I came across this article but have no idea who wrote it. What do you think about it?
We live by the life of Another
I never had my own life
Before I was a Christian the devil and sin was my master. His lusts where my lusts. His darkness was my darkness. His evil was my evil. So I had the devil's life and was a walking representative of him. I was one with him and as a result everything he was, I was. I was the devil in the flesh. I really had no will of my own nor did I have my own independent life. The devil was my life and I was never free at all.
When I became a Christian, Christ and His righteousness is my master. His holiness is now my holiness. His Light is now my light. His righteousness is my righteousness. I now have Christ's life and am now a walking representative of Him. I am one with Him and as a result - everything HE is, I AM. AS He is – so am I in this world. I still do not have my own independent life. Christ is now my life.
I NEVER HAD A LIFE OF MY OWN - I always lived by a life of another.
If we are condemning ourselves for not being good, we are really expecting to have the power to produce goodness and are condemning ourselves for failing. That is a false expectation, because it is impossible for us to produce any goodness apart from Christ. There is no "good you," nor is there any "bad you." Christ is living and expressing Himself through His human branch, vessel, temple, wife, and body. Think about it. If we humans can produce our own evil, then there is a strong possibility that we can produce our own good, and if that is the case, then why would we ever need a Savior at all?
We are not an independent-self able to produce sin or righteousness; and when we try, we end up sinning more and more. Satan is the culprit and sinner, not us. And this false "I am able" self is not who we really are.
If we can produce our own sins, then there is a strong possibility that we can produce our own righteousness. If that is true, we don't need a Savior at all. That is blasphemy because we would then take Christ's place as Savior and Lord. We would then be our own God and fall right into Satan's devious plan for man to become like God, that is, the creature trying to become the Creator. Satan's plan is for fallen human flesh to take the place of Divine Spirit, thereby making man a son of Satan, instead of a son of God.
We live in simple faith, "Faithful is He who has called you, who will also do it." 1 Thes 5:24
You already ARE strong in Him. Why? Because HE IS your strength within you. You, as the vessel (container) of Christ, remain in perpetual weakness in the flesh. Even Christ was "crucified in weakness," yet lived in the power of God. (2 Cor 13:4). You are the same. We live in weakness, and in that is His strength manifest -- not in making US strong, but in us being the earthen vessel, clay pot in which HE lives, so that the excellency of the power is ascribed to God. That is the right place to be, and you ARE there.
This is not something we attain or become, but something we recognize by faith that we already ARE by virtue of the fact of His indwelling us, and in His indwelling us, we have become one person with Him, living in the same oneness in Christ that Jesus Christ on earth had with the Father -- the SAME EXACT Oneness of self and spirit -- John 17:11, 21-23; 1 Cor 6:17.
You are He are one person. This moves beyond "exchanged life" in which I am in some sense exchanged with Him, to union, which is that He and I are One, as the scriptures say. This is the summit, the pinnacle, because a person cannot be closer to God than "one" with Him. Union is the reality out of which life finally comes into perfect gear, when we see that we live in "rest" and in that "rest" Christ comes forth.
Christ is the inner reality of my very "I-hood," that is, my very self-identity is eternally united in Christ, so that, "the life I now live in the flesh" (last part of Gal 2:20), I live by His faith, but it is "I" living -- but, no longer just "I" as if alone, but "I" and Christ as one "I." This is the final key in the lock of the treasure within you, and your faith-agreement with it is what turns the lock and opens the door in your understanding, which comes as a revelation from the Spirit, that you and He are one person living. You are a living branch of the Vine which is Christ, or in other words, you, are a branch form or expression of the Vine, which is Christ. Therefore we say you are Christ living in your form -- the form which is YOU!
This "union" or oneness with God truth which we speak, only comes to us as revelation by the Holy Spirit. While we can write it out and study it doctrinally and scripturally, which we try to get out to people to help in their understanding, ultimately the light from this must come from the Spirit, as well as the "ability to live it." It His ability with in us and His life that does it.
This is no good if it's just "another teaching." We are speaking a total thing here. Almost every other "teaching" I have heard promises success if its principles are applied. But we are speaking of something which the human person cannot make work or make happen, by anything we do. We cannot, by applying principles, produce the out-flowing life of the Spirit. He does not respond to rubbing a magic lamp of our own efforts.
I cannot tell anybody "how" to do it. Because we really cannot do anything. But we think that either we can do it, or that we should be able to do it. Most of us actually think that not only should we produce God's works, but we also can produce God's works, if we just do this or that, believe this or that, apply this or that.
What many end up with by that road is failure (if we're honest) and that just heaps on guilt on more guilt, because since we have been convinced we can, and that we should, but we have not, then we have only ourselves to blame.
