Christianity Oasis Forum

[Netchaplain]

4-24. MY FATHER CARES!

"I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear" (Job 42:5).

The heart that is hungry to have God's purpose worked out in his life is going to be neither disappointed, nor pampered. When it comes to seeing self for what it is, there can be no pampering; when it comes to seeing the Lord Jesus Christ for who He is, there can be no disappointment.

"Why are the people of God suffering?--that they may be conformed to the image of His Son. Of course, we may not need a world upheaval to do this, but God is going to use all conditions to that end, and, tragically enough, there are multitudes of the Lord's people who do need a world shaking.

"They are so bound up with the externalities of Christianity, with its whole structure and system, that nothing but that which will overthrow, disintegrate, destroy, and raise tremendous questions about the whole business, will bring them to the place where the Spirit of God can begin really to do the work He has come to do in them." -T. A-S.

"Job was a true servant of God; but he needed to learn himself, as we all do. He needed to have the roots of his moral being laid bare in his own sight so that he might really abhor himself, and repent in dust and ashes. And furthermore, he needed a truer and deeper sense of what God was, so that he might trust Him and justify Him under all circumstances." -C.H.M.

"But now mine eye seeth Thee" (Job 42:5).

MJS/withchrist.org

[Netchaplain]

The most significant item on the Christian’s daily to-do-list is the same as that which will be the number one priority in eternity—fellowship with God! Our order of priorities is often misarranged if we have yet to realize our fellowship with God is the main purpose of all that He places in our lives, because this will be our priority in the next and the effectiveness of our outreach to others is determined by the condition of our fellowship with God.

Our union with the Father has been established through His Son and is “irrevocable” (Rom 11:29 NKJ), but the nearness of our fellowship is determined by our maturity in His Son. “Our life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3) and through Christ we are “accepted in the beloved” (Eph 1:6), which means, how near we are to God (Jam 4:8) is commensurate with our level of conformity “to the image of His Son” (Rom 8:29).

It is reassuring to know that we are not to conform ourselves (which is an impossibility regardless the level of desire), because it is written that we are “to be conformed” (Rom 8:29). This means we are growing “up into Him in all things” (Eph 4:15) and that each and every individual Christian, from where his level of maturity stands, is constantly being lovingly conformed by our Father.

This also involves the comforting fact that God is already aware of all our choices in this life, which encourages us to know that our unintentional wrongs and mistakes (which all the wrongs of the true believer are undesirable--Heb 10:26), even those which can result in misfortune and adversity from bad choices, are used in His prearranged plans to “work all things together for good to them that love God” (Rom 8:28).

I love referring to this as “The Magoo Factor” because regardless of our decisions and outcomes, He will “keep us from falling” (Jude 1:24)!
-NC

4-25. FIT FIRST

"And the servant of the Lord must not strive" (2 Timothy 2:24).

Our one responsibility, that of concentrating upon the Lord Jesus, has a three-fold result: (1) fellowship with Him; (2) growth in His image; (3) ministry of life to others.

"The love of the Lord culminates in this, that we should be with Him. He died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him (1 Thessalonians 5:10). I find the one who is set on usefulness (Martha) does not advance like the one set on personal affection to Him (Mary). The Lord give us to be more personally attached to Himself; then we shall be useful according to His good pleasure."

"There is one thing that all can do--be 'meet for the Master's use' (2 Timothy 2:21); and this is the secret of usefulness. Usefulness is not activity; it is not merely being used, but it is fitness, cleanness, preparedness, and separation of heart, singleness of eye, the affections set on things above--all, in fact, that proceeds from the judgment and denial of self, and the manifestation of Christ in the life by faith."

"All my ability to act for the Lord Jesus here depends on my conscious identification with Him where He is, not where He was for me; though as I receive power from Him I walk here even as He walked; His life is manifested in me. -J.B.S.

"But be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient" (2 Timothy 2:24).

MJS/WithChrist.org

[Netchaplain]

To believe in somebody and to just believe about him are prominently distinct issues. We can believe one is capable of performing and be knowledgeable of what he can do and who he is but if this is as far as it goes, this is just belief about him without doubting he’s real. A good example is when God appeared to men (esp. wilderness Israel) in ancient times which confirmed their belief of Him being real but with many, it was not “mixed with faith” (Heb 4:2) because they did not believe in Him.

