One view of the Redwoods never reveals a full scene. In this picture, how many Redwoods do you see? Two? Maybe three? How about five? There is SO MUCH MORE than meets the eye. Seven times Paul uses “so much more” in Romans 5 to describe Grace. It is so much more than we visualize but it is revealed in His love. Grace reigns in those born by God into His righteousness.
“… but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sinned reigned in death, grace might also reign through righteousness leading into eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”-Romans 5:21.
Our view of the Redwoods is like this verse. There is much more than meets the eye. Sin cannot overwhelm neither can circumstances be so impossible that grace is not on scene waiting to do “so much more.” Grace is a personal relationship working inside-out as well as outside circumstances-in. It is about two persons working together.
One person is you or me. The other Person is too amazing! He is beyond words to describe. It is the Creator God who also loves. It is not just a human affection of love He offers, He is the Person of agape love coming into us from divine places. The almighty Creator God of all grace is courting you and me to be to be joined with Him in a much deeper love. The I AM faithful God of the universe came into our humanity so that we, IN HIM, are joined into a oneness that must be experienced!!!
God Himself is on the other side of our grace relationship. Not the image in our mind, no, nothing that small. This is The Eternal Reality of God Himself. The I AM who creates ex nihilo, out of nothing! This Eternal I AM is on the other side of our personal relationship because we are in Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son.
Not only is He GOD, He is The Holy Spirit, The Lord Jesus Christ and The Triune Godhead Person! I know … How can it be? Yes, the God of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses and the God of Jesus Himself dwells in us. Our Grace flows out from our personal God, who provides power, so that, we can accomplish His will ... and so much more! This grace, the Grace of our Triune God, is this “grace in which we stand,” Romans 5:2. How glorious is our God!
An element of this grace our Triune God supplies is: resurrection power. Believers are His created and redeemed persons, containing the resurrection power of Jesus. His power trumps the power of darkness and so much more … He give us power to live His life producing holy, righteous fruit. He provides salvation from sin and gives us the capacity to glorify Himself with power to be who we are intended to be! Only in Him can we be whole, solid and true, full of wisdom and righteousness, 1Corinthinas 1:30.
We have the wisdom of Jesus and His mind because as He is so also are we in this world, 1John 4:17b. The provisions of His salvation are our possession because we are being kept by His power. This is our inheritance and we are sealed by His Spirit!
“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.”
-1Thess. 5:23-24.
There is a catch! We have to believe in our heart; we have to accept Him honestly within our own soul. However, He also provides faith to believe. How glorious is God! We need merely to “will” open the door of our heart to receive His gift of life into us. By doing so, God is glorified in us by increasing His grace and by our consumption of it. Read Jesus’ prayer to our Father in John 17 and ponder our amazing unity in Christ. We are containers for His person, by His grace, 2Cor. 4:7. We are joined to God through Jesus. Hallelujah or just … WOW! Grace reigns.
Our time on earth, in this relationship, is our opportunity to grow knowledge of Him in grace before the wedding. Receiving His grace while we are in our flesh, increases our faith; consuming His grace glorifies Him and enriches our walk in Him before we see Him face to face!
How sad, we consume so little of what He lovingly provides. Being created new as a Spiritual person, we consume grace but He has so much more grace-glory to provide, if we would simply consume what is provided. It will whet our appetite for more. His grace flows out from His own agape love. How patient He is with our stubborn wills!
Are we any different than the Israelites of history? How many times did God hit them on the side of their heads with a 2X4? Not only during 40 years in the desert but after they were in the promised land; a divided kingdom? Sin’s deception is pervasive. We too are both vulnerable and guilty. Israel is a graphic for our own instruction.
Remember Israel’s human name? It was Jacob. Remember Jacob’s dream? After leaving home on foot, heading north-east toward Haran to Laban’s place, he put in a long day on the road. His first night out, he found a stone to rest his head. It was here, at Bethel (House of God), God appeared to him in a dream.
A ladder dropped out of heaven connecting to earth. Angels were ascending and descending back and forth from heaven and earth. God appears at the top of the ladder (or next to Him) extending the promises of Abraham through Jacob. Then God tells Jacob:
“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back into this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” –Genesis 28:15.
