saints as seen in the Son] is of God". This is the exercise of the virtue that the believer gains by knowing his position in Gods sight, one of a life lived being counted as dead in the natural, in our minds eye as well as God's, but resin with Christ in the spiritual to a new life.
This is the new life the Holy Spirit is communicating to all believers via the Word. "You have put off the old man with his deeds [works, traditions, emotions] Col. 3:9. The Spirit does this by exposing our natural inclinations to sin, reminding us what it is like to be unlike Christ and then by Grace He leads us too a biblical faith by/of Paul's explicit teaching of this positional/identification growth truth. "Set you affections on things above [heavenly/spiritual reality], NOT on thing on the earth" Col. 3:2. We can know deliverance from ourselves and a new Spirit life, as is His intent, making us free indeed. To have this [His life] we simply must above all wish for deliverance from the old nature, and find ourselves entered into the new by a spirit; which desires more than anything else that which the Holy Spirit has already provided. His Spirit is awaiting, our allowing ourselves to grow into His identification before God. How? By knowing His word on the subject: That His heavenly life may become our own in thought, and then deed. We may know this truth as life in experience, only by biblical knowledge which must be always growing and be carried out by a active faith in what the Word through Paul has shown us regarding these facts of the true and divine Christian life. "Having therefore, boldness [by knowledge] to enter unto the holiest [Gods spiritual/heavenly intention toward us] by the blood of Christ" Heb. 10:19. Have you discovered who you are yet?
