The Christian Life is a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ

The Christian life is a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not any kind of performance. It is not attempting to improve yourself or to try not to sin. It is the living Person of the Lord Jesus indwelling out innermost being. He desires to be everything to everyone who has received Him.

He makes no demands on you. His hearts desire is to supply you with Himself so that whatever you need will be your portion. No need is too great that it cannot be supplied by Him. He has entered your spirit and now waits for you to take whatever you need from Him. He delights to give for He loves us to the uttermost. He died for us didn't He? Only the greatest love will be willing to suffer and die for another.

Joshua was told that he would have great success if he would keep the Word of God in his mouth day and night. By this kind of verbal meditation Joshua would participate in the very life of God that is embodied in the Word. Peter said the same thing in second Peter where he told us to participate in the divine nature through the precious promises. By this continual verbal meditation we enter into the reality of the living Savior and are filled with Him. He then is our Christian life. As Paul said in Phillipians, "For me to live is Christ, a living Person."

Believing is Receiving

According to the New Testament economy, everything has been accomplished by the Lord Jesus on the cross. The law is over and now we believers live not by the energy of the flesh but by unmerited, undeserved grace. So God's imperative is, under the new covenant, believe, not do.

Immediately after we are saved and receive the Lord Jesus into our spirit, our natural thought is to do something for the Lord because He has done so much for us. This is to eat to the tree of knowledge, to be independent from the Lord and to live by our own effort which is to live by the flesh. Unfortunately, what we do spontaneously, according to our natural concept, is to attempt to do good which is to live by right and wrong. This is to live by the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We must always be aware that the tree of knowledge is not only evil but also good. And the good is always the enemy of the best. this is law. keeping and the result is that we fall into sin because the law is the strength of sin.

You cannot mix grace with law. If you do Christ becomes of none effect to you. (Gal. 2:21) Your entire Christian life must be lived by undeserved, unmerited grace. Grace is Christ Himself freely flowing in us as our joy, peace and enabling to express God in every way. That is we will be the glory of God in Christ Jesus.

Since grace is not by doing, how do we live in and experience this grace? It is by receiving. John 1:12 says that as many as have received Him He gave authority to become the children of God, even to those who believe into His name. John defines believing as receiving. Belief is not an objective believe in some foreign object but a subjective experience just like drinking a glass of water. It is being filled in your spirit. (Eph. 5:18) Every day we look away to jesus who is the author and finisher of our faith. As we look to Him in our spirit and call on His name we are filled with Himself and He becomes our faith. This is the receiving of the Spirit into the depths of your being. This is the practical experience of faith.If you are really practicing this you will experience life and peace and joy. You could describe this as a river of peace flowing into, through and out of you just as it is depicted in the New Jerusalem. Like Jesus said in John chapter seven, "Out of your inner most being shall flow rivers of living water.

Christ or the Law

A good writer or speaker will always write or speak according to a simple outline. First, he will tell you what he is going to tell you. Then he will tell you. Then, finally, he will tell you what he told you. Our God is the best writer of all. Therefore, His writing of the Bible is according to this formula. In Genesis one and two He tells us what He is going to tell us. Between Genesis Three and Revelation twenty He tells us, and in Revelation twenty one and twenty two He tells us what He told us. In these chapters, God is giving us the key to understand the bible.If you can see God's intention in these four chapters, you will be able to open the door of understanding in the rest of the Bible.

The first two chapters of Genesis portray the foundational principles of the Bible. In chapter one, God reveals His way which is His diving life. In Chapter two you have a man before two trees. It also reveals the need that Christ has for a counter-part and the way God bought His bride into being. The implications that are revealed through this picture are far reaching. If we can see why God began His revelation with this simple picture, we will be able to unlock many passages in the Bible and to be enabled to live the Christian life according to the New Testament revelation.

In the center of the garden were the trees of life and the knowledge of good and evil. The picture of the tree of life must be a type of Christ as life for us to receive. The New Testament reveals that Christ is life. (John 14:6, Col. 3:4) Jesus says in John 6 that if we "eat" Him we will have eternal life. It is clear from Gen. 2 that God wanted Adam and Eve to eat the tree of life and live forever. No wonder that we all hate to die. We were created to live forever but lost that long life through the original couple's fall.

On the other hand, there is the tree of knowledge of good and evil which we must avoid or die. It is also true in the New Testament that we are warned again and again against the attempt to keep the law, which is to live by right or wrong. (see Galatians and Romans 7-8) So, the tree of knowledge must refer to the law.

Have you ever heard that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a picture of the law? Please think about it. What does the law do? It teaches us the difference between good and evil according the God’s standard. For example, according to the first commandment, it teaches us and commands us to love God and to have nothing to do with idols. To love God is good. To worship an idol is evil. The fifth commandment commands us to honor our father and our mother. To honor them is good and to dishonor them is evil. Every other point of the law is the same. By it you know what is good and what is evil. Then you attempt to do what is right and avoid what is wrong by your own effort. So the tree of knowledge of good and evil a picture of the law, which we must obey to be righteous before God.

The law of God teaches that if you live by the law, everything you do will be good and on the other hand the law demands that you must not do anything unrighteous or evil. Only this kind of living will please God under His law. However, if you keep the law you will have to do it by your own strength. God will not help you do it. This means that you will be your own little god, living by your own effort to work out good and abstain from the evil. Because you now know what is good and what is evil you don't need God to lead you. You have become independent from God.

We are all under a deep deception. Our heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it. (Jer.17:9) The heart deceives us causing us to think that we can perfect ourselves by self-effort. Every human being except the Lord Jesus Christ is under this dilusion. Paul, the apostle, was the same. In Romans chapter 7 he poured out his hearts despair in his attempt to live a righteous life before God. But despite all he effort he failed. We are all the same. Not one can be righteous up to the standart of God's righteousness. In ourselves we are a hopeless case. When we attempt to live by the law of God or by any self-made law, we will be automatically brought under the dominion of sin. The indwelling sin is stronger than the good nature with which we were born and we will be captured by sin and death.

The tree of life is a picture of Christ as our life. The tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil are opposed to each other in the garden of Eden. Since this is the case, it is obvious that Christ our life is verses law-keeping. Not only Genesis two reveals this but the rest of the Bible unveils that if a man or a nation attempts to please God by keeping the law the result will be failure resulting in sin and death.

This is the history of the nation of Israel and the history of the church. The minute any form of law keeping enters into a man’s thinking, he will enter the way of failure in living the Christian life. Let’s think about it. Was there ever, even one, among the best of kings of Israel, who did not fail? David? No he fell into adultery and murder. Solomon? No, he was seduced by too many women and their idols. How about Josiah? He was excellent yet in the end he died by fighting a battle that was not of God. How about Moses? Also no. Even he was prohibited from entering into the good land due to his failure. Why did all of them fail? They were attempting to keep God's law and by doing this were brought into sin and death.

Eventually, there were only four who overcame. Joshua, Caleb, Joseph and Daniel. I believe that these men learned the secret and did not live by the tree of knowledge. It was their hearts desire for God Himself and their determination to stay with Him that saved them.

Joshua was a man who only cared for God and His purpose. He even lived in the Tent of Meeting in the presence of God while all of the children of Israel had fallen away. Caleb had the testimony of the Word that he had another spirit to only follow God. Joseph was a man of vision and even wore a many colored robe which implied that his expression was Christ. And Daniel also was so given to the Lord Himself that he refused to defile himself with the world's food and kept himself with God by prayer three times a day even when that practice would get him murdered. These four lived lives without recorded sin because they did not honor the law above their Lord. They all lived in the presence of God and were one with His purpose.