Grace is operating even before the law was given. The creation of Adam was grace. Grace is a systemic principle of God’s eternality. It began before the sequence of time and is visible through the law, Israel, God’s Kingdom on earth, the marriage of the Lamb, and beyond. Our grace moments incrementally lead us into our eternal capacity of glorifying God the Father. God’s grace is a constant, in our walk of faith, leading us deeper and deeper into the mystery of godliness. Yes, it is much more, it reveals God’s character. More importantly, it reveals God’s love leading us into it. Thank God Grace does reign!
Jacob’s God is our God. His promises to Abraham and Jacob are proven examples of His faithfulness to us. In spite of Israel’s perversions, idolatries and disobedience, God shows Himself true. If He is proven faithful by the witness of history, how much more, after not sparing His own Son, but given Him up for us all, will He not with Him, freely give us all things! – Romans 8:32.
Jacob’s ladder is replaced in our heart with God’s dwelling presence … and so much more! God established grace to teach us holiness and the glory of being united in Christ Jesus. Our union is part of a marriage contract between the Lamb and the Body of Christ. It will occur after believers have had their time on earth as well as the Bema of Christ.
There will be an accounting for what we have done with God’s grace. We will be measured for how much fruit we produce with the glory of His Life within us. How much of Jesus did we eat and drink? Did we use the resurrection power of Jesus in our own life or did we drift away into our own comfort and selfish pursuits?
The things believers do in Christ, fall into two categories and will be tested by fire. We produce things like wood, hay and stubble which will be a loss in our judgment fire but the “righteous deeds of the saints” will produce the garments we wear at our wedding with Jesus. These are works of gold, silver and precious stones. These are the treasures we send to our future abode.
We have Spiritual resources to weave righteousness garments which become the pure linen we wear at our wedding with Jesus, Revelation 19:11. We have this stunning, spectacular, milestone event soon coming before us. The Body of Christ is the Bride of Christ and there is going to be a wedding!
Our task is to prepare for our inheritance with His inheritance which is alive within us, Eph. 1:11-14, 18. We are wasting our divine resources creating little idols and prejudices even while we possess the risen Lord Jesus dwelling within us. We must drink His Living Water!! We have no excuse! We have His written revelation plus we have affirming science and history. There is going to be a wedding! Forgive us Lord God, for our unbelief!
“Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen,
bright and pure”…
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. –Rev. 19:7-8.
Our exile on earth is preparation for our marriage to the Lamb! This most singular event should consume our heart and our whole soul! We are the Bride of Christ, to be married to Jesus, our precious Lamb, slain for us! We are in His Spirit forever because we are “in Christ Jesus.”
Our earthly person forces us to deal with human issues while physically walking toward and into our Spiritual home. We are walking on earthly dirt but our journey is eternal because our pith, our essential core is now spiritual/Spiritual and we are right now in Christ Jesus.
Our destination is beyond the rapture and glorified bodies, it is on the other side of our heavenly marriage to Jesus. We are and will be glorified in our savior; we will reign with Christ the Messiah, our spotless Lamb, in eternal bodies during Israel’s 1,000 year reign in Israel’s promised land. These heavenly events are preparing us … there is even more!!
In the Beyond, there is a new heaven and a new earth where our eternal life in eternal bodies will be perpetuated. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Undoubtedly there is hierarchy in Christ’s Body of believer’s who have become married to Christ. God’s Kingdom is structured in absolutes with a divine order as we see in our own physical bodies. Our position and function within this eternal structure is likely influenced by our submission to and consumption of God’s grace during our current betrothal.
In Jewish culture the betrothal was part of the marriage contract. To break an engagement one had to get a divorce. We already have been spiritually joined into Christ by redemption and Spiritual creation. Our wedding ceremony is already scheduled. It is on God’s eternal calendar.
Our exile here on earth is preparation for eternal married life with Christ. His own resurrected Life is ours during our maturation. Our Spiritual living on planet earth is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory to be revealed. Consuming His grace now matures us for what is eternally yet to come. We are being equipped by grace to be whom we are intended to be. Grace reigns!
“Our life,” here and now, “in Christ,” is geared to grow us in our soul Spiritually while wearing fleshly garb, before putting on glorified bodies. This is how we learn about Him, by sharing in His sufferings and acquiring knowledge of sin and righteousness. Our life, His Life in us, grows our knowledge of Him, deepening us in His grace. But growing in grace and knowledge is an act of our will to do! It requires Living Water and Spirit. We are created new within His Spirit; we are called to be faithful stewards of who we are, including, power washing our own souls in His word.
