When Paul wrote his letters, every time he wrote a letter, he would lay out the truth of the new covenant, the reality that you are found in as a believer. His first two or three chapters he spends in Ephesians in Colossians uh what it is to be in Christ Jesus and then he gives more instructional type teaching after that. It’s the nature of the old man the carnal mind that wants to get to the instructions- “Just tell me what to do! I don’t want to spend time reading stuff I don’t understand?!” But this is the engine room. This is our foundation. Without the revelation that was given to Paul of “Christ in you” and what happened to you on the cross Uh, if you neglect that, if you ignore that and just rush forward to ‘forgive one another, preach the gospel, do this, do that’, then you are in the flesh doing those things by the the power of your own soul, your power of your own carnal uh mind. You are trying to serve God.
But God, with God there is no shortcuts and he will not allow us to go around ‘Christ in you’ to try to do the works of God. And many of us that’s exactly what we do. And God will ensure that you come face to face with Jesus Christ in the truth of the word of God. That you were crucified with him. that you were buried with him, that you were not able to please God, that’s why God crucified you, that you could never please God. You fell short and you still fall short of God’s glory in and of yourself. You can do nothing. And so, this is the way God created us. It’s the way God created Adam in the beginning that he would need God, that he would walk in union with God, spirit, soul, and body.
See, man is not created to be empty. Man is created to be in union with the life of another, the life force, but really a person. God has created us that we would walk joined as one with another person. Of course, that is Jesus. Ephesians 2 tells us that this prince of the power of the air is now working in the sons of disobedience. So that people are not empty. People are under the power of and even the energy or the energia of another person living in them actively pushing them away from Jesus Christ, actively animating them. Michael Hutchins from INXS used to sing “every single one of us has the devil inside. Devil inside.” And he was speaking a truth that is found there in Ephesians chapter 2.
We were all children of wrath. We were all propelled and animated by another person living inside of us until we came to Jesus until he brought us to himself and gave us his faith to arise in Christ to believe into him. But until that happens, you are being led around by the devil. That’s just the plain truth of it. So man was created to need someone else. He’s not created to to go it alone, to do it on his own, as if he is separate from God. Adam rejected the tree of life, which really is rejecting Jesus Christ. And Adam was not deceived. Paul tells us in First Timothy, the woman was deceived, but Adam was not deceived. He should have warned Eve. He should have stopped what was going on. He knew what was going on. And he allowed that to happen to her and he joined in because he was actively choosing the tree of the knowledge of good and evil over choosing Jesus, the tree of life. He was going to please God by his own efforts at being good and not sinning, not being bad. And we know, of course, that failed. And it’s failed ever since. And people now being mortal are trying to please God – Christians I’m talking about are trying to please God by their own soulish strength. “I’m going to be good today for God. I’m going to serve God today with all my heart and all my soul, with all my strength. Yes. Yes. Yes.” But you haven’t yet found out that you can’t do it.
You need the life of another to come and live in you and to be the one who pleases the father. This is how God made humans. But we have this idea that we’re separated from him, that we’re separate from him, that Jesus is gone to heaven and he’s up there. And yes, he sent us the Holy Spirit, but it’s largely up to us. We hear that by the things we say. We hear it when we fail. When we fail, we we say things, “Lord, help me to not do that again.” Or, “I won’t do that again.” and we beat ourself up. And this only shows us that we are doing things in our own strength. We’re doing things in our own effort. And this is the flesh and it’s death. It’ll bring condemnation to you. It’ll bring accusation to you from the devil because you are failing to please God whom you are desperately trying to please. So the more you try, the worse it gets.
And so you have a choice of hiding your failures and telling people how you’re doing good or living in condemnation and withdrawing away from people and from the church. This is what the enemy does. He is the accuser of the brethren. And what he does is he pushes us to try harder for God. and he goads and uh slanders us and accuses us all the time when we fail in what we said we would do. ‘You did it again’. And so we have a life running back and forth to the altar repenting, confessing, crying out, asking God to forgive us, asking for him to give us strength to overcome. And we haven’t yet come to see that we died on the cross. That it’s not up to us to please God. That’s why God put you to death.
He didn’t save you so that you would then begin to try to be good for him. He knows you cannot do it. He doesn’t want that kind of pressure on you. So he gave you Jesus Christ himself to come and be one with you in your spirit. This is what it is to eat Christ to drink him. You are one with him.