When Jesus came, who were the main ones who opposed Him at every opportunity? Was it not religion? Study the book of Matthew carefully and you will see that time after time it was religion that attempted to frustrate Him from carrying our His ministry. It was not only the Pharisees, the priests and the scribes who opposed Him but His own disciples who were of such a legal mind that they could not see who He was and what His goal and purpose were.

A; perfect example of this is Peter. Several times he resisted the Lord's word due to his religious mind. But he was not alone. All the disciples had been brought up in the Jewish religion, as we have in the Christian religion, and couldn't grasp what He was doing and saying. Are we not the same? The word clearly tells us that our old man has been crucified and that we have the life of Christ in us so that we can boldly believe and say that, "for me to live is Christ." The Word says that sin has been taken away by our Lord Jesus on the cross and that we were regenerated two thousand years ago so that sin is over for us. Yet how many of us live in that reality. Are we not religious many times attempting to improve ourselves and striving to avoid sin? Is not that law keeping?

Temptation

God planted in Genesis all the seed-truths that gradually were developed little by little throughout the Bible by many writers, and harvested in the book of Revelation. Since Matthew could be considered the genesis of the New Testament, it also should also have seeds that grow and also become harvested in the book of Revelation. Since the Old Testament depicts in picture form all the spiritual realities and the New unveils the realities themselves, it can be said that Matthew contains the development of some of the things that are depicted in Genesis.

For example, in Gen. 1:26 we are told that God determined to make man in His image with His dominion to rule over the earth and all that was created in it. In Matthew we are introduced to a Man who is actually in the image of God and who does rule over all the spiritual rulers and authorities and the things on the earth. Whatever He said and did expressed, explained and defined God. He had rule over every demon He encountered. He ruled over the storm that the evil spiritual forces used to try to kill Him at sea. And He ruled over the devil while He was being tempted.

It would seem to follow then, that the devil's temptation of the Lord Jesus would be the same kind of temptation that the enemy used to defeat Eve since Jesus was the second Adam who had come to defeat the enemy. The first man, Adam, was defeated when he ate the tree of knowledge of good and evil and became separated from God. The devil's goal was to defeat the Lord using the same tactic. If we can see how Satan came to Eve and to Jesus, we will see how he comes to us with the same temptations.

Eve was tempted in three steps. First she was tempted to do something without looking to God as her source. Second, she was tempted to be like God and third, by eating the tree of knowledge, she worshiped the devil since the reality of worship is to drink or eat spiritually. (John 4:10,24; 1 Cor. 12:13) Today, to eat the tree of life is to "eat" Jesus. (John 6:57, 63) What we eat is what we worship!

After the Lord Jesus was baptized and entered into His ministry, He was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He was tempted with the same three things that Eve was tempted with. Satan tempted Him to do something apart from His Father, to leap off the temple in order to demonstrate that He was God and to worship the devil so as to rule the world.

In the first temptation, the devil tempted Jesus to turn the stones into bread and eat since the Lord was very hungry after His 40 days of fasting. But the Lord said that man does not live on bread alone but on ever word that proceeds out of God's mouth. The Lord was saying that our Father must be the source and initiate everything we do. Father is the proper source of all we do and say. When we eat the words that come out of the mouth of God and are “partakers of the divine nature,” (2 Pet. 1:4) we will abide in Christ. Out of that abiding we will actually be in the will of God but not by our own effort. "It is God who works in us both the willing and the doing." (Phil. 2:13)

The devil suggested to Eve that she could become like God by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. In religion many want to do something to be like God, to be a great speaker, a successful evangelist, or to do many works of power, healing the sick and even raising the dead. Jesus was tempted in the same way. The devil took Him to the pinnacle of temple and told Him to jump off. The temple was the gathering place of the Jewish people in Jerusalem. To and to jump off and float down in front of them all would have demonstrated that He was indeed "like God" and He would have been great in their eyes.

But Jesus said that man should not tempt God. Father does not want us to be great in religion. He wants us to be nothing. Man always wants to be greater than others. In principle this is to want to become God by your own effort and ability. It is an insult to God. In effect you become your own idol. It is an abomination to our Father. Jesus said that if you want to be great, be the least and serve others. (Matt. 23) The only one who is great is Jesus Himself and even He became the least, dying the death of a slave on the cross. (Phil. 2:5-8)

The continual argument among the Lord's disciples was, "Who is the greatest among us?" The Lord attempted many times to help their concept telling them that the greatest would be as a little child. (Matt. 18:1-3). He told them not to call anyone teacher, master or father. (Matt.23) Although Paul was an apostle who had been called by God, he considered himself a bond slave to God and to the churches. The religious concept is that the apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers are all above the other saints. This is up-side-down. If anyone is this kind of gift to the body of Christ, then that one should realize the he is a slave to the Lord and to the church. To realize that you are a slave of out Lord Jesus Christ is to have a spirit of humility and meekness and not to assume that you know more and are superior to any brother or sister. Oh, the subtlety of the self. We reek with pride and superior feelings. Even we may feel that we are superior to others because we are so humble! How deceived we are without the Lord's light.

Eve was deceived to think that she would fulfill God's purpose and be in His image and have dominion over the earth by eating this tree's fruit and therefore knowing what was right and what was wrong. Then she would always be able to make the right decisions and express the righteous God. I felt the same way many years ago when the church-life was so glorious and prevailing, and the taste of the Spirit was so sweet and enjoyable. How my subtle self deceived by the devil, took the credit for the Lord's presence and through my pride offended the Lord and I lost it all. I was as Eve, deceived. Then I fell to attempting to please God by self-effort, doing what I thought would please God and not once realizing that I was living by the tree of knowledge and not by the life of my Lord Jesus.

Eve, by eating the tree of knowledge, received the life of that tree which is sin. Rather than being free to really express God, she became enslaved to sin. Sins reality is to simply be independent from the life of God. This inevitably leads to the expression of the very life of Satan. Jesus said in John 4:24 that our Father is seeking true worshipers who worship in spirit and truth. Eating and drinking the Spirit is the reality of worship. If we "eat" anything that is not the flesh and blood of Jesus, we are worshiping something other than the true God. There are those who have discovered that they are able to live in their spirit and experience Christ. They have found the reality of having their soul divided from their spirit. (Heb. 4:12) They are those who have learned to drink the Spirit. (1 Cor. 12:13)

When we see what Jesus' reaction to the world was, should realize what ours should be. Any ambition for a position, whether it be in religion or any other worldly organization is an abomination to our God. His intention for is not to go up, but rather to go down, to be nothing, and allow Him to be our all. He is the leader, the Father, the teacher and the Lord. The church does not have leaders. She has brothers who are older in the Lord who are the real bond-slaves, who "equip the saints unto the work of the ministry and unto the building up of the body of Christ" (Eph. 4:12) God's intention is that all the members of the body function to carry out the Lord's goal on earth.

Almost all the Christians have succumbed to one if not all of these temptations. The entire Christian world is ripe with doing all kinds of things, "ministries", and projects that have been initiated out from themselves because they had a good idea for God. How much is done here in this country by the power of the Spirit? Everywhere you look you see big mega-churches that operate solely on the principles of the world. On top of this, haven't many of us become our own little gods? How much of our living is sourced from the spirit. Are you daily partaking of His divine nature so that you experience the growth that is described in 2 Pet. 1:1-12?

We are not on earth to gain the world. 1 John 2:15 tells us that the world is composed of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. This is the same temptation with which the devil tempted Eve and the same with which he came to the Lord. It is the same with us. He always comes with the same temptations.