In other words, many even after seeing, did not trust in God and “with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness” (1 Cor 10:5). James 2:19 writes “Even the demons believe--and tremble!” They believe about God by sight but do not believe in Him by faith or trust.

A great truism is that the unsaved need to come to Christ for deliverance from the guilt of sin and the saved need to know Christ for deliverance from the ruler-ship of sin. The best example is the visit of Jesus to the two sisters Mary and Martha. Mary was concerned more with knowing Jesus than serving Him and He told Martha “Mary has chosen that good part” (Luke 10:38-42).

The more we read, study and share God’s written Word, the more He causes us to “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (2 Pet 3:18; Eph 4:13). Our part is to read; His part is to enlighten what we read. I like the analogy of computer programing and operations. As an operator can only utilize the content of the program, God utilizes the input of His Word in us.
-NC

4-26. KNOW TO GROW

"And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (John 17:3).

The heartbreaking knowledge of self brings a life-giving compensation, which is knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. The needs generated by the realization of the sin of self produce the necessary motivation and hunger which cause us to focus upon the Lord Jesus and become conformed to His image. "And we all, while with face unveiled we behold in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are ourselves transformed continually into the same likeness" (2 Corinthians 3:18, Cony.).

"Many a new believer has obtained relief in his conscience from his sins, because of faith in the Blood of Jesus Christ; that is, he does not see further than Romans 3. He has faith in the work of Christ, but has not yet come in faith to Christ. He is like the woman who touched the hem of His garment, assured of His work but not yet acquainted with Himself." -J.B.S.

"It is one thing to believe on the Lord Jesus, to be born again, to be saved. That is a glorious thing as a beginning, but it alone will not take you right through all you have to meet; and if you are really in the Lord's hands He will see to it that by virtue of need you are drawn into knowing more and more of His Son. It is the normal course of a true, Holy Spirit-governed Christian life that, in order to get through, an increase of Christ, a growing discovery of Christ, is necessary." -T. A-S.

"That I may know Him" (Philippians 3:10).

MJS/WithChrist.org

[Netchaplain]

The work of the Holy Spirit is performed for the glorification of the Father and His Son (John 15:26), and within this life He leads us in our salvation to also glorify the Father and the Son (Mat 5:16).

It’s written that Jesus was led of the Holy Spirit into the wilderness (Mat 4:1; Luke 4:1) which eventuated in His death at the Cross. It’s also written that Christians are led of the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:14; Gal 5:18) which also eventuates in our death at His cross by being “crucified with Christ” (Gal 2:20). We were “dead with Christ” (Rom 6:8), but this does not include our “old man” or, old nature.

Nowhere is it viewed in Scripture that our sinful nature is dead, but rather “crucified” (Rom 6:6) We “are dead to sin” (Rom 6:2) but it is not dead to us. We left the cross to be “buried with Him by baptism into death” (Rom 6:4) so “that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). We died and were raised in our spirit (Eph 2:6). Our condition involves the possession of the Spirit in this life but our position, while in this life, involves the fact that God has “made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:6).

We, as a spirit being, along with the addition of a “new man” or new nature, have left the cross with Christ; but our “old man” or old nature, which still dwells within us (Rom 7:17, 18 - flesh meaning old nature, 20, 21, 23, 25), is still on His Cross. It is not written that it was “crucified” (Rom 6:6) but “is” crucified. It is the Spirit’s initial application of Christ’s Cross to us and our “old man” which brought about our regeneration, and it is the Spirit’s ongoing application of the Cross (Luke 9:23) to this sinful nature which restrains it from ruling us.

To serve or be ruled and dominated by the sinful nature is to be obedient to it without the possibility of refusing its influence; but If one usually refuses its influence (only through the Spirit - Gal 5:17) he is no longer being ruled and dominated by it. “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. . . “For sin shall not have dominion over you” (Rom 6:12, 14).

John wrote, “Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:9). His “seed” is not Christ, nor the Spirit, but is something from Them (not Him but “seed” from Him) which is attributed to the reason why the one born of God does not sin. The one “born of God” is not Christ because it is not limited to Him by the use of “whosoever”, and the phrase “born of God” intends the same as “born again”, which Christ did not require. This leaves us with one remaining possibility, which is the “new man” or new nature, because it is sinless, being created “after the image of Him that created him” (Col 3:10) and I believe the Spirit uses this new nature to make us “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4). I believe this passage designs that those who are “born again” do not sin; in that life of them which is of the “new man”; similar to Paul’s, “If I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I (as the new man) who do it, but sin (his old man) that dwells in me” (Rom 7:17, 20).