Jesus prayed in John 17 a number of times. “Father that they may be one even as we are one. You in me and I in you. That they may be one in us”. He wasn’t talking about some communal oneness. He was talking about you. That you would be one just as Jesus Christ is one with the father. The father in Jesus, Jesus in the father and both of them in you. Not tucked away somewhere but one in spirit.. joined. Two joined as one. So that Jesus said, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the father.” That’s what it means to be one. And that’s what’s happened to every believer who has received the spirit of Jesus. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. First Corinthians 6:17. You are one spirit with Jesus. And you are being conformed to the same image of Jesus by the renewing of your mind. By seeing him, by gazing into him who is perfect as in a mirror, we are changed from glory to glory. You already are one with him.
But it’s the renewing of our mind and to to begin to walk in the mind of Christ about yourself and about others so that you see all others in the spirit, in Christ. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5 that ‘we used to know Christ according to the flesh, but now we know him thus no longer’. We don’t know Him in the flesh anymore, a carnal natural man. We know him by the spirit. And so Paul said, “We don’t regard anyone according to the flesh anymore, but according to the spirit.” This is all by faith, a seeing by faith. And it’s the same with you. The devil wants you to look at your performance. He wants you to boast or he wants you to feel condemned. And he wants you to try. And he keeps you trying to keep pleasing God by your own efforts. And so it keeps you on the treadmill of religion, never coming near to God because you always feel like a failure. But the truth of those first few chapters in Ephesians and Colossians tells us that “all your trespasses are forgiven”. That you are “made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus”. That he “has redeemed you”. That he has “brought you near”. “You once were far off and now you have been made near.” So near in fact that you are one with Christ Jesus.
You want to get off that treadmill? Then you must cease from your works. You must ask the Lord to give you the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of revelation in the knowledge of him that you might know what is the hope of his calling and what are the glorious riches of his inheritance and what is the exceeding greatness of his power which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead. Because all of those things that he did in Jesus, he did for you and he does in you. Raising you from the dead, quickening you and making you alive in Christ, so that we no longer reckon ourselves to be dead to God, but alive to God through Christ Jesus.
Much of the church is caught up in thinking about, ‘I’ve got my ticket to heaven. When I die, I’m going to heaven’. That’s not the gospel, friend. Tiny bit of it. It’s a tiny bit of it. God wants you to walk in his resurrection life as a son of God in that adoption with the father, knowing that you please God, not by your efforts, not by any perfection you’re trying to muster up, not by not sinning today. You’re pleasing God through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. That’s how you please God. That’s how you surrender to God. To stop trying to make your own way as if you’re separate. “See God, look what I did for you today”. But to just agree you can’t do it. You never will be able to. and to realize that Jesus has come to be you so that you will just rest and be pleasing to God through faith, through grace and faith. You’re a son of God already. God said to Jesus before he did any miracles at his baptism, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” That’s it. He didn’t have to do anything to please the father. He had been already pleasing. And how we please God is through faith. Enoch walked with God and was not for God took him. And he had this testimony that he pleased God. How did Enoch please God? He walked with him in a faith relationship. And that’s how you please God today. Just walk with him. Don’t try to win people. Don’t try to heal people. Don’t try to preach the gospel. Don’t try to be Christian in your workplace. Don’t try to put on a persona of what you think it means to be a Christian. Just be yourself. It’s part of the reason why I’m always in a singlet top. Don’t try to appear any different than you are. Don’t present yourself as a Christian persona.
Don’t do it. And until you find out who you are, this is what the flesh and the devil will drive you to do. When I first came to the Lord and went to church, everyone was wearing suits. I never wore suits. I grew up surfing, fishing, living by the beach. But I went out and bought a suit. I put on a double- breasted suit and sat on the first or second row depending on whether I’d sinned or not. And I would move up the back. But yeah, I wore my suit and did the Pentecostal dance hopping around. And I was a Christian and I looked like a Christian in my mind. I had no idea who Jesus is, especially about who he is in me. friend, surrendering to God is not about outer things and it’s not about trying to be humble or to be like Christ. It’s an acknowledging that you can’t do it and a relief, a relief that you believe that Jesus has been raised from the dead to live inside of you. As you! As you!
This is something that the Holy Spirit alone can reveal to your heart and you are fighting to maintain that self-image of who you are. You’re resisting the Holy Spirit. We all, we all do… To hold on to the person you think you are, that you are presenting before the world and before God saying, “I’m a Christian. I’m a follower of Jesus.” And all the things you do and all the things you say and how you present yourself are designed with that one goal in mind- to hang on to your own self righteousness and your own claim to being worthy of God. And God is on the other hand will shatter that image. He will oppose it. He already does. And he will bring it down into the grave where it belongs. It already happened in reality but our mind hangs on to it. Paul tells us to put on Christ not not on the outside only but to be clothed with Christ inwardly. All that he is now is who you are in reality. Like the Ten Commandments, they’re not commandments for you to try to obey. they’re prophetic words about who you are.
