THE LIFE OF CHRIST = LIFE OF THE CROSS!
NOT ANY RELIGION, NOT DOCTRINES, NOT STUDIES, NOT OUR INTELLECTUAL UNDERSTANDING, NOT OUR FEELINGS, NOT OUR OWN EFFORTS, NOT OUR LIFE – BUT THE LIFE OF CHRIST! IT CONTAINS EVERYTHING WE NEED, IT IS THE POWER THAT OVERCOMES ALL THE OTHER POWERS INCLUDING THAT OF DEATH! WE OBTAIN IT ONLY ON OUR OWN CROSS AND NOWHERE ELSE!
Do you have His Life and do you live It in your soul? Do not answer too quickly. Even if you believe that you have It, that does not mean that you live It! Our Lord said:
“I am come that they (His sheep) might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.” (Jn. 10:10)
This also means that He came because we – His sheep – were (spiritually) dead and had no life! Yet…
…WE DO NOT LIVE HIS LIFE JUST BY BELIEVING IN THE SAVIOUR, BEING BAPTIZED, GOING TO A CHURCH, GIVING TITHE AND OFFERINGS, READING THE BIBLE, LISTENING TO THE SERMONS ABOUT HIS LIFE AND BELIEVING THEM!
So, how do we obtain the Life of Christ, which we already have in Him and in our spirit and should begin to live It in our soul? The Lord says to us clearly:
“Ye search (read, study) the Scriptures for in them YE THINK YE HAVE ETERNAL LIFE, and they are they which testify of Me. And YE WILL NOT COME (IN)TO ME THAT YE MIGHT HAVE LIFE.” (Jn. 5:39,40)
1. The first truth the Lord declares to us all is that we think … we think… we think… we remain in our brains and never get into our heart. If we cannot get about 20 inches down with our body (to our knees), we will never be able to get about 20 inches down with our religion (from our head to our heart)! Try it with your body and you will see what effect it will have on your religion… and your future life.
So, WE THINK that we have Eternal Life because we search or read, teach, preach or write about the Bible. The Lord’s answer is clear: NO! We do not gain Eternal Life because of that activity. And as long as we keep thinking the same thoughts, we will remain deceived and never obtain His Life, which we thought we had. But if we believe what the Lord says in the above Word, then it will be possible for us to stop that thinking and beliefs and self-deception.
The Lord desires to tell us this simple truth:
WHEN WE EAT AND DRINK WITH OUR MOUTH, WE FEED OUR BODY. WHEN WE “EAT AND DRINK” WITH OUR MIND, WE FEED OUR SOUL. WHEN WE “EAT AND DRINK” WITH OUR HEART, WE FEED OUR SPIRIT! (Lk. 4:4) EXCEPT WE “EAT THE FLESH” OF THE SON OF MAN (WORD) AND “DRINK HIS BLOOD” (SPIRIT), THERE IS NO LIFE (OF CHRIST) IN US. (Jn. 6:53-56,63)
We can think and reason and debate the Word day and night, we thereby do not “eat and drink It” into our spirit. In our spirit we starve to death… if we are not spiritually dead already. But IF WE COME TO HIM, He gives us of His Life and also faith to keep that Life! Fighting a good fight of THIS FAITH, we are then able to “lay hold on this Life of Christ”, keep It and live It. (1Tim. 6:12// 2Tim. 4:7)
“To come to Him” also means to “come to the Word” WITH AN OPEN HEART AND FAITH, FOR HE IS THE WORD. (Jn. 1:1+14) THE WORD IS AN INCORRUPTIBLE AND LIVING (Life containing) SEED, which needs to get into our open heart, which is the field. It is sown there and grows by faith and brings forth THE FRUIT OF THE SAME KIND – INCORRUPTIBLE AND LIVING. This is a simplified way to describe the process of receiving Life from Him when we come to Him. We have to keep coming, keep sowing and then keep harvesting His Life. Of course, we come to Him directly in our spirit and with our open heart… not just with our intellect, imaginations, expectations or wishes.