The Cross and Me!

When I picture the Cross I see one positioned
Without crown barely alive in condition

He was once there and so was I
So who do I see there with my eye?

Not the Lord or me but who could it be
But my old man until I am free (Rom 8:23)
-NC

4-27. THE CROSS AND THE SPIRIT

"But God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Galatians 6:14).


The Lord Jesus carried out the work of the Cross as to our eternal position. The Holy Spirit carries out the work of the Cross as to our present condition. "He will take the things that are Mine and will transmit them to you" (John 16:15, Amp.).

"We cannot separate the Cross from the Holy Spirit. We can have no Easter and no Pentecost, until we have first had a Good Friday. Through the Cross alone we are prepared for life in the fulness of God; only he who is crucified with Christ can be a vessel unto honor. Our 'old man' must be crucified with Christ, and in His resurrection we find the roots of our new life. Whosoever loses his life, shall find it. We must learn the lesson of the Cross, as condemned and rejected ones, who have been crucified with Christ.

"Then the door will be open for a life of power and blessing. All that belongs to death must be turned over to the death of the Cross, even as the body is laid away in the earth, because it belongs to the earth. The Holy Spirit, the Eternal Spirit, is unchangeable. He brought Christ our Head to the Cross, and us His children with Him. For this work in us is twofold. On the one hand, it leads us to death; and on the other hand, to that life which God has placed within us and which leads from glory to glory." -A.M.

"And all of us, with faces uncovered, because we continue to reflect like mirrors the splendor of the Lord, are being transformed into likeness to Him, from one degree of splendor to another, since it comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18, Wms.).
MJS/WithChrist.org

[Netchaplain]

Our prayers to the Father can be fueled by remembering not only is He our God but also that He is our Father (Abba – Mar 14:36; Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). “Go to My brethren, and say unto them I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God” (John 20:17).

Paul wrote that “We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us” (Rom 8:26). I like to think of it as this, that due to the “weakness” and “infirmities” of our carnal nature we cannot at times express enough to God, by prayer, the fervency of our heart and mind, esp. in times of distress or elations, but the Spirit “helps us” in this.

When our mind is on God, esp. when praying, our best honor to Him is remembering to center our focus on Him (along with Son and Spirit of course) more than on His blessings, because they are intended for this self-same purpose!

“Lest--when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God” (Deu 8:12-14).
-NC

4-28. THE ONENESS OF PRAYER

"And we have an assured confidence that whenever we ask anything in accordance with His will, He listens to us" (1 John 5:14, Wey.).

The Christian life is the expression of the Lord Jesus Christ through the believer to men in the world, and in the church. The prayer life is the expression of the Spirit of Christ through the believer to the Father in Heaven. As there is growth in Christ, there will increasingly be prayer in the Spirit (Romans 8:26).

"Through the Lord Jesus every true believer is united to God in Heaven by a life-link. We are not praying down here on earth to One who is a long way off in Heaven. We are one with Him there and He is one with us here! The devil is all the time trying to create a sense of distance between us and the Lord: but there is no distance between if we abide in Christ, for no one can be closer to the Father than the Son, and we are in Him! -T.L.M.

"Efficacious prayer is to the glory of the Father (John 14:13), in the Name of the Son (John 14:14), and in the enabling power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26, 27). Compliance with these conditions insures that the human will is in agreement with the divine will. Transforming things, mighty indeed, are wrought by prayer, but only such things as comport with the will and purpose of God." -L.S.C.

"If we want our own way we will find that everything is against us; but if we have chosen that God shall be sovereign in our lives then everything is for us."

"And since we know that He listens to us, then whatever we ask, we know that we have the things which we have asked from Him" (1 John 5:15, Wey.).
-MJS/WithChrist.org

[Netchaplain]

4-29. LOVING KINDNESS

"Now the God of peace . . . make you perfect [complete, mature] in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ" (Hebrews 13:20, 21).

My life is not only in His hands, but He is my very life. "For by Him were all things created . . . and by Him all things consist" (Colossians 1:16, 17). He controls and maintains the universe, and we can surely depend upon Him to care for us who share His life.

