It’s been 50 plus years since we had a US military “draft.” In those days a “boot camp” was more common to everyday language. It was the first 16 weeks of military duty where a young male learned to be a soldier within the compulsory two-year stint. We had to learn discipline, obedience, wearing a uniform and a backpack! Our identity as a soldier required a new kind of mom called a Sargent!
Being “born-again” also creates a new person and a new identity. But we don’t have a Sargent or a mom, we have “very God of very God.” We have the sealing of the Holy Spirit of God who “raised us up with him and seated us with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” This is not a future thing, it’s already happened; a person created new in Jesus has this new identity in Jesus; this born-again person has entered into a Godly love culture of grace by faith.
Grace by faith? What does that mean? Grace means God’s free provisions to us created human folk by allowing entrance into His own spiritual realm. Grace provides God’s resources for our own personal soul and joins us spiritually into Him through Jesus His Son who is our loving Lord. Wow, this sounds a little extreme. Yes, it is! In fact, it’s a double wow, but no more far out than actually being alive “in Christ Jesus.”
God’s grace is our invitation into His own spiritual culture of love. The faith part is us processing our own self into His agape love; it is us consuming His grace. God is love! We are invited to immerse ourself into His culture of love! Grace is God’s unmerited favor, yes, but it is so much more! How about a triple wow, wow, wow!
Many consider this born-again thing as just a philosophical idea or a bazar emotion. It is not! It is as real as the penetrating sun radiating light daily, as real as breath we inhale daily! Born-again people are born “of the Spirit” with a new set of desires, interests, and a new awareness of complete wholeness. Born-again people are in Christ Jesus, wanting to understand scripture and knowing Jesus personally! Why? Because the Holy Spirit of God is now part of our identity and He is available within us to unfold scripture to our deeper understanding. We are created this second time, but this time it is a Spiritual birth; we become God’s children and He is our Father eternally and in day to day living!
Being God’s children and God being our father sounds figurative to mankind. After all, God’s way is not man’s way and man’s way is not God’s way. His thoughts are not our thoughts. We accept this symbolically because God is the person who not only designed this physical universe all around us that we see, touch and feel, He is also the one who breathed life, not only into us, but the birds of the air, the fish in the sea and all the living organisms around us we don’t see. In this sense, we humanly accept God as our Father and us as His children. But for us, being “in Christ Jesus” is where life really throbs because we now live in His Spirit and in His living presence.
Being “born of the Spirit” puts us in a whole different realm. We are literally created in the Spirit, so that, the very Spirit of God is joined with our spirit. This new birth miracle also creates within us our spiritual capacity to commune, fellowship and experience our living God at His high unapproachable level. Living in this divine level is what the scriptural meaning of grace includes. Grace equips humans with a spiritual capacity to live and commune at God’s level. Our human participation in God’s divine Spiritual culture is within God’s grace to us. It is what being “born-again” is all about. It is about growing in grace upon grace while actually acquiring personal experience with our creator God, within His own eternal person, at His level of being alive.
Living at this level of God’s existence, in daily communion with Him, is in conflict with the worldly culture we deal with on a daily basis … in our natural physical humanity. The scripture instructs us about this “flesh” conflict by us being “in Christ Jesus” while simultaneously living in fleshly jars of clay. Simply stated, what is not of faith is sin!
Our Spiritual Boot Camp is about how we make this shift from daily human living in the flesh to living daily in the Spirit. Our primary purpose, in Christ Jesus, is to be on intimate terms with God the Father through our Lord Jesus, so that, we glorify our Father God in Heaven through Jesus.
We enter into God’s culture of grace as babies learning to grow in God’s love and our faith, Jesus is our commanding officer. God, being rich in mercy, because of the great agape love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our sin, made us alive together with Jesus – by grace are we saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. … For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
In order to accomplish in us His purpose, we will consider three primary principals.