This is about coming to the end of all that. It is the only way into understanding and living in a union life, because all that previous life of striving and trying to abide, and making sure we are making all spirit and not flesh choices every day, is out of a life that thinks that it CAN do it and that is its part in the agreement. God does His part by providing the power, the love, the commandments, etc., and it is our part to choose correctly first of all, then to apply his wisdom, or take the power He provides, and use it correctly. Learn the "techniques!"
However, while we have all in some way lived in that "God does His part, I do my part" sight, we find that we can not do our part at all. In fact we must come to the place to see that He does our part for us.
If we still see the ought to's and the should not's as something we should do and think we have the power to do - we will fail. All the Commands, all the shalt's, the shalt not's, all the promises and even the required faith find its true source IN HIM!!! That is why Christ living and dwelling in us - as us is our ONLY hope of Glory.
"I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me." Very simple. It's not me living, but it is He living. People say, "Ahem, uhh, well, you've still got to do this and remember that." But you don't. He lives in us, living His life, and we find rest and liberation there, not into sin or license but into living out the life of Christ within - which is a life that knows the Cross for others - but we're not talking about that yet.
Where does obedience come in?
Obedience to commandments is not the occupation of adults. Obedience to commandments is primarily a children's issue, when the devil beats us up with the law. Whereas our Spirit unction now is to leave the elementary things - there are plenty of teachers for those - and go on to the deeper things of God, where the only "obedience" that concerns us is the "obedience of faith." (Rom 1:5; 16:26). But we will have to take a moment to mention this view of "obedience."
It's pretty much a given, that when many people mention obedience, "personal behavior," is usually in the forefront of their minds. And Paul does say quite a bit about that, so it's no wonder so many people major on themselves, instead of God. Because when one's focus is on one's behavior, one's focus is on oneself. The only way to focus on oneself is to be as if apart from God. "Self-occupation" is what the law breaks, because it finally "kills us" with our inability to live it. "I was alive once, without the law, then the commandment came, sin revived, and I died . . ." (Rom 7:9).
There is for many of us a time of settling in the Lord and taking a stand that we belong to Him, that we are His person. In our early days, because perhaps these were the things the Spirit overcame in us, we might take stands on personal moral issues, habits, the "outer things" we most often think of when somebody mentions "sin."
For many, in the beginning it is about being "delivered" from things we used to do, and making a "clean break" with "the world." There is nothing wrong with that. Praise God!!!
Another corresponding thought that accompanies the pre-occupation with our behavior, is that if we are God's, then who we are to others matters, because we are supposed to be in some way representative of Him. So for quite a number that begins a serious effort on our part to do our best for God, and to obey Him, rely on Him, trust Him, do good, love others, help others, keep down the flesh, listen to the Spirit, learn His word, etc. Always with us "down here" seeking divine approval and blessing, with God "up there" sending down blessings and tribulations and like the big giant Hall Monitor In the Sky, always frowning and disapproving and meting out punishments for our many mistakes.
Praise God, it is often the case that that very struggle for God leads to a downfall, because this committed self, which knows it loves God with all its heart, finds out through living life that it falls far short. The evidence is plain. We haven't done all we said we would do. We haven't been all we thought we would be.
That is the struggle that takes us through, not doctrinally or theologically, but by the reality of which Paul is speaking, the bondage of Romans 7 into the Spirit liberty of Romans 8. Where in Romans 7 he finds himself doing what he strives not to do, and visa versa. He wants to OBEY - to keep the commandment that said, "Thou shalt not covet." He has the will to obey, he says further down, but he can't make it happen. "For to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not." (Rom 7:18). Though he willed to do it, still he could not keep the commandment!
He finds that Another MUST do it or it will never be done at all. That is the message of Romans 8. Another does it in us, top to bottom, a-z. Christ our all in all. No parts sticking out of Christ. Baptism. Drenched.
So in the New Testament the commandment of "obedience" is fulfilled by the One giving the commandment. Not the party which cannot ever fulfill its part because it is "weak, through the flesh." (Rom 8:3).
Jesus had said continually during His years of ministry that He had only one will - the will of His Father. That was all He was. Yet here in Gethsemane this separate Jesus shows up, one who is tempted to think that maybe there's another way, even though in Spirit He already knew.
So yes, it was the truly human humanity of Jesus of Nazareth that was pulled into such great stress in his temptation that he perspired blood. And what would we expect but such a great tension in the creation that night? He was about to take on the power that had enslaved the world since Adam, and remove him from his place, and to set up His Eternal Kingdom. This is far beyond our comprehension.
This is not just a doctrine of the Christian faith, but rather an event that actually takes place in all of us, when we see, as the scripture says, like lightning lighting the entire landscape from east to west all at once, that this reality is that the Christ has sent light into all the world, and that He has changed all the darkness we formerly knew into light, so that we live in universe of light, and this light goes farther than the eye can see or the brain can comprehend, penetrating every single nook and cranny of creation and self, and this is only a little of it. But everything was at stake here. Humanity and the whole creation. He must succeed.