We are born of Living Water and the Spirit by God, John 3:5, John 1:13. Water is a physical symbol of the Spirit’s work through the Word. This very interesting distinction fits well within the ex nihilo creation we find in 2Cor. 5:17. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. When we are born again, it is Spiritual, John 3:5-8. We have been created new in Christ and a Spiritual righteousness is created in us. This gives us the capacity to wash our soulish flesh with living resurrection water power from Him dwelling in us, Ephesians 5:26. Washing our soulish flesh with Living Water by His Spirit (Titus 3:5-7) produces fine linen from the righteous deeds of the Saints. The water washing we do in the Word, will be manifested by walking in light and not just living in the Spirit, Gal. 5:25.
Although we “feel” the flesh, feeling is no longer who we are. We have become a Spiritual person living in a temporal feeling body. If the Spirit of God is dwelling in us, we are no longer controlled by the flesh, Romans 8:9-11. Consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, Romans 6:11. We are His workmanship created to perform good works in our Lord Christ Jesus, Ephesians 2:10. The Water and Spirit used in John 3 reveals our ex nihilo creation is spiritual/Spiritual; it is our righteous source for sanctifying our fleshly soul, 1Cor. 6:17. It is our privilege and necessity to use Christ’s resurrection power in putting to death the deeds of our fleshly soul thereby glorifying God in our body, 1Cor. 6:20. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation, Gal. 6:15.
The Word (water) is a sword in the Spirit’s hand. It can discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart, it can separate the joints from the marrow, it can wash us clean from the inside-out, Titus 3:5. How beautiful is His salvation in us!
Let’s look at what we are dealing with through Galatians 2:20 so that we have a hands on tool thru our personal experience. This is a good place to enlarge our grace picture by seeing the scriptural Living Water–Spirit principal operating, (Gal. 2:20 Drill Down of associated verses).
“I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
We will Drill Down Gal. 2:20 using 2Cor. 5:17 as an explanation and John 3:16 as a baseline. This scripture trilogy shows how God takes us out of flesh, placing us in Christ, making us righteous in His love.… and so much more ... like becoming family!
Keep in mind we are birthed by God Himself by ex nihilo creation power in His image, Eph. 4:24. This Spiritual creation within us makes us brand new with the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit indwelling our vessel of clay. This is one of the compelling doctrines of truth we glean from 2Cor. 5:17, Philippians 3:10-11, 2Cor 4:7.
First, let’s draw a line (A) representing our natural life in the flesh. Second, draw line (C) on a much higher plane because it represents our new Spiritual creation in Christ Jesus beyond temporal experience. Third, We draw line (B) between A and C where in flesh we live after being created Spiritually new being born again by God Himself.
Apply these born again living experiences to our verse:
“I have been crucified with Christ,
Temporal Power Nailed to the Cross. A.
it is no longer I who live,
Temporal Self Replaced by Eternal Spiritual Person (A) (C).
And the life I now live in the flesh,
Born Again Spiritual Believer using Temporal Power B.
I live by faith in the Son of God,
Faith in What? Flesh Power. A or Resurrection Power C.
who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Salvation Guarded by God’s Resurrection Power, 1Peter 1:5 :C.
The earthly life of a believer requires continual Spiritual training. We summarized this verse into these three categories of common learning experiences as we begin to walk by faith and not by sight. Following is a context for each category:
A. Natural life without Christ.
This is a sinful man condemned because he is without God’s created and intended glory for man, Romans 3:23.
Natural life of the Body and Soul, Temporal. Temporal Flesh Power.
We are born naturally into this world in a state of self awareness. That is, life separated from God. This is what the Bible calls sin. We were created for Him and are intended to be for His purpose and pleasure. Man cannot restore himself from the pollution of sin but God can and did. God made possible the death penalty of sin to be satisfied by His own life in flesh, by dying and buying us back into Himself (Redeemed). God purchased us back in our sinful condition, creating us Spiritually brand new in Jesus Christ. God thus reconciled Himself to us leaving up to us to reconcile ourselves back to Him. He made this possible through His resurrection life after being crucified. His personal death in flesh satisfies our death judgment so He now lives in us conquering death in His resurrection Life.
God has reconciled the world back to Himself through this act of Jesus’ resurrection but we must accept and believe His provision within the core of our being. He offers us grace to grow into His resurrection life after we have made our commitment to accept His salvation. Until we make a willful choice, accepting His grace, we remain in the power of sinful flesh under sin’s judgment of death. The natural life of man’s soul is dead in this sinful condition of existing judgment. The wages of sin is death but thru God’s provision of grace, man is created into whom he was intended to be … glorifying God and so much more.
