IN THE SPIRIT

                     "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" Gal. 5:25

      There is much encouragement in the Church to know or sense the Spirit. We are told to be bold in our profession, a enthusiastic proclamation to manifest the Spirit in us. This is all well and good, but is this really the manifestation of the Spirit of God in us?

      The great secret of the Christian life; which is in fact the Holy Spirits purposeful manifestation, is found in ceasing from self. A abnegation [rejection, abandonment] of our self life. How may we do this and will it help in the Spirit's manifestation in us?

      For our Saviour Jesus Christ to receive His Resurrected life in glory He had to die, then His gift of the Holy Spirit could be imparted to us. So we in our receiving of  His Spirit of life as experience must liken ourselves or associate to His death in weakness, just as He. How is this done?

      First the Cross then the Spirit. He came to kill a old life " the self" and impart a new one, His; by Spirit. This is the old man and the flesh which He has died too. The very self who holds sway with much power in our lives for sin and self centeredness. It will only be in the understanding of a death to self [the old man] accomplished for us, by Him upon the Cross, that we will find the life in the Holy Spirit as a experience and a true manifestation. We in fact as natural men have been abnegated in God's sight.

      The Spirit life is really a simple matter, but very hard to realize. It begins by a resting in faith that what was accomplished upon the Cross is applied to us. Not in a feeling, a action, or rousing proclamation, but in a resting by faith of its truth. By that Cross we received a new life along with Him in Glory, not in the flesh, not in the body, but in spirit, as a "new creation in Christ Jesus". We by Spirit positioned in Him. This is a mystery but is a truth. We must become willing to be willing that His life has replaced ours.

      This truth is a position we have in Spirit before the Father. It is not by visualizing it or even verbalizing it, but is a fact to actualize in our mind by faith. It is our residency in spirit from eternity past. We have always been purposed to be placed in the Son. As we gain faith in this positional truth we will learn not to depend upon any sense or feeling. But that our position and presences in Christ both here in the Body and in Glory are based on a faith in facts of a positional reality presented to us in grace by His Spirit. This is the "partaking of the divine nature".

      We are placed in a position of commonality, oneness with the Father. We contain in our spirit a human-divine newness of life from our re-birth. We are there in heaven fully accepted in His beloved son "hidden in Christ".  Our only responsibility now is to sit quietly in His presence and wait upon His calling and direction. The earth is not our home "we have been raised up together". As we occupy that place fully, humbly and in quiet composure we will experience a normal Christian life. Resulting in fellowship with the Father, being prepared to accomplish His will on earth. That of the corporate Body united in His purpose. We only need continue, wait and rest! He will supply.

      Without a knowledge and a heart felt dedication of our identification of our death in the Lord Jesus Christ from sin, and a new life in God we cannot know our position or experience the privilege that we by faith reside there with Christ in His heaven. And know His Spirit to be in our hearts here. We have been freed from the old man by death and made a new man in a New Man.

     The very basis upon which the Holy Spirit takes action in us, His subjective work, is the objective truth of our eternal completeness in the Lord Jesus Christ realized by faith: co-crucified, buried, risen and ascended. Positional facts to be lived and enjoyed by faith; not possible to realize their potential in any other way.

      If you my brothers and sisters are moved by this and wish to avoid many years of struggle to live the normal Christian life please go directly to the Internet and order The Complete Green Letters by Miles Stanford. The Bibles simplicity of life was opened to me by this great saint and much of what you read in my blogs are because the Lord blessed the world with his message and ministry.