OBSESSED WITH CHRIST'S LIFE
17/10/22 15:15
Some communities had a lot to say about 'our standards.' In the 1970s some in my church began to see that harping on morality, as beneficial as good living is, wasn’t the gospel of Christ. By the 1980s many came to see that there was a gospel of grace. But to this day most have not seen that grace is not an opportunity or a method of keeping the law. Grace is the living way in which Christ is for us and becomes us by the Spirit. We call this incarnation.
CHRIST IN YOU
The vicarious humanity of Christ provides the means for us to move from a life in the externalities of law and behavior modification to a life in which Jesus is expressed as us.
The holiness of God is less about about sin and entirely about Himself as our life. Thus in Christ we are forgiven for our sins and empowered by His indwelling to become the expression of Himself.
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS FROM GOD IS THE CHRIST OF GOD
For this reason 'a righteousness from God' was not more rules, or 'Jesus techniques' for keeping these rules. It was God's Son incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth and then Jesus incarnated in us so that those who believe become the manifestation of Him. This is a complete salvation/righteousness that far outstrips legalist and hybrid-legal forms of Christianity.
'But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify' Romans 3.21 NIV.
'For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed--a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith' Rom 1.17 NIV.
GRUMPY LAW-MONGERS
There are folks who live entirely within the status quo. They live uncritically and become annoyed when others reveal that the 'righteousness' in which they are absorbed did not come from God. This reproach is real, meaning that some of the 'offended' progress from religiosity to unbelief, serial adultery and broken relationships as a way of life.
Graced by a lived union with Christ we become whole ourselves and gain the ability to live in loyalty and faithfulness to others.
INNER STRENGTH OR NOT
Although the scriptures already attest that law inflames sin, we see that
people living conscientiously from the law are often consumed by the fires of Satan. They have no resistance to the common degradations of our age. I can testify that the attempt to live from good moral standards has no power to enable one to live out those standards. But Christ in you does.
The toting of grace without life in the Spirit has little value. No matter how disciplined, we are not alive if we are not in the Spirit of Christ our life. Sure, we can live wooden and respectable lives that impress the naive Believer. There is a kind of religion that resembles the game of trivial pursuit. But we are not robust in God in this game. We are workers, not sons and we cannot reign over circumstances and the Enemy in a life of Christian externalities.
CHRIST AS YOU
There has to be a means for grace not only to apply to us but to become part of us. This happens because grace is a person. Grace is Jesus who is both the love of God and the holiness of God woven into our being. Christ is relationship and transformation.
Our hope of glory, indeed the reality of a wholesome life and the ability to live in exaltation rather than degradation is ours because Christ lives in our being by the Holy Spirit. Paul summed it up when he wrote, 'The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.
And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you' Rom 8.6-11.
ALIVE IN OUR LIFE
The raising from the dead referred to here applies to temporal and eternal life. This life - life in the Spirit - is the life that has overcome the tree of knowledge and its sentence of degradation and spiritual death. Our growth into life and all that is spirited, fresh and wholesome is the effect of not only Christ in us but the Family of God residence in our being.
You have a spirit. When this spirit is ignited by the Spirit of Christ your being is filled with the spirit of sonship. You begin to live as a son/daughter in spirit and truth and grow progressively in this from glory to glory as a person of life and Kingdom agency.
'For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children' Rom 8.14-16 NIV.
CHRIST IN YOU
The vicarious humanity of Christ provides the means for us to move from a life in the externalities of law and behavior modification to a life in which Jesus is expressed as us.
The holiness of God is less about about sin and entirely about Himself as our life. Thus in Christ we are forgiven for our sins and empowered by His indwelling to become the expression of Himself.
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS FROM GOD IS THE CHRIST OF GOD
For this reason 'a righteousness from God' was not more rules, or 'Jesus techniques' for keeping these rules. It was God's Son incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth and then Jesus incarnated in us so that those who believe become the manifestation of Him. This is a complete salvation/righteousness that far outstrips legalist and hybrid-legal forms of Christianity.
'But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify' Romans 3.21 NIV.
'For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed--a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith' Rom 1.17 NIV.
GRUMPY LAW-MONGERS
There are folks who live entirely within the status quo. They live uncritically and become annoyed when others reveal that the 'righteousness' in which they are absorbed did not come from God. This reproach is real, meaning that some of the 'offended' progress from religiosity to unbelief, serial adultery and broken relationships as a way of life.
Graced by a lived union with Christ we become whole ourselves and gain the ability to live in loyalty and faithfulness to others.
INNER STRENGTH OR NOT
Although the scriptures already attest that law inflames sin, we see that
people living conscientiously from the law are often consumed by the fires of Satan. They have no resistance to the common degradations of our age. I can testify that the attempt to live from good moral standards has no power to enable one to live out those standards. But Christ in you does.
The toting of grace without life in the Spirit has little value. No matter how disciplined, we are not alive if we are not in the Spirit of Christ our life. Sure, we can live wooden and respectable lives that impress the naive Believer. There is a kind of religion that resembles the game of trivial pursuit. But we are not robust in God in this game. We are workers, not sons and we cannot reign over circumstances and the Enemy in a life of Christian externalities.
CHRIST AS YOU
There has to be a means for grace not only to apply to us but to become part of us. This happens because grace is a person. Grace is Jesus who is both the love of God and the holiness of God woven into our being. Christ is relationship and transformation.
Our hope of glory, indeed the reality of a wholesome life and the ability to live in exaltation rather than degradation is ours because Christ lives in our being by the Holy Spirit. Paul summed it up when he wrote, 'The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.
And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you' Rom 8.6-11.
ALIVE IN OUR LIFE
The raising from the dead referred to here applies to temporal and eternal life. This life - life in the Spirit - is the life that has overcome the tree of knowledge and its sentence of degradation and spiritual death. Our growth into life and all that is spirited, fresh and wholesome is the effect of not only Christ in us but the Family of God residence in our being.
You have a spirit. When this spirit is ignited by the Spirit of Christ your being is filled with the spirit of sonship. You begin to live as a son/daughter in spirit and truth and grow progressively in this from glory to glory as a person of life and Kingdom agency.
'For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children' Rom 8.14-16 NIV.
