The Body of Christ is the unique group of believers who accept Jesus as both a person as well as the Son of God. This is what is biblically described as the “new covenant,” separated from Old Testament Jewish believers who understand God under the law of the Old Testament. These “born-again” believers, after the resurrection of Jesus, were originally seen as part of the Jewish faith but eventually were separated and became identified by people who believed in “the way.”
One of the amazing things about God is “the way” He makes truth known within our own personal heart. This is possible, of course, because we receive Christ Jesus within our very own self when we are “born-again.” Jesus Christ is actually within us! When this happens, we become united to God through Jesus and receive His Spiritual capacity to hear and know God in a very personal way! Our way has been changed to His Way through a new creation within our very own person.
It is through this “born-again” miracle that we are enabled to become rooted, built up and established in “the way.” Jesus instructed His disciples that He is “the way.” Only in faith must we follow in The Way. This is God’s path for those who are called to be “His Body,” the Church, for those who enter into His intimate relationship as God’s own family.
It is difficult to fathom how our creator God of all universes has reached down among His temporal people offering His own personal eternal Life. This doesn’t make sense … until we realize God created us for this specific purpose, Fellowship! This was God’s intentional purpose; our loving Creator God desires our personal fellowship! We were, after all, originally created in His very image and for this very purpose! His holy life replaces our temporal, sin flawed existence. When we see our own sinfulness, we enter into His grace through redemption in His Son! This is the only means for sinful mankind to become fellowship worthy with our Holy, righteous God.
Consider the agape love God has displayed toward mankind. Consider further, how much He gives us when we accept His abundant Life. He has given us His Word also, so that, we can know Him personally and grow in His grace … and sharing His grace with others.
Consider all the life choices we are free to make, why would we not align ourselves with the great “I AM?” God is the source for everything including Life itself. Our problem is aligning ourselves with the things God has made rather than the person of God Himself. On top of this, we are the object of God’s own personal agape love! His agape love is waiting for us to agape love HIM! This is who He is, God is Love! He gives, so that, we may give!
We are dealing here with the Creator of all things, like our expanding universe, yet, God’s agape love is directed not to huge things He has made. His focus is on you and me! Our source Creator of living Life within vast universes is focusing His creative power, not on universes, not on the grandeur of physical things surrounding us, but to vulnerable people like you and me. He is directing His resurrection power inward, within you and me! He wants us to accept His love and by faith share His light into this dark, corrupt world. Jesus became a human man to declare “the way” to be like Himself, as He Himself is! He also desires we be His light of Life among others until such times as judgment comes upon those who reject Him.
“Jesus said to him (Thomas): I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” -John 14:6
But it is not just that you and I have received His glory in our very own self. This, in and of itself is huge, but we are called to share His glory with others. Not only are we to grow in His grace, within our own redeemed person, but we are stewards of His grace to others. If others do not hear what we know and experience …. we suffer loss! We are more than individual members within His body, we are collectively His body and members within His Body even His own Family! We are to meet together as His Body in fellowship with Him and each other; we are to know Him and love Him as He is even now loving us!
How are we going to grow in grace and become effective ministers of God’s grace to our friends, neighbors and associates? How are we going to be effective ministers unless we are rooted, built up and established in Him! We are to minister to each other in the Body as well as to those who are not yet in His Body!!!
“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk (The Way) in him rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”
-Colossians 2:6-7.
According to this verse, as we received our Lord Jesus, in this same manner we need to walk in Him. We received Him by faith and this same faith rests in the power of God. This is the “way” we should be walking in Him, just as when we received our salvation in Him. Our born-again person is Spiritually discerning because Jesus is now in us, so that, we are now able to consume grace, to be rooted, built up and established in Him. He, who shed His blood for us, is now our Shepherd and our King!
Even though we are born-again with Spiritual capacity, we still live in fleshly containers that are ready to make self-oriented and temporal choices. When we accept Jesus, we are created Spiritually. Our choices for holiness, righteousness and love are now within us. Consider yourself dead to sin and alive in Christ Jesus. He is alive in us! He is our totality.