B. A Born Again Person Living in the Flesh, John 3:7.
This is a born again believer living in the Spirit while walking in the flesh, Galatians 5:25.
Born Again Believers in Self Power on Planet Earth. Blended Power
Heaven is now our home! Our power source is Jesus Christ and our identity now is in Him. We have died and our life is hid with Christ in God but we are physically dwelling in an earthly container.
We are in Spiritual School learning about God and His righteousness, self and sin. We are being trained in grace and faith learning about Living Water, His resurrection power and agape Love. Here is where we begin to see ourselves clearly and here is where we begin to grow into the knowledge of who God really is and who we really are!! We might call this: CAMP GRACE.
God transferred us out of the kingdom of darkness and placed us into the Kingdom of His Son, Jesus. No one can remove us from from God or out of Jesus’ hand. We are both saved in Christ Jesus and being saved from the deception of sin in the flesh where we now have our physical address. We are now called to live holy lives, which, in Christ Jesus is our newly created nature and identity.
This is the RED ZONE. We find ourselves here after being born again by God and receiving the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are justified, sealed by the Holy Spirit but living outside the knowledge of God’s provisions for overcoming sin but through His resurrection power, through His abundant grace, we are overcomers living and walking into His grace by faith.
Grace is reigning but we are just becoming aware of the difference between sin and God’s righteousness. We are made righteous by God’s Spiritual creation in Christ Jesus but our soul needs the washing of regeneration by the Word. Existing sin in our soul is covered by the imputed righteousness of Jesus but now we are able to “will” His righteousness into replacing the unrighteousness of self. This is what the RED ZONE is all about.
It is about doing to our body and in our soul what God already completed in us Spiritually. It is about love and worship of our creator God who redeemed us into a new identity in Christ Jesus.
God is Holy. He is Love, but He is also just. He is not flawed as we were and demands purification of our own soul as He has created our Spirit. Our RED ZONE experience is about washing our earthly soul in the blood of Christ’s sacrifice. It is about training in divine righteousness and walking in faith rather than the physical sight of human habit. This is about Love at a very deep level. It is about making us be who we are in Christ, who we are intended to be. Our soul needs His divine power wash.
A child needs discipline and encouragement to understand how to structure himself in a culture of people. We love a child by attentive attention so that he learns life’s lessons instructing him into happiness and success.
God is Spirit and has born us Spiritually from above into His divine family. We now are God’s children living in His grace culture. God is teaching His children to walk in Fath. We must now learn to live Spiritually, drinking Living Water and not trusting in the wisdom and ways of man. Our task is to cultivate God’s grace into our lifestyle replacing corporal and temporal priorities.
Before Jesus’ crucifixion and before He left earth, He told His disciples He would provide a comforter who would continue to instruct us about the things of Jesus. This Person is the Holy Spirit who now dwells inside each believer.
God also provided us with a discovery tool for His truth, revealing the intimate nature of God. God provided in our new Spiritual creation the Spiritual ears and eyes to use this tool. With it, we can wash our heart and mind with His mind and His understanding. The Bible is this tool and the Holy Spirit is our living Helper. Our task is to study the Word of God, showing God our love for Him. He, in turn, leads us into Himself as He is also our Shepherd.
Here is an example how this works: John tells us, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that it is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of possessions – is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”
God’s standard of a truth is given to us in this passage measuring our own heart and mind. We take this truth, ponder it in our soul, prayerfully submiting it to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our unseen witness in this whole process and will prompt us with His presence, leading us in the way in which we should go.
The Bible is our tool; it is full of these standards revealing His righteousness as well as His promises. As we grow in knowledge, through the Word, we also find we have a relationship with God expressed in physical circumstances and Godly wisdom. AS we consume God’s grace, He fills us organically with Himself.
We now have direct access to the throne of God’s grace through His Spirit who helps us understand the Truth contained in His Word. God’s Word is His revelation of who He is by means of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. Spending quality time in His Word equips us for learning through love and experience … by His grace.
The Holy Spirit is also an intercessor for us with words too deep for us to understand and actually intercedes for us in accordance with the will of God.
We have been provided with what we need to grow our faith, grow in grace and become familiar with God Himself in an intimate way.
This is not easy. At first it is very frustrating, but, just like a child, we stumble and fall, cry and do our own thing, but gradually we grow into maturity because the Holy Spirit is holding our hand.