"We are all of us prone to forget the weighty fact that 'God trieth the righteous.' 'He withdraweth not His eyes from the righteous' (Psalm 11:5; Job 36:7). We are in His hands, and under His eye continually. We are the objects of His deep, tender, and unchanging love; but we are also the subjects of His wise moral government. His dealings with us are varied. They are sometimes preventive; sometimes corrective; always instructive.

"We may be bent on some course of our own, the end of which would be moral ruin. He intervenes and withdraws us from our purpose. He dashes to fragments our air-castles, dissipates our golden dreams, and interrupts many a darling scheme on which our hearts were bent, and which would have proved to be certain destruction. 'Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man, to bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living' (Job 33:29, 30)." -C.H.M.

"Now thanks be unto God, who always causeth us to triumph in Christ" (2 Corinthians 2:14).
MJS/WithChrist.org

[Netchaplain]

4-30. LIBERTY FOR ALL

"If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to ordinances?" (Colossians 2:20, R.V.).

When it comes to spiritual growth and walk, any help from ourselves is a hindrance to us. The source is wrong. On the death side, we are to receive deliverance from sin's power through the Spirit from the Cross; on the life side, we are to receive growth through the Spirit from the Lord Jesus. It is a matter of receiving, not contributing. We are branches, not vines.

"The old elementary legal rudiments of a legal age are for those 'living in the world' (having an earthly temple and worship). Believers are seated in the heavenlies in Christ, and are spiritual people with a sanctuary in Heaven. 'Touch not,' 'taste not,' 'handle not'; such commandments of men have no value. They perish with the using (Col 2:22).

"'Voluntary humility,' 'neglecting of the body,' 'fasting,' etc., have a show of wisdom. They gratify religious pride and self-righteousness, they 'puff up the fleshly mind,' but they are 'not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.' The flesh is not subdued by fasting, nor pride by whipping, nor worldliness by neglect of the body. These are of 'no avail' though men glory in them. Only the Holy Spirit brings one into liberty--and that via the Cross. 'The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death' (Romans 8:2)." -G.G.

"Stand fast, then, in the freedom which Christ has given us, and turn not back again to entangle yourselves in the yoke of bondage" (Galatians 5:1, Cony.).

mjs/WithChrist.org

[Netchaplain]

4-31. WHY STRUGGLE?

"But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord" (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Our Father allows the believer to struggle with self, not for victory, but for defeat. Then the "wretched man" learns to rest in the Victor.

"Once you have begun the Christian walk, and know the blessedness of it, you are not trying to correct yourself, for you know that all has been removed from the eye of God; and you insist on the fact that self has been to the Cross, and that Christ is your life. The old man was crucified, and you cannot reform him; all attempts of amiable people to reform him are only denying the fact that he has been dealt with in judgment. The responsible (law) man is not before God now. It is now the day of grace. Everyone who receives His grace is set free from the domination of the old man. The appeal to the believer now is not to do, but to look." -J.B.S.

"The believer is never told to 'overcome sin,' but to reckon, on the ground of his death with Christ, that he has died to it. On the basis of death, he is told not to 'let' sin reign in his life. It is to be dealt with by an attitude of death, not by 'overcoming.' The believer therefore is not to be spending his whole life in getting victory over sin, but understanding his position as having died unto sin."

"[We] are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Corinthians 3:18).
mjs/WithChrist.org

[Netchaplain]

The believer can encounter many learning experiences from Scripture when the understanding of the right insight concerning the theme of Christianity is apprehended. One has said that religion is man reaching to God and Christianity is God reaching to man. I believe the theme of Christianity is well displayed in the following scriptural passage: “Your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3).

Everything we have of God is hidden from the world, from the natural man who does not see with the eye of spiritual discernment (1 Co 2:14). The method of being “in God” is being "hid with Christ", which also involves His intention of manifesting Himself only to those who are His. This was understood by Judas (not Iscariot) when He asked, "Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world" (John 14: 21,22)?

The most prepared readiness is to remember to address everything in this life with the life of Christ and not our own, because “Christ is our life” (Col 3:4). This will teach us to realize the immensely significant difference in God’s plans, for us, between an earthly life and a heavenly life.

The earthly life of Adam, even “before sin entered the world” (Rom 5:12), was not a position as elevated as “the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom 8:18), for being with God on the Earth is a lesser position of glory than being in Him in Heaven.