The lust of the flesh is to do something out of the self, out of your own source, for God. The lust of the eyes is to look good in the eyes of others and the pride of life is to gain position in the world-system. Not only is this true in the secular world but even true in the religious world. When a young person is saved and shows signs of ability, are they not all encouraged to become a leader of some kind, to go to a Bible training facility and become a minister or missionary? How many are helped to become nothing and learn to know Christ in their inner being so that He would be the source of their Christian life and work?

In speaking of the lust of the flesh, John is not mainly talking about the sinful works of the flesh that are described in Galatians chapter five. Here he says the lust of the flesh not the works of the flesh. The word translated "lust" in our versions, simply means "desire" in the Greek. The desire of the flesh is to improve itself, to work for God, and to please God by its own effort. This is more fully explained in Romans 8. There, Paul says that the mind-set of the flesh is death and the mind-set of the Spirit is life and peace. In the context of Romans 6-8 the flesh is attempting to keep the law to please God and cannot do it. The answer is that Christ has done it and is doing it in us if we don’t fall for the devil’s temptation to do something by our own effort.

The world’s way is that through education, hard work and self-improvement so that you can get rich and have whatever you want. This is called the American Dream. In the Christian world it is the same. It seems that the American Dream has been brought into the churches. Most of the churches today have this purpose driven philosophy. By using the ways of corporate America they become mega-churches with large congregations, huge physical facilities and a great deal of money.

In contrast, the Lord in Matt. 13:31-32 describes the kingdom of the heavens as a mustard seed which grows into a big tree. In nature the mustard seed is very small and will grow into a small bush. In the Lord’s story it mutates and grows into a big tree in which the birds of the air make their nests. The birds of the air represent the demons and evil spirits. (Rev. 18:2) The Lord’s church was supposed to be "small" but a living organism to produce food for people just like the mustard bush. However, today, in the western world, the church has become a great tree full of evil “birds.” These birds deceive people especially with worldly thoughts of doing something to please God. This kind of worldliness is legalism and will end up in death. This is why so many Christians, unknown to themselves, are so wretched, miserable, blind and naked.

The desire of the eyes is to be popular, to be appreciated by others and draw others eyes to you. Just like the Lord Jesus' temptation to jump off the temple which would draw every eye to Him and make Him popular and even worshiped, so we have this desire in our genes. Who isn't tempted to have others love and admire them? But this is to tempt the Lord our God. Jesus pointed out that the Pharisees gave long public prayers to be admired by men. He said to go into your closet and pray to our Father who will reward you secretly. Why? Because we are so prone to this kind of temptation. In the kingdom of the heavens there is only one who is popular. It is Jesus Christ! Every eye should be looking to Him not to any leader, not to any man. He is the Lord, our master and our God.

The pride of life is to be ambitious for position, to gain the rule over others, to be a little king in your own little kingdom, whether it is in a worldly business, sports or a church or some other Christian organization. The world is in our fallen nature and is manifested all around us. The Lord's disciples constantly debated among themselves as to who was the greatest among them. Jesus addressed this temptation several times. Once He said that the greatest was as a little child. (Matt.18) Another time that the greatest would be the slave of all. Jesus Himself ran away when the crowd attempted to make Him a king. (John 6)

His kingdom is one of life not of outward rule. This is the reason that John in 1 John 3:23 says that His commandments are to abide in Him and love your brother. If anyone abides in Him he will, by the life of Christ, love his brother. To hate your brother is the proof that you are not abiding in Him. To want to be a leader who is above and a ruler of others is a thought of the world and is not love. Love builds up others. It does not desire to rule and manipulate others. Jesus desire was to be food and drink to people not to be their king in the worldly sense. We Christians are to be the same, to minister and feed one another Christ as their life supply.

Our attitude should be clear. Beware of eating anything but Jesus so that you do nothing out of your own effort. Avoid any attempt to be popular and run from ruling others. Remember, only the life of Christ spontaneously lives this way. Be careful that you don't make these principals laws for yourself or they also will become part of the tree of knowledge and kill you. Our salvation is to eat and drink Jesus and daily submit to His will through His life.

Noah found favor (grace) with God.(Gen. 6:8) Out of this grace/favor Noah was enabled to build the ark. He didn't build the ark in order to gain favor with God but God had already graced him. The grace was the power that enabled him to do the work which God had initiated. This was not a project that Noah had dreamed up but was something out of God Himself.

As Christians today we too have been favored by God. This favor, this grace, has come to us without any merit on our part. It is the free gift of God. We didn't deserve it but it was given based on the death of Christ on the cross. He bore all our sins and due to His obedience we were forgiven all our past, present and future sins and thus we became the righteousness of God in Christ.

It is not what we do that make us righteous before God. If that were the case then we would be righteous based on our keeping the law by which no one can be righteous. Only the righteousness of Christ dispensed in us when we received Christ and were born again can be counted by God as righteousness.

Not only the righteousness that we received initially with our new birth, but every day of our Christian life our righteousness is based solely upon God's grace/favor. I do not mix law with grace. I so not try to be good, to please God or try to improve myself in any way. This is legality. If I do, I nullify what Christ has done for me and what He will do in me. I simply stay with Christ and enjoy this Person who lives in the depth of my being.

My righteous behavior toward my wife, for example, can only be by His grace/favor in me. I am under this grace/favor and only the operating energy of that grace/favor on and in me can produce the acting righteousness to my wife or to anyone else. If I attempt to be a good husband by my own effort it is law keeping and I will experience death toward God. In other words I have just eaten the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Gen.6:9 says that Noah was a righteous man. Since at that time there was no law given to men by God, righteousness in those days, as today, only could come to man by faith in God. So Noah was a man of faith which had been given to him through grace, just as we become righteous through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

No matter what our situation or circoustanse is, we are always favored by God. He loves us more than we know. The blood of His son Jesus Christ is always cleansing us from all our sins. No matter how we have fallen or how we may fall we are still under the cleansing of His blood and are accounted righteous.

I have enjoyed the following little chorus many tines:

I am the righteousness of God in Christ
A brand new creation in Him.
I can now approach the throne of God
With no condemnation of sin
I am the righteousness of God in Christ
I am now complete in Him.
I'm a partakeer of His divine nature.
To me He will not impute sin..

Since I am under the new covenant sin is never imputed to my account. God, the Judge of the universe has judged me in Christ to be righteous now and unto all eternity. And all because of His free grace/favor in Christ!

J. Hudson Taylor: The Exchanged Life

Introduction

This slightly condensed excerpt comes from a chapter entitled: “The Exchanged Life” and is found in J. Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, a marvelous recounting of God’s work in and through him for the millions of China.

Oh, Mr. Judd, "God made me a new man! God has made me a new man!" exclaimed Hudson Taylor. Wonderful was the experience that had come in answer to prayer, yet so simple as almost to baffle description.

It had all started when Hudson Taylor had received a letter from a John McCarthy, a fellow missionary in China:

“I do wish I could have a talk with you now, about the way of holiness. At the time you were speaking to me about it, it was the subject of all others occupying my thoughts, not from anything I had read…so much as from a consciousness of failure—a constant falling short of that which I felt should be aimed at; an unrest; a perpetual striving to find some way by which one might continually enjoy that communion, that fellowship—at times so real but more often so visionary, so far off.

