This is our third GN in a trilogy. We began with a drill down of Galatians 2:20 where a constant contrast between death and life is depicted, I have been crucified nevertheless I live. Christ Jesus, who is delivered from death by death, is also experienced by the born again believer. Created in Jesus, a believer is a new person with a new identity. Our New Life is supernaturally birthed, literally, providing living roots within our risen Savior. Our distinctiveness is a resurrected Jesus within us, inside our container of flesh. This is so amazing it is difficult to grasp! It is a miracle … only by His grace! His power is released into our old crucified self. It sounds cultish to a person without a supernatural Spiritual birth. Yes, it is supernatural, and just as mystic as is creation all around us.
God’s Faith Forest
What a privilege to participate in God’s righteous nature and while actually being absorbed in His grace, gaining a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. This is what happens when we are born spiritually of God. God is a Spirit and His Holy Spirit reveals spiritual things of Christ to us after we become a child of God, not of the flesh or the will of man, but of God Himself. We become Spiritually alive when we are born of God.
This puts our life at a very high level. Our life embarks into a Spiritual strata which can be mystifying and difficult to grasp. Our new Spiritual eyes do not easily discern spiritual things. We become Spiritually aware but often it is easier to revert to a habit of personal comfort and natural living. The walk of faith is not for the faint. There is a battle here. It is not mystic, but real.
This is our third consecutive faith discussion. We are still in the parking lot of this great Faith Forest of redwoods. But even in the parking lot a whiff of the air draws us into the wonder of something far larger and profound than mere humanity. On foot, under 300 feet high redwoods, old enough to have been alive while Jesus walked the earth, is a provocative setting to consider faith. These massive trees suggest powerful purposes and the God of this forest is our living Redeemer soliciting our participating in what He is doing. And we say, “I’ll think about it. Can I get back to you?” Oh, the darkness of our small minds!
Grasping Love by Faith in Christ Jesus
Paul has layered steps into the fullness of God from the posture of prayer. We have been looking at each step starting at the bottom, the fullness of God, and moving up, one step at a time, back to the top, leaving a staircase for our understanding into God’s love. Last time we looked at faith. It is our door allowing Christ to “dwell in our hearts” allowing us to experience the fullness of God.
Now we want to look more closely to what the apostle Paul means by dwelling in our hearts. The word he uses in the Greek is a compound word meaning House (οικοs) and down against (κατα). It is not uncommon in Greek to combine a preposition into a word in order to convey a nuance or emphasize a meaning. In this instant, the emphases is not just living in a house or dwelling in it but with the κατα formed into the front of the word, Paul emphasizes the full weight of God’s presence is meant to impact our soul-self. He is saying Christ may come against our heart so that we can know the full content of Jesus’ presence within our soul-self.
In Christ Jesus - Dec 7
Our life in Christ operates in two scriptural modes. One is grace, the other is faith. Grace is God’s love to us and faith is our response. It is God’s power making them effective.
We launched our In Christ discussion from a verse platform written by Paul to the saints in Corinth,1Corinthians 1:30:
And because of him (God) you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification and redemption,
We observed these “carnal Christians” are in Christ Jesus. This relationship in Christ Jesus brings a wisdom defined as righteousness, sanctification and redemption. We identified these “wisdoms” being associated with the work of the Father, the Holy Spirit and Jesus the Son, operating in our life. Spiritual wisdom is God’s grace cultivated by our faith. Grace is a spiritual capacity but faith is our soul’s ability to receive and apply it.
In Christ: The Mystery of Grace
Peter tells us the angels in heaven look at us in wonder because we have a salvation completed in Christ Jesus Himself (1 Peter 1:12). In fact, as we read the first chapter of 1Peter, we cannot turn away without being awe struck by God’s grace, which we possess in Christ Jesus. We are the benefactors of God’s love in such an astounding way, a way we actually distort trying shape it and size it into our inadequate capacity to understand.
Understanding the mystery of being in Christ, and becoming an effective minister in our “niche” capacities, is one of our challenges. Paul tells us through his letter to the Ephesians, “speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Ephesians 4:15-16).
The three New Testament passages used for teaching spiritual gifts for believers are 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12 and Ephesians 4. The first two are more “list” focused and the Ephesians passage, which I prefer, is more “function” focused.
While it is important to express our “niche” capacities in spiritual ministry, our primary focus is to grow up into Christ who is the head of His body. Maturity in Christ gives us a far better yield of our fruit we bear and enables us to grow in faith.
Milt to Maturity: Spiritual Anatomy - 7
We are remiss exiting this spiritual anatomy discussion without connecting to scriptural teaching about the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27). We tend to focus exclusively on being “individual members of it.”
Jesus Himself makes the point for us in John 17:21,
“That they all may 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.”
Our connection to the Body of Christ seems secondary because we are insecure about our primary relationship in Christ. Grace is a relationship! The “Body” is interpreted as the church, where we gather to satisfy social needs while becoming spirituality religious. Nurturing a relationship with a living Person is not a religion.