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The Secret Prayer Life of Jesus

 

A wonderful consideration of the prayer life of Jesus. He is in us as children of God. Our body is His dwelling place. He is in us and we are in Him. As He impact us, He will impact our prayer life. You can listen while doing other task. It is worth your time and consideration. Share with those you love.

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More Than A Container

I have been thinking more and more about our union with Jesus Christ, and have concluded that the mystery of Christ in us and we in Him is an extremely great mystery. In fact great is not the right word to describe it. It is huge; it is beyond human comprehension. It is wonderfully exciting. It is radical. It is the most radical truth known to mankind or rather that can be known. It is strangely not too well-known and spoken of today. I am thankful to those I come across who are speaking about this tremendously freeing truth.

In my thinking of this hugely great exciting truth, some sayings that I have heard and that I have said myself in describing it no longer seem to be grand enough to hold it any longer. There is always the necessity to make sure that we know that God is God and that we are not God. Which really is an easy thing to hold onto. God is omnipresent. I am not. God is all-knowing, but I am not and on and on. However in a grand exciting mystical way we are one with God through Jesus Christ.

In an effort to not get confused about who is God and that we are not God is the saying that we are containers. Christ is in us ,we contain Him. As a beginning point of further understanding our union and relationship with Christ, that seems to be ok. But after some growth, we can see that being a container is no longer true to its form and the grand truth we are given. Walk with me for a few moments. Being a container means that we are separate from who we contain. Being a container means that our nature at its core is different from the nature of who we contain. Being a container means that who that is in me is very different from who I am. It means that I am not one with who is in me otherwise who that is in me is also a container. Being a container is lifeless. The container that holds my orange juice is rigid, hard, lifeless. It can not become one with my orange juice. It can not express the orange juice that it contains. The vessel that Paul speaks of wherein we have this treasure is our earthen bodies. We know that our bodies do not define who we are, but rather we are defined by who is in us.

So this mystery of Christ in me and me in Christ is opening up to grander understanding of what it means to be one with Jesus Christ. Even the truth that as He is right now so are we in this present world. Jesus is more than a container, and that makes us more than containers.

Right now we are the sons of God, not containers. Being organic also makes it impossible to be containers. The very nature of being organic mean life, growing, moving, becoming. The thought of containers must also be organic, living, moving, growing, becoming. I am resting on being members of the Body of Christ. Understanding body and body dynamics I believe leads us further in our understanding of our union oneness and relationship with Jesus Christ. We are His Body and members in particular, wherein His divine life flows through us. And we are told that as His Body we are the fullness of Him which fills all in all. We (respectfully and most honorably) complete Him.

Body dynamics is where I we lack the most in understanding. It’s no wonder, most of us understand very little of our own physical body; how it works, how it functions together, how interdependent every member of our body is, that there are some extremely critical functions that are designed to operate automatically, less we mess it up and cause fatal consequences. If the Holy Spirit of God said that we are the Body of Christ and members in particular, that settles it. Now we must grow in understanding body dynamics as it relates to the Body of Christ, the church.

If we know very little of how our physical bodies operate and thereby cause harm to ourselves, how much more are we lacking in understanding how the Divine Spiritual Body of Christ operates? 

Jesus lays before us quite a statement when He tells us that He is in us and we are in Him just like He is in the Father and the Father is in Him, and that there will come a day when we will know this. We will know that we are in Him and He is in us. We will know that we are one just like He and the Father are one. I believe He had more in mind than just containers.

Please share your thoughts. What are you learning about Jesus that is leading you to a clearer understanding of your oneness with Him?

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Knowing The Christ Within

In my last post, the question of who is this Christ in us was asked. It is extremely critical that we come to know the Christ that is in us. This is an important journey for each one of us, to know Him, to know who Christ really is that is living not with us , but IN us. Paul after many years of being used as an apostle and knowing who he was and the purpose of his life, still had this burning desire to know the Christ that was in him. He said “that I might know Him”. I hope that is a burning desire of yours.

At our church family we have been considering the fact that the mystery of God is Christ in us the hope of glory for the last few years. This has been and still is an awesome fact that we are not able to get our minds around without the help of the Spirit of God. Now that we have at least received and delighted greatly in knowing this revealed mystery, we now are moving on to desire to know the Christ within.