We do not, cannot really, understand His place I think. I can only say that He was trusting to the point of death - which is a complete giving up of all, everything, throwing in the towel, the whole enchilada - believing that in His death the Father would do two things: first, redeem humanity and all creation, and second, bring Him OUT, after He had fully taken on all the sin into Himself to overcome it, so that He was raised The Victor over sin, in each of us, and in all the creation as well.
No one, not even Jesus, could do such a thing. Jesus lived, died and was raised again by the Holy Spirit just as we experience. The Spirit of the power of the Father!
That is because out of His struggle, He walked in rest. To wrestle in the Spirit is where we settle matters in Christ and God, but out of those wrestlings we learn that He is upholding our steps. "Behold my servant, whom I uphold." Is 42:1. This was written for the Messiah, who was then forthcoming, but Who now has moved into and lives in us, and as us!
Then, having that victory, having moved from double-mindedness, where one minute I'm walking in the flesh, the next I'm walking in the spirit - "WHO SHALL DELIVER ME [FROM THIS MADNESS]? (Rom 7:24 - brackets mine) - the deliverance, contrary to what many are taught and believe, comes. So many are camped in the last part of Romans 7: 25, believing that life is an endless un-winable struggle between the flesh and the spirit. But that "belief" is a bill of goods. It is incorrect. It comes as the pure water of life when we see and come to know by the Spirit Rom 8:2,3a:
"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh."
From then on, we live in the obedience of faith, rather than precepts. There is only one obedience in the obedience of faith. Just one.
"Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." (John 6:28,29).
"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (John 3:17,18).
"For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" (1 John 5:4,5).
The obedience of faith. And before I move to this next issue, one more personal comment about this faith issue.
Remember - "the Son does nothing of Himself." Do you see it yet?
One day I said to the Lord, "Lord, you're even going to have to do the believing here, because I can't do that, either!" Made all the difference in the world.
"There is a rest for the people of God," it says in Hebrews 4. This is something I would simply define as coming into an inner rest by knowing an inner upholding of Christ, which becomes the center out of which we live our lives.
There are many ways of expressing how it comes. It comes first as a knowing, perhaps, that we are kept. That we are sustained. We learn that it is ONLY by Christ's life within that we are sustained and kept. He is our keeper and sustainer.
It comes when we realize that He told us He would be in us a well of water springing up, and that we would never thirst again. One day I had to say, "Well, I guess you've done that, since you promised it. So you are an always running spring in the middle of me, flowing up in me and spilling out of me all over the place."
It comes when the Spirit quickens in us that we cannot do anything of ourselves, that our only sufficiency is in Christ, and no other, or no-thing else.
It comes when we realize that He redeemed me to be His life expressed in the world and that He will accomplish His work as He pleases in my life. He will bring about His promises, like He brought Isaac at the appointed time and even worked Abraham's self-effort attempt to make the promise happen, into the plan.
It comes all those ways and more, but the rest comes, and we realize that in His rest, we can finally relax in Him. The job (of upholding us) has always been His, but we have had to test our mettle so that we could come to the same conclusion, too.
Temptations still come. Humanity is still very much human. But love becomes the predominant operation in our sight, and we begin to marvel at how the Father is so continuously and perfectly in time and place bringing light out of darkness and rest in the middle of a storm in a boat on a lake. He IS rest in the middle of us.
"I will both lay me down, and sleep, in peace, for thou O Lord, only maketh me to dwell in safety." (Ps 4:8)
One more thing about rest. It is all inner consciousness. Now this is your present reality but it may take a while before it truly settles in you.
But it does settle. The Spirit does it. Somehow, there is a direct connection back to the stillness that is before all things, and in all things we find it alike. It is equal in distress and celebration. It is equal in joy and sorrow, and even equal in life and death. Because we find in it all, in all that "moves," (which is everything in creation, since nothing can exist or be "manifest" without motion), it is all an equal out-flowing of God, Who is above all, through all, and in all.
That is the "inner" consciousness of the Spirit, and it is out of this within, that our life flows outward. It does not necessarily reveal itself clearly in our outer consciousness, but the Spirit's settling in our faith, keeps it going within, though we may put no conscious thought to it, nor even be at outer peace. But nevertheless, "I live yet not I, but Christ," - Who we are, inwardly, is Who we are!
Coming to that faith by the Spirit, is the rest of God. We may be running 100 mph on the outside. Living in the rest of God, since it is the rest OF GOD, might make us busier than we've ever been! Because the 3rd level of the Cross, the Cross in us for others (which is our dying daily), is turned outward, no more focusing on ourselves since we are kept, and life now is flowing out, not self-reflective inward.
No reason to not let the love flow, and what life it is, to be in the river!
"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matt 11:28-30).
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