1. Know yourself in Christ Jesus thru God the Father.
2. Accept yourself into Christ Jesus our Lord.
3. Be your spiritual self, sealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Know yourself in Christ Jesus thru God the Father.
“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.
This verse is fundamental to our new identity in Jesus. Paul is describing the new creation formed within us when we are “born-again.” Our old identity of “death” in the flesh has past and our new identity of Life has already begun, so that, there is now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus because we are set free from the law of sin and death.
In this eternal state of new identity, what eternal choices are we making? Are we in compliance to God’s realness? Is Jesus alive in us? What spiritual priorities are we placing into our daily living? Are we living by faith in the Son of God?
Life decisions typically are made according to our personal “want to” or desires we prioritize, not faith! Temporal distractions hinder spiritual growth and thereby distort our spiritual knowledge. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” is true, but only when we make personal faith choices, does it become dynamic. When we compel our new spiritual nature, we experience spiritual growth. We must consider ourselves dead to sin and alive unto God in Jesus according to Romans 6:11.
Paul said it this way: “That I might know him and the power of His resurrection.” Knowing ourselves is most complete when it is done through our Lord Jesus, who is the very essence of truth and life. It is not just knowing ourselves, rather, it is knowing ourselves in Christ Jesus.
This implies an active relationship in Christ Jesus including putting to death fleshly things. This active dynamic of spiritual fellowship will open our growth door into knowing Him in the power of His resurrection as it applies in our own personal level, then, we will experience discernment as expressed in Hebrews 5:14. The more we know Jesus, the more we understand our own self! Knowing our own self in Jesus, produces meekness and agape love in us with communion in Him!
Read John 1:1-4. The physical expression of Jesus in our life is tested by the Word of God itself. Jesus is the (logos) Word of God. This Greek word for “Word” describes the indescribable unity God has with His creation. We are included within this logos term but we must desire to enter into it! If we search for Him, He promises we will find Him! But this promise is if we seek Him with all our heart.
Prayer is an intricate aspect in our relationship since we are in Him. When we want to become intimate with a person we spend time with them! We share everything with them. Our most intimate relationship should be with Jesus Himself who is our intercessor along with the Holy Spirit of God.
The Holy Spirit is praying for us even when we are not!!!
“For the word (logos) of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.” -Hebrews 4:12-13.
The Holy Spirit of God will enable us to accept who we really are in Jesus so that we can progress into the dynamic of this amazing redeeming gift from our creator God Himself to us, His intimacy!
Accept yourself into Christ Jesus our Lord.
“If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit.” -Galatians 5:25.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” -Proverbs 3:5-6.
Who created you and me, who created this vast space where AI is possible? High-tech is replacing God in this world and God will judge nations and men. The world will also pass away but those doing the will of God live forever! This same creator God who rules universes agape loves you and me; He is granting us to be endowed with His grace, so that, we may have sufficiency in all things at all times to abound in every good work. Greater is He that is in us, than he who is in the world.
Knowing this and accepting this are two different things. We can know things in our head without knowing them in the passion of our heart. This is what we are referring to by the term “accepting.” We need to process into our being what we already know through God’s logos word.
Being born-again spiritually brings into our experience an entirely different culture of life because God is a Spirit. When we are born-again, into Jesus Christ, we are joined into Him literally and eternally. We become Spiritually compatible with God, with Jesus and the Holy Spirit! Being in Christ Jesus, we are qualified to take on Jesus’ Spiritual likeness! Instead of training ourselves to be in control of our circumstances, we discover faith in Jesus is much more effective, stronger, more powerful, and more successful than we could ever hope within our own sphere of self-culture. We are now eternal beings and our focus is our eternal Jesus. In fact, the essence of doing it ourself is the prescription for ultimate defeat! Jesus put it this way:
“He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”
We can read something and know it in our mind without knowing it in our daily activity. Book learning is one thing but putting our book learning into personal experience is when our knowledge becomes productive and meaningful.
