OUR CHRIST INHERITANCE
03/03/24 08:33
We can live a life devoted to pumping up our forbears denomination, persuading ourselves that we are disciples of Christ when we are really disciples of us. The experience of the Presence is connected to our desire to know Christ as Himself for Himself, without the addition of some interest vested in ourselves. This is why the pure in heart see God and those with a divided heart see a version of themselves that they think is Christ. This is a subtle and debilitating false christ.
THE PRESENCE
Leanne Payne citing C.S. Lewis writes, “The practice of the Presence of the Unseen Real was not easy for him. He suffered in himself all the intellectual blocks of the highly developed philosophical mind, one that was thoroughly steeped in several centuries of intellectual skepticisms and unbelief.
DIVINE INSIGHT
Even more than that, he knew the old sin nature in each one of us, that which would disregard the Real Presence and deeply desire to remain separate from it. He knew, therefore, that to fix one’s mind on God was not only to torment the old sin nature, but to kill it—a thing that God requires and fallen man resists. “Christ says, ‘Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you.’” (1) Clinging to heritage religion because it is ours, stifles our spiritual discernment and shrinks our being. Loyalty to one’s heritage, even when one suspects it may contain polluted water, makes us a liability rather than an agent of new creation life.
DUALISM UNDONE
Dualism embodies the illusion that God lives in an anti-septic holy life separate to our everyday life.
Leann Payne writes of Lewis, “He perhaps speaks more effectively and powerfully than any other soul to the dilemma of modern man—that of the schism between head and heart, spirit and matter, the intellect and the imagination. In doing this, he has become one of the truly great defenders of Scriptural orthodoxy, for he has enabled us to once again be “at home” with miracle, the native air of the Scriptures and of the Spirit-enabled life.” (2)
INCARNATED DAUGHTERS AND SONS
The Spirit enabled life is less about the gifts and more about our living the oneness with Christ that is our inheritance of Christ our life. What is this oneness? It is the fruit of our living in the completed atonement and our inviting Jesus to be incarnated in our person. This is the healing presence and the life of God taking over our person.
(1)Payne, Leanne. The Healing Presence (p. 29). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
(2)Payne, Leanne. The Healing Presence (p. 30). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
