The Reality of God's Presence

Does your daily life reflect the reality of God's presence in you? It is not in the great things that we are witnesses of "Christ in us," but rather it is in the everyday interactions with our co-workers, spouses, family members and friends, that it will become evident.  The opportunity to serve one another, love one another and submit to one another while on this earth is God's spiritual lab whereby you and I learn to "walk in the Spirit" (Romans 8:4).

Walking in the Spirit means first acknowledging that the Spirit of God lives in you. When the Paul spoke to the church of Corinth, he provided them with a solution to their unbalanced and immature spiritual lives; that solution was for them to know that their bodies were a temple of God.  Have you reflected on this fact in your life?  Have you meditated on the incredible fact that the living God resides in your heart.  This single reality should immediately lead us to a place of holy reverence towards God. Christ is not offering us a changed life through His death on the cross, but instead He makes available to you and I an exchanged life. It is His Holy life and His loving Spirit that we are to offer those whom we deal with on this earth.  Too often as Christians we try to offer our abilities, and our human kindness to the world and these are but counterfeit and temporary at best.  Christ died on the cross so that He would be made real in each and everyone of our lives and in turn that we would reflect His life to everyone whom we come in contact with.

Christ-realization vs Self-realization

Today as we seek to live our lives for Christ; let us do so with the right strategy in mind.  Let's approach our day to day tasks and situations with courage and the certainty that Christ resides in us.  Our responsibility is to realize the actuality of Christ in us. We are told in Philippians 2:12...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

This is not an instruction for you and I to go out and try to become good enough to get into heaven.  It is not an exhortation for us saints to become Holy through self effort or zeal.  Paul here is encouraging us to focus ourselves and our eternal life strategies on working out the reality of Christ within us, rather than focusing on "self."  It is in essence instructions for us to pursue a life of "Christ-realization" instead of a life of "self-realization."  We are not saved through or by "self," but through and by Christ.   Philippians 2:13 makes it very clear that our salvation is entirely of Christ and that He is the author of our desire to do what is right and holy as well as the means by which it will happen. "For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for Hi good pleasure."

The hard work for us as Christians today is not in learning how to live a sin free or perfect life (for although we all confess that this is impossible-we spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to do just that), but in learning to allow the life of Christ to exhibit Himself through us. Our work is to know Him through His written word (Bible) and the revelation of the Holy Spirt. Hebrews 11:6.... for he who comes to God must believe that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.  The secret to "Christ-realization" is for us to begin a life of diligently seeking Christ through His word.

You Shall Be Holy

It is our relationship with Christ which produces His life in us.  You and I must exercise our will to be obedient to God- "for it is God who works in you (us) both to will and to do for His good pleasure"Philippians 2:12. Meaning that God gives us the desire to do good and also the ability to do good for His "good pleasure." So we must be obedient to the desire that He places in us and then by His grace He honors the desire that He gave us by giving us the power to do it.

Our choices in life should revolve around ways to exhibit Christ in our lives, not ways to be holy.  We are told in Leviticus 11:44 "You shall be holy; for I am holy and in

I Peter 1:16 "Be holy, for I am holy."  It is the holy Christ in us who seeks to live His life through our sacrificed lives (See Romans 12:1).  Allow Him to live through you today and everyday.

The Crisis of Faith

I John 5:11  And this is the testimony; that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

There is much effort, time and energy expended in the church today regarding attempts to be holy.  It is an admirable and good thing that men would seek to live good and wholesome lives.  In fact we are encouraged to do so in the word of God.  However, our desired goal of holiness cannot and will not come as a result of our abilities to resist sin or temptation,  this is due to the simple fact that we are sinners.

My brothers and sisters, we are saved and sanctified through faith in Jesus Christ.  It is He who is justified and sanctified in the eyes of God.  Our saving grace is that He (Christ) is in us.  We must recognize this fact and grow in the power of it.  Faith opens the way for the Holy Spirit to come and live in us; thereby producing the living life of Christ in us.  It is Christ in us who is eternal life!  Our work is in not trying to become holy, but in increasing our faith so that we can accept the great truth of "....Christ in us, the hope of glory." (Colossians 1:27). The following is the answer provided by Jesus to His disciples when asked by them "what shall we do, that we may work the works of God? (John 1:28) His answer in John 1:29 is the great work that we as Christians should seek to do in our lives.  "Jesus answered and said to them, 'This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent."  It is on the basis on our belief (faith) that we accept the eternal life which lives in us.  Then we are to work out that which is within us. (See Philippians 2:12-13).

