There is a feeling of clarity when once we step into the realm and atmosphere of the Spirit. In the world it seems there are always many corners to be rounded off. Objects to overcome. A diversion at every intersection. To the contrary the Spirit is like a vast tundra, a open landscape as far as the eye can see, on and on without interruption.
Death is oddly enough the entrance to our true salvation with unlimited view. The Father subjected our old nature to the Cross, which killed it. In the unforming process which resulted from that death there is much experiential application needed for the realization of the death of the old nature; which is applied to us by The Father, so many lessons to be learned. Over time the work of the cross is applied to our old life and nature, progressively holding the death of the old in its grip. This is the uniforming of the old nature and the beginning of the conforming of the new. This new nature we already posses, but few realize it is the nature of Christ Himself. Not in just the act and resultant salvation afforded us by His death and Resurrection; but His very person has been integrated with our being. We have become one with Him in something called position. This is a spiritual place, yet a real and experiential place. The Father has seen fit to arrange our affairs that we are seen by Him in His Son and only in His Son; in the Fathers Mental/Spiritual observation of us, called the economy of God. We are now by His grace, judged to be full partakers of The Death and The Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Just as if it were actually us in person bodily. "For since we have become one with Him by sharing in His Death, we shall also be one with Him by sharing in His Resurrection. Surrender yourselves to God as living men who have risen from the dead" Rom. 6:5,13. However because we live in natural bodies we experience the world as all others, and tend to succumb to its ways and mode of life. The Word was given that we might learn to let the fact of our position in Christ Jesus overwhelm the feelings and circumstances of the natural condition. My friends, we simply must become unformed of the natural by the faith of what we are seen as by The Father in His Son, in order to partake of the spiritual life. All else is simply a motion we are going through, perhaps good and maybe Christian like and while certainly blessed by His grace, still only a motion.
I was in AA for many years and we had a saying; "fake it tell you make it". I think we could learn a lot from that idea. While I would not care to apply this thought to our faith, we must all admit we often start out small in that area. It takes time to grow, we have much work to do. All these things I am writing about, the stressing of knowing positional truth and identity in Christ, while far from perfect in my simple presentation and stumbling ways, are based upon biblical truths. The words are there for us to see, when and if we open the bible.We are however often blinded to them, simply from ignorance, laziness, preoccupation, or lack of discipline. Or we are simply caught up in a religious methodology etc. Yet we are explicitly told by God to Reckon [count it as true and applicable to our life] upon His written inspired Word. So sometimes, at least until we come up to speed, we have to simply trust, and act as if. Holding fast to the promise of the coming revelations we will learn by God's true Word if we are diligent. My friends if you do not step upon the path you will never arrive at the destination. Do not let the ways of the natural life, we all must contend with, rule your presence in the heavenly realm that The father has placed all believers in, in His Son.. Cast aside the traditions of men, risk it all to be found identified with Jesus Christ in a mental/spiritual position of a presence in Christ as your true identity. Come to know that for the purpose of God's knowledge and judgement of us, we have been transferred into Christ Jesus. Come to the foot of the Cross except to be in the unforming process. The result will be the occupation of your mortal body by the personality of Jesus Christ Himself. This simply must take place, or you will never know the gift The Father presented you in His Son outside of a temporary feeling. Yes you might be saved; but relegated to the earth continuing to be ruled by the natural inclinations, by your own natural choice. This is not the position of the Christian and not the place Christ sacrificed all to leave us in.
Our open participation in the new nature is called experiencing life, everything else is death. If a Christian cannot identify with his new nature as something to pursue and grow into, then he is in the wrong place. I do not mean by this the born again experience of our justification; which is all important real and true, but is still an experience, which while lasting as to God, dwindles as to the effect upon our natural personality or soul. Man was made to contain God, a privilege lost by sin's entrance. We were made in His image and likeness for that very purpose. Few seem to know that, I know for many years I did not. God has now dispensed Himself into us, by His Spirit, so we have to become ready vessels for that to take place in a realized fullness.We were made that anew by Christ when we inherited His nature when we first believed. After failing to meet the test in the garden God did not give up on us. He made us ready by His Son. God in us is life and Jesus is that life. Most Christians know that on some level, or at least can say that. But do we live it? Has Jesus Christ become our life? Are we even thinking of that as a possibility?
In the Death and Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ we were transferred from Adam's nature to that of Christ. We were co-participants in all that He was and did. The result is to have Christ formed in us. We are not merely reformed, which is a choice, a way we may appear, even in sincerity, to be good Christians. The following of a plan. No my friends we are to know of our transformation. Reformed is to improve; but transformation means a complete change of being. Admittedly a much feared and little know path, but never the less one which all Christians are on, and one day all will realize! We are told in Romans, "do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of you mind". We are to gain a new mind, according to the mind of Christ; as Paul's said also in Romans,"put on [mental application] the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provisions for the flesh".
There are many options in the world and in Christian tradition which appear good, but it is in the transformed mind only that we will "prove what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of God". We all may be attracted to many things in the world scene and the organized conformity of the Church: but the longer we remain attached to this world and the traditions and modality of men, the more a part of us it becomes. But if we are open to the transforming process, we then may walk in the Spirit and thereby learn what to avoid in the way we manage our introspective mental observation of our Christian thought and identity. In other words we stop being victims, and then may gain a perception of the new nature we have received in the position in heaven we have with Jesus Christ. It is by the contemplation and biblical awareness formed in us that tells us we are there with Him. We are then beholding Him there in heaven mentally in spirit, representing us. We will then become in conscious union with Jesus Christ in glory. Our persona will gradually become adapted to this as the Christian's normal heavenly prescribed position.
If we dwell upon His person and His work on the earth only we do not enter His glory. He is not here. But if we see by position and identity we are in glory residing in spirit with Him as our faith goal we will begin to learn that it is; "by beholding the Lord Jesus in glory [heaven] with a unveiled face [not a natural or worldly view] we are transformed into the same image [positioned in Him in spirit] as Jesus Christ". This is the Holy Spirit's compete intent for us; a gradual transformation into a moral correspondence [our life is His] with the Holy Saviour Jesus Christ Himself. This my friends is a true spiritual reality which few it seems enter into consciously, but never the less, all are called too. It really is the only way we will ever be anything like Christ. Correct doctrine, much study, faithful attendance mislead many. They are mere substitutes for the humble heart, who will finally rest in the fact that it is the life and Spirit of another which holds his identity and position, his total new nature before The Father. It is only when we learn we are united with Him in glory that we can announce ourselves as new men and women. We then can by His grace be transformed to the highest order, present with Christ at the right hand of God. Not merely reformed but unformed, to then become transformed. Thanks again to J. B. Stoney for inspiration.
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