Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The Bullet of New Life in Christ: LIFE in His Presence

“I am always being delivered from everything” are some of Paul’s greatest words! (II Cor. 2:14). They describe how the Christ Life is possessed, experienced and expressed by the Cross Disciple who keeps on seeking, asking, knocking, thinking, praying, studying and finding his or her death to “the self life.” It is a tragedy to live the kind of life that is void of the presence, power, promises and pleasures of the Godhead! Only when the old self life is continually put to death in our thinking does our new Christ Life self increasingly come alive in our awareness. My “self” does not cease to exist but becomes its “true self” as I “put” or place “myself” into the purposes and aspirations of the high ambitions the Father has for me in Christ Jesus! (II Cor. 2:14-17). Paul goes on to describe some of these specifics in II Corinthians four:

But we have this treasure (our possession of Christ Life potential) in jars of clay (our sinful earth bodies) to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; knocked down, but never knocked out. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” II Corinthians 4:7-12

This fallen world, dominated by its illusions, delusions and confusions, is destined for diminishment, death and destruction. Cross Disciples must be vigilant to see the truth of this hopelessness in an authentic and vigorous way! This means we must learn to accept this crippled, blind and helpless culture just as the Father says it is! We must all taste in different degrees the desperate despair and the deadening habits of spiritual emptiness. This comes on us, of course, from pursuing life without the Presence of God. We must learn to “carry the weight” of this struggle with us throughout our daily pressures. Our hope for deliverance is to take up (add) more cross … not less! Only then are we increasingly freed from our bondage to dullness and insignificance by the “praise realities” of Jesus, Who we sense more fully is vitally alive within us. This is what it means to be “in Christ” … to experience that He really is the Truth about everything! Our hearts are then flooded with a growing joy by that discovery! (John 14:6 and 15:11).

The more we recognize the disaster of sin around us and within us the more eagerly and “abandonly” do we seek the depths of Christ’s Voice. The weight of knowing He had to die drives us to His solutions for ourselves and for this fallen and conflicted world. Our hearts find a newer and higher burden for existence. It is then that the Father uses our personal cross death to what isn’t to show through us to others how we are alive to what is! We are Christ’s agents to floundering people! We are “standing by the door” to the Kingdom of Messiah Love. Our goal is to reveal the Savior’s invitation to life over death to all who will “risk” believing He loves them and wants them. Our goal is to let them smell the fragrance of Christ upon us and want it for themselves (II Cor. 2:14-17). We know experientially that they will not be disappointed. The story of our own floundering and how we are escaping from it is too exciting to be quiet about!

“… and who is equal to such a task? … we are certainly not competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as servants of His new promise (covenant).” II Corinthians 2:16b; 3:3-6

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