We sent out 5 plus pages of references on being “in Christ”. I can’t image how many pages of referencing for grace. The entire bible is a reference on grace. Instead we write GraceNotes: 07-30-17SR.
Thompson Falls, MT. Crescent City, CA. Arlington, VA.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with
which he loved us, even when we were dead in our sins, made
us alive together with Christ – by grace are you saved – and
raised us up with him and seated us with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith … it is the gift of God. – Ephesians 2:4-8.
Dead in sin but alive in Christ, God’s gift of Life in Christ Jesus.
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, grace is orders of magnitude greater but unseen. It is not so much what the Creator has done, gazing at the sun’s halo; it is what the Creator is now doing in us!
God’s grace flows to us allowing His grace to flow in us … if we are created new 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!
The living Life of our resurrected Jesus literally dwells within our corrupted body. But we have been created 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.
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 mess, but this time using our free-will to operate in grace by faith.
The first creation was primarily physical and became temporal. The second creation is spiritual and is eternal. Now, being born again, our reality is Spiritual and our realm is eternal! Living on this basis brings into reality what is not seen. This is how we make visible the Life of Jesus into mortal flesh. We are created to live and be Spiritual in a temporal world with a carnal body. Jesus lives so that we may also!
Our identity and our realm have both changed. We are no longer temporal although it “feels” like we are. 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.
The unbeliever does not have our Spiritual access. Our access is created into each person, created new in our Lord Jesus Christ. Our new Spiritual creation is capable of growing the resurrected Life of Jesus inside of our own soul. You can see why the resurrection is crucial to the gospel message. We are now joined into Jesus’ resurrection life and His resurrection power enables our death to sin within our own soul.
“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 our 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 overcome by our choice to free-will, in Christ, God to lead 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 His grace becoming whom we are born again to be.
This Treasure within us is the Spiritual creation of eternal Life, our spirit joined into God’s Spirit. Both our body and flesh have fallen under the judgment of death but, within our fleshly bodies of clay, the Treasure of Jesus’ life stands in grace awaiting our faith. It is a gift received because He died our death, conquered death with resurrection power … and in deep love grants us grace 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 language. We don’t appreciate this amazing work continuing … in us.
Its like a butterfly releasing itself from its cocoon by the power of life given to it. The constraints of both body and flesh yield to the resurrection power of our new life in Christ. Our choice to live in His strength must persevere over the habits of human bias.
Christ’s power in our body-flesh struggle produces 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 grow in grace we encounter the personal loving faithfulness of our sovereign eternal Father. God’s grace is our spiritual weather teaching us to “fly.” The butterfly has its instinct but we have the faithful love of God watching our backside and 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 discerning and 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.
There are five distinct elements in this short passage. The first is the Treasure in our clay container, the living Jesus with all His resurrection power is our spiritual reality. The second is the conflict we experience because dwelling in our polluted body is the truth and righteousness of God’s Holy Spirit, our Treasure. The afflictions in our soul, the perplexities attacking our reason, the persecution against our person, the insult and injury to our reputation is our natural reaction to the light of righteousness shinning on our sin. But the Life of Jesus raises us to His level so that temporal things no longer become an issue. The world wages war against us but greater is He that is in us then he that is in the world.
The third element concerns the flesh, as distinct from the body. Paul makes this distinction in the Greek changing the word from “body” to “flesh,” verses 10 and 11. It is not only the temporal orientation of our soul’s passion and reason but also the lust of the flesh with its inherent selfish desires. This too becomes conquered by the Treasure contained in us, a new creation of God.
It is here also we find the fourth distinctive element. The Treasure is defined as the Life we now “live” and is always given over to death for Jesus’ sake. It is our active participation of living the Life. It is not a passive submission of belief, it is active participation of living out the life created within, the Life we are created to be.