Do you know, I now think that this striving, longing, hoping for better days to come is not the true way to holiness, happiness or usefulness. It is better, no doubt, far better than being satisfied with poor attainments, but not the best way after all. I have been struck with a passage from a book... entitled Christ is All. It says:

"The Lord Jesus received is holiness begun; the Lord Jesus cherished is holiness advancing; the Lord Jesus counted upon as never absent would be holiness complete.... He is most holy who has most of Christ within, and joys most fully in the finished work. It is defective faith which clogs the feet and causes many a fall."

To let my loving Savior work in me His will, my sanctification, is what I would live for by His grace. Abiding, not striving nor struggling; looking off unto Him; trusting Him for present power;... resting in the love of an almighty Savior, in the joy of a complete salvation, ‘from all sin’—this is not new, and yet 'tis new to me. I feel as though the dawning of a glorious day had risen upon me. I hail it with trembling, yet with trust. I seem to have got to the edge only, but of a boundless sea; to have sipped only, but of that which fully satisfies. Christ literally all seems to me, now, the power, the only power for service, the only ground for unchanging joy...

How then to have our faith increased? Only by thinking of all that Jesus is and all He is for us: His life, His death, His work, He Himself as revealed to us in the Word, to be the subject of our constant thoughts. Not a striving to have faith... but a looking off to the Faithful One seems all we need; a resting in the Loved One entirely, for time and eternity.

Writing of this experience, Taylor declared: “I looked to Jesus, and when I saw— oh, how joy flowed!”

Writing of his transformation, a fellow missionary wrote,

“He was a joyous man now, a bright happy Christian. He had been toiling, burdened one before, with latterly not much rest of soul. It was resting in Jesus now, and letting Him do the work—which makes all the difference. Whenever he spoke in meetings after that, a new power seemed to flow from him, and in the practical things of life a new peace possessed him. Troubles did not worry him as before. He cast everything on God in a new way, and gave more time to prayer. Instead of working late at night, he began to go to bed earlier, rising at 5 AM to give time to Bible study and prayer (often two hours) before the work of the day began.”

It was the exchanged life that had come to him—the life that is indeed ‘No longer I’ It was a blessed reality "Christ liveth in me." And how great the difference!—instead of bondage, liberty; instead of failure, quiet victories within; instead of fear and weakness, a restful sense of sufficiency in Another. So great was the deliverance, that from that time onward Mr. Taylor could never do enough to help to make this precious secret plain to hungry hearts wherever he might be.

Hudson Taylor later wrote a letter to his sister in which he shared his struggles and the new joy he had found in resting in Christ:

“As to work—mine was never so plentiful, so responsible or so difficult, but the weight and strain are all gone. The lst month or more has been, perhaps, the happiest of my life, and I long to tell you a little of what the Lord has done for my soul. I do not know how far I may be able to make myself intelligible about it, for there is nothing new or strange or wonderful—and yet it is all new!

Perhaps I may make myself more clear if I go back a little... My mind has been greatly exercised for six or eight months past, feeling the need personally and for our Mission of more holiness, life, power in our souls. But personal need stood first and was the greatest. I felt the ingratitude, the danger, the sin of not living nearer to God. I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for meditation—but all without avail. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me.

I knew that if only I could abide in Christ all would be well, but I could not. I would begin the day with prayer, determined not to take my eye off Him for a moment, but pressure of duties, sometimes very trying, and constant interruptions apt to be so wearing, caused me to forget Him. Then one's nerves get so fretted in this climate that temptations to irritability, hard thoughts and sometimes unkind words are all the more difficult to control. Each day brought its register of sin and failure, of lack of power. To will was indeed "present with me," but how to perform I found not.

Then came the questions, is there no rescue? Must it be thus to the end—constant conflict, and too often defeat? How could I preach with sincerity that, to those who receive Jesus, ‘to them gave He power to become the sons of God’ when it wasn’t true in my experience? Instead of growing stronger, I seemed to be getting weaker and to have less power against sin; and no longer, for faith and even hope were getting low. I hated myself, I hated my sin, yet gained no strength against it. I felt I was a child of God. His Spirit in my heart would cry, in spite of all, ‘Abba, Father.’ But to rise to my privileges as a child, I was utterly powerless.

I thought that holiness, practical holiness, was to be gradually attained by a diligent use of the means of grace. There was nothing I so much desired as holiness, nothing I so much needed; but far from in any measure attaining it, the more I strove after it, the more it eluded my grasp, until hope itself almost died out, and I began to think that—perhaps to make heaven the sweeter—God would not give it down here. I do not think that I was striving to attain it in my own strength. I knew I was powerless. I told the Lord so, and asked Him to give me help and strength. Sometimes I almost believed that He would keep and uphold me; but on looking back in the evening—alas! there was but sin and failure to confess and mourn before God.

…And yet, never did Christ seem more precious; a Savior who could and would save such a sinner!... And sometimes there were seasons not only of peace but of joy in the Lord; but they were transitory, and at best there was a sad lack of power. Oh how good the Lord has been in bringing this conflict to an end.

All the time I felt assured that there was in Christ all I needed, but the practical question was: how to get it out. He was rich truly, but I was poor; He was strong, but I weak. I knew full well that there was in the root, the stem, abundant fatness, but how to get it into my puny little branch was the question. As gradually light dawned, I saw that faith was the only requisite—was the hand to lay hold on His fullness and make it mine. But I had not this faith.

I strove for faith, but it would not come; I tried to exercise it, but in vain. Seeing more and more the wondrous supply of grace laid up in Jesus, the fullness of our precious Savior, my guilt and helplessness seemed to increase. Sins committed appeared but as trifles compared with the sin of unbelief which was their cause, which could not or would not take God at His word, but rather made Him a liar! Unbelief was I felt the damning sin of the world; yet I indulged in it. I prayed for faith, but it came not. What was I to do?

When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed to me the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never known it before. McCarthy, who had been much exercised by the same sense of failure but saw the light before I did wrote:

"But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One."

As I read, I saw it all! "If we believe not, he abideth faithful." I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed)! that He had said, "I will never leave thee."

"Ah, there is rest!" I thought. "I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I'll strive no more. For has not He promised to abide with me—never to leave me, never to fail me?" And, dearie, He never will.

Nor was this all He showed me, nor one half. As I thought of the Vine and the branches, what light the blessed Spirit poured direct into my soul! How great seemed my mistake in wishing to get the sap, the fullness out of Him! I saw not only that Jesus will never leave me, but that I am a member of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. The vine is not the root merely, but all—root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit. And Jesus is not that alone—He is soil and sunshine, air and showers, and ten thousand times more than we have ever dreamed, wished for or needed. Oh, the joy of seeing this truth! I do pray that the eyes of your understanding too may be enlightened, that you may know and enjoy the riches freely given us in Christ.

It is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Savior, to be a member of Christ! Think what it involves. Can Christ be rich and I poor? Can your right hand be rich and your left poor? Or your head be well fed while your body starves? Again, think of its bearing on prayer. Could a bank clerk say to a customer, ‘It was only your hand, not you that wrote that check’; or ‘I cannot pay this sum to your hand, but only to yourself’? No more can your prayers or mine be discredited if offered in the name of Jesus (i.e., not for the sake of Jesus merely, but on the ground that we are His, His members) so long as we keep within the limits of Christ's credit—a tolerably wide limit! If we ask for anything unscriptural, or not in accordance with the will of God, Christ Himself could not do that. But ‘if we ask anything according to his will…we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.’

The sweetest part... is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest position He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient. It little matters to my servant whether I send him to buy a few cash wroth of things, or the most expensive articles. In either case he looks to me for the money and brings me his purchases. So, if God should place me in serious perplexity, must He not give me much guidance; in positions of great difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trials, much strength? No fear that His resources will prove unequal to the emergency! And His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me.

