Hi Everyone
Sorry, am running late – it has been a busy couple of weeks and am now just playing catch-up.
Here’s the Bible Study we did early in November. Click here for the audio.
The notes for your meditation are below. As usual, do please share it as you are blessed.
In His Love,
Chris
I Am as Christ in This World.
The New Creation
We have been made into new creations. The old one, the old nature who is a slave to sin, is no longer around.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (NKJV)
The question now is what is this New Creation like and how should that make a difference in our lives.
1 Corinthians 6:15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh.” 17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. (NKJV)
For a start, this New Creation is one with God’s Spirit. Holy Spirit Himself is with us.
The New Reality
Our New Creation beings have so much going for us.
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. (NKJV)
In the world of the Spirit, which is the reality, we have everything. We are kings and priests, we are over comers, we are more than conquerors, the list goes on.
And the Spirit is truly who we are. It is far, far more important than what we see with our eyes as true. In a sense, we are like blind people trying to interpret the world through our sense of feel. We are to walk by faith (2 Cor 5:7), not by what we see, by the truths manifested in the Word.
The fact is, in Christ we have been made complete. This is a truth in the Spirit.
Colossians 2:9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. (NKJV)
We might not feel that way, but we are told not to walk by how we feel, but by faith. We are told to believe this as a truth. It is when we believe in what is written in the Word but is in our eyes not possible, that the truth manifests. This is believing. This is faith.
Jesus did not come to be an example for us to follow. In our strength, we would fail miserably and be very disappointed, something I am sure many of us as Christians will have come to experience.
Jesus came as the example of a Man powered by the Holy Spirit in Him, an example of what He died to make out of us.
John puts it this way: that all that Christ was while here on earth, we are.
1 John 4:17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. (NKJV)
Which explains why Paul said this:
Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (NKJV)
The Same Mission
Luke 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; 19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (NKJV)
The Spirit of the Lord is upon us today, which is why Jesus said that we could do the works He did.
John 14:12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. (NKJV)
That’s why He sent us on the same mission.
John 20:21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” (NKJV)
So What’s in the Way?
The one thing that always comes in the way of the Spirit is the flesh. The flesh manifests in the need to preserve self, to preserve one’s own ego, well-being, comfort, safety. This is why our Lord said that we must die to ourselves:
Matthew 10:38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. (NKJV)
John 12:25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (NKJV)
Matthew 16:25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. (NKJV)
The one who is trying to defend his/her life here, essentially his/her flesh, the rights, the ego, one’s own cares and needs, will lose his/her life.
This is up against the realization that in Christ we already have and are all things. We can be dead to the flesh and be satisfied in all that He has made us.
Realize
re·al·ize [ree-uh-lahyz] verb, re·al·ized, re·al·iz·ing.
verb (used with object)
1.to grasp or understand clearly.
2.to make real; give reality to (a hope, fear, plan, etc.).
3.to bring vividly to the mind.
4.to convert into cash or money: to realize securities.
5.to obtain as a profit or income for oneself by trade, labor, or investment.
The key for us Christians now is to realize who we have been made into New Creations Without realizing that we have something far, far better, it is always very hard to leave what we now have.
The more we realize in every aspect of our lives that we are already like Christ, the less we will desire our old selves. The New Creation just becomes more and more irresistible.
This is what Paul laboured for:
Galatians 4:19 My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you, (NKJV)
Not that he wanted Christ to be forged from the outside. Think about it: If Christ could be formed in the flesh, then He would not have needed to die on the Cross. It would be like any other religion, where we are taught how to behave, and are given rules to “practice” our religion. That’s why Christianity is not a “practice”. I squirm whenever I hear people say that. It is a relationship in which we start to realize from the Word who Christ has died for us to become, now that the Holy Spirit and us are inseparable.
We are transformed, going from glory to glory, by the renewing of our minds (Rom 12:2, Eph 4:23) as we look into the Word and believe what it says about who we are.
2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. (NKJV)
It is all about Identity in Christ – hence this whole series on who we are in Him.
We Are Dead to Sin
The first thing that Jesus did in making us like Him was to take away sin. With sin out of the way, we are free to be flesh powered by Spirit, like Christ was on earth.
1 Peter 2:24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness— by whose stripes you were healed. (NKJV)
Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (NKJV)
Sin is no longer our master. Sin holds no sway over us. The sting of death, the result of sin, has no effect on us!
We are no longer slaves of sin, but slaves of righteousness.
Put Away, Lay Aside, Walk by Faith
When I was a young boy, I had a life jacket that was way to big for me, but was the only thing I had to help me in the pool as I had yet to learn to swim. It was cumbersome, too large and had me floating in the water with only my mouth above water.
When I finally learned to swim, I was able to forget about this life jacket – I had no more need for it. I could lay aside the life jacket. By faith in this new ability to swim, I could jump into any pool without this cumbersome piece I thought I needed.
In the same way, walking in the New Creation requires faith in a new-found ability. Like the life jacket, we lay aside/put away the old ways that we thought we needed to augment our lives here on earth.
In the crux of it, every sin is the embodiment of an area that we feel we need to defend the flesh. Every sin is ignorance or unbelief in the finished work of Christ manifesting.
We now have the ability to simply lay aside, put away all that was of the old man. We can successfully die to ourselves. Before getting saved, we were slaves to sin. We had no choice but to be in sin, as that was the nature of the beast, like barking is natural to a dog. Once we were changed, we became slaves of righteousness. Our new nature is now one of righteousness.
Ephesians 4:25 Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of one another. (NKJV)
Ephesians 4:31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. (NKJV)
Hebrews 12: 1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (NKJV)
James 1:21 Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. (NKJV)
1 Peter 2:1 Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, 2 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. (NKJV)
This is the faith walk – trusting in what the Word tells us about the New Creation, instead of what our five senses tells us. Once we have faith, works will show, much like once I believed that I could swim, I would not be caught walking around the pool telling people I can swim but not going in for fear of drowning without the life jacket.
James 2:17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (NKJV)
This is called “bearing fruit”. It is something that simply happens when seed goes into good ground. Our choice is to be the good ground, but without the seed, the Word of God, nothing will grow.
Ask any farmer. Manure produces no fruit. Only good soil with seed in it will there be a chance of a harvest.
Jesus said:
John 15:7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. (NKJV)
So we need to
- 1. Abide in Him – live by His life
- 2. Have His Words abide in us – His Words are Spirit and are life (John 6:63)
And when this happens, our requests will be answered. This happens because we are then aligned with Him, and all that we ask will be to the Father’s glory. He calls this bearing fruit. These are the marks of a disciple.
Put another way – if what we pray for is not done, the Father is NOT glorified and we are NOT bearing fruit and we aren’t really good as disciples, probably because His words are not abiding in us and we are not abiding in Him.
Overcoming in this Life
This is how we overcome in life:
Revelation 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. (NKJV)
The Blood, Our Testimony and being convinced that this life is not at all important. When we see increasingly the Life that is in us, the New Creation, when we realize the temporal nature of life here and the beauty of what Christ has done for us for all of eternity, we become increasingly enamored with His Life and decreasingly interested in the life that is here.
In dying, truly we will live.
The Take Away
- We are New Creations in Christ, made in His image, filled with the Spirit
- We are like Christ in this world
- We need to realize and believe this truth
- Jesus has put us on the same mission, armed with the same Spirit
- Ours is to realize that our lives here aren't worth holding onto, that dying to self is the way to go
- We are already dead to sin
- As saints, it is our privilege to put away, lay aside the old man and walk by faith in the finished work of Christ, His promises
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