Walking with Jesus from Incarnation to Ascension - Day 24 - New Creation Reality

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!
May the amazing grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the extravagant love of God, and the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. 2 Co. 13:14