THE REAL TRANSFORMERS
22/01/21 15:46
We can live much of our lives doing things that bless others and increase the common good. These actions can better other’s lives to some extent. But we can do more than better someone’s lot in life. If we are in God, which means in the Spirit of Christ because He is our life we are capable of releasing streams of spirit and life simply by being ourselves where we are. This means when we help the poor and disadvantaged it is not just bald help. It’s releasing the spirit and life of the Kingdom into their situation.
Religion does not multiply spirit and life.
SONS/DAUGHTERS IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH
By being sons, we are advancing the Kingdom that is the manifestation of God and the expression of the communion and joy of the trinity. Atheists, non-believers and even wicked people are capable of good deeds. It’s not just good deeds that are the solution. It is spirit and life that is a river flowing from the throne of God, through you and into those you touch. Your role is to multiply the spirit and life of Jesus because you, yourself are the spirit and life of God.
NEW CREATION ADVANCE
The Kingdom does not advance simply as a result of good deeds. It expands when deeds are clothed in spirit and life.
‘The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you--they are full of the Spirit and life’ John 6.63 NIV.
ONENESS
Jesus was spirit and life and exuded spirit and life because Father and Holy Spirit were woven into His being. This Christ is in you which means the trinity is in you and you are woven into God’s being and He into yours.
If to any degree we are doing things to establish our self-worth, our acceptance with God or are working at a kind of contract we have with God to establish our credentials, and ensure our sense of entitlement, we diminish our joy and the element of spirit and life that could have flowed through our activity. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom – freedom to be you with life.
SPIRIT OF SONSHIP
If who we are and what we do is the expression of Jesus as us, we are living in the freedom and joy of the sons and daughters of God. We are alive in the delight of being ourselves. This is the spirit of sonship.
Sonship is the joy and utility of the new covenant. ‘He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’ 2 Cor 3.6 NIV.
NOT WORKERS BUT SONS
In this season, Believers are beginning to see who they are in Jesus. They are learning that to see Jesus is to see themselves. This has been stated forthrightly in the works of Francois Du Toit and is implicit in the incarnation and the theology of the vicarious humanity of Jesus. Jesus presented Himself as this. Paul taught it. John declared Christ had come in our flesh and warned against the anti-christ spirit than denies it. You can live it.
KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW IS REAL
Theology is important because the truth about God is indispensable in knowing God as He is and ourselves as we are becoming in Christ. Any distortion of the truth saps life from our being. As a result some live a sprightly and free life in Jesus and others are crippled in their being because that have been cursed by ‘other gospels.’ Others are living from a ‘contract’ when they have been gifted a life.
YOU ARE LOVED
To know we are loved by God is to be empowered to love ourselves and others.
When you regarded me
Your eyes imprinted your grace in me,
In this, you loved me again,
And thus my eyes merited
To also love what you see in me.…
Let us go forth together to see ourselves in Your beauty. (1)
CONSIDER IT JOY
If like me, you have a passion for Jesus and His wholeness, you may often have lamented to yourself the shabby you that you are. In fact the path to holiness comes mostly by way of recognising that we are flawed individuals. Repentance is agreeing that Jesus has put to death our Adam and given us Himself as our self. Christ is us, even though our us is incomplete. To know ourselves as the expression of Christ draws us into who we really are as daughters and sons of God. This is the way of glory to glory – a way that is alive because it is Christ in us.
Paul writes, ‘Consider it all joy when you face trial of many kinds.’ We usually see this as obstacles and challenges to gospel advance. But Paul is also meaning the trial we encounter when we become aware of our own carnalities and wickedness’s. There is a view of who we are in Adam. But this is not the only view.
THE REAL YOU IS STANDING UP
Who we really are is who we are as created by the Son and who we are as redeemed by Him. The vicarious humanity of Jesus is deep and broad in scope. When Paul speaks of ‘Christ our life’ he means that Jesus is us by attribution and by incarnation.
We are made one with God without losing our individuality. Rather we are formed into our authentic uniqueness as a daughter or a son by union with God. Not only does Christ live in us. The trinity dwells in our being to share their nature into all of who we are. In Jesus we become a ‘who’ instead of a ‘that.’ Jesus urged Believers to adopt the new and living way of being Godly and of being ourselves.
BORN FROM RELIGION INTO CHRIST YOUR LIFE
‘On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you’ John 14.20 NIV. We have been drawn into His life and our response is to agree that we have been included and live in the reality God has created for us.
“Do not allow current religious tradition to mold you into its pattern of reasoning. Like an inspired artist, give attention to the detail of God’s desire to find expression in you. Become acquainted with perfection. To accommodate yourself to the delight and good pleasure of him will transform your thoughts afresh from within.” François Du Toit, The Mirror Bible.
(1) ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS, Spiritual Canticle, 32, 33 Rohr, Richard. The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (p. 140). The Crossroad Publishing Company. Kindle Edition.