And IF WE DO NOT COME TO HIM, He will arrange for us painful circumstances, sufferings, storms, battles, conflicts and other unpleasant conditions in our earthly life, which will “force us” to come to Him! Because it really takes highly foolish believers who would REFUSE TO COME to their Saviour and Lord to obtain His Life.
The Lord also declared:
“Blessed are they, which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” (Mt. 5:6)
Righteousness is not physical or mental and it is never acquired by reasoning. Christ Jesus was made our righteousness, hence, it is something spiritual and of God, and we can only obtain it by coming to Christ Jesus. (Rom. 10:3// 1Cor. 1:30// Phil. 1:10,11, etc.)
One more spiritual fact about “coming to Christ” is the following. Our “old man” will never desire or be able to come to Christ. Whenever we do come to Him, we lose a part of our “old man” and whenever we lose any part of him, our New Man, possessing the Life of Christ in himself, will grow and increase. We may also say that “coming TO Christ” is, in fact, “coming INTO Christ” (Eph. 4:15) unifying our characters, our personalities. We are thus progressively becoming ONE with Him! (Jn. 17:21)
We may also obtain His Life through those servants of Christ who were already (sufficiently) crucified and have become “carriers” of His Life. Watchman Nee has this to say about this fact (“The Release of the Spirit[2]”, page 21):
“When the Holy Spirit is working, He needs to be “carried” by the human spirit. The electricity in an electric bulb does not travel like lightning. It must be conducted through electric wires. If you want to use electricity, you need an electric wire to bring it to you. In like manner, the Spirit of God employs the human spirit as His carrier, and through it He is brought to man. (Jn. 6:63)
Whether he (believer) can be used by the Lord (for this purpose) depends not on his spirit but rather on his outward man. The difficulty with many is that their outward man has not been broken. …So, God’s Spirit is “imprisoned” within man’s spirit and is not able to break forth… (because man makes decisions by his free will)”.
The above paragraphs are a clear proof of the fact that if we are only taken up by doctrines, debates, interviews, biblical stories, seminars, conferences, teaching, preaching or intellectual activities of this sort, then we may very well be spiritually dead or starving to death. This means that the Life is only in our spirit and “imprisoned”, and has not broken through our soul, which is our outward man.
CAN YOU DISCERN YOUR LIFE WHETHER IT IS CHRIST’S OR YOUR OWN “RELIGIOUS” LIFE? CAN YOU TRULY? IF YOU HAVE NO SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT, YOU CANNOT.
The fact, that you speak or preach about the Life of Christ, that you understand the subject, that you use these expressions and terminology in various religious debates, interviews, teachings or sermons, that you perform or minister the gifts of His Spirit, does not mean at all that you actually live the Life of Christ yourselves.
ONLY LIFE PRODUCES LIFE, DEATH CANNOT PRODUCE LIFE. THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT CANNOT PRODUCE LIFE! BIBLICAL KNOWLEDGE CANNOT PRODUCE LIFE!
NO ACTIVITY OF OUR SOUL CAN PRODUCE LIFE! ONLY WHEN WE LOSE SOMETHING OF OURSELVES (OUR OLD LIFE), MAY WE GAIN SOMETHING FROM THE LORD (HIS ETERNAL LIFE).
ONLY WHEN WE KEEP DYING TO OURSELVES (1Cor.15:31) MAY WE START GAINING AND LIVING THE LIFE OF CHRIST! ONLY WHEN WE ARE DYING MAY WE START PRODUCING THE TRUE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT UNTO THE LORD! (Jn. 12:24// Gal. 5:22,23) HIS LIFE IS SPIRITUAL, NOT SOULISH AND CANNOT BE EVEN IMITATED BY OUR SOULS.
Furthermore, in any war, feeding the army is not an option! The outcome of the war rests on this important fact that the army needs not only weapons and ammunition but also food. Our war is spiritual so the Lord’s army needs spiritual weapons, spiritual ammunition and spiritual food!
