God’s grace flows to us and in us. This is most amazing! Pondering our reality, what actually is going on in us is staggering!
More staggering than a predictable eclipse of the sun, orders of magnitude greater and unseen is… grace. It is not so much what the Creator has done, gazing at the sun’s halo; it is what the Creator is now doing! Have you seen the Son’s halo?
Grace flows, allowing His Life, Love and Light into us, when we are created from above in Christ. Our creation in Christ Jesus connects His actual resurrection Life into our temporal soul through our spirit. You might say we are Spiritually connected …. literally, both physically by Blood and Spiritually by faith. This has to do with believing, not just intellectual believing but believing at a faith level! This is unlocking the reality of Christ’s life into our mortal bodies.
The living Life of our resurrected Jesus literally dwells within our corrupted body. But we have been created as a Spiritual person, righteous in Jesus. This spiritual reality, gifted to us, is both our identity and the dynamic of our life, even though we “feel” glued to a temporal existence. We no longer are held captive to sin, we are set free from its power. Read, understand and memorize Romans 8:9-11, at the faith level!
We are gifted in Christ and called to chart a course for our soul with our free-will. This is the same free-will that got us into this sin mess! God has now given us the option to get out of our sin dilemma, but this time using our free-will to operate in His grace by faith.
The first creation was primarily physical and became temporal. This second creation is Spiritual and already eternal. Now, being born again, our reality is Spiritual and our realm is eternal! Living on this basis brings us into reality not seen. We are called to make visible the Life of Jesus into our mortal flesh. We are created from above to be alive Spiritually in a temporal world with a carnal body. Jesus lives in eternity so that we can walk in time! He is visible in us!
In Christ our identity and our realm are not of this world but a person not born from above is of this world. We look the same, our soul is the same, yet at the same time, it is not the same!!! We are no longer temporal although it “feels” like we are but we know deeply there is a difference, even though we can’t quite put our finger on what it is. Remember, truth trumps feelings! God’s word is explicit about our realm and identity. This world is no longer our home, we are just passing through. Instead, we are raised up with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Memorize Colossians 1:13-14. We DO KNOW what the difference is, but many of us can’t quite verbalize it … yet!!
Memorizing these passages helps us move the words of scripture from our mind-set deeply into our spirit where they get baptized into the passion of Christ Jesus living in us. We must train ourselves to walk deeply in the Spirit using Jesus’ resurrection power. We need to bring His reality up to the surface of our experience. Scripture is fodder for our Spirit to feed the consciousness of our soul.
The unbeliever does not have our Spiritual reality or access. The unbeliever is not born from above. Our new creation grows Spiritually in the resurrected Life of Jesus and also inside our own soul. Our soul and spirit are not the same thing. You can see why the resurrection is crucial to the gospel message. We are now joined into Jesus’ resurrection life accessing His power to put to death the sins hindering our personal fellowship. God’s righteous light shines on the darkness in our own soul so we can make it disappear.
Yes, we are redeemed and forgiven but in the habit of our cultural living, we are constantly making decisions out of self. We are Spiritual babes needing resurrection power to put to death those things which do not meet the righteous standard of truth found only in Jesus our Lord. Yes, now we are redeemed! And now we need to grow in grace and knowledge of whom we now are, born from above with a current, open passport to heaven. We are in the kingdom of Heaven but living in spiritual boot camp on earth in temporal time.
“We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.”
This passage depicts two ultimate life forces, death and life. Every born again believer has within their body of flesh a Treasure. We are containers made to hold something special. Our special Treasure is non-other than the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, our Creator and Lord. When we have the resurrected Spiritual Life of Jesus Christ dwelling in our body of flesh, as the old Johnny Mercer song says, “Something’s gotta give.”
As the above scripture reveals, our soulish mind-set is afflicted in every way. Even if we are struck down, we are never destroyed. Even our lustful flesh must give way to the life of Jesus. These are the things we overcome with the power of our resurrected Lord Jesus. We can overcome by our free-will choice in Jesus Christ. God is leading us in triumph over our body of flesh. We become the aroma of Christ to God among those being saved. Our life in Christ Jesus is a testimony of His saving power, growing us in grace, becoming whom we are born from above to be.