Knowing the Christ within is absolutely needed in order to know ourselves. Since we are made one with Him, we must know Him. Since we are as He is, we need to know Him in order to be who He is in this present world. This is at the center of alot of confusion in my opinion. If we do not know Him, we do not know who we are in this present world. This ignorance makes us easy prey to misrepresentations of Christ, ourselves and the church, the Body of Christ in so many, many ways. We can get caught up in the externals, the little things that do not matter, rather than His life within us.

With this blog called “Christ In You Roundtable”, I hope that you and others will add to our understanding of knowing the Christ within by adding your comments at the end of this post.. I would like to really encouraged our older, mature brothers and sisters in Christ who can help those who are younger in understanding who our older brother Jesus Christ is as our indwelling Lord and life. Please feel free to share some of your journey that has open to you a further knowledge of the Christ within us.

I have been considering our Lord’s childhood in that the written accounts leaves us with ideas that He was like any other child, teen, young adult. He fit in with everyone around Him. He did not look any differently; He did not dress any differently than His peers. The thing that made Him different was His ongoing growing relationship with God His Father. He knew God. No one else knew God. Because He knew God as His Father, He knew who He was, and lived with this understanding that grew as He grew.

He saw the workings of God His Father. He could look at the birds and know that His Father fed them. He heard His Father speak to Him. He shared a life with His Father that no one else knew about and therefore could not share in. His knowledge and shared life with His Father had profound impact on His total life. It affected what He did , how He did what He did, when He did what He did. He grew to delight in His Father. His meat, what sustained Him was to do the will of His Father. He had no other goal or desire in life outside of His Father. He loved His Father to the point that He was willing with joy to suffer death on the cross so that the Father’s will and desire to take away our sins and the sins of the world would be accomplished. This was the height of His love for His Father. He had come to deeply enjoy the presence of His Father, and just the thought of Him being separated from His Father as He became sin for us meant agony for Him. Yet his relationship of love with His Father, made Him say not my will but your will be done.

This is who is in us!! Yet this is only a small part of who the Christ is who is in us. Again it will take your input and my input along with all of what we read in the scriptures and still others until the end of time to fully describe the One who is within. For we are told that the world could not contain the number of books that would be needed if all of what Christ did was written.

Yet we are encouraged to grow in grace AND the knowledge of Christ. So our journey as the Body of Christ must continue as we together come to know the Christ within. What has been written is to be experienced by us as the Word again becomes flesh and lives within us. I expect that since all of scripture really centers on Him, we will be continuing to grow in our knowing of Him. 

I am looking forward to other saints, other sons of God, other believers to share what they have been taught and what they are learning about the Christ within. I say this not looking for book facts and head knowledge, but rather heart and spirit connections with the Christ within, and the tutoring that only the Holy Spirit of God can reveal. After all it is His glorious work to take the things of Christ and show them to us; to open our eyes that we might see what already is and has been true about the Christ within, and most importantly to enable us to walk and live in His life, to come to the place of knowing that for us to live is Christ!

Please share with us. This is Body work that only the Body can do, as each joint supplies nourishment which it has received from the Head, Christ who is within. We would love to hear from you and invite you to pass this on and encourage others to read and share.

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Who Is The Christ That Is In Us?

The great news that we have embraced that Christ is in us is a most amazing fact. It is of such great magnitude that we hardly can get our minds around it. In fact we really don’t get any of our minds around this amazing fact and truth. With the powerful deliberate work of the Holy Ghost we can see through a glass darkly. We still can not see as clearly as the truth really is of God’s living in us every single day, rather every single moment of every single day. Wow! He is right now alive in us. He is alive in you right now. Thanks God for His abiding presence in us. 

I am getting more excited every time we come together in Waldorf Maryland as Christ’s Church. The name was given to us for the purpose of becoming a living example of the Body of Christ. We are just a small part of a great number of persons who make up the Body of Christ. Every time we come together, not just on Sunday mornings, but whenever and where ever, we are challenged to see one another as members of Christ. We want to see one another as vessels in which Christ actually lives. We are looking forward to the unique expressions of Christ in the faces we see when we come together. We are encouraging one another to actually see Christ in themselves and one another; to no longer just see our outside selves of flesh but Christ in us each one of us.