And since Christ has thus dwelt in my heart by faith, how happy I have been!... I am no better than before. In a sense, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving to be. But I am dead and buried with Christ—ay, and risen too! And now Christ lives in me, and "the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

And now I must close…. May God give you to lay hold on these blessed truths. Do not let us continue to say, in effect, ‘Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above).’ In other words, do not let us consider Him as far off, when God has made us one with Him, members of His very body. Nor should we look upon this experience, these truths, as for the few. They are the birthright of every child of God, and no one can dispense with them without dishonoring our Lord. The only power for deliverance from sin or for true service is Christ.”

Many years later Taylor was asked, "But are you always conscious of this abiding in Christ?" "While sleeping last night," he replied, "did I cease to abide in your home because I was unconscious of the fact? We should never be conscious of not abiding in Christ."

I change, He changes not;
The Christ can never die:
His truth, not mine, the resting place;
His love, not mine, the tie.

This experience stood the test of time. Never again did unsatisfied days return; never again was his needy soul separated from the fullness of Christ. Difficult trials came, but with them came the joy that flowed from the presence of the Lord Himself. He had found the secret of rest. And with that rest had come a greater surrender and abandonment to Christ.

“I am no longer anxious about anything, for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how.”

This new yieldedness, this glad unreserved handing over of self and everything to Him, was but the loyal and loving—joyful—acceptance of God’s will in all things, in the belief that these were God’s choice gifts to His own!

In another letter he wrote:

“And now I have the very passage for you, and God has so blessed it to my own soul? John 7: 37-39: ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto ME and drink.’ Who does not thirst? Who has not mind thirst, heart-thirsts, soul-thirsts or body-thirsts? Well, no matter which, or whether I have them all—“Come unto me and’ remain thirsty? Ah no! ‘Come unto me and drink.’

What, can Jesus meet my need? Yes and more than meet it. No matter how intricate my path, how difficult my service; no matter how sad my bereavement, how far away my loved ones; no matter how helpless I am, how deep are my soul-yearnings—Jesus can meet all, all, and more than meet. He not only promises me rest—ah, how welcome that would be, were it all, and what an all that one word embraces! He not only promises me drink to alleviate my thirst. No, better than that! ‘He who trusts Me in this matter (who believeth on Me, takes Me at My word) out of him shall flow….

Can it be? Can the dry and thirsty one not only be refreshed—the parched soul moistened, the arid places cooled—but the land be so saturated that springs well up and streams flow down from it? Even so! And not mere mountain-torrents, full while the rain lasts, then dry again…but, ‘from within him shall flow rivers’—rivers like the mighty Yangtze, ever deep, ever full. In times of drought brooks may fail, often do, canals may be pumped dry, often are, but the Yangtze never. Always a mighty stream, always flowing deep and irresistible.!”

Now read Henry Law's chapter on holiness from his Christ is All, that McCarthy quoted: "Holiness," Christ is All

Also read Harrient Beecher Stowe's How To Live on Christ, the booklet which Hudson Taylor sent all the China Inland Mission missionaries in 1869 after he found Jesus as an indwelling saviour

Looking

Looking away unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith. (Heb. 12:2) This verse is a summery of the Christian life. It is not an exhortation to do something, to behave a certain way or the fix up yourself. It is simply looking! By looking the very Christ you look at is infused into you. By looking at Jesus every self effort is annulled. By looking, the faith of the son of God is imparted into you without any "trying" on your part.

By looking away unto Jesus, you look away from the past, the future, your condition, your present circumstances, your health, your spouse, and everything else that bothers and distracts from your progress in the Christian race. Oh, keep on looking away to Jesus! Don't look at others and how they are living as Christians. That is just another distraction the enemy puts in front of you to keep you from lookiong at Jesus. He is the only one worth looking at. Simply keep looking at Jesus.

Grace is a Person

Grace is a Person. It is God in Christ freely, with out any merit on our part, flowing to us to do everything for us and through us. It is absolutely outside of the law and cannot be mixed with law. The slightest hint of any effort or thought or attempt on our part to do anything to gain favor with God cancels our relationship with grace. (See Gal. 2:21)
God favors us with all He is freely. He has placed us in Christ so that all Christ is, has and does belongs to us.

Our only requirement is to receive by believing. He has made us the righteousness of God in Christ. He has forgiven us all our sins, past, present and future. Even when we fall, we are still the righteousness of God, for we are still in Christ. There is no need to confess your sins for the blood of Jesus continually cleanses you from every sin. The more you walk in the light, the more you see your sins the more the blood is cleansing you and the Father will say, "I see no sin in you. You are in my beloved Son and are as sinless and as beloved as He is."

This does not mean that you cannot commit sins. However, it means that the more we believe the truth, the more we live without sin. That which is born again cannot commit sin. There is a part of our being that cannot commit sin. It is the born again part, our spirit in which dwells the Holy Spirit. Remain there and you will not commit sin. The right believing produces right living.

Believe that you are always loved and accepted in the Beloved One. Forget about traditional concepts about how sinful you are. Yes, we were all sinful before we received Christ. But that was a life on the other side of the cross.That teaching for Christians of how sinful and how much a failure we are, comes from old, dead religion and is not according to the facts of the New Testament.

Do not concentrate on sin. Concentrate on Jesus. When Jesus died on the cross, all sin was judged so that we do not have to be judged. Our only problem is not believing what the Lord has done and what he has said concerning those who have been joined to Him. We are one with Him and all He is is ours. We just remain in Him and He takes care of everything else. The secret is to continually be receiving Him. Just like eating. Have five of six meals of Jesus every day and discover a different kind of Christian life. For Christ Himself is the Christian life.

Someone might say, "Telling me to have five meals of Jesus every day is a law." But just like eating physical food, it is not a law, it is an enjoyment. I don't look as dinner time as a requirement. At the end of the day I'm hungry, so I eat with enjoyment. Aren't you hungry for Jesus? Just come and tell Him you want Him. By this coming to Him, He will supply you with what He is. This is grace.

The Secret Place of the Most High

Psalm 91:1 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High

Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

91:2 I will say of Jehovah, He is my refuge and my fortress;

My God, in whom I trust. (ASV)

What is the secret place of the Most High? If I can enter into this secret place all the positive things in this Psalm will be mine. This equates to abiding in the vine in John 15. You might say the same thing about abiding in the vine. If I could only find the way to be in the vine I would stay there. Well, according to 1 Cor. 1:30, God has already placed us in the vine and the vine's name is Jesus Christ. Since God Himself put us in Christ we don't have to try to get into Him, we only need to stay where He put us, in Christ.

The secret place of the Most High is a Person named Jesus! My responsibility toward God is to remain in this wonderful Person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He now lives in the depths of my being, in my spirit. All I need is supplied to me there for all I need is in Christ. So how can I remain there. Psalm 91:2 give us the way. It says, "I will say of the Lord, He is my refute and my fortress, my God in whom I trust." The practicle way to remain in Him is to speak all the positive things about Him as your possessions. "Lord Jesus, you are my refuge. You are my fortress. You are everything to me. You are my peace. You are my grace. Praise You!" Speaking this way keeps you where you already are, in the Lord Jesus, in your spirit.

God’s Purpose in the Lord’s Model Prayer for the Kingdom

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil

For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

(Matt. 6:9-13)

if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵“But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your tespasses.

This prayer has to be seen in the context of the entire "sermon on the mount."