You may have ten thousand believers or many more in your congregation, each having five Bibles, two concordances and one hundred religious books on every subject in the Bible. But if they are all spiritually dead, your war is over before it even began. Are you with me?
2. The second truth the Lord declares to us is that we do not want to keep coming to Him, to keep obtaining His Eternal Life. The Word in Is. 28:10 applies here, as well. Clearly, this is not the same problem as with the first truth above. Here, I would like to say that it is “easy” for the Lord to tell us that truth, but for us it is mighty difficult to do it… to come to Him. Why?
When we believe in the Lord in our heart and confess our faith with our mouth (Rom. 10:9), we are redeemed and born-again but only in our spirit. (Jn. 3:6) Our sinful nature or character has not departed from us! (repetition of basic facts does not hurt) At this stage, it may not be easy for us to come to the Lord with all that sinful nature in our soul. It needs an opening of our heart and faith to come to Him. (Heb. 11:6)
I must confess at this place the truth, which at this stage applies to all of us: IT IS MIGHTY DIFFICULT FOR US TO OPEN OUR OLD HEART TO ANYBODY, whether it is to our brethren or to the Lord Himself! We cannot open it even to our spouse! True? As soon as you try to open your old heart and speak truth out of it, you will start experiencing the strength of hell, which tries to keep your heart and mouth shut! But it is very good to experience such a shock and see the powers of evil trying to keep the truth hidden so that their lies, deception and other works of darkness would not be exposed! It is equally beneficial to experience the power of the Lord, Who at such times can enable you to open your heart and mouth and give you the freedom to speak, declare, decide and taste your victory.
I must now ask you this: Have you ever seen your old wicked, deceitful heart and what was (or still is) in it? If you have never seen it then to this day, you have been a deceived soul, ignorant about yourself. If you have seen it and it was not changed, renewed in any way, would you desire a new, clean heart? If yes, who will destroy that old, wicked, deceitful one? How is the Lord supposed to do it?
You cannot live with two hearts or two minds or two souls, one holy and one wicked! Is it true? WE EITHER LIVE OUR LIFE THROUGH OUR SELF OR HIS LIFE THROUGH CHRIST! (1Jn. 4:9) SO, YOU EITHER LOSE YOUR SELF OR YOU LOSE CHRIST! Hence, one day, you will have to open your heart to the Lord of Glory, Who must enter in, start destroying the old heart and create a new, clean heart in you. (Ps. 51:10// Pr. 20:9) He will do it by drawing you into Himself. He will create nothing new in you, as a person, outside of Himself.
[Oh, My Lord, oh, My Lord, how unable we all are to do anything. Without Your Patience, Grace and Strength, we are totally and absolutely helpless. Help us, Lord.]
So, how do we come to the Lord? Well, as a “cat to a hot bath” fighting tooth & nail. We must literally be pulled or cornered like a wild animal that is wounded and does not know that the One who is cornering it, will give it a new life. Of course, I am exaggerating, right? If you think so, then you have never seen, perceived or understood what is going on in the spiritual world. The life-and-death battles continue there daily – as in the jungles of Africa – and there is no mercy. In hell, there is no love, no mercy, no justice and no hope… EVER! We have access to love, mercy and hope on this earth, and we do not appreciate it and do not come to the Lord of Life. This is the unbelievable, unimaginable and absolutely incomprehensible part of our “religious reality” as well as the mystery of our Salvation.
Every Christian that I have met wants to go to Heaven and be with the Lord forever. Are we surprised? Well, no. But may I ask a simple question concerning this desire? If Christians truly desire to be with the Lord forever, why do most of them not truly desire to be with the Lord even two minutes today? I mean, in SPIRIT and in TRUTH? Are we able to answer this penetrating question truthfully at least to ourselves? I doubt even that.
Let us now consider another simple fact concerning our coming to the LORD and obtaining HIS LIFE, which we cannot obtain in any other way.
