FINDING MEANING IN A WORLD OF CHAOS
11/09/23 15:00
Paul used the words, ‘Christ our life’ for a reason. His gospel and that of Christ and John is holistic – the only real whole person approach in which Christ incarnates His person in you. When Jesus declares Himself, the way, the truth and the life – He is saying that He is Everything to you and to us all.
WHOLE IS GEATER THAN THE SUM OF THE PARTS
Paul asserted that the law is for sinners because Christ our life is for sons. If our reason for being is ‘not sinning’ we are quite a different person to one for whom Christ is their life. The former is living from scarcity and a poverty mentality. The latter living from our inheritance a son/daughter of God.
DUALISM AND SCRAPS OF MORALISM
Should we live from the law, we will live from bits and pieces. In the law we are asymmetrical in our being rather than symmetrical and whole. As legalists we will be spasmodic in the Holinesses that we grasp and conveniently blind to the righteousness that we omit. Legalism is anti- community because it is the opposite bent to Christ. The law embodies separation and condemnation. In Christ we have inclusion and belonging.
TRUE SELF/FALSE SELF
Leanne Payne observes that, “The true self finds “fullness of being.” It knows completion, for it is in the Perfect One. When our Lord told us we must be perfect, even as our Heavenly Father is perfect, He was saying we must be completed. The word perfect, as translated in the Scriptures, can mean “without flaw,” but it also means “completed, finished, made whole.” We are here dealing with a number of profound things, one of which is personhood. We are becoming persons. We become as we remain in Christ, a state of God-consciousness.” (1)
UN-CLICHED NEW BIRTH
The Real Self begins at new birth. The new birth begins in our death to Adam and our resurrection in Christ. But this is not a resurrection into religion – which would mean that we had not been reborn. We are re-born when Christ becomes our life by the Spirit. This is the beginning of sonship and the start of the Kingdom of God for us and ours.
(1) Payne, Leanne. The Healing Presence (p. 55). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