After many exhortations the Lord Jesus says that we must be perfect as our Father in heaven. Perfection here refers to being perfected in the Father’s love. (Matt. 5:43-48 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you 45 in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same? 47 And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

This love is not possible to the natural man. Anyone who has attempted to live the life that is described in these three chapters knows this. But the Lord Jesus has shown us the way in this prayer for the kingdom of the heavens to be realized.

The goal of the prayer is to have the Father’s name made holy, that is to be separated from everything common, as well as to have the kingdom of the heavens and God’s will realized on earth as it is in the heavens. This goal is based on the Father’s love which is expressed in His life in the Son and supplied to us as food by the Spirit. His name, Father, indicates that He is the source and supply of all life. It is His life that comes into us when we believe in the Lord Jesus. It is His life through the indwelling Christ that enables us the live the Christian life.

Because we are fallen and have a natural life that always misses the mark of expressing God, we must be supplied with His life every day. (Rom. 3:23) Unless we receive that supply, we will not be a person who sanctifies the Father’s name, lives in the kingdom nor will we be in the Father’s will. We will be one who lives in the self, which always insists on its rights and expects others to honor it and conform to it. It is the self-centered life which looks only at itself and wants others to care for its little desires. If others do not oblige it, self is offended finds it hard to forgive, and is soon divided from others.

Forgiveness in this prayer is based on the Father’s life that was imparted to us when we were born again. The expression of the Father’s life is love. “God so loves us that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes into Him has eternal life.” This life of God is a forgiving life. He forgave us all our sins. Therefore the kingdom life is also one of forgiveness. However, many times we fallen human beings are tempted to remain in the right and wrong of things and refuse to forgive. The devil has always tempted mankind to remain in the knowledge of good and evil and of right and wrong which inevitably issues in death. He was desperate to seduce Eve to eat the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis chapter three. The moment we appraise others by the standard of right and wrong we fall into death. In this death there is no forgiveness. The longer we remain there, the more we will hold on to our rights and be divided from others We see this condition all around us in the Christian world.

Satan hates us to remain in the life of God, for his goal is always to divide us from God and from one another. God’s desire for us is to depend on Him, enjoy Him and let His life constantly renew us. By the daily supply of His life we are being transformed into His image. Out of this divine life we spontaneously love our brothers and forgive others who are different than us. The issue will be oneness with God and with one another.

On the other hand, Satan wants to make us independent from God. His goal in Genesis three was to cause man to be independent from God. The devil knew that this would bring in death and ruin man. It would cause man to live independently, divided from God, and make him have the life of Satan, which is sin and which always misses the mark of glorifying or expressing God.(Rom.3:23) Only the life that is lived out of God Himself can express and glorify God.. Since this missing-the-mark-life would be in man, no matter what he did would not please God, whether good or evil.

The model prayer that the Lord Jesus gave us in Matthew 6 gives us the goal, the way, the issue and the result of a person who lives a life according to God’s arrangement in the New Testament age.

A. Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name.

The Lord says in this pattern prayer, "Father, hallowed or separated be your name." Our Father is the source of life. Anything that causes us to be separated from His life means that His name is not separated in us. His name is to be separated from everything common that causes His life to be frustrated from growing into His purpose. That life always wants to be increasing and flowing between Christians in love and forgiveness so that the body of Christ remains in oneness and expresses Him. (John 17)

The Lord Jesus prayed in John 17 that we all would be one as He is one with the Father. His oneness with the Father is by Him being in the Father and the Father being in Him. Our oneness must be the same. That is because we are in Him and He in us. This is our oneness. That oneness is simply Himself. It is not by our trying to be one or by our keeping the same teachings or methods or experiences that we are one. It is because His life is operating in us and that life is oneness. The more I am in that life, the more I am in the reality of oneness. Any other kind of oneness is not the real oneness. It is just political.

B. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.

Our Father desires that the kingdom of the heavens will be realized by us in this age. The kingdom of the heavens today is among those who remain in His life, abide in Him, so that no offence, doctrine, method or anything else causes them to be divided from one another. Therefore they remain in His love.

How can we fallen people with a sinful nature live like this? There always seem to be those offenses that seem to be unforgivable. Someone does something to us that is wrong and we feel justified in not forgiving. Others believe strongly in a particular teaching, method or experience that differs from our teaching, method or experience, and so we divide from them or they divide from us. Look at all the various kinds of denomination, churches, groups, etc. of Christians in the world today. How much oneness are we practicing today? Are we offended with anyone? Are we meeting in any way that divides us from others? There are churches who are so strong to stand for the doctrine of oneness that they divide from anyone who does not agree with this standing! How deceived can you be!

C. Give us this day our daily bread

The Lord provides the answer: "Give us this day our daily bread." We surely need our physical bread. But the Lord is not talking about that in this prayer. A few verses later he says that we are not to be anxious over food and clothing. I believe that in this prayer He is talking about the fact that we are to receive Him as the bread of life every day so that His life will flow out of our inner most being in forgiveness. (John 6:56; 7:37-39) He has already forgiven and taken away all our sins. Now we participate in that forgiveness by experiencing His life. His life is forgiveness.

Every morning I ask the Lord to give me my daily bread. When I find that particular word which is the rhema for that day, that word becomes the joy and rejoicing of my heart. (Jer. 15:16) When I am in such a state, I am in the reality of oneness with all my brothers. I mourn and grieve that so many of our dear brothers, whom we love, will not fellowship with us any longer due to this one thing: they will not forgive because they no longer experience the life of Christ which is forgiveness.

D. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil

Then He says, "Lead us not into temptation." What is the temptation here? The devil would like to tempt us to hold our offense which is according to right and wrong and not forgive. When we are offended, the person who offends us becomes our debtor. He or she owes us. They owe us repentance and apology and maybe other things. But the Lord says we must forgive our debtors or our Father will not forgive us.

In Matthew 18 Peter was shocked by this. He asked the Lord, "How many times should we forgive. Up to seven times?" But the Lord answered, "No, up to seventy times seven." This seemed impossible to Peter as it does to us. This high requirement can only be met by participating in the life of Christ. At no time does God ever place a requirement on us that He Himself does not supply the ability in us to fulfill. Then we are kept from the devil’s snare of holding on to our rights and not forgiving our brother or sister.

E. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.'

The Lord then says that we end our prayer by praising Him since this life gained and experienced through prayer will issue in His kingdom, power and glory.

You’ll notice that the next two verses explain the prayer’s thrust. Matthew. 6:14 says, For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” The little word "for" introduces this sentence as an explanation of the key to the prayer. This is not a prayer to repeat as a religious ceremony. It is a model of the prayer that gives us the "prayer-key" that unlocks the life of the kingdom of the heavens that the Lord preached when He said in Matthew 3, "Repent for the kingdom of the heavens." This kingdom is a life lived under the rule of the heavens and that rule is a rule of life, love and forgiveness.

Although the focus of the prayer is forgiveness, the way of the prayer is to eat the daily bread. This means that we must participate in the words of our Lord. Jesus said, "My words (rhema) are spirit and they are life. (John 6:63) This is daily bread. Like the manna in the wilderness, we need a daily supply from the heavens. This supply of daily bread is in the Word of God as we pray it into our spirit. By participating in the Word day by day, we will live in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens, and all the differences and offenses will be swallowed up in His life. No matter how we may be offended or how different we are from our brothers, we will forgive and love them all. Praise the Lord!

(The writer of the following book explains this kind of spiritual eating in a helpful and more detailed way. It is one of the great Christian classics and ought to be read by every serious Christian.)

"Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ" by Madam Jeanne Guyon

Being Deceived

One of the greatest deceits of the devil is to seduce us into eating the tree of knowledge. This means to be independent from God, knowing good and evil. The fact is that to know the law of God and to attempt to keep it is to eat the tree of knowledge. Paul in 1 Cor. 15 says that the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. Stay away from trying to please God by your own efforts of doing good and avoiding evil. This will kill you as far all your experience of the Lord is concerned.

God's intention is that you would be living in Him, expressing God. The way is not to try to be like Jesus. Rather it is to look to Jesus and believe that He has accomplished everything on the cross and has become your righteousness. There is nothing left for you to do but to enjoy Him. Righteousness is a Person, named Jesus. Stay with Him, abide in Him. This pleases God and produces everything you desire in your Christian life.

Concerning His Son

Romans 1:1-3 says, "the gospel of God...concerning His Son..." God's good news concerns His Son, not the law, not any kind of program, not doings or anything other than God's Son, Jesus Christ. The gospel of God is not focused on family, children, having a good marriage, going to church, serving others or the myriad of things that religious men have invented to serve God. It is focused on His Son!

What are you focused on? Where are you're thoughts focused? Where is your heart aimed? Is it on His Son? If not you're concerns are not God's concerns. His gospel concerns His Son!

God has no intention of you focusing on self improvement. He has already crucified you on the cross in His Son. You and I are no longer relevant. We are now in Christ Jesus. God has placed us there. (1 Cor. 1:30) So there is no longer any need to strive to be good for Christ is our goodness. We do not have to attempt to be righteous for Christ is our righteousness. If you are still working at it you are living as an Old Testament saint and are not living in the benefit of the New Covenant. Give up all the effort and look away to Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith.

The World System

The world system is simply the fruit of the tree of knowledge, good and evil being the fruit. Everything in the world, the desire of the eyes, the desire of the flesh and the pride of life is the inward desire to eat of that fruit. And the desire is controlled by the basic rules of the system which are do not touch do not taste, do no handle. (1 John 2:15; Col. 2:20-21) Everything that the natural man thinks and decides and even likes or dislikes is based on whether it is good for him or evil.

Every section of the system whether it be religion, politics, commerce, entertainment or military are based on these principles. To advance in any of them depends on how well you perform according to their various rules. Whether you fully engage in any of them or try to leave them and, for example enter into a monastery to flee the world, the world will go with you and you will find yourself in another expression of the same thing.

Many seeking Christians attempt to leave the world by entering into some form of religion thinking that, particularly if that religion is very spiritual or very "free" that they have left the world. Yet in the long run they discover that they have only entered another kind of system with its demands for some kind of perfomance.

What, then, is the answer? It is to enter into the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and to stay there. Only by remaining in Him are you out of the world. In the reality of its essence, the world is actually another person: the personified Sin in Romans seven which is the life of Satan. There are only two persons in which men and women can live, either in the old man, Adam, who was taken over be the devil, or Christ. (see 1 Cor.15:22)

To sin is to live in your self-life. Only when we live in Christ who is our life do we live without sin. John says that he that is born again does not sin. That's because in the realm of Christ we cannot sin because sin is not in His life. Jesus, who live as man, not as God, although He was God, could not sin because He always lived by His Father's life. He is the model for us to life in the same way. He said, "As I live because of the Father, he that eats me shall live because of me." Only in that day by day supply of the life of Christ can we live without sin and outside of the world-system.

"Leadership"

According to the Lord's word in Matt. 23, no one should be called father, teacher, master, etc. That is, no one should be a leader like the world has its leaders. In the world the leaders are over all their followers. However, in the kingdom of the heaven it is totally different. The Lord Jesus said that He didn't come to be served but to serve. Paul always identified himself as a bond slave of Jesus Christ.

If anyone desires to be a leader in the church, he must realize that he will not be over the saints but that he is entering into slavery. The saints will be over him and his life will be to serve them.

The Lord's view is absolutely different from that of the current practice in today's Christian world. Today, each church has its pastor who is in charge of the church and is over everyone. The Christian church in America has become a business and many pastors make a very good living from it. This is a worldly system just like a big corporation in the world. So it behooves each pastor to produce a big church in order to provide him his income and the power structure to give him his position and popularity. Does this sound like the church in the New Testament? In these institutions many of the members will go to their pastor for help, prayer and all spiritual things instead of going directly to the Lord Jesus as He intends them to do. America Christianity has evolved into the clergy/laity system that is hated by the Lord Jesus in Revelation two.

It is not the Lord's intention that any man would take the place of the Lord Himself. He is our Father, our Teacher and our Master. According to the new covenant everyone will know the Lord from least to the greatest among them.(Heb. 8) Christ indwells each believer and is well able to speak to and lead each one.

None of the Lord's people need a human "leader." They need the brothers who have been entrusted with the New Testament ministry to perfect them unto the same ministry and unto the building up of the body of Christ. But these brothers are not over the saints. They are only there to serve them the reality of Christ and then get out of the way so that the Lord can be in reality the head of His body and watch Him be the real leader among the saints.

Meeting Times and Places

How did Christians get the idea that meeting together should be at certain times and certain places? When you look at the gospels you see that when Jesus walked on the earth, He was always walking and meeting with His followers. Wouldn't it make sense that today, His followers would walk and meet the same way? That is to always be in a "meeting" with Him and with anyone else at any time.

At home in the family we would be in a meeting with Him and each other. When we get together with other believers whether in a home, a large building or in a coffee shop, we would be meeting with Him. Why not?

To have the thought that we only get together with other Christians at certain times and certain places gives us the wrong impression of what the Christian life is all about. Doesn't the Word tell us that we Christians are a people for the Lord's possession? That we are His 24/7, not only an Sunday morning? We all need a revolution in our thinking'

Christ vs. the Law

I Introduction

The creation of Adam and Eve was a marvel of the creative brilliance and power of God. They were created in the image of God and were designed to be His glory. But they had a deliberately created weakness. Although they did not know it, this weakness was a part of their make-up as a benefit to them and a means by which they would reach the Divine intention for them.

Not only did God create Adam with a weakness but He also created him with a good nature. At the end of the sixth day God declared that all that he had made was very good. This refers to the creation on the sixth day which mainly was the man. So man’s inclination according to his created nature is goodness. Man, basically, desires to do good. He wants to please God by doing good. So if he can determine what is good, then he will do his best to do it. All human beings have this inbred desire unless totally corrupted by some outside instrument.

However, the devil, no doubt, knowing man’s weakness and his good nature took advantage of it. He had a subtle goal when he deceived Eve and induced her to eat the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He knew that, if he could get her and her husband to eat that tree, they would become independent from God. Once he had separated them from God, the weakness in them and their good nature would result in their living an unrighteous life and would bring the judgment of God upon them.

That weakness and our good human nature is still a part of us and we are continually being deceived because of it. This is why the law is so attractive to us. Especially since we have received Christ as our Savior and been regenerated, we want to do something to please God. We are eternally grateful to Him for His death on the cross which paid the penalty for our sins and rescued us from Hell. The law of our mind, being good, desire to do good to please this wonderful Savior. So we are attracted to the law to attempt to keep it. However, the weakness in our being plus the sin-nature we acquired when we ate the tree of knowledge makes the keeping of the law impossible.

The solution to this problem is the Life of another Person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Unless we receive revelation from our Lord to see the provision that He made through His death and resurrection we will continue to struggle under out inborn weakness. It is possible to live without the certain result of a failing Christian life only by seeing a fresh revelation of Jesus Christ.

