LIVE THE CHRIST LIFE WITH JOY
12/03/24 07:47
There was a church that had ‘accountability’ going as a thing. The idea was that pairs of men would enter a bond of accountability to a friend in which both in openness would monitor each other’s life and hold them accountable to integrity and morality. It sounds good but it is not so much. It’s reliance on an externality – a measure steeped in works/self-effort that sidelines the importance of Christ expressing Himself in us and as us. Sin management is not the Gospel of Jesus.
LIVING WAY
There is a way to be whole and holy as Jesus is. This is christ come in our flesh. We enter this living way by repenting of the false way of moralism/legalism and living Christ our life – which is Christ incarnated in us.
Alexandra Radcliff writes, “[Andrew]Murray perceives that, as both God and man, Jesus was able to fulfil both sides of the covenant. He also perceives that the atonement is not a mere external transaction that effects a retrospective forgiveness of sins but involves our intimate inclusion in Christ’s death so that we are prospectively liberated to share in Christ’s holiness: [We share in His life].
“We know what the death of Christ means as an atonement, and we never can emphasize too much that blessed substitution and blood shedding, by which redemption was won for us. But let us remember, that is only half the meaning of His death. The other half is this: just as much as Christ was my substitute, who died for me, just so much He is my head, in whom, and with whom, I die; and just as He lives for me, to intercede, He lives in me, to carry out and to perfect His life.” (1)
YOU PARTICIPATE IN JESUS
By the Spirit of Christ imbued in our being, Jesus becomes us. He imparts His life/character to us so that we become fully human, fully alive and remade in His image. Holiness and a holistic life become ours not through the law/self-effort but by our choosing to live the eucharist, rather than just celebrate it. Those who eat Christ live because of Him. – they become His life.
DILUTED GOSPELS, LESSER YOU
There is the Gospel of Jesus, Paul and John and ‘other gospels’ in which the real Gospel is diluted to become a Christian version of the knowledge of good and evil. The narrow way is indeed narrow in that few are on it, with the consequence that few are alive as agents of Jesus’ Life in the Spirit and Life that is Jesus expressed as us. A dulled christianity leaves us justifying the Christless status quo as though this is slow killing of the Earth and its inherent selfishness is common sense. This leaves some who could have possessed spiritual eyesight supporting political demagogues whose agenda is selfishness and divisiveness, or perverse and nihilistic political correctness that is anti new creation life and anti-christ.
(1) Alexandra Radcliff PhD Thesis. 132
LIVING WAY
There is a way to be whole and holy as Jesus is. This is christ come in our flesh. We enter this living way by repenting of the false way of moralism/legalism and living Christ our life – which is Christ incarnated in us.
Alexandra Radcliff writes, “[Andrew]Murray perceives that, as both God and man, Jesus was able to fulfil both sides of the covenant. He also perceives that the atonement is not a mere external transaction that effects a retrospective forgiveness of sins but involves our intimate inclusion in Christ’s death so that we are prospectively liberated to share in Christ’s holiness: [We share in His life].
“We know what the death of Christ means as an atonement, and we never can emphasize too much that blessed substitution and blood shedding, by which redemption was won for us. But let us remember, that is only half the meaning of His death. The other half is this: just as much as Christ was my substitute, who died for me, just so much He is my head, in whom, and with whom, I die; and just as He lives for me, to intercede, He lives in me, to carry out and to perfect His life.” (1)
YOU PARTICIPATE IN JESUS
By the Spirit of Christ imbued in our being, Jesus becomes us. He imparts His life/character to us so that we become fully human, fully alive and remade in His image. Holiness and a holistic life become ours not through the law/self-effort but by our choosing to live the eucharist, rather than just celebrate it. Those who eat Christ live because of Him. – they become His life.
DILUTED GOSPELS, LESSER YOU
There is the Gospel of Jesus, Paul and John and ‘other gospels’ in which the real Gospel is diluted to become a Christian version of the knowledge of good and evil. The narrow way is indeed narrow in that few are on it, with the consequence that few are alive as agents of Jesus’ Life in the Spirit and Life that is Jesus expressed as us. A dulled christianity leaves us justifying the Christless status quo as though this is slow killing of the Earth and its inherent selfishness is common sense. This leaves some who could have possessed spiritual eyesight supporting political demagogues whose agenda is selfishness and divisiveness, or perverse and nihilistic political correctness that is anti new creation life and anti-christ.
(1) Alexandra Radcliff PhD Thesis. 132