This Treasure within us is the Spirit of God dwelling within us joined to our spirit, 1Cor.6:17. Both body and flesh have fallen under the judgment of death but, within our fleshly bodies of clay, this Treasure of Jesus’ life stands awaiting our faith to consume His grace. It is a gift received because He died our death, conquering with resurrection power … and in deep, deep love granting grace to us, to be who He is. It is a fairy book story come true. Better than that, it is a journey out of temporal life into a glory not yet written in our finite language. We don’t appreciate this amazing work continuing … in us, continuing its work, even now as we look for His glory manifested in us.
We marvel at a butterfly emerging from its cocoon with new power and a unique beauty of life. Ours is so much greater, so much beyond, yet a butterfly illustrates the reality of transmuting from one life to another. The constraints of our body and flesh are put to death by the resurrection power of new life in Jesus the Christ. Our choices to live in His strength persevere over the habits of human bias. We must live in faith, consuming grace so that we experience the glory of His life in us.
The assault of a hostile flesh-body against our new Life in Christ is subtle and constant. The conflict is actually a useful tool. By it, we produce spiritual discernment making us whom we are created to be. It is God working in us to will and do of His pleasure. As Oswald Chambers puts it: we work out what God works in.
The butterfly no longer crawls up the stem of the plant, she flies discovering the wind and flowers. As we consume grace we encounter the personal loving faithfulness of our sovereign eternal Father. God’s grace is our spiritual milieu teaching us to love. The butterfly has its instinct but we have the faithful love of God’s Spirit praying, watching and working, leading us into righteousness, truth and love. Basking in God’s Son with our wings open is a good thing!
Living in this flesh, there is a constant white noise in the background. It is the world, the flesh and the person of Satan. He is very real and the more we overcome, the more faces of Satan we encounter. We uncover eternal strength and resurrection power in us through these worldly adversities. In the wisdom of God, we are being Spiritually trained to be more and more adept in faith and power. Experiencing conflict instructs us in our weaknesses exposing our Rock and Shield.
Paul’s message to the Corinthians (above) makes this point. The Life of Jesus becomes visible in our mortal flesh as we overcome our afflictions with His resurrection power.
In the recent six GraceNotes we characterized a portrait of our salvation through Christ’s Life given to us, God’s Love poured into us and the Holy Spirit’s Light to provide a path for our journey. We also outlined the scriptural doctrine associated with Christ’s Life in us, Justification; God’s Love and grace, Redemption; and the process of walking in The Holy Spirit’s Light, Sanctification.
The world, the flesh and the devil are constantly warring against this Spiritual life given to us. We understand why Paul often presents a scriptural principal followed by practical applications.
We need to follow Paul’s example. We are going to do 3 more pieces to compliment the Life, Love and Light principles completed. We are going to try “looking” at the practical side; Looking, Listening and Learning.
Jesus shared the secret of His Life with His disciples in the Upper Room just before He was taken by soldiers in the Garden. His relationship with His Father is the secret of our relationship with Jesus. This “abiding principle” given to the disciples is also our in Christ principle.
It is from this John 15 vine principle of abiding, we get “Looking” with Spiritual eyes what we actively do because we have received Life. But it is not only a question of us abiding, it is a question also of allowing Jesus to abide in us. This is our passive activity of Listening. But this still does us no good unless we put into practice the lessons we learn from both looking and listening. We Learn by doing what has been put in our hand to do. Looking, Listening and Learning will be our application to compliment the principle and doctrine pieces already completed.
Pray with us as we consider how to put this all into a teachable format so that we might do what we are learning.
He is risen! Lets take the Life He has given to us and give it back to Him with feet ready to serve, a heart ready to love and a life ready to glorify our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
While we live in this flesh we are putting to death the darkness around us for Jesus’ sake so that the life of Jesus may be seen in our mortal flesh. We are making visible in our flesh what is invisible through the resurrection power of Jesus. Memorize 2Corinthians 4:11.
Now unto Him who is able to do more than we can ask or think.