This morning I have been pondering some great truths..
All were in disobedience, all were recipients of God’s mercy.
All have sinned, all were justified.
All were condemned through one man’s sin, all were made righteous through one Man’s righteous act.
All died in Adam, all were made alive in Christ.
All fell short of God’s glory, all are revealed with Christ in glory!
I love thinking about all humanity already being raised with Christ
and even ascended and seated with Christ in heaven..wow, it is
mind-boggling! The only difference between a believer in this good news
and an unbeliever in it, is that one is seeing reality and the other is
not yet seeing it – yet for both, it IS real!
It is a certainty that I am raised and seated with Christ, yet many
times I don’t feel like it, talk like it or act like it. And this can
bother me, can make me feel I need to ‘do’ or ‘understand’ or ‘believe’
something better to get this new reality to manifest. Yet I keep coming
back to a quote I read on facebook recently: “God will manifest your
new creation identity without your help.” Wow, that’s grace! He saves
us single-handed, as Robert Capon says, and also He manifests it
single-handedly! A dead person could not contribute anything, even
faith, in order to bring about resurrection..dead people can’t ‘do’ or
‘believe’ anything! God had to do it all for us, and He did, through
the Son. He carried us with Him through death and up into life, carried
us all the way to the throne room of heaven and plopped us down on
Papa’s lap! All of us, all humanity, wow! Our wonderful position in heavenly places in Christ is a product of God's initiative, of Christ's work and faith, not our own..that way it can never be lost or altered!
So not only am I already there without doing one thing of my own
initiative to make it happen (He brought it all about without my help!),
but also this reality will manifest in my life without my help! God
brought to mind the picture of a tree planted by the water, and I
thought of how it naturally grows and thrives and bears fruit…the tree
doesn’t have to stress and strain and keep doing ‘fruit checks’ – it
just sits there! The sunshine and water from the river just go into the
tree and life happens! It happens now, and now, and now, always and
forever – life is happening right now for all of us, the oaks of
righteousness, the planting of the Lord! HE planted us by the river of
life up in heaven (we didn’t even have to ‘plant ourselves’), He planted
us there within Jesus Christ, the Tree of Life, Himself. We are not
separate from that tree but part of it, branches of the Vine Himself!
In fact, we were never separated from Him at all but were always
connected!
I love the revelation of union…when I read what Andre Rabe wrote in his book Word Made Flesh about Christ never revealing Himself as a separate entity from
us but always ‘as in a mirror,’ I feel it made more sense to me than
ever before – Christ only reveals Himself as one with me and in
connection with me. He never presents Himself as apart from me but
always and ever as a union with me. He shows me that He is in me, not
as a separate entity, but as the ‘secret center’ of my life, as the
deepest part of me, as ‘the most real fact about me,’ as Brennan Manning
used to say! He reveals Himself as me in some crazy way! The
definition of me as a human being is actually a union of God and man! I
am a relationship, a union relationship of me and God Himself, in this
flesh body. I look at Him, look into those eyes of love and find myself
– I am the one Jesus loves, that is who I am! (And I am loved, His
beloved, without any reference to right or wrong, good or bad – just
accepted, embraced, loved, without any condition or stipulation!) I am a
love relationship between God and man! I am a union love relationship
in a body! I am not and have never been alone because the whole
definition of a human is flesh matter and God’s Spirit substance
together meshed together to form a human being! I never am alone. I
never look out at this world alone. I never live alone! We are
together here inside me. The real me, the inner child, is one with
Jesus, always walking in the garden with Him, planted by the rivers of
heaven with Him, sitting on Papa’s lap with Him. My constant companion,
my best friend, the One who carries me through life and thinks my
thoughts and feels my feelings, who understands me at the deepest level
because He’s right there at the deepest level, one with me always, the
One who loves me like noone else – that wonderful Person is the most
real fact about me!
My friend Kristian Holmes made a wonderful statement about the new creation reality that we now enjoy, and I wanted to share that thought: "What a joy to now actively participate in reality. All of life takes on a
new meaning when we see what He sees. We continue to recognize that old
mindsets and ways of seeing ourself have died in His death and
everything Jesus experiences is what we are forever alive to." Another friend, Andrea Joss, adds this: "Words cannot tell how wonderful this good good news really is! And what
it does to our souls… they are finally allowed to lean back and relax!
Oooohhh! Baxter Kruger says that
the Christian life consists of nothing else but discovering the reality.
Just discovering what there IS already. Discovering what has been DONE.
Discovering the truth." What a wonderful journey of discovery this new creation life is, just discovering and enjoying the union life with God that already IS!
New creation reality is that I am one with Christ, seated in heaven on
Papa’s lap with Him, IN love and IN life forever! I may not see or feel
it completely here on earth, but no matter – He brought it all to be,
and He will manifest it for all to see! I need do nothing. I can rest
on Daddy’s lap, or run free in the fields of grace with my Older
Brother, or dance with the Holy Spirit..or do nothing at all…I can cry, I
can share my feelings, I can be vulnerable, I can even doubt, rant,
throw tantrums and lash out in anger and confusion..and it won’t change a
thing, I am safe in His arms of love and I cannot offend Him or drive
Him to reject me, ever! We are so intimately connected that nothing can
tear us apart, not even any dumb thing I do or believe. To tear us
apart would be like tearing apart not only my own being, but also HIS!
We are one, that’s who we are, HE and I. I can’t be defined without
Him, and He has chosen never to be defined without me! WHENEVER He is
revealed, I am revealed right there with Him in glory – that is new
creation reality, and God brought it about and will fully manifest it
without my help! Relief! Joy and peace! Total grace! For us all!