It seems to be a slow process, but we are learning that there are so many false ideas we have had about God, Jesus, ourselves and others that it just takes time. We are glad that God is patient and knows who we are and what it takes to get us to the place of maturity in Christ that He desires for us. We also understand that great truths require solid foundations to be laid upon which our lives are being built. Any solid foundation takes time to dig way down to a solid core where Christ dwells in us, and to remove all of the dirt and rubish so that a new super structure can be built.

So our times together when we meet on Sunday mornings provides opportunities to see what God is up to in the lives of one another as we share with each other. We have had to throw away our bulletins and printed order of service to really expect and give way to the Spirit of God to have His way with us. Different persons take the lead in our time together. We have an atmosphere where more persons are experiencing the freedom to serve and encourage one another as vital elements of ministering one to another.

As we are learning to live Christ in us, I believe that it is an absolute necessity for us to ask the question: Who is the Christ That is in us? We know that He is in us, but who is He. If we do not know who Christ is that is in us, we will not know what He is like, what He is doing, and why He is doing what He is doing. We will become confused. God is not the author of confusion.

Just a few thoughts to help spring up some ideas. Firstly He is the Anointed One. We have living in us the one and only person who has been ordained by God the one and only person appointed and equipped to live the true life of a son of God or a child of God. You and I are not anointed, nor do we need to seek after the anointing. Rather we have living and alive in as The anointed One. Christ Jesus is the only person who really knows and understands what it is to be a child of God, a son of God. In fact He is the only begotten Son of God. And since we are sons of God, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts whereby we are enabled to call God Abba Father or Daddy!! Without the Spirit of Jesus Christ in our hearts we would not be able to know God as our Father and to know ourselves as His son. Jesus is the only one who knows the Father. He came out of the very heart and mind of God.

This is a most amazing thing God has done for us. He wants for us the exact same relationship with us that He has with Christ Jesus. God does not want each of us to develop our own relationship with Him. Our efforts of relating to God in our own personal ways will never lift us up to where Christ Jesus is as He relates to God. Our efforts might satisfy us, and if it does the truth is that it only lasts for a short time then we are wondering where is God or what happened. What did I do to lose what I had with God. No, no a thousand times no. All of our efforts to develop our own personal relationship with God will fall short of the glory God has for us. So God sends the Spirit of Christ into us so that through Christ we can now relate to God as He relates to Him.

Christ as Son and God as Father is a very very special relationship that Jesus modeled for us in the Gospel accounts. They do not give a full view of their Father Son relationship, but we do get glimpses. (As I am writing this, I don’t believe that we will get further than Christ – the Anointed One as the Son of God in this posting. We will add to this later, Lord willing). It is obvious, but yet extremely important that Christ Jesus knows that He is the Son of God. No one else knew this fact. It took revelation from God Himself for Peter to answer the question who do you say I am. So for us we must know that we are sons of God. We must also know that our Father has sent the Spirit of Christ into our hearts so that we can know what being a son of God really means and how Christ in us will live it out in the everyday activities of our lives.

Jesus as He walked around saw His Father at work in many ways. One day He spoke to the crowds and asked them why they were so worried about what they were going to eat and what they were going to wear. Now we see that Jesus was never concerned about what He was going to eat, or what He was going to wear, or where He was going to sleep that night. It was not because He had American Express or VISA, or Mastercard. What He did have was a knowing of His Father. A relationship with His Father as the Son who knew His Father. The crowds did not know that it was their Father who was taking care of the birds who neither sowed nor reaped, there was no tithing, no seed sowing, there was no praising going up so that blessings would come down. No none of that, just God their creator taking care of them. Jesus asked them an insightful question that we need to ask ourselves and one another, are you not worth more than birds? Yes we are. We are His children His sons. God is our Daddy and He cares for us more than we know and more than we can ever know left to ourselves developing our own relationship with Him. He is not a dead beat father who has to be taken to court to make him take care of his children. No, He knows our needs before we ask!! God has declared that He has sent Christ into us so that we might relate to Him just like Christ Jesus relates to Him as Father knowing Him the way Jesus knows Him.