This has been God’s plan in His thoughts of us from eternity past which He has pre-arranged, that we, through “the natural life first, then afterward that which is spiritual” (1 Cor 15:46), would “inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mat 25:34).
-NC

5-2. INITIAL PREPARATION

"Saul armed David with his armor.... And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these; for I have not tested them" (1 Samuel 17:38, 39).

Years of preparation are worth a moment of truth! Rest assured that once we are developed and trained by the Holy Spirit, the work whereunto He has called us will be ready and waiting (Acts 13:2). "Our Lord must have an instrument which He has formed in the fire and to which He has given peculiar knowledge of Himself."

"The greater the knowledge committed to a servant, the more necessary and important it is that he should be much alone with God about it, in order that he may realize the nature and effect of it on himself before he undertakes to make it known to others.

"It rebukes the haste and readiness with which many now enter the ministry, attempting to impress others with a measure of the truth which they have not proved for themselves. Surely the servant should ever be able to say: 'I believed, and therefore have I spoken' (2 Corinthians 4:13). It is better to lose time as to work in preparation for service than to lose time in repairing one's mistakes in undertaking a work for which one is not yet qualified."

"A servant's discipline must always be in advance of the service prepared for him. He cannot lead beyond the point to which he himself has been led. But when the depth and reality of the truth has been established in his own soul, he is made the channel of it."

"I have found that many a thing which I had presented in an extreme way because I was sure of it, I put forth in a simpler and a more real way when I had touched it in my own experience." -J.B.S.

"That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you" (1 John 1:3).
MJS/WithChrist.org

[Netchaplain]

The believer is always in a life and death situation. The living-dead are fictional but there are those who are the dead-living because as a believer, “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3) and therefore we, “walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). Being “dead indeed unto sin” results in being “alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 6:11).

Reckoning ourselves to be “dead indeed unto sin” does not cause us to be dead unto sin. We are dead to sin because we are “alive unto God” and therefore we “reckon” or realize we are dead to sin. In other words, we cannot make ourselves dead to sin; this was Christ’s work on the Cross. All we can do is count is so, that it has been done and know that it is an ongoing crucifixion to our old nature – by the Spirit. This causes us to live in the new life we have in God through Christ.

We count none our victories, esp. that over death, as results of what we do, but what God is always doing. What we do results from what He does; not, what He does results from what we do. He is always the cause and we are the beneficiaries of the effect--life out of death. His best for our worst!
-NC


5-4. FIXED POSITION

"And He said to them all, If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me" (Luke 9:23)

True spiritual experience will result from our standing immovable in our position "in Christ." All too often believers allow certain "experiences" to move them from the faith-ground of their objective position, and they are soon adrift on the sea of subjective feelings and unscriptural influences.

"The Christian life is essentially a continuous dying, and a continuous living. Of course, there may come a particular crisis in experience where the Spirit of God brings the soul face to face with a definite issue as to a willingness for the Cross, and a yielding of the life to God. Yes, the first revelation of the secret of victory also may constitute a real crisis in the life of the believer, but that crisis or experience can never, in itself, avail for the future.

"There is a subtle danger in relying upon some isolated experience of 'sanctification,' so-called. The victorious Christian life is a Person, not an experience. Following the crisis, whatever phase or landmark in the life that may represent, there must be the daily reckoning, the moment-by-moment abiding and the control of the Holy Spirit. Whatever may have been our experience of holiness, and the measure of spiritual attainment in the past, we can never get beyond the need of abiding in Christ and the continuous reckoning of faith." -R.W.

"For we, alive though we are, are continually surrendering ourselves to death for the sake of Jesus" (2 Corinthians 4:11, Wey.).
MJS/WithChrist.org

[Netchaplain]

As we encounter the experiential realizations of God’s blessings we are to understand that they come by way of His truths, so, our faith is to be in the truth of the blessing and not in the blessing. The blessings are the effects of our faith in God’s truths and faith in what He has said is to have faith in Himself.

Encountering God’s blessings brings salvation and the joy which comes from all within it, but the primary purpose of salvation isn’t just to be saved but to be in union with God. It’s normal for one young in the Lord to be more caught up with the blessings than the Blesser, as a child’s focus and sustenance is on the parent’s provisions more than parent. But as the child advances, his attention eventually focuses more on the parent as he realizes that his trust is not in the provisions, which are the effects and not the cause of his union with his parent. Faith is the substance of our objective and Christ is our objective! (Heb 11:1)
-NC

“Attainment follows faith in the truth”, not faith in the blessing, which H.F. Witherby aptly explains: ‘We speak of the truths themselves, not of the experiential realization of them. We realize what we believe. Realization is not a stepping-stone to faith. Faith is the foundation of practical realization. Experiential acquaintance with the truth is not the truth itself, thank God! And the truth of God, not our realization of it, is our confidence and rest. Therefore, as our souls, by the ministry of the indwelling Spirit, enter into the truths of our Father respecting our blessing, we begin to experientially enter into the blessing we seek. We obtain by faith, not to faith.’”