We have received Christ Jesus the Lord! Christ Jesus is in us; our continuous redemption journey depends upon our faith in Him. Are we walking in the way with dependance upon Him? Are you being faithful to God? Are you growing in His grace? Our Lord Jesus is still loving you and me!!!
Jesus prayed to our Father: “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent and loved them even as you loved me”
God made us one in Him and each other through our Spiritual salvation. We are all individual parts in His living organic Body, even now, while burdened with our own fleshly body on His earth. It is in Christ Jesus that we grow in grace because He is in us, built up and established; it is His workmanship working in us while we walk prayerfully in Him, into His purpose. We now collectively have Spiritual grace, through faith, to possess who He actually is together in one Body!
Being created new in Jesus Christ provides access to divine realities beyond our comprehension. Our old priorities and values erode and get upended. Our self-picture becomes cracked and pieces start falling out. Our relationships, our friends and the way we spend time undergoes major overhauls. We begin to see ourselves from God’s point of view.
How we handle our new Spiritual perspectives varies greatly from individual to individual. Some believers transition smoothly, others go through crises experiences. Others, like me, don’t get it ‘til we turn grey … even though we have been “in Christ” since childhood. A key factor in our Spiritual maturity is applying principles of spiritual discernment, distinguishing good from evil. Our discernment comes from being “rooted” in Jesus through His workmanship. Remember too, Jesus is the Word! Knowing Him is key to knowing about Him.
Paul refers also to be “rooted and grounded in Love” which leads to being filled with all the fulness of God. This is the organic process of life giving in John 15 where we are grafted into the vine which is Jesus.
But here (Col. 2:6-7), Paul speaks of being built up and established in the faith. Rooted in our Lord includes being rooted in love as well rooted in faith and is primary to our growth both in the person of Jesus Himself, as well as, the outward manifestation of our behavior in Christ Jesus. When we are established in the faith, we are grounded in love!
Remember the story of Jesus meeting with the lady from Samaria at the well in John 4. Jesus told her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but 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.” If we are in Christ, we have a “spring of water welling up” within us leading into eternal life. It is part of being in The Way!
If your spring is welling up within you, you will find opportunities dropping in your lap completely unaware. God will even gift you in one moment and then gift you differently for another new unrelated task. Our priority is not to analize our gift, but to walk in faith. If we have a burden on our heart, take it to God. He will gift us according to our level of faith and according to God’s grace to us.
Rivers of living water will flow out of our heart when we drink Jesus. The water of life flowing out from within us differs according to who we are and what the Lord has for us to do. The question of gifts often becomes a stumbling block. People rely upon their own self-awareness to structure what they can do for the Lord. This has a measure of value but remember who it is within us, the One who created life itself!! If we are prayerfully in the Word, gifts we never knew we had will flow from within us. We must know Him first!
God became manifested in flesh through the life of Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of man. When the man Jesus died, He did more than rise again from the dead. Yes, Jesus went back to the Father but He also put His life back into our flesh. We now have His Life in our flesh! The physical person of Jesus is gone but He is alive in you and me. The Life He lived in the flesh still lives in the flesh, yours and mine. His life continues to be a witness to people lost and without hope … in you and me!
For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. -2Corinthians 4:11
The incarnation of Jesus into flesh was just the beginning. Jesus is the Head of an organic spiritual body in which each person “in Christ” is a member of the Body of Christ. Grace is God’s culture of Spiritual life given to His body of believers, the church.
God’s culture of grace is within us as Jesus continues to shine His Light of Life into a worldly culture of darkness. His love in us is to be shared with both those who now know Him, and shared with those who do not know Him; those “in the world” do not know Him and are already judged. They need to see His Light in us, so that, they have opportunity to be redeemed from God’s final judgment that is right around the corner.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God: if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. - 1John 4:11-12