Life On the Highest Plane
Christ Our Lord
What, then, should be the Christian's chief business in life? To possess his possession in Christ Jesus that in daily life and service he may realize and utilize to the full his spiritual inheritance. How may this be done?
1. Through spiritual apprehension of our riches in Christ.
1 Corinthians 2:12, "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God: that we might know the things that are freely given us of God."
We could never know of ourselves but the Spirit knows and indwells us that he may illumine us regarding our riches in Christ.
2. Through spiritual aspiration for our riches in Christ.
Colossians 3:1-2, "Seek those things which are above ... set your affection on things above."
Not only through the Holy Spirit's illumination but also through His impelling shall we possess our riches in Christ. The indwelling Spirit creates within us the desire for all our spiritual inheritance.
Through spiritual appropriation of our riches in Christ.
2 Corinthians 3:18, "But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit."
Faith lays hold on our inheritance in Christ and appropriates that which God has so prodigally provided. We are energized by the Holy Spirit to take these things by faith.
The New Sovereign - Christ in the Believer
Through the new birth the believer enters into the Kingdom of God where God's will is supreme. The life of every loyal subject is lived wholly in the will of God. The government of God has spiritual laws which operate beneficently for the well-being both of the individual and of society in every department of life. Wherever these laws are implicitly obeyed, there the will of God is done on earth as in Heaven, and peace, rest and unity prevail. Through the new birth the believer enters into the family of God where the Father's will is supreme. The life of every filial child is lived wholly in the will of the Father.
Self-will is the corner stone upon which satan's kingdom is built and he constantly tempts the Christian to disobey. No man in his on strength is able to resist. Only one Man ever has wholly resisted it and refused the control of satan over his will. Now as Head of the new creation He s absolute Lord in the new sphere.
By virtue of entering into that sphere every believer acknowledges Christ Jesus to be the Lord of his life and accepts the will of God as his rule of life. When Christ is thus crowned as Lord, then the responsibility is His to keep the believer from falling and to enable him to resist every temptation of satan.
John 13:13, "Ye call me Master and Lord and ye say well, for so I am."
Romans 14:8-9, "For whether we life, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live therefore or die we are the Lord's. ... For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living."
To many Christians the most difficult thing they have to do is to consent willingly to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over their whole being. They are loath to admit the necessity of the absolute dethronement of "the old man" and the perfect enthronement of the Lord Jesus. As some one has very aptly said, "I was quite willing that Jesus Christ should be King, so long as He allowed me to be Prime Minister." But Christ shares His Lordship with no one and unless "He is Lord of all, He is not Lord at all."
But the perfection of God's grace meets even this weakness and inability in us in His gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit who enables us by His inward working to crown Christ Lord.
Thus Christ Jesus establishes His throne at the very center of the new creation and from there rules to the circumference of the believer's being. He becomes Lord of all.
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 1 - "Christ Our Life - A Perfect Oneness Effected")
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