Just as a relationship has to be established between parent and child, so our relationship is established by God’s grace and our faith. Grace pours God into us and faith measures our maturity. Faith is our response to God’s grace.
We will never get out of this RED ZONE while we continue to wear our body of flesh; it continues always to war against our eternal life God created in His image, within our flesh.
But this is a good thing! God uses flesh to make us Spiritually wise. It is one of God’s teaching tools. It teaches us about the righteous Person of God, who we are in Him and who we are becoming while still in this jar of clay. He teaches us about His faithfulness, His protection and power, and most importantly, we see and begin to understand our agape Love on a divine level. We too can rise to the level of agape love in the name of Jesus. It is in our born again nature manifesting itself as we mature. We begin to see ourselves and others from God’s point of view!
We have been Spiritually born into God’s righteousness but our heart and mind, our soul, is still rooted in the habit of a sin culture. Our soul has not had the benefit of Spiritual eyes and ears to discern Spiritual things until our re-birth creation. Now we are Spiritually aware and have the capacity to discern spiritually, between good and bad. We are growing in grace and knowledge of Jesus.
A death has occurred and the blood of a precious Lamb has been shed upon the cross of cavalry redeeming us, setting us free! Many do not realize our bondage until we experience freedom of redemption in Jesus Christ our Lord. The world is about self and “human good.” The worldview worships self and self power and ridicules an Eternalview of our living God.
The RED ZONE is where Spiritual training starts and we begin to understand with spiritual ears the things of the Spirit. Through the application of passages like 1JOHN 2:15cf, we see and understand what God has saved us from. Here we see how faithful is His steadfast love to us personally as we experience His reign of His grace.
What He has started He will complete, with or without our help. If we don’t live in His given grace, our wedding robe will reflect it. The deeds of the flesh while in the RED ZONE will contribute to our eternal inheritance … forever!!
Life in Christ “seems” a most difficult task, until we realize through maturity, we have been set free from the flesh and can live in the joy of our Lord. “Seems” is flesh working!
Many saints spend years slowly finding out who God is, how sinful sin is and how totally inadequate we are to cope Spiritually without God’s grace and righteousness. God is looking for “overcomers” (see letters to churches in Rev. 2 and 3).
We can walk in the light as He is in the Light! Then, there will be fullness of joy as grace opens up to us, making us who we are intended to be. Then we will be sending to our eternal home the treasures of fruit bearing while learning to be like Jesus.
God is still faithful to his commitment of Life in us but we must take advantage of His grace and mercy Living in the Spirit while at the same time walking in the Spirit.
C. A New Spiritual Creation (Born Again), Ephesians 2:10.
A new spiritually created person is the Temple in which God dwells until He comes down and takes us up, redeemed and sanctified. We are living in God’s righteousness and resurrection power.
Spiritual Realm above Created World, Eternity. Resurrection Power
“On the other side of our grace relationship is God Himself. Not the image in our mind, no, nothing that small. This is The Eternal Reality of God Himself. The I AM who creates ex nihilo, out of nothing! This Eternal I AM is on the other side of our personal relationship because we are in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son. Not only is it GOD, it is The Holy Spirit, The Lord Jesus Christ and the Triune Godhead Person.”
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away very tear from their eyes and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” -Revelation 21:1-4.
This describes our destination after King Jesus has put away sin and Satan delivering a restored earthly Kingdom back to our Father God. The old earth on which we now tread will be replaced. Men argue if it will be created new or cleansed and restored. Regardless, our eternal life will be getting to know God, one on one, into eternity.
The rapture is just a next step into our eternal existence. Our first step was being created new in Christ Jesus. We are now in God’s family even while on this earth wrapped in clothes of flesh. We will still have much to learn after the rapture, just another step in an eternal progression. God will dwell in eternity among men and He will be our God.
This destiny is secured in the blood of Jesus and is our present power source and Living Water leading into this reality. But let’s come back to earth and focus on our preparation. We have a wedding …:
God is Spirit. They who worship Him must do so in spirit and truth. We are created into God’s eternal Spiritual state, i.e., born of God as a believer in Christ. Heaven is where Jesus resides in His divine humanity and where we are seated in the heavenlies. This is where we are in Christ Jesus walking in the Red Zone of our flesh, learning to walk in the Spirit.
Being born of God, we have become Spiritually like God. We are created in His Spiritual image, partakers of His divine nature; His love is continuously being poured into our heart. God has transferred us out of the kingdom of darkness and placed us into the Kingdom of His son; no one can remove us out from the hand of God.