This leads us to the last element described in verse 12, the fifth element. The death at work in us is what gives us the ability to show and teach to others. Our death is visibly by revealing the Life for others to share. Our invisible Treasure becomes visible by being who we are! It is the expressed Life of Jesus becoming a sweet fragrance to God. Our death of personal sin is replaced by the joy and peace of God. God fills our voids with Himself making us complete in Him.
In this short summary passage, the Life of Jesus is identified as the Treasure we contain because we have been created Spiritually new in our risen Lord. This is our created nature and identity. We also have identified both the body’s selfish sensitivity and the lust of the flesh attacking our new Spiritual nature of righteousness and truth that has become our identity. Using the resurrection power of our risen Lord we can put to death the things of body and flesh providing Life to reign, making visible the invisible life of our loving Lord. Grace reigns!
A dear friend shared with me a few days ago about a “dark cloud” that was constantly showing up. But when we shone God’s light on the dark cloud it disappeared. These things appear only when we look at them. The Lord is our strength and as we consume God’s grace there is no room for barriers or dark clouds. Darkness cannot exist in light. Our polluted environment constantly wars against our relationship in Christ. Walk in the light as He is in the light and we have fellowship together.
We are in a Spiritual boot camp, living in flesh, learning to be who we now are in Jesus Christ the Lord. We have been transferred out of the darkness of self into the Light of Jesus’ Kingdom. We live in the world but are not of it. Our Spiritual creation will thrive while living in a context of worldly pride, lust and desire … if we keep the light on!
We are never alone in these conflicts, we are always in His care. Grace is not only available, it is necessary and is working in our sleep. But the true glory of grace is not just its adequacy, it is “so much more” than we can measure. Grace is God’s culture drawing us into the riches of our eternal glory in Christ. Grace introduces us into an eternal reality beyond our human comprehension.
Our earthly environment is hostile. But it is here, in hostile territory, we taste the depth and width and height of our riches in Christ Jesus. Our temporal habitat is under worldly domination, it is Satan’s present domain. But we are in Christ, living in His resurrection power, living in the domain of His Kingdom of Light even while located in enemy territory. What a privilege we are given to exploit and experience God’s power in Satan’s kingdom. This is the here of “so much more” grace. Here, in us, grace reigns because we have been created new in Christ Jesus. Here is where we now grow and gain strength and wisdom.
We are able to use the resurrection power of Jesus to put to death sin that WAS reigning before we were birthed by God into a new creation. By targeting sin, we purify our soul with Jesus’ living water removing dung corrupting the clay vessels in which we live.
It requires focus, work and commitment. But our work is actually letting God do His work in us. This makes little or no sense unless you already have been here. We accomplish everything by doing nothing! The secret of being an “overcomer” is walking where Jesus is. This is what is meant by “being who we already are.” God has made us new Spiritually and we need to live in the power of this new “Way.”
“The Way” is what the early church called itself because Jesus Himself said: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through me.” This is the Son of Man who rose from death to give us His resurrected life so that we too are birthed alive together with Christ in His resurrection power. We submit our soul to the Spiritual person we have become in Christ, in His resurrection power. Old things have passed away but we need to employ the resurrection power of Jesus’ Life to experience His fullness.
The greeting of “The Way” was: “He is risen!” They were experiencing His resurrected life in their own mortal flesh. This simple greeting expands our Spiritual reality into temporal experience. We affirm to ourselves and others the reality of His presence. The Spiritually born again person is God reliant but the natural person is self reliant. Grace transitions His life into our life by faith because He is risen! The natural becomes Spiritual when we are born again in Him, in Christ.
Satan uses natural man to distort and pollute our Spiritual reality. This is how born again persons become nominal. We loose the effect of resurrection power when we take God’s place.
We can revert back to the habit of flesh. Participating in the white noise around us can erode God’s truth in our soul. The worldly truth distorts and defies God’s grace culture. Jesus’ resurrection life looses its effect when we tolerate the pollution of man. The power of the Treasure in our jar of clay will loose its power. Prayerfully keep God’s word active in your heart, keep the light on, drill down!
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.