Troubles that Confront Us
November 12, 2014
Philippians 1:19-24
…for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.d 20I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 21For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.
Troubles that Confront Us
Throughout life, those near us or ourselves personally, are touched by tragedy, disappointments, hardship, setbacks, hurts, sickness and trials of various kinds. If we don’t have a revelation of what our life purpose is we can become discouraged, bitter, unforgiving and even blame God for what touches our life or the lives of those around us. Paul gives us a perspective here of a life that is lived and dedicated to Christ. No matter what adversity befalls him, Paul has one goal and purpose. His life, he does not consider his own, but Christ’s and the life he now lives, he lives by faith, not for himself, but for Christ who died and gave Himself for Paul. Whether in life or death, Paul’s life is about living for Christ and fulfilling his purpose in Him. We all need to get a greater revelation of how Paul lived his life. Most of us still see our lives as being mostly about us. In that place of giving life to self there will always be things that we are struggling with that will touch us through our emotions, feelings, mind and will. Things that we struggle with because we are rationalizing them with the natural mind and understanding. For the person that is truly dead in Christ all that really matters is that Christ is fully living through them. Rather good or bad, it His will and destiny that directs their lives and gives them the purpose for living and being. The body and earthly life are but a tool in the hand of God to work His greater work and will through. We are the callused hands of His working in the earth to make a difference in the lives of those He touches through us. We are also the gentle touch of compassion and grace that leads others to repentance. We are His precious hands and feet to bring the kingdom of God into the earth and we do that as He lives and has expression through us. The more of self that is in the way, the more of that purpose is hindered and His true nature is polluted.
Bad things do happen to good people, Bad things happened to Jesus, the Son of God and bad things can happen to us. It is not the bad things that happen that define our life, but rather the goodness of the God that lives within us. We don’t always see the ultimate and long-term purposes of God. The disciples couldn’t see the purpose and goodness of God when Jesus was crucified. When, we, like Jesus are willing to pour out our lives for others then we can have assurance that God will take the seed of sacrifice that we planted and bring forth a harvest. Let us not be so concerned about this current life, but rather living out of the eternal life that inhabits us. Fear God and not the things you may suffer, for as Paul says in Romans 8:18, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” All of this is the preparation for the revelation of the sons of God who will set creation free. Our rest is in our death and His life, so when this life is spent it only gives place to a greater place of glory. It is not the physical death that we must fear, it is the spiritual life or death with which we must be concerned. The purpose of our life is to perpetuate that spiritual life. No matter what confronts us we live out of His life and not our physical strength and being or natural understanding.
Blessings,
#kent
The Love
March 6, 2014
1 John 4:7-12
7Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 9In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 12No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
The Love
This scripture in 1John is so simple and yet so profound because it sums up who we are to be in Christ. We are love, because He is love. Here, we are not talking about a superficial love or even a friendship kind of love. John is talking about an “Agape” kind of love, God’s love. His love is not selfish, but is ever giving to the point of laying down its life for another.
If most of us think about how easily we are offended by others we are going to catch a glimpse at how shallow the waters of our love are. In order to love like Christ, we have to move into Christ and it has to be His Spirit and life abiding in us that enables us to love with this level of love. We are called unto a high calling of Love. The reality of that love abiding and operating through us will speak more to the glory and reality of God than a thousand sermons. People in the world so rarely see the operation of that level of love and yet it should be commonplace within the body of Christ. God’s love is a gift that is worth living for and it is worth dying for.
God’s love is much like an expression of freedom. It is freedom from the tyranny of sin, oppression and selfishness. While men may come against you with all manner of hate and violence, your choice to love in Christ is something no man or spirit can take from you unless you allow them too. God’s love doesn’t operate out of feelings; that is how our love normally operates. Our feelings come and go, they change, but God doesn’t change. He has continued to love us even when we least deserved it and when we were His enemies. Can we love with that kind of love? Only in Christ can we love with that manner of love. It is not a love that is earned, but a love that is given. It is not a love that seeks only one’s own good, but works to the good of those it comes into contact with. It is not a love that is to be manipulated or used, but stands firm in integrity and righteousness. It works to the higher good in others even when they don’t recognize and understand the means to an end. It operates out of the wisdom of the Spirit and in harmony with the nature of Christ, for it is one and the same.