While we are journeying in the Red Zone, we are producing furnishings for our eternal estate. Jesus tells us our treasure is laid up in the place where our heart is. Rewards surviving the test of fire will be the product of God’s work enabled by our righteous desire and purpose, our faith! Our earthly bias shows here but God has equipped us so that we are secure and protected because we are in HIM. Our reward is the by-product of our grace-faith relationship in HIM.
This BLUE ZONE is about Love. It is not just us walking with God, it is about God walking with us! This is part of our grace culture, our relationship is in Christ … God gives us His life; we respond by giving our life to Him. We begin to love Him with the Love He already poured and continues to pour into us.
There are others more qualified than I to speak to this issue. Bob Sorge might be one of them. Below is a piece he wrote as it appeared in Christianity Today. It speaks of us walking with Jesus and then we will look at God walking with us using Lon Solomon’s book on the 23rd Psalm.
Here is Sorge’s article:
“The secret place is not the destination; it is only the catalyst. It is designed of God to establish us in an intimate friendship with him that is walked out through the course of our everyday lives. The goal we're after is an everyday walk of unbroken communion with our Lord and friend.
Enoch was the first man in the Bible who walked with God:
After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him (Genesis 5:22–24).
Even though men began to call upon the name of the Lord in the early days (Genesis 4:26), Enoch was the first man to uncover the true delight of walking with God. He found something even Adam didn't experience. He pressed into God until he learned how to commune with God through every facet of life. To find that dimension of relationship certainly required an intense spiritual pursuit, and then when he found it, the Lord made a graphic statement by taking him up to heaven.
By taking Enoch up to glory, God wasn't trying to get us impressed with Enoch's piety. Nor was God saying, "If you get to be as spiritual as Enoch, you'll get taken up to heaven, too." This was a unique experience God used to emphasize a specific point. God's point was, "I love to walk with man! Enoch was the first man to truly walk with me, so I decided to highlight his example by doing something extraordinary with him. I took him up to paradise to underscore how much I value and desire a daily walking relationship with my chosen ones." Enoch's example continues to witness to all generations of the great zeal God has to walk with man.
When the zeal of God captures you, it will ignite you with a great passion to walk with God and to be his friend. Imagine being Enoch and living 365 years—and having this growing relationship with God! One can only wonder what glorious depths of intimacy Enoch uncovered. Perhaps Enoch's heart longed so deeply for more of God that God grew weary of withholding himself. Maybe God's heart was saying, "Enoch, you love me with such a pure and sweet passion, I don't want to say 'no' to you anymore. I'm going to answer your prayer and show you my face. Come on up!"
As you draw close to God, he will not likely take you up to heaven as he did Enoch. However, he does desire to reveal the beauty of his face to you. As we walk with him, he will open the Scriptures to us through the Spirit of wisdom and revelation and reveal to us the light of the glory of God that is to be found in him.
When we walk with God, we enter the dimension where God unfolds the secrets of his kingdom. These are the paths that the ancients trod before us. Noah knew the secret of walking with God (Genesis 6:9), as did Abraham (Genesis 24:40). Through Christ, you can explore the glorious riches of knowing God like they did—and to even a greater degree because of the Spirit which has been given to us!”
Pastor Sorge captures the essence of our walk as a relationship rooted in a friendship of love with God Himself.
Now let’s consider Psalm 23 as a focus for God walking with us. This passage ranks in the top five of my late wife Helen’s most meaningful passages before our Lord, Helen’s Shepherd, took her to be with Him in 2012.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters;
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil; for though art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall fallow me all the days of my life;
And I shall dwell in the house of Lord forever.
Look with me how David, the shepherd boy, later King, lays out his verses. The first 5 lines tells us who David’s Shepherd is and what He does. Then he reflects on his Shepherd’s comfort to his soul. He continues with a litany of cares his Shepherd provides enabling him to rest in the security his Shepherd forever provides. But the first line is all telling:
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want! Grace reigns!
We have to pause and think about who our Shepherd is. It is not the owner of our property or the President of the United States. It is the Lord Himself and He is MY Shepherd. The glorious thing is, it is our Lord Himself who offers to take us into His herd. He not only is My Shepherd, He is also my SHEPHERD. We can only claim Him as my Shepherd because He has put us in His flock, He did and I do!
