So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
– 2Corinthians 4:16-18.
If you have been around a few years, you may recall this sarcastic accusation: “You are so heavenly minded, you are no earthly good!”
If we drill down deep enough, we find this to be of no earthly good at all; we have to be very heavenly minded to be of any true earthly value! Context, of course, changes yesteryear’s chiding, but this is exactly what Paul is instructing the Corinth church, an eternal weight of glory is being prepared for each one in Christ Jesus! The only way to be of earthly good, is to be heavenly minded! We are called to produce the glory of Jesus within our earthly fleshly clay container.
The reality is that we are already glorified. Our spirit, our identity as a person, is already in our resurrected Jesus. It is our humanity waring against who we already are in Christ Jesus! To be earthly minded allows Satan access to war against our “in Christ” person through our earthly flesh.
An earthly mind-set is very apt not to be in agreement with 2Corinthinas 4:16-18, rather, an earthly mind has little heavenly good! The Holy Spirit of God is working in us to be more heavenly minded; it is our intended purpose; our inner self is being renewed spiritually day by day. We are intended to be spiritually equipped, overcomers, doing heavenly business while living on this earthly soil. We are created spiritually in Christ Jesus, in His resurrection power! Our order of thinking is specific and clearly defined, heaven first, earthly concerns things are in second place. We are being grounded in God’s Spiritual culture as His newly created children, old things have passed away, behold, the new has come.
It makes perfect sense for a person created eternally spiritual to be upside down if earthly things are first priority! As it turns out, God has already displayed for us, in the Old Testament under the law, the eternal order of things. We need to adapt God’s eternal view rather than an earthly Christian worldview.
This is what the brazen alter was all about in the Old Testament tabernacle. Not only did the blood of animals represent the death of Jesus on our behalf, but the priests needed both blood and water so they could come before God in the people’s behalf. The laver provided daily washing! Jesus Himself performed this cleansing act on the disciple’s feet in the upper room. Peter protested and Jesus explains: “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean.”
Jesus Christ is our Life source; He is our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification and our redemption. A person created new in Christ Jesus is a Spiritual person who is given spiritual eyes and ears to be heavenly minded. This is the character of an “in Christ” person destined as the bride of Christ. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
We have passed from judgment into resurrected Life of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. The old is past and the new has come. The law of the spirit of Life has set us free from the law of sin and death. Our calling is to grow grace and knowledge in our Lord Jesus. We are now looking forward to the time when we join together into those of the Bride of Christ who have already been taken home to be “always with the Lord.” We who are still walking in shoe leather will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
After years of probing judgment within our own self, we finally discover influences governing personal attitudes and biases that are not spiritual. We possess, deep within our own soul, prejudices we didn’t even know were living within us! We need continual, constant cleansing as long as we still live in flesh.
It is sort of like walking through the redwoods of northern California.
We are accustomed to walking under trees growing 30 to 75ft or 100 feet tall; we perceive things in this natural perspective. This is normal temporal experience. It is hard for us to grasp a tree 300 feet tall with a bottom base 18 feet wide. This sounds like fiction, like an unreal wonderland written only in a story book. But even when we see a picture of it, it is not as real as when we walk in its grandeur, breathing in air from its roots and limbs.
Walking in the California redwoods is totally different than knowing they exist by seeing them on a book page in a photograph.
Knowing about the life in Christ Jesus through “new birth” provides the joy of knowing truth and having the resurrection power of God within our own prayer closet.
This is knowing through with our soul’s reality in our Lord Jesus. We have ears to hear but what we know is limited to hearing or reading words on a page without breathing in the forest itself! To really enter into the living dynamic of the redwoods forest we need to breath in its air and walk within its living presence; to really know the redwoods we need to be in the redwoods! To agape love the Lord Jesus, we need to explore into His living presence!
We know about the power of God because we are redeemed; we accepted His gift of life. We now have access to His presence for evermore! We know Him to be righteous and true but unless we put to death earthly things clouding our spiritual seeing and hearing, we fail to consume His grace and presence. Instead, we accept a “Christian worldview” for our life style, filtering out His living authority. We need to breath in God Himself, exploiting His powerfully living “logos” word through His and our Holy Spirit. We need to move from “phileo” affection into His “agape” love, knowing Him and the power of His resurrection, being conformed to His death.
To be who we really are, is to walk in God’s culture of grace. This means exposing ourselves to His penetrating righteous Truth. We know Him too casually. His divine power has granted to us all things pertaining to life and godliness and yet we merely smile enjoying His gift of eternal life. He has called us to His own glory and excellence through the knowledge of Him!!
How can we not … be who He has called us to be!
He is the Lord God Almighty, the Alpha and Omega, the One who is and who was who is to come, the Almighty. He is the ruler of both heaven and earth, “the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof,” the King of glory, “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.”
Jesus is the King of the Jews; He is the Son of God and King of Israel; He is the King of Nations; He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
While all this above is absolutely true, He treats us in tender love, as children, for so we are!
“By which he has granted us his precious and very great promises, so that through them we may be partakers of His divine Nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” – 2Peter 1:3.