5-6. TRANSFERRED AND TRANSFORMED

"If [since] ye, then, be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God" (Colossians 3:1).

The growth truths seem complicated and difficult to understand on first encounter. However, with progress in grace we find them to be as clear and logical as the truth of justification. For both time and eternity, all is summed up in John 17:3: "And this is life eternal. . . [to] know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ." Study on!

"The marvel of divine grace is that not only has everything according to the heart of God been secured for me through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, but that I, a child of Adam, should be, not only in peace with God where I was under His judgment, but that I am transferred from Adam to Christ, and I am to have Christ formed in me now.

"I am born of God--of new and divine origin--a new creation to be here on earth now where I was a child of Adam, in the grace and beauty of Christ, led by His own power to stand for Him; daily more and more 'transformed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord' (2 Corinthians 3:18)."

"I used to study this passage and that passage to obtain guidance and light. I see now that if I were really near Him beholding His glory (2 Corinthians 3:18), I should be transformed, should come from Him so impressed with Himself that His interests would, as it were, naturally control me." -J.B.S.

"When the heart has found its rest and satisfaction in Him, it can turn to Him naturally and continually in every circumstance."

"Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth" (Colossians 3:2).
MJS/WithChrist.org

[Netchaplain]

The law of sin and death states that “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Eze 18:4, 20). God first introduced this law, or, principle in Genesis 2:17 when He revealed to Adam His first command just prior to creating Eve.

Before “the elect” are “drawn” (John 6:44) to salvation, they are, by the Father, poised for Christ. After being in God they are positioned in Christ, so, “as He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). There remains nothing for the Christian to obtain (in order to secure his assurance of eternal life) but, to attain, in his earthly walk of (of which the Spirit, and not the believer, has overall control - Gal 5:17) “godliness” which “is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come” (1 Tim 4:8).

Righteousness, justification and esp. holiness are attributes the Christian already possess, so, we work from these elements, not for them, as C.H. Mackintosh explains: “The more we realize the truth that everything has been accomplished on the Cross, for the perfect establishment of our peace in connection with the holiness of God, the more we shall see how futile is every thought about ourselves. A question as to the believer’s peace, is, in reality, a question as to the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you touch one, you touch the other; for ”Christ is our peace.” Our Father’s estimate of Him and of us is the same – “Ye are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power” (Col 2:20). “Wherein He hath made us the accepted in the Beloved” (Eph 1:6).

The believer needs only to understand to appropriate, by reckoning, all that he now possess in Christ because God “hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Pet 1:3).
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5-8. POSITION POSSESSED

"The God of peace . . . working in you that which is wellpleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ" (Hebrews 13:20, 21).

Abiding involves a dual choice. We can abide in the old nature and thereby become the victims of the internal civil war as depicted in Romans Seven. Or, we can abide (rest) in the risen Lord Jesus, the Source of our new nature, and thereby become the glad recipients of His life and liberty, as depicted in Romans Eight. "The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2).

"How do we abide? 'Of God are ye in Christ Jesus' (1 Corinthians 1:30). It is all the work of God to place you there, and He has done it. Now stay there! Do not be moved back onto the ground of the old nature. Never look at yourself as though you were not in the risen Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Him and see yourself a new creation in Him. Look at Him as the very source of your Christian life. Abide in Him. Rest in the fact that God has placed you in eternal union with His Son, and let the Holy Spirit take care of His work in you. It is for Him to make good the glorious promise that 'sin shall not have dominion over you' (Romans 6:14)."

"We should be spared years of struggle and failure if we learned at once--as the converts did in the days of Paul--that we ourselves were taken through the death of the Lord Jesus. The past blotted out, the pardoned sinner accounted crucified with the crucified Lord, henceforth joined as a new creation to the risen Lord and now sharing His life (Romans 5:10)."

"The Lord Jesus is all that we need for all that we are."

"Your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3).
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