The reason this love is a testimony, to who we are in God, is because it is a love that can not be counterfeited or self produced. It is only found and obtained as we release who we have been and are becoming what He is through a life yielded completely to Him. The love of God in us is released in proportion to the level we are allowing the Sprit of Christ to operate in and through us. Even as your body houses your spirit, your spirit houses His Love and presence. That, in turn, should be expressed back through our body, as we are the servants and instruments of righteousness in God’s love.
We may see ourselves as a long way from this level of love in us, but it is much closer than you think. The only thing that stands between God and His love expressed through us is ourselves. That is why we must be willing to pick up our cross daily and follow Him. As we are crucified, His love is released.
Blessings,
kent
Life is for the Living
December 12, 2013
Life is for the Living
Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
The question is which life are we living? Few of us have truly entered into the dimension and fullness of a crucified life. At best, most of us are living in a place where there is a mixture of flesh and spirit. Most of us believe in Christ, but we are still trying to meld it with the natural man. Most of us spend a lifetime in the battle between flesh and spirit within our own selves.
Our life is for living but lived for selfish gain and motive is robbing us of true life. There is a dimension of life in God that we catch glimpses of through the fog of our understanding and revelation, but it eludes us. Most of us are willing to settle in the outer court of salvation, but there are some in which a hunger and fire burns to live, to press into the Life that presides in the MOST HOLY PLACE. No longer do they desire to live after the flesh, but the old identity they had in Adam is regarded as dead as they set their eyes and heart to obtain and lay hold of that which they have been called out for. Many of us catch glimpses of this truth, but then the cares of life quickly obscure it from our spiritual vision.
The truth and life that is contained in the scripture can totally transform and change your life. For us to truly lay hold of it and live it out daily by faith and the power of the Christ within us, is to truly enter into and come up to a different place, where we are living under the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. It is the living in this law that will set us free from the law of sin and death. We have the promise and the calling, but not very many of us are walking and living in this dimension of life. Yet this scripture is our calling and it is our destiny. We all want to cling so much to the material world. It is our natural sense of security, control and for most of us our reality.
Galatians 3:12 tells us, “The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, “The man who does these things will live by them.”” Many of us, like those of Galatia, are still trying to accomplish by natural means that which Christ alone can provide for us. We are still living under the principles of the law and works to please God and appease our conscience. Galatians 3:10 has just told us,” All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” Christ has died to bring us out of the curse and into a higher law and dimension of life. It is a life not lived out of rules, regulations, traditions and religious dictates of righteousness. It is life of the Spirit, lived moment by moment in the Spirit and by the power of the Spirit. It is life in which the law is no longer written on tables of stone, but upon the tables of our hearts. Our heart is not just about doing, but it is in being and our doing comes out of our being rather than the other way around. We do the works of God, because we are God’s and His Spirit rules in our hearts.
In this place where our Adam no longer lives, we come into the presence of Faith, Hope and Love. They will no longer be elusive ideas, but our dear and near companions. In this place we truly live and move and have our being in Him. Here we enter into a place of intimacy and communion with God that we cannot know in the natural man. Here is where we learn and know what it is be one with Christ and have our identification one with His, where we no longer perceive ourselves as separate from Christ, but now we are an intimate part of Him and He is becoming all in us.
Those who grasp the truth of Galatians 2:20 know that true life and living is found through a death and dying. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “ …I die daily”. Paul readily admits that if Christ is not true and if there is no resurrection then he has suffered a lot of misery in vain, because he is not living for the benefit of his natural man and he has literally paid the price. He has a revelation and vision that is greater than anything this world can hold for Him. He is pressing into that divine life and nature and he wants to take as many as will come, with him.