Imagine that you are desperately seeking something, which you lost and you desire or need, which is precious and you know that it is somewhere near you and there just must be a way to find it. You must overcome many problems, difficulties, failures or disappointments. Perhaps, you must also overcome discouragement from your “friends” and many obstacles, which may be thrown under your feet. What you are seeking may be a thing or it may be the way out of a deep forest where you are lost. You are thus seeking the way out to preserve your life, otherwise, you know you would perish there. But then, finally, you find the way out and your joy is very great.
Tell me now, is this not the same with seeking the LORD?… and with overcoming many obstacles, failures, disappointments, discouragements, and what have you? And when you finally overcome all these obstacles, are you not an “Overcomer”? You see, to “over-come” simply means to “come-over”… to a new place, new character, new Life.
Every one of you is an “Overcomer” already today in your earthly life. You had to overcome many things, failures, problems, difficulties, disappointments. All your life on earth, you have been fighting to preserve it for those 70-90 odd years. And as we said already before, you have been fighting a similar war in your own body where your body is fighting billions of bacteria, viruses and toxins daily. True? Why are you then not prepared to battle also in the spiritual world? Are you not ready to fight for your Eternal Life, which will never end? Is your Eternal Life not worth infinitely more than your earthly life? Do you see the TRUE AND REAL POWER OF DECEPTION?
Do we, Christians, really need a “cattle prodder” to start moving in the right direction? WE DO! THIS shows the true depravity of our old character and the true depth of our deception! When will we be finally “fed-up” with ourselves and start seeking the way out of this deep forest of deception to save our life? He who seeks, finds! True? (Mt. 7:8) This Word of God is His true encouragement to us and I do not believe we need more than that at this point… or ever.
So, let us start and believe that the Lord will bring us to the end of that road and to our inheritance in Him, which is Life Eternal. If you have decided in your heart and mind and will about it, then you will join me in our prayer at the end of this book. And you will be on your way… and you will be also experiencing at least some of the things, which I write about in this book. They will become for you like unto “sign-posts” along your narrow way.
Let me add an important note and my strong belief concerning the Life of Christ. WE DO NOT NEED HIS LIFE for anything in our earthly life that we can do in our own power, wisdom and effort! We may continue our earthly life just as before and do all the things we always did and, perhaps, add some new things or activities or projects. We may continue doing what we think or believe that we should do. We may also continue “working for the Lord” in the best way we know how, and many believers do just that. But…
WE ABSOLUTELY NEED THE LIFE OF CHRIST IN ORDER TO WRESTLE, TO WAR AND OVERCOME THE SPIRITUAL POWERS INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF OUR SOUL, TO BECOME A NEW MAN AND TO ENTER INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
We have no power of our own against these forces or against our own old life, which tries to “work for the Lord and please Him” in order to save himself! Are you with me? Do you see this basic dilemma of our Christian life and experience? Have you experienced and recognized any of the four great spiritual powers stated above? (page 297) How do you propose to overcome them without the Life of Christ? I tell you from my own living experiences, it is a sheer impossibility.
We absolutely need to KEEP coming to the Lord, to KEEP obtaining more and more of His Life for our greater and greater needs. One “visit” to the Lord will not turn you into an Overcomer! One prayer will not assure you of the Kingdom of Heaven. One visit to the seminary will not make you a doctor of theology. True? We must get into the habit of coming to the Lord and receiving His Life, His Power, continually. Once we get into this desirable habit, all questions, problems and battles of our Christianity will be resolved! All our enemies will be overcome and defeated. Our destiny and entry into the Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ and to the New Jerusalem will be abundantly assured. (2Pet. 1:11)
Is this not what we all desire in our heart? Do you also desire this? So, why don’t you go for it? Why don’t you start SEEKING THE LORD RIGHT NOW? I encourage you to do it wherever you are and whatever you are doing RIGHT NOW. The time is very short. This also applies to all the believers and ministers who may know the Bible from cover to cover and may have been ministering its Truth for many years, may have university degrees, and in their soul they may be spiritually dead – without the Life of Christ.
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To be continued next week in chapter 5 – part 4
brother Hanola
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