II The Tree of Life vs. the Tree of the Law (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil)

A good writer or speaker will always write or speak according to a simple outline. First, he will tell you what he is going to tell you. Then he will tell you. Then, finally, he will tell you what he told you. Our God is the best writer of all. Therefore, His writing of the Bible is according to this formula. In Genesis one and two He tells us what He is going to tell us. Between Genesis Three and Revelation twenty He tells us and in Revelation twenty one and twenty two He tells us what He told us.

The first two chapters of Genesis portray the foundational principles of the Bible. In Chapter two you have a man before two trees. The implications that are revealed through this picture are staggering and awe inspiring. If we can see why God began His revelation with this simple picture, we will be able to unlock many passages in the Bible and to be enabled to live the Christian life according to the Lord’s revealed way.

Have you ever heard that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a picture of the law? Please think about it. What does the law do? It teaches us the difference between good and evil according the God’s standard. It teaches us and the teaching demands us to love God and to have nothing to do with idols. To love God is good. To worship an idol is evil. It teaches us to honor our father and our mother. To dishonor them is evil. Every other point of the law is the same. By it you know what is good and what is evil. So the tree of knowledge of good and evil a picture of the law.

The law of God demands that if you live by it, everything you do will be good and on the other hand you will not do anything unrighteous or evil. Only this kind of living will please God under His law. However, if you live by the law you will have to do it by your own strength. He will not help you do it. So it means that you will be your own god living by your own decision to work the good and abstain from the evil. You have become independent from God.

However, you are under a deep deception. If we live by the law, we are automatically brought under the domain of the devil. For his life is stronger than the good nature in us and we will be captured by sin and wind up in death.

No doubt you know that the tree of life is a picture of Christ as our life. So it is obvious that Christ is verse the law. Not only Genesis two reveals this but the rest of the Bible unveils that if a man or a nation attempts to please God by keeping the law the result will be sin and death.

This is the history of the nation of Israel and the history of the church. The minute any from of law keeping enters into a man’s thinking, he will enter onto the way of failure in living the Christian life..

Let’s think about it. Was there ever a king of Israel who did not fail? David? No he fell into adultery and murder. Solomon. No, he was seduced by too many women and their idols. How about Josiah? He was excellent yet in the end he died by fighting a battle that was not of God. How about Moses? Also no. Even eventually he was prohibited from entering into the good land due to his failure.

Eventually, there were only four who overcame. Joshua, Caleb, Joseph and Daniel. I believe that these men learned the secret and did not live by the tree of knowledge. It was their hearts desire to God Himself and their determination to stay with Him that saved them.

III Humanity after the Fall living by the flesh, resulting in murder, violence and the beginning of the World-system

After the first couple ate the tree of Knowledge and were expelled from the garden of Eden, their whole life was one infected by the poison of that tree.

Therefore, whatever they and there decedents did, unless they received a fresh word from the Lord, was governed by that tree and the mind-set it produced in them. All their thoughts and their resulting actions issued from a what-is-good and what-is-evil worldview. They would behave by considering that if something was good, they would do it and if it was evil they would refrain from doing it. But they were deceived.

The difference between Cain and Able is the difference between a man who lived by revelation and a man who lived by right and wrong. Cain knew that it was good to bring an offering to God. No doubt he had heard this from his father but when he heard it, it went into his mind as something good to do. He did not receive revelation as to what God desired as an offering, so he offered the work of his hands. That is, something good that he had done. His was rejected by God. He was disappointed and offended that his good works did not please God.

Why? Because he did what was right to do, he thought he would be commended for it. Are we not many times the same. We do some kind act for someone expecting our Lord to praise us for it and discover that somehow we have lost the presence of God. We don’t realize that we have again partaken of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We might even say to the Lord, “Haven’t I done this in your name?” But He would reply, “I never knew you in that thing you did. Depart from me.” In other words, “My presence will not be with you until you confess your sin and turn back to Me.”

The whole race of man after the fall, lived by the good and evil mind-set that got into their first parents and came to them by their birth. They must have some good things that they did and we know that there were many evil things that occurred but the Lord proclaimed that man was nothing but flesh.

Only a very few lived in the way that pleased the Lord. Two are of note; Enoch and Noah.

Enoch walked with God and was not because God took him. He lived only about three hundred and sixty years which was a short life in those days. As fart as we know the only commendation the bible gives him was that he walked with God.

Here we have to stop a moment and think a little about Enoch’s life. “He walked with God.” This is a remarkable statement. It does not say that God walked with him but that he walked with God. When God went, he went. When God stopped, Enoch stopped. He did not moved ahead of God nor did He lag behind. He spent his life with God in the most obedient way always remaining in His presence.

If we would look at it according to the New Testament revelation we could say that Enoch was a man who always remained abiding in the Vine. He never departed from the life flow of the vine so that he has borne much fruit. Because he always stayed attached to God, the Lord could impart great revelation to him. He was the first to prophesy concerning the great flood, naming his son Methuselah, meaning, “when he is dead, it shall come.” Enoch also prophesied concerning the judgment of God coming on all the unrighteousness of the ungodly generation of mankind. (See Jude 3-4

Symzoasis

Just what is symzoasis? It is the fellowship with the Father and with His son Jesus Christ. What is fellowship? It is not what the common thought of fellowship is, ie. to hang out together, have some coffee and talk. This is just a natural concept. According to the Greek, the word is make up of two words: "common" and "being." The word "common" is the same word from which we get the word koine Greek, the common Greek language. The word "being" is the Greek participle "wv (gk.)" for the verb "to be." To have fellowship is have a common-being with the Father and His son, Jesus Christ and with one another. This is symzoasis.

The word "symzoasis" comes from two greek words also. First from the Greek "sum" which means together and then from the Greek "zwn (gk.)" which means life. But in the New Testament the word "zwn (gk.)" mainly refers to the life of God not to a natural life like the word "bios" which also means life but primarily the physical life. So we use the word symzoasis rather that the word symbiosis.

Symbiosis refers to two organisms that live together for the mutual benefit of each one. Like the probiotics that live in our gut. We benefit from these friendly bacteria and they benefit from us, their hosts.

Symzoasis refers to the divine Spirit in our spirit and mutually in all the born again children of God. Symzoasis not only indicates our organic oneness with our Lord but also with one another.

John, in his first epistle, is calling all the children, young men and fathers to enter into this organic symzoasis. To not do so is the miss the mark of God's design. In this symzoatic relationship there is the true brotherly life. Outside it is sin where we, no matter how we live, are missing the mark. Truly, to miss is the mark is to miss symaozsis.

Jesus said, "I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me"

Matt. 14:9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
10 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?

Jesus lives out the Father. He expresses the Father. He defines the Father. Whatever He is, He does, says or feels is the Father's life expressing itself in Him

It is, or should be, the same with us Christians. We are one with Him as He was one with the Father. We are one with Him as He was one with the Father. He is the head, we are the body. Both head and body are the Christ. Therefore we should live today as He lived then. He expressed the Father, so we express Christ. We are the Christ.Those who do not say that Jesus is the Christ are the instead-of-Christs. (1 John 2:22) Those who live as an instead-of-christ (anti-christ) are opposed to the organic reality of the body of Christ.

Even unbelievers say that the historical Jesus is called Christ. But if you begin to say that today Jesus is the Christ meaning that Jesus is the body as will as the head, you will be condemned and persecuted by religion, even the Christian religion. For though they know it is true, this undermines their hold on their little kingdom and threatens everything they hold dear: ie. their position and their financial income.

So we can say as our Lord Jesus did, "he that has seen us has seen the Christ!" However only if we continually abide in Him.

This organic Christ is what the book of First John reveals.