Christ In You means No Degrees to Spirituality
The Myth of Degrees of Spirituality
I do not agree that there are degrees of spirituality, or that
there is anything a believer can do or not do to be more or less
pleasing to God. Read on to see why there is actually no
heirarchy of spirituality in Christianity.
The Bible clearly speaks of the fact of the indwelling Christ,
our only hope of Glory. We are told that we live by the
righteousness of God. That we partake of eternal life and divine
nature, that we are seated with Christ in Heavenly places. If
all this were true as we read in the word of God, then why are
so we quick to attempt to explain it away as a figment of our
imagination?
This "in Christ" position is the most often mentioned doctrinal
statement in the whole of the Bible, more than baptism,
communion, faith, love or anything else. Yet the centrality of
all of these doctrinal statement is made perfect and complete in
Christ as the central figure of all that exists.
The world, the angels, heaven and earth and every living thing
is brought together in Him, and by Him they exist. By Him were
they all created, in His name and by His power. It is through
Him that we live and move and have our being. Though sinhas
tainted much of creation, God is still Lord of All and every
knee in heaven and earth will tultimately bow to Him. Every man
is answerable to God as His creator, in fact, it is the ultimate
betrayal for the created to deny the existence and need for His
creator. Like an atheist on His funeral day, all dressed up and
nowhere to go. In their denial they are judged and given what
they want, an eternity in Hell, apart from the presence of God.
God is just and righteous and when Jesus said,"Be holy even as
your father in heaven is holy." He was giving man a clue of His
ultimate salvation. If you are in the Son, then the Son dwells
in you. The spirit of Christ ultimately fulfilled what the law
in all of it's perfection, was unattainable and impossible to
fulfill for man. The Law through our own failings to uphold it,
leads us to a God who gives us a part of Himself, a rib so to
speak,whereby we may live by His righteousness to His glory.
In order to be a son we must partake of the Father's nature,
nothing short of that will do. If we have the son we have life,
because the life is in the Son. Spirit brings forth spirit. We
live by the faith, love, peace and righteousness of God (1 Cor.
1:30).
Apart from Christ, we are nothing. If our identity is in Christ
we become one with Him, just as two become one in marriage, we
take on a new self and a new identity in Him. We do not become
God, but we do become as Him, He does not become us but He does
become as us!
So if we have the righteousness of God, what of sin? Do we have
no sin? Can we do wat we like knowing that the righteousness of
God covers any evil? This is not a license to sin and neither
does it disregard the fact that we still sin.
The answer is in 1 John, for there is a sin unto death which we
do not pray for, this is a sin out of a sinful nature and the
only way out of this is to have Christ in us as an exchanged
nature, sin is put out and Christ is our righteousness through
salvation. There is also a sin not unto death, where we still
sin, but our new nature in Christ offers us forgiveness, in
place of our old nature which gave us the wage of death. For the
sin not unto death we pray for and God is faithful and willing
to forgive us of all unrighteousness.
There is not two types of righteousness, one by Christ and
another by us, for none is righteous before God, for all have
sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are spiritual
beings, but that dimension of our lives, the third dimension,
(body being first dimension, the soul (mind will and emotion)
being second), the spirit (the third dimension) is not utilised
fully until Christ fills it and becomes the fourth dimension to
our lives. Where ordinary becomes extraordinary and natural
becomes supernatural.
This fourth dimension is not dependant on anything we do and
nothing can change it, similar in fact to the fact that I am the
son of Clifford and Isabelle Cartwright! I may well do terrible
things and the family may disown me, but many brithright is not
something that can ever be taken away from me. The same is true
in Christ, He is your birthright.
There are no standards of spirituality, because our only
standard of righteousness and holiness is Christ, not anything
we do or don't do, nor how long we spend doing or not doing it!
Christ has become our only life to the Father, by sharing in
God's one and only son, we become partakers of Jesus' birthright
and one with God in our spirit.
Every believer in Christ is on an even standing with every other
believer. If I have been a Christian for twenty years and there
is another believer who has just become a Christian, there is no
difference between us to God. I am a firm believer that religion
has divided us along denominational grounds as well as spiritual
standing erroneously. A new believer needs his mind renewed just
as much as an older believer and would benefit from reading and
having a revelation from God of who He has become in Christ. No
man can give that to Him, only God, though He does it through
many means.
When we become Christians, we read the Bible and take it at face
value, reading Ephesians 1 we are captivated by who we have
become in Christ and believe every word as a child, hearing for
the first time the story of his birth from the lips of his
father. Sadly as we grow up many of us lose our first excitement
because we are told from all sides many reasons to disregard
what the Bible says about us.
So we become indoctrinated as early believers and lose touch
with what God says we are over who our denomination or church
says we are. We begin to judge others by standards other than
Christ in us and Christ in other believers. We judge by how
useful or gifted others are, how they look, how they speak, how
long they pray and how much they study.
Obviously, these are not always indicative of where people are
with God of course, because one learns to perform ultimately,
bragging of how much they pray, how long, how many days of
fasting. When these standards are lifted up above Christ, they
look hypocritcal because we are, by design, never supposed to
save ourselves or becoming anything in and of oursleves.
But when we instead lift up Christ above all else as our
fulfilment, He will draw all men unto Himself. Can we dare to
believe what we read in Ephesians 1 and other portions of the
Bible and take them at face value trusting that God will correct
any ideas of God that are erroneous?
Taking hold of Christ in us is the polar opposite of suicide,
but the way to both poles is through despair for life. When we
realise that we are at the edge and end of ourselves, that is
where Christ can begin for us. Ultimately there will be no
middle ground. We choose one road or the other, the road to
suicide is wide and straight. The Road to life is hard and
treacherous. But we are all travellers, the journey is worked
out through our identity and what we place it in. I choose to
place mine in Christ, because He has deemed me worthy to place
His identity in me. We work out our salvation with fear and
trembling.
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