The self-same principal applies within the divine culture of God’s grace. Application of our spiritual knowing raises spiritual knowing into a whole new dimension of living.
“...work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” -Philippians 2:12b-13, KJV.
This is to what we are referring by accepting ourselves into Jesus Christ our Lord. We must remember “Jesus in us” is much more deliberate and active than we being in Him. In fact, Paul tells the Galatians that Jesus is being “formed” in them. Yes, we are His workmanship when we are working with Him while He is working in us!
There are levels of knowing in our common temporal life. When we opt to process Jesus into our new birth life, Jesus’ own resurrection life takes us to levels of understanding which transcends temporal limitations. We can now arrive in the real “space-less” places where God Himself lives and has His being. Faith, at this level, transcends the “faith” of common language but it is this ship of faith that will carry us Into His presence as overcomers of our worldly obstacles.
Accepting or processing who we are in Jesus grows us into grace. We can be who God intends we should be by consuming His grace. Once we have a handle on scriptural doctrine and the component pieces of being in Christ Jesus, then our process of absorbing His knowledge into belief and faith begins to form. Faith will shape our discernment into seeing spiritually what is well pleasing in His sight and what is not!
The Greek word in our New Testament for belief and faith have the same root meaning. Belief is God’s revelation of truth to our person while faith is our response to His revelation. One of the component pieces requiring belief is what the scripture calls reconciliation. Combining belief and faith together will yield into our human experience His love and glory because we have reconciled ourselves back into His fellowship!
Sin made us Spiritually dead, separating us from God. Originally, God created us out of His agape love but sin separated us from His fellowship. God desires His culture to be our culture, His righteous our righteousness. We are holy because He is Holy!
God’s answer to our sin problem was sending Jesus Himself into flesh to live sinlessly, so that, His redemption would satisfy our guilt. But more than this, His resurrection also provides His resurrection life in us so that we have the capacity to reconcile ourselves into His righteousness by our faith and His grace. We become holy because He is Holy when we consume His grace!
In this way God reunited Himself to man through His redemption payment while at the same time providing His eternal life to dead sinners, if and when sinners accept His salvation gift. Redeemed dead sinners are called to reconcile themselves back to God using Jesus’ resurrection power within themselves. It’s a bonus deal where we are not only restored into fellowship with God Himself but become participants in His own nature and life! God’s grace culture is created within us because Christ Jesus is now alive in us! This is totally unbelievable; what agape love does and equips us to do!! To be holy because He is holy!
God is exposing Himself to mankind and is now waiting for mankind to reconcile themselves back into Him through the Holy Spirit, God’s gift within God’s reconciliation package. This essential component of our accepting includes being raised up with Christ Jesus and seated with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Notice scripture puts this in past tense! It’s already a done deal if we are in Christ Jesus, even though we still dwell on this earth within these fragile jars of clay. God has reconciled mankind back to Himself but mankind must now enter through God’s door of redemption to reconcile himself back to God.
Think on this! In God’s point of view, we were Spiritually dead, buried in sin with no life. Jesus went into death where we lived, into the darkness of self, raised us up, but not into a physical existence of earthly air, no, He raised us up so much higher! Jesus resurrected us into heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Our resurrected life in Jesus is “much more” than Adam’s life on earth! God’s culture of grace contains righteous life for those living at God’s glory level. We have Jesus’ resurrection life, yes, even while being confined to our earthly jars of clay. This is what Spiritual Boot Camp is all about. It is about being crucified with Christ, so that, we can live in Christ forever and glorifying him while in our flesh.
We need not grapple with our new identity in Christ Jesus but we do! The certainty of whom we now are “in Christ Jesus” is true in our mind but becomes stronger when tested (salted with fire) through life’s trials and challenges. Again, we see this illustrated over and over in the Old Testament in lives of men like Job, Jacob, Moses, Elijah, etc. We need to know Jesus Himself on a personal level, not just in our mind’s eye, but with agape love in the center of our being, then, we will experience the resurrection power of Jesus in earthly conduct and eternal knowledge.
