NO FOOLISH VERSIONS
26/02/24 12:21
People absorb subtle un-truths as if they are the air they breathe because it is what their mind breathed by way of socialisation. This is why the Christ life is an adventure when we follow Jesus. The excitement comes from learning the fullness of life and truth so that bent ideas and lies about God dissolve in the increasing light that is Christ our life.
We do better when Jesus is our Lord rather than the idol of our imagined identity, status and false self.
The attempt to bend Jesus and His Gospel to our inherited ideas leads us away from Christ into increasing darkness. The quality of our life depends not on externalities like iconic behaviours or denominational beliefs but on the health and well-being of our soul and our spirit. Christ starting in you here is the realisation of your peace and glory.
THE FOOLISH VERSIONS
Some are never married to Christ because they are married to their own beliefs. These perversions of truth insulate us from union with God. Truth can be covered in accumulations of religion, false doctrine or a hidden and smug self-satisfaction. The radical grace as taught by Paul and John is often dismissed by religion because it is deemed too good to be true. But if Christ came in Mary’s body He will come by the Spirit in you to be your life and your true self as a son/daughter of God.
REMOVE THESE VEILS
A veil of misunderstanding may come to us in the idea that we have Christ presented to us, but it is up to us to acquire Christ, be worthy of Christ and to be with Christ. I know people who think it’s up to us to earn intimacy with Jesus by being righteous. But Christ has earned you so that intimacy is a function of Jesus and atoning for you and not a work of self-atonement.
YOU ARE NOT THE CHRIST
We can talk of ‘keeping close to Jesus’ with the assumption that the ‘Christian Life’ is the work of our attaining closeness to Jesus by self-effort. In this mode it should be clear that He is not our saviour. We are. Which places us where we would have been had there been no salvation.
This is a subtle form of legalism that we can employ even though we are not overtly keepers of the law.
NO SEPARATION
Much of these efforts comes from the illusion that we are in separation from God, from ignorance of the incarnation as the new and living way, and our not knowing that Jesus Himself is our forgiveness and union with God.
WRONG SLANT
Stephen Morrison explains this clearly when he writes, “There are always two sides to a covenant, but we often imagine that God’s covenant with humanity depends on our faithfulness to God. We imagine that we are held responsible to complete the “human side” of the covenant, whether it is by good works, faith, repentance, or a righteous Christian life.
But this is precisely the problem with thinking in terms of an externalized Gospel that separates Christ’s work from His person.
JESUS IS OUR SIDE
We will never properly live in obedient faithfulness before God. “Our side” of the covenant cannot depend one iota on our abilities or else the Gospel is not good news. In our place, Jesus Christ takes up “our side” of the covenant and perfectly lives a life of faithfulness and obedience to His Father as a human.” (1)
WIDE IS THE PATH
This is precisely why the law and its keeping is a false and wide way of deception and delusion. Jesus was never a new way of keeping the law with success and has always been the one living way of being our life in every respect. We need to take seriously Paul’s use of the words ‘Christ our life’ because He is – in every possible way.
(1) Morrison S. (p. 143). Torrance in Plain English. Beloved Publishing, LLC. Kindle Edition.