What is your vision for life today? What dimension of life are we living in? Life is for the living, but how will you live it and under which law will choose to live; the law of sin and death or the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus?
blessings,
kent
Two Adams
June 20, 2013
Romans 5:12-20
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— 13for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. 14Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
15But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. 19For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
20The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Two Adams
What this passage in Romans 5 speaks to is spiritual principles and acts that have global and eternal impact upon all of creation and in particular, humanity. Verse 14 says that “Adam was a pattern of the One to come.” Now a pattern is a prototype after which all things that are made from that pattern look like. Adam was the example of what God intended from the beginning to have in His relationship with man. Adam is like us, in Christ and perfected with one exception. His righteousness was in his obedience, but not out of faith in Christ as ours is now. Adam was allowed to partake of all of the trees of the Garden, but two trees in the midst of the Garden or we might say the “heart” of the garden had far reaching eternal spiritual weight and ramifications. There was no prohibition from partaking of the “Tree of Life” because it would only perpetuate the state of godly relationship Adam enjoyed with God in the Garden. It was that other tree that was the Pandora’s box to a spiritual dimension that even Adam could not have imagined.
It was obedience that kept Adam in his perpetual state of bliss. The principle we see here is that obedience that is not tried and tested is not obedience that is of proven character.
Jesus was the last Adam. 1 Corinthians 15:45 declares, So also it is written, “The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” Adam may have represented the best of man, but it was outside the life-giving Spirit that could only come through Christ. He no doubt did well for an indeterminate amount of time, but there came a day of testing, trial and temptation and this living soul, the pattern of the one to come, gave place to disobedience. When he partook of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he brought death and condemnation spiritually and physically, not only to himself, but to all of mankind and creation.
What made Jesus different? Well, first and foremost, He was the Son of God and yet clothed in the frailty of a human body with like passions and weaknesses. Jesus Christ came in the midst of a sinful and perverse world wrapped in the body of a fallen creation man. There was only one way this Christ man could bring all of creation out of the bondage that had been released upon it through Adam’s one disobedient act. It was now the act of unfaltering obedience that would be needed to bring creation back out of its bondage and into the eventual fullness of restoration that God had purposed from the beginning. It was the act of obedience on the part of Jesus that would determine the fate of creation. If He failed then all hope of creation would fail with Him and the destruction of creation would be inevitable.
Praise God in the highest and His Son Christ Jesus; He didn’t fail, but was obedient even unto the death of the cross. The difference between Adam and Christ is brought out in Hebrews 5:8, “Although Jesus was the Son [of God], he learned to be obedient through his sufferings.” Jesus is now that pattern Son for us. If He learned obedience through sufferings, then we will learn the same way. The proof of what is in the character of a person is not fully seen until it is tried and tested.
Just as the many were made sinners through one man’s act of disobedience, many will be made righteous through one man’s act of obedience. It is our faith in Him who is our obedience that appropriates that righteousness to us. When the sinful nature of Adam was crucified on the cross in the mortal body of Jesus, the last Adam, Christ, became a quickening, life-giving spirit through the resurrection power of the Spirit of God.
As we have comprehended in our spirits this truth we now, by faith put off the old man, identifying it with the death of Jesus on the cross. We now, by faith, put on the new resurrection Man that is a life-giving Spirit that has set us free from our former curse of condemnation inherited in our first man Adam. We are now after the order of a new pattern and prototype that is Christ Jesus. Even though we still live in a world that is plagued by the state of the first fallen Adam we have risen in our spirits into the state of the resurrected last Adam. In Christ is the hope that is being manifested through us.
Romans 8 speaks to the purpose that is now in us who have acted by faith in partaking of the obedience of Christ. Romans 8:12-25 declares, “Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, 14because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
It is in the this hope and patience that we press into the high calling that is ours in Christ Jesus. It is in that faith, hope and patience that we exercise ourselves in godly faith, so that as many of us as are being led by the Spirit of God, we are the sons of God. The body of Christ is the key to completion, reconciliation and restoration for creation through what Jesus finished upon the cross.
“Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. 19For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:18-19)”
Blessings,
kent
tricklesoftruth 