We are looking at this because it is the Lord God walking with us as we walk with Him. While by our side, He is our Shepherd, so it is in this context of we shall not want. But this assumes, while we are walking together, we are submitting to Him in our role as a sheep. This is harder to do for some of us than others but it is a critical element in our walking (grace) relationship.
Real sheep have no sense to guide them. We do, and it is hard for us to give it up. This is the level of submission pictured for us to perform as His sheep. Reading Lon Solomon’s book is very helpful on this point.
In order for His grace to reign with its full effect, we must be consuming the grace our Shepherd provides. This is one meaning of Faith, it is our capacity to recognize who we are in the flesh, so that, we are prepared to absorb the reality of God’s Kingdom. While these comments belong to the Red Zone, we have to keep in mind, we reading this in the Red Zone. Our shepherd, on the other hand, loved us before creation and comes into our “zones” so we can learn how to love Him. He is in the heavenlies reaching down as our Shepherd training us for eternal life.
This is often a defining element of Love. When two people fall in love they begin exposing themselves to each other very intimately becoming fragile and vulnerable. We respect this in each other and accept the responsibility for mutual confidences. We willingly expose ourselves so that we can provide for our spouse’s needs. We submit to their needs without regard to our own. This is the nature of love and it defines the character of who our Shepherd is but with the added feature, He is able to supply all our need.
This is what 23rd Psalm is about. I read an exposition of this Psalm by a local DC megachurch pastor, Lon Solomon. I’m drawing from some of his illustrations to summarize this Psalm into our context of How God lovingly walks with us.
I must defer to Lon’s book to instruct us on how this character is played out in the verses and phrases of the Psalm itself. Lon is a Jewish pastor; he serves of the board of Jew for Jesus. He is able, in this small book, to draw out the cultural significance of David’s pastoral terms for us. I’m saying all this to encourage us to pick up this 200 page book because it will draw us into the rich character of the sheep-shepherd relationship which is a picture we want to capture in this Psalm.
Lon’s slant of this Psalm is functional. It is a practical rendering of what the day to day needs are and how God, not only is able, but does provide according to our intimate “sheep” needs beyond our own best knowledge of what is best for us.
But what I would like to add to this scenario, is to suggest also being portrayed is God’s love to us. Yes, he does take care of all our needs. He does provide a peaceful place of refreshment so we can grow and be healthy. Yes, he does restore our soul from the hazards of our experience and protects us from dangers of which we are not even aware, “and so much more.” He does this because of a deep profound, steadfast love that pervades our existence since we are not only His sheep, we are His children and have been given the inheritance of His own glory. He walks with us because He loves us. And the way He will love us best is when we walk with Him.
Let me close this section by referring to Matthew 28:1-20. Our Lord Jesus is resurrected and has instructed Mary Magdalene through an angel to send the eleven to Galilee where our resurrected Jesus will meet them. This is the “Great Commission” but notice what He tells them about their relationship. He concludes with, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Dwell on that for a moment … “I am with you always” Link with this the stunning promise at the beginning of this Great Commission. He stipulates: “All authority in heaven and earth has
been given to me” Jesus has complete control of the earthly systems of life, not only earthly, but also all authority in heaven.
This is the one Who creates out of nothing, He is our Shepherd and the One we are invited to walk with into eternity … and through out eternity!
God’s walk with us is as we walk with God!
The task of the believer is to discern the natural nature of self in the eternally righteous context of being in Christ. We occupy a house of flesh with a culturally earthly soul now able to discern Spiritually in a culture of grace. God’s Spiritual creation within us is who we now are providing spiritual choices, Hebrew 5:14. We have spiritual ears to hear, we need to take time to listen. We must discipline our heart and mind to focus and feed in the Word. Our job is to provide God’s Holy Spirit with soul food exposing God’s light of truth, penetrating any darkness lingering in our soul. The Spirit of God uses our discernment from the Word to provide righteous light. “He that hath ears let him hear.”
Jesus didn’t come to bring comfort for our weary old bones. He came to give us His life, redeeming us from slavery to sin. Our bodies on earth are redeemed for a reason; we are born Spiritually so that we are able to discern the difference between sin in the flesh with righteousness in His Spirit. The Word (water for washing) and indwelling Holy Spirit of God provide our necessary tools for consuming grace and growing us into Jesus. The more completely we master these lessons in the Red Zone , the more opportunity we have to glorify our Father in the Blue Zone..
