Life On The Highest Plane
It Is A Life Conformed To God's Perfect Pattern
I hasten to this point because I would not have any one think even for an instant that conformity to the image of Christ is effected by imitation of a Pattern, no matter how perfect. Such conformity as the Bible speaks of is not wrought in the believer through the imitation of a Pattern without but through the presence of a Person within. It is only through the union whereby the Vine lives in the branch and the branch in the Vine that such conformity is found. It is only the man who apprehends his position in Christ and Christ's possession in him who grows up into likeness to his Lord. It is only the man who consistently can say, "Christ liveth in me" who can say honestly, "To me to live is Christ." It is not the imitation of the incarnate Son but it is the indwelling of the crucified, risen, ascended, exalted Son that perfects conformity to His image. What He was I am to be because of what He did on the Cross and now does from the throne. It is the Father's answer to the last three words of His Son's High Priestly prayer that produces conformity to Christ in the believer. Oneness with the Lord makes likeness to the Lord.
John 15:5, "I am the Vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing."
John 17:26, "And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them."
It Is A Life Energized by God's Mighty Power
One has only to begin to live his life on the highest plane to know that life can never be maintained on that level in one's own power. Living steadfastly and habitually in the altitude of the heavenlies is the spiritual man's greatest difficulty. Even after taking Christ Jesus as his perfect Pattern and realizing His holy Presence within, the believer often has periods of dismal failure and terrible defeat.
But the spiritually minded man has learned God's way of maintaining his life in the heavenlies and his life is energized by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit whom God bestows upon every child of His. The Holy Spirit is given when the new nature is imparted to the believer for the very purpose of effecting this growing conformity to the image of Christ.
Ephesians 3:16, 17, 19, 20, "That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man: That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; ... That ye might be filled unto all the fullness of God ... Now unto him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us."
Life on the highest plane is consistently and continuously maintained by the energizing power of the indwelling Spirit of God.
It Is a Life Fulfilling God's Eternal Purpose
Before ever the world was created or man was made to inhabit it God had a purpose which He intended to carry out through His Son.
Ephesians 3:11, "According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord."
2 Timothy 1:9, "Who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."
This purpose God kept hid in His heart, yet throughout all the centuries preceding the incarnation of His eternal Son He was working toward its fulfillment. Then Christ came, lived, died, rose again and ascended into Heaven. Now the time had come both for the revelation and the realization of this purpose. Through the Apostle Paul, God's chosen vessel, the revelation of this eternal purpose of God in Christ Jesus was made and its clearest unfolding is given to us in the Epistle to the Ephesians.
Through the finished work of Christ upon the Cross and from the throne God would call out a people unto Himself who during this present period of His Son's absence from earth would witness and work for Him here as His body and upon His return to earth to reign would come with Him as His bride.
Ephesians 1:22-23, "And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all."
Revelation 21:9, "And there came unto me one of the seven angels, which had seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife."
The Holy Spirit as a purifying and energizing power works within the Church to prepare it to live on earth as Christ's Body and to present it in Heaven to Christ as His Bride.
2 Timothy 2:20-21, "But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work."
Ephesians 5:25-27, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing: but that it should be holy and without blemish."
But there are two things which are absolutely essential in the relationship between Christ and the believer if God's eternal purpose is to be fulfilled; one is communion and the other is cooperation. God is love and love is a reciprocal thing. Love must both give and receive. There is no such thing as love between God and man or man and man unless there exists in the relationship both communion and cooperation, and the greater the love the fuller is the communion and the cooperation.
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 2)
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