When we talk about accepting or processing who we are in Christ Jesus, we are talking about a re-established fellowship at the heavenly level. It is not enough that we are redeemed and justified, we are also called to live in His resurrection power, called to grow in grace while putting off the old man of flesh, while at the same time, putting on Jesus, glorifying our Father God. We are now alive in heavenly places, on God’s level; we can be the living person God is calling us to be! It is up to our faith. Thank you, Lord Jesus!
The more our physical behavior is spiritually driven, the more we experience the shame of our own fleshliness. This produces worship within ourselves and the continuing active need of Jesus’ resurrection life to produce His work within us. We see and experience the glory of God’s resurrection power but at the same time we experience our own fleshly unworthiness. This is God working, growing His grace us in, growing our personal knowledge of Jesus Himself on the one hand, and an increased sensitivity of our own fleshly self on the other! As long as we are in flesh, we are as vulnerable or as strong as is our faith.
A Biblical example of our spiritual vulnerability is Elijah who came from across the Jorden to confront the wicked Ahab with: “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” Afterwards, the Lord hid Elijah for three years, first by the brook Cherith until it dried up and then with the widow of Zarephath in Sidon. In Sidon the Lord instructs Elijah to once again confront Ahab a second time after the three plus years of drought was completed.
Ahab was anxious about Elijah because three years of drought was devastating to both the land and the people. Ahab agreed to assemble all the people of Israel to witness a contest between the Lord God against the local gods of Baal and Ashera. Two alters were built on Mt. Carmel, one for the gods of Baal and the other for the Lord God of Israel. The priests of Baal called upon their gods to consume their sacrifice for hours but to no avail while the Lord God of Israel consumed, not only the sacrifice, but the water and rocks of the alter.
The people immediately recognized both Elijah and God to be true so that Elijah was able to kill all the false prophets of Jezebel. Afterwards, Elijah announces to Ahab that rain was on the horizon! Ahab goes to Jezreel and tells Jezebel all that has happened including the death of her 450 prophets at the hand of Elijah. Jezebel is furious and immediately sends a messenger to Elijah telling him by tomorrow at this time he will be dead!
For the past three plus years Elijah is faithfully trusting in his God. The ravens fed him in the morning and evening while hiding from Ahab by the creek of Cherith. At the widow Zarephath’s, in Sidon, he ate from the bowl of flour that did not go empty and he raised the son of the widow from death. Elijah had prepared himself to confront King Ahab walking all the way from east of the Jordan and trusting the Lord God but now he is petrified by this message from Jezebel! He drops everything and runs!
Elijah flees the scene heading south with his servant toward Beersheba where he leaves his servant and continues south toward Mt. Horeb. God has not left Elijah but Elijah has forsaken his ministry and work for fear of Ahab’s wife, Jezebel.
How vulnerable are we created creatures even after experiencing the Lord’s love, care and faithfulness, even after walking with God by faith for years. Here is where we see our vulnerability in the flesh. We have accepted who we are in Jesus on a human level but we can fail being who we are in Christ Jesus because of threat to the flesh! How quickly we can lose hope and faith!
Be your spiritual self, sealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. For you have died and, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” -Colossians 3:1-3.
We see, in the example of Elijah, the importance of faith being in the operative “ready” position. We are in a battle, a spiritual battle with unseen forces. Even though we are protected by the eternal arm of God. Jezebel’s encounter with Elijah was a test of faith, nothing more.
Our temporal touch and feel person has physical appetites and desires. It operates on a horizontal level through common relationships of human culture. When Elijah responded to Jezebel it was on this human, horizonal plane.
Faith is on a vertical plane reaching upward into the heavenlies, upward to the throne of God Himself. Elijah was operating on a horizontal plane when confronted by the messenger who threatened his life.