You do not worship idols. You do not commit adultery. You do not lie or steal or kill. You honour your father and mother. This is prophetic about the new nature that you live in now the nature of Jesus is one with you. So, the old man wants to stay separate so he can do things for God and then claim boasting points. The new man rests back in Jesus, happy just to be at his feet, happy just to be with him, not trying to do anything. Just let it happen. Let God lead. Let God speak. Let God be you. Because that’s what’s happened in you. Stop trying to be something for him. He’s come to be your life. He’s come to take you as his own and carry you through life as you. Look in the mirror and realize it’s not just you. It’s Jesus looking straight back at you and he accepts you. You’re accepted in the beloved and he has come to live in you. We reject Jesus doing the work. We want to do it by the Holy Spirit.
Lord, I pray that you open our eyes to the reality of Christ in us and what you have done. That we would come into the rest and know that rest and know the love you have for us. Not so we can run on the treadmill, but that so we can walk with you all the days of our life until you take us into glory.
The book of Galatians is probably my favorite book of the Bible where Paul lays it out thick and strong. You know, in Galatians 3, he asks them, “Who has bewitched you? Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth?” You see, they had fallen from grace. They had become estranged from Christ because they were being circumcised and going back to an old covenant system trying to be made righteous, trying to be justified by works. And Paul said that he had to labor in birth pangs again, in prayer again, that Christ may be formed in them again. He says, “Who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified among you?” Paul had preached Christ crucified and them crucified in him. Paul had preached Christ risen and them risen in him.
And yet what what I’m trying to preach on this channel is not what you would have heard before in most churches. It’s the gospel given to Paul. And it’s probably doubtful that Paul even fully understood what the spirit was speaking to him and through him. When he said in Galatians 2:20, he said, “I have been crucified.” It’s no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God. When he wrote that, he was speaking that for all born again spirit filled believers, You have been crucified. You no longer live, but Christ now lives in you. And the life that you now live,- if you no longer live, but you now live in this in the body of this flesh, who is it that lives? It’s Christ living joined together with you as one person or as one. Two people joined together and you manifest Jesus Christ.
You reveal Jesus Christ just by being you. This is the mystery that was kept secret and kept hidden in ages past, but has now been revealed to his apostles, to Paul. And he was given the ministry to reveal this grace that God has answered Jesus’s John 17 prayer ‘that they may be one, Father, even as we are one. you in me and I in you that they may be one even as we are one in the same way that we are one’. John wrote in John 14:20 ‘in that day you will know that I am in the father and you are in me and I am in you’. This is the mystery. We have been invited into the Godhead and the Godhead has come into us. We are one. You see, God cannot be known except he has a body. Jesus cannot be seen unless he has a body. And you are the body of Christ individually and corporately. And you reveal God. You are Emmanuel, God with us. You are the word who comes to live in you and he’s taken your flesh upon himself and he is walking around still on the earth. Jesus is revealed in you as you. when you’re eating your dinner, when you’re doing your job, when you’re doing anything in life, if you have Jesus dwelling in your spirit, you are revealing God. And the body of Christ is revealing God. Isn’t that what Jesus prayed? Then they will believe when you have love for one another and it comes out of walking in this union personally. It’s the same as Jesus saying, “Abide in me as I abide in you.” We are one. 1 Corinthians 6:17, which I quote a lot. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him is added in for context, for clarity. You are one spirit with Jesus.
You see, religious flesh wants to remain separate, wants to imagine itself to be separated from God and wants to ask God to give us his power to be able to serve him. But God has done far more than that. That’s the old covenant. God gave his power to Elijah. He gave his power to the prophets and those in the old covenant. But in the new covenant, God has given us his son. He has given us his very life. Not as a ticket to go to heaven when you die, friend, but he has given Jesus to you to be your life. We talk about giving our life to God. That isn’t the new covenant. You died on the cross. God doesn’t want your life. He wants you to receive the life of his son. And when you were born again and received his spirit, you received his life. And yet, like the Galatians, they began to add works to it. They began to be hood-winked by the enemy, accusing them. ‘Look at you. You don’t look like Jesus. You don’t produce the fruit that God wants’. And so he accuses us so that we will try on our own in our own efforts to please God to be like Jesus. But friend, you already are like Jesus. You already are in the image of Jesus.