THE CRISIS OF FAITH

This is where we as believers encounter what my brother Watchman Nee refers to as the "Crisis of Faith."  Would you dare to believe what the word of God says about our salvation and holiness?

Ephesians 1:7  " In Him (Christ) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace."

Colossians 2:14  "having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us."

Romans 8:2-3   "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh."

You and I are save (yes sanctified) because of the One (Christ) who has accomplished all that is required by God to provide eternal life to us His creation.  Our eternal life is based upon that immutable fact and nothing else.  Our great work as Christians today is in believing this truth!



Sitting together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus

Once a person has received the revelation of salvation (meaning that the Holy Spirit has revealed and confirmed in them), the certainty that Jesus Christ has died on the cross for their sins; their natural inclination will be to accept this "gift" of eternal life made available to them "by grace, through faith."  This of course is the main focus of many Christians today and it's significance cannot be overstated. However there is still further revelation to complete the reality of this great act of love by God through His Son.  We have a clue to this further revelation  in the following verses from Ephesians 2:4-6:
 "But God who is rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses (sin), made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus."

In addition we have this verse from Colossians to further give us revelation in regards to our salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Colossians 1:27 "To them (the saints) God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

It is Christ in us which produces holiness to His glory.  "He is holy and therefore we are holy."  By what right might we make this claim?  It is by His sanctification that we are justified and reconciled back to God.  The fact that He lives in us is the only reason that you and I are saved and sanctified. As a result we "sit together in heavenly places (not with Jesus), but "in Christ Jesus." We dwell with God today at the right hand of the Father because of His life in us.  Hallelujah!! We are told that not only does Christ dwell in us, but that we dwell in Him.

John 14:20  "At that day you will know that I am in My Father and you in Me and I in you."

Why We Are Saved

Many of us know how we are saved as Christians. "By grace we have been saved through faith.. (Eph 2:8). We are further told in Eph 1:7 "In Him (Jesus) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace." So then Jesus is the mechanism by which you and I are saved by grace, through faith. But I wonder how many of us has thought about why we are saved?

We are saved so that we would be restored individually and as a body of Christ back to our right standing with God.  Our salvation re-establishes the relationship with God that mankind had from the beginning of creation.  That relationship was temporarily altered by the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden. Now that we by grace through faith are restored-we can now be and do that for which we and all mankind were created. We can now through the Holy Spirit allow Christ to live out His life through us.  Christ did not die on the cross so that you and I could live a life of self effort, self righteousness, religious zealousness or judgemental attitudes.  He died so that we would become "many sons" through His Spirit.  We are simply to allow the Holy Spirit to produce the life of God in us. I want to share scripture which speaks to this Eternal Purpose that God has for you and I.

Romans 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

Paul addresses this "Eternal Purpose" as a "mystery" in Ephesians. The following is Paul's brief description of this purpose in Ephesians 3:9-11.
"....and to make all see what is the fellowship of te mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He acomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Romans 8:19-21  "For the earnest expectation of the creation (mankind) eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility (reference to Genesis 3:17-19), not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption (death through our mortal bodies) into the glorious liberty of the children  of God.

Romans 8:29 For whom He forknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might e the firstborn among many bretheren.

Summary:  We have been saved to become children (sons and daughters of the living God) so that He would live through us having fellowship and mutual love.  That is God's Eternal Purpose for mankind.  We are told in Ephesians 2:10 that we are to walk in His purpose for us.

Just Because You Sin

We are Not Sinners Because We Sin. We Sin Because We Are Sinners!

Sometimes we get it backwards in our approach to our Salvation. We beat ourselves up over the our sins and allow Satan to accuse us (the bretheren) daily in regards to the sins in our lives. However, we fail to realize that the fact that we sin is not the cause of our being a sinner. We sin because we have the disease of being a sinner. Jesus Christ came to cure us of the disease of being a sinner. His death on the cross provided the solution to our "sinner" problem.

Romans 5:19 For as by one man's (Adam) disobedience many were made siners, so also by one Man's (Christ) obedience many will be made righteous.

Romans 8:3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh.

Christ has erased the penalty of sin in the life of the believer. (For by grace you have been saved through grace and not of yourselves; it is the gift of God).

When we sin it should bring us to a place of recognizing that in our flesh that we are sinners, but more importantly that we serve a great and wonderful God who has paid the price for our being sinners; so that we can not only have eternal life, but the privilege of having Christ's life dwell in us. We don't deserve it nor could we ever earn it! It is with this realization that we can begin to live a life consistent with the eternal purpose of our Lord.