The believer is suddenly made Spiritually sensitive in his humanity. A Spiritual person is different than a natural person. Not only has a Spiritual person received Spiritual eyes and ears, not only is he Spiritually equipped to discern good from evil, he has Living Water and the Holy Spirit of God. The believer knows the difference between lines A and C, but thru experience, he learns discernment about nailing line B to the cross.
Believers have within themselves the personal testimony of being newly created in Jesus Christ Himself. But it is like becoming a babe; we have to learn to walk again, this time Spiritually and by faith. We normally rely upon what we already fleshly know, what our natural habit and custom has always been. We still live in flesh and own the habit of a fleshly culture after being Spiritually born again.
Now there is the difference; the identity of a new creation is inside of us. Our orientation is new; our nature is new. There is new strength and resurrection power; there is Living Water as we dip into the Word. We were slaves and didn’t even know it. Now there is a freedom, a wholeness, an ability to see what before what was totally oblivious.
Our task now is to bring into subjection the world, the flesh and the Devil. This is our calling and we are able because God provides a grace culture to experience glory, His glory!
We have learned by natural experience to hone temporal skills via understanding the ways of men. We must now train Spiritually this natural domain of the soul to walk in faith. Now, all of a sudden, a whole new skill set is required and provided as we consume grace. We are called to be holy because God is holy; we have become children of God. John tells us we are now on earth as God is in heaven, 1John 4:17b.
We have been crucified with Christ. This means the fleshly authority of life we had been drawing from is no longer necessary. God Himself has come to earth in the form of flesh, taking our place for sin, providing His own resurrection Living Water. Discernment is given to us from His own Word to apply to our soulish domain of flesh. So astonishing and unbelievable is this, many ridicule, refusing to believe to their own peril. Living a Spiritual life in the flesh requires God’s life power in our faith. It also introduces us into an intimate relationship with the Triune God who has become our heavenly Shepherd and Father.
But it is not enough to know these things in our head. To live in the conscientiousness of faith requires training and understanding through the experience of working out through our fleshly soul what God has now created new in us to be. He made us new Spiritually, giving us opportunity to love Him and grow into agape love within a grace culture of a Shepherd’s care.
Great tragedy is done by believers who accept God’s gift of life and then fail to walk in God’s Love and grace. They are anxious to accept the benefits of escaping sin’s penalty but neglect grasping God’s grace to live Life in agape love. Instead, many walk in flesh power refusing the washing power of Christ’s own resurrected Life. This is an offence to His indwelling presence, the One giving us His life through Living Water. We can void out the power of His resurrection in our life if we spend our time making trips to the cross for sin already satisfied by our eternal redemption, rather than Living His Life in His name, being who we are in Him.
“I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Paul’s testimony to the saints in Galatia (Galatians 2:20 above) is that they no longer live under law since their sin has already been nailed to the cross. They are free to live by faith because of God’s love. This is God’s grace making available eternal Living Water satisfying human thirst, making it possible to produce “fine linen bright and pure.” We have a wedding to attend and we need to be prepared. Our time is running out!
Grace reigns and it has a purpose. John penned his gospel so that we might believe Jesus is the Christ and that believing we might have Life in His name, John 20:31b. But our life here and now is just a start on an eternal journey. We are given the opportunity to start this journey knowing God now, in our heart while walking in flesh. We will never have this opportunity again. We can learn lessons now that will not be available once we leave flesh behind and put on glorified bodies like our Lord Jesus now wears. Learning to walk in the flesh by faith produces treasures that will be ours throughout our eternity.
The whole gospel doctrine is based upon the fact that God loves us! Not only because we are His actual creation, but He died a cruel death buying us back to Himself with a sin offering of His own blood. This is our redemption from out of an earthly domain. We are His because He set us free from the sin that binds us in a darkness, keeping us from God’s absolute pure light and righteousness. We are His because He purchased us; we are His because made us and then brings us back into His own divine family, giving us the riches of His own glory. It is a story of Love and creation, Love and Redemption, Love and Life forever more.
For God so loved the world
That He gave His only begotten Son
That whoever believes in Him
Should not perish but have everlasting life. -John 3:16.
I have been crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,
Who loved me and gave himself for me. -Galatians 2:20.
Therefore, if anyone be in Christ,
He is a new creation.
The old has passed away;
Behold, the new has come. -2Corinthians 5:17.
For by grace you have been saved through faith.
And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
For we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared before hand,
that we should walk in them. -Ephesians 2:8-10.
“Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” -Jesus, John 4:14.
Praise God from Whom all blessings flow
Praise Him all creatures here below
Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Vic Moran