HOW TO BE WHOLE AND HOLY AND ENJOY LIFE

Athanasius wrote, ‘God became man that man might become God.’ I don’t use this quote a lot because he was not New Age. Humans are not Gods but they are daughters and sons and do participate in the divine nature by the Spirit come in our flesh. The exchange Athanasius speaks of is real and is the core of the Gospel of the Kingdom. We are not deities, but we are sons of God.  Nothing makes the Enemy happier than to get Believers living in a religiously derived lesser version of themselves. In law-keeping we are smaller than we are. Living the incarnation we are bigger on the inside than we are on the outside.
 
IN ACTUALITY
 
In Christ we become sons of God in spirit and in truth. We can be ‘Sons’ as a state of being in agency as distinct from piously or figuratively. In Jesus Christ we are born from Adam/Moses into union with God – into a union so close that it is a communion similar to that enjoyed by the trinity. This is New Birth.
 
We write here of the false self and the real self – terms I learned from Richard Rohr, but which are certainly not new. Jesus introduced them when speaking to Nicodemus about the new birth. In saying that we cannot see the Kingdom of God unless we are reborn from religion into Him Jesus declared the basis of His Kingdom of Life. Jesus was implying that we cannot see or know ourselves and reality unless we allow Him to move us from the false self to the true self. In comprehending the world around us this means moving from a superficial comprehension to an understanding of wisdom and insight.
 
THE UN-YOU
 
It helps to be a life-giver if we are born again. Joe wrote a short bio about himself and ‘where he was at’ for a journal. The editor scrapped it and replaced it with Joe’s academic achievements – thus indicating that the editor had not been resurrected from religion and did not know the difference between the real life and un-life/ real self and the false self. Blindness is always the case if we are living from some version of the law and its diluted form, religion. We can live like this in our denials and fictions and as a result be living be muted as exponents of a religion of muted life.
 
JESUS MAKES YOU THE REAL YOU
 
Sam had a dream in which Jesus came to him and asked how his life was going. Sam began to list his accomplishments. Jesus smiled and said, ‘No. I just wanted to know how you are doing at being you.’ It’s possible to live our entire life as a religious person and never make this transition – particularly if we have lived an intellectualised form of Christianity. Jesus gives you Himself to be you. John called it Christ come in our flesh. Paul called this Christ who is our life. The Christian Church call it incarnation/life in the Spirit.
 
NON-LIFE PRESENTED AS LIFE
 
Leanne Payne wrote, “Until we accept the new self, we are dangerous to ourselves and to others; even though we are Christians, we are still enthralled by the voices of this world and obey them. We fail to abide in Christ and instead remain self-conscious.” (1) Abiding in Christ is not abiding in Christianity. It is as the mystics say, living in oneness with Christ. Nothing mysterious about that. It just means living in what Jesus gave you instead of living insulated from Him in layers of religion. As Jesus said, ‘Eat my flesh and you will have real life’. This is the eucharist lived daily.
 
Athanasius ( 293-273 AD) wrote, “For the Lord touched all parts of creation, and freed and undeceived them all from every deceit.” In Christ our life we see what is real because we are Real.
 
(1)Payne, Leanne. The Healing Presence (p. 54). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.