The the sigh the sigh of the Holy Ghost. And this is why Paul had to labour in birth pangs again that Christ might be formed in them because they had fallen away. Fallen from grace become estranged from Christ. You who try to be justified by works. He was talking to Christians by trying to be justified before God by going back to self effort. You know, you might not get circumcised like they did, but just trying to be like Jesus, beating yourself up when you fail is a sure sign that you are trying. God calls us to rest. He calls us to abide. You don’t see a branch trying, do you? You don’t see much happening on a branch at all. And that’s what we are meant to be like. All trying belongs in religion and that is the church at large today. It’s his church. He’s building the church.
But he is trying to get the message out to you and to the church that Paul was given which the devil has resisted and he has blocked and scandalized in the minds of believers ever since Paul was given it to shut it down. We can’t have you finding out that you can rest in Christ, that you are already one with him, that you’re already seated in the Holy of Holies, made blameless and perfect before God. We can’t have you knowing that just by being yourself, you’re revealing God. We’ve got to get you trying. Therefore, we’ve got to accuse you of being pathetic. You got to try harder or we’ve got to put fear in your heart that you’re going to miss heaven, that you’re going to go to hell. And so again, you will try hard. And as soon as you step into that trying realm, you have fallen from grace. You have gone back under the old covenant and you’re living again under the curse of the law.
The truth about you, friend, if you’re a believer in Jesus, is Galatians 2:20. You have been crucified with Christ. It’s no longer you who lives, but Christ lives in you. It’s Christ who lives. It’s Christ who lives, not you. And then it says, “But the life that I now live, which is Christ living as you and in you and with you, it’s Christ living the life that you now live in the flesh in your body. You live by the faith of the son of God. You don’t live by faith in the son of God as if you’re a separate person trying to get your own faith to believe in Jesus. King James version says you live by the faith of the son of God. Big difference. And it’s the faith of Jesus that springs forth out of Jesus continually from within you that arises in you like a well of living water. His faith, his life, his word, his joy, his peace, his faithfulness.
All the fruit is his and it springs up. You just rest. You just trust. You just believe and declare these things are so about you. They are yes and amen about you. The life you now live in the flesh, you live by the faith of the son of God. But oh no, we prefer to get some brownie points, some boasting points, and declare that we have faith in Jesus. What about the days you don’t have faith? Don’t you realize that the Lord is carrying you and is springing up? He’s springing up. You can’t fall away.
If you think it’s up to you, then God’s going to allow you to fall away just like he did with Peter. even temporarily. If you think it’s up to you to be holy, to make it to heaven, to get in the rapture, to be a minister of God, whatever it is, then God’s going to resist you. That’s pride. And he will allow you to fall away until you learn like the prodigal son that you can do nothing of yourself. And you will come back to him. He will draw you back to him because you never really left. It’s all going on between the ears thinking that you have what it takes.
Friend, I labour in birth pangs for you that Christ may be formed in you that you might see Christ Jesus as your only life. Colossians 3 says that your life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ who is our life appears, see when Christ who is our life, your life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ who is our life appears then you also shall appear with him because you and Jesus are one. His life has come and taken you up in with himself into himself living as you inside of you shining out through you. Read 2 Corinthians 3. ‘We’re always led to death that the life of Jesus might be manifested through us,’ revealed through us. And this is the life of God in you, always leading you into a tight spot.
That the life of Jesus which is in you might be seen in how you go through it, in how you look to heaven. Just you being yourself, thinking you’re just a worm, is revealing the glory of God. This is the wonder. We want to be strong. God wants us to stay weak so that Christ may be seen. We want to be capable. And God doesn’t choose capable people. In those who think they are capable, he will bring down a peg or 10. God will manifest himself through you brother. He is living as you carrying you. It doesn’t mean you are God. Jesus said if you’ve seen me you’ve seen the father. Philip said how? Philip said Lord show us the father and it is sufficient for us. And Jesus said haven’t I been with you so long Philip and yet you don’t know me? If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the father. How can you say, “Show us the father.” Don’t you believe that I am in the father and the father is in me? Friend, these things are true of you. The father is in Christ Jesus who is in you. That doesn’t mean you are Jesus or you are God. But it’s the same thing. Jesus modeled this. It’s the way we are created. It’s the way God made us to manifest his glory. Not by trying, not by praying, not by doing things, just by being you. If you have Christ Jesus in you, you revealing him. That’s the whole point. Without Jesus in you, there’s only darkness.
There’s no no light in you. without Jesus in you. But if you have Jesus, you are the light of the world. Hallelujah. Anyway, that’s enough for now. I got to go to bed. It’s midnight on uh Thursday night. Bless you.