But how did God respond to Elijah’s lapse in faith?
After Elijah dropped off his servant at Beersheba, he continued south for one whole day before dropping with exhaustion. He found a broom tree for shade and fell asleep. After a while an angel touch him and told him to get up and eat something. The angel had prepared a hot cake and a glass of water saying, “Arise and eat.”
Elijah had laid down under the broom tree saying to God: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” But our loving God is faithful sending an angel to care for Elijah.
Again, after a while, an angel came and touched Elijah a second time saying, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.”
“And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.” -1Kings 19:8.
Even when Elijah was still operating on the horizontal level, “I am no better than my fathers,” God was caring and planning for Elijah’s future. Elijah was to train his replacement, Elisha, and later God will take Elijah to himself up on a whirlwind to heaven.
This spiritual failure in Elijah’s life is what is referred to in Mark 9:49 as “salted with fire.” We are the salt of the earth but if we lose our saltiness in Jesus we lose our testimony in the Lord. The Lord burns out of us those fleshly horizontal things keeping us from being heavenly minded. Faith is not faith at all when it is horizontal. The Lord God allowed Jezebel to send her messenger to Elijah who was being “salted with fire!”
The ministry of God to man is not limited to the salvation of his soul! God loves man with a deep agape love. God instructs us into wisdom, understanding and a meekness of spirit, so that, we return back to God with His own agape love to us! Thank you Lord!
“Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him;
Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.
He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms;
He will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth
in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?
Who has measured the spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him counsel?
Whom did he consult, and who made him understand?
Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are like drop from a bucket, and are counted as dust on the scales; Behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
All nations are as nothing before him, they are counted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.
To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?
An idol! A craftsman casts it, a goldsmith over lays it with gold and
casts it for its silver chains.
He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot;
He seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move.
Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundation of the earth?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
Who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of earth as emptiness.
Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth. When he blows on them, and they wither, and tempest carries them off like stubble.
To who then will you compare me, that I shall be like him? says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these?
He who brings out their host by number, calling them by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.
Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God? Have you knot known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength;
Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;
But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
-Isaiah 40:10-31.
Wrap.
Know yourself in Christ Jesus thru God the Father.
Accept yourself into Christ Jesus our Lord.
Be yourself sealed in Christ Jesus.
Our process of (1) knowing Jesus, (2) accepting Him within our own experience and (3) being in the Light as He is in the light is a long process. Knowing comes first, yes, but in that process of knowing we also are accepting. All these steps are concurrent with each other but knowing provides the building, the structure containing discernment through the continuing work of the Holy Spirit within us. Being in Christ Jesus is walking in fellowship and experiencing His glory even as the Holy Spirit instructs us in the logos Word of God and salts us with fire for His glory!
Before being born-again, we did not have the Spiritual capacity to receive the things of God. Being created new in Jesus literally is providing the Spiritual capacity to enter into His agape fellowship of love. This is why Jesus says to all the seven churches in Revelation: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
In Christ Jesus we have the capacity to grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus Himself. We possess the powers of discernment to separate God’s truth from Man’s “truth.”
“But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
-Hebrews 5:14.
“Renewing our mind” vertically, beyond knowing horizontally is where the Holy Spirit leads us. We want to consume grace within our new Spiritual person, so that, we walk not according to the flesh on a horizontal level, but according to the Spirit vertically. This is being who we are in Jesus. We are now endowed Spiritually with the mind of Christ, so that, we may now grow in grace while increasing our knowledge of Jesus Himself. Faith that is horizontal is not faith at all!
Now we are not only in Jesus, He, Jesus, is also in us! This truth leads our path into holiness and His glory! Our objective is His agape love and His glory in us! He is pouring it out on us in invisible ways so we might soak it in and pass it on. Our Spiritual calling is to be holy because He is Holy! Knowing this, and believing it at the faith level, is accepting grace into our earthly experience and living at His heavenly level in righteousness and truth.
“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.”