Please keep in mind that you can be a son and yet not know much about your father. In fact you can live with your father and work with your father and eat with your father and still be very limited in your actual knowing of him. That is one of the points in Jesus telling of the parable of the Prodigal Son. I rather see it as the parable of two very different sons who neither one knew much about their father. And because they were very limited in their knowledge of  their father, each of their own personal relationships they developed with him were deeply wrong. Each had a personal relationship with their father, but neither of them really knew their father. What both of them needed was the Spirit of Christ in their hearts whereby they could know their Father as He really is to them.

So, who is the Christ that is in us? Firstly He is the anointed Son of God who has come to be alive in us with the same relationship He has with God who is our Father. His presence in us enables us to now know God as our Father in the exact same way that Jesus knows Him, not like the two sons in te parable, or even like anyone else no matter how “spiritual” they may be in our eyes. There is only one person who is ordained and anointed to give us the one and only relationship with God as our Father that pleases Him. Thanks for Christ in us, the Anointed Son of God our very life and access to our Father that we might be the sons of God that pleases Him.

Please share any thoguhts you may have with us.

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Christ, Many Members One Body

I just finished reading Frank Viola’s blog for today December 28, 2010. Frank’s focus today was giving thanks publicly through his blog to those who have been and are of help to him. This morning as I was thinking of adding to this blog, the Lord nudged me to share a little about His Body and our need for one another.

For the past few Sundays we have been considering again the importance of each member of the Body of Christ. In fact we have been taking some time when we come togther to encourage ourselves to see Christ in one another; to notice that Christ is sitting besde you and behind you and in front of you as He occupies those around us.

The internet has really given me a greater appreciation for the variety that exists within the Body of Christ. I personally have been encouraged by many others in Christ who live in various parts of the United States and other countries around the world. Great men and women of God who are great because of Christ in them. There are a few persons who I have never met in the flesh nor heard their voice who nevertheless I look forward to reading and hearing or seeing them by way of the internet. I really thank God for the Body of Christ and the many who I am knowingly linked to and the many who I am linked to but don’t know them. Since there is but one Body we are all linked together; we are members one of another.

What I have noticed is that there is a common understanding of Jesus Christ that is spreading throughout many members of the Body. I hear the same teaching from various parts of the world. The words might be a little different, but the essence of what is said remains the same. On several occasions I have emailed persons asking if they know so and so who is teaching the same thing. Most of the time the response is no they have not heard of the other. It is a great thing to witness the Spirit of God training up the Body of Christ. Some are at the little children level. Some are at the young man level, and some are at the father level. It is amazing to see it from all over the world.

What Frank’s blog today pointed out in my mind is the absolute necessity each one us have for one another. We all owe a note of thanksgiving to the many God has used for our benefit. We are complete in Christ. But yet we are not complete by ourselves even with Christ in us. It is the same way that my hand is complete as it is, but it really is not without the rest of my body. In fact my hand can not do anything my head tells it to do without the rest of my body. The truth is that my hand will die if it tries to live without the rest of my body.

One of the Holy Spirit’s teachings through the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 is that one member can not say to another member I have no need of you. I focused my attention on the fact that Paul said CAN NOT. He did not say should not say I have no need of you, but rather he said CAN NOT. It seems that it is impossible for any spirit filled member of the Body of Christ to say they have no need for the other members of the Body of Christ. This understanding is vital for us in the Western part of the world where individualism is king. The mindset that now that I have Christ I don’t anybody else is extremely dangerous, and shows a level of childish understanding of Christ who is both Head and Body.

There is a very serious issue Paul pointed out to the Church at Corinth. Even though they were members of the Body of Christ, and had all of the gifts of the Spirit, they lack one major thing. They could not discern the Body of Christ. As a result of not discerning the Lord’s Body, Paul said that many of them were weak, sick and some had even died. WOW.  Paul stated this in chapter 11 just before he began to do some serious teaching about the Body of Christ in chapter 12. One of the dangers for me and for you is to think and act like we don’t need other members in the Body of Christ because we are complete in Christ. It happened to many in Corinth and the result was that many persons who were complete in Christ became weak, became sick and died because they did not consider their union with one another in their union with Christ. Their view of Christ had not matured to see Him in all of the other members who were vital to their own functioning and life.

Many today can remain childish in their understanding of being complete in Christ and leave the fellowship of other members to express their freedom. It’s a childish teenager thing. Freedom is not a location, nor a setting but a state of mind based on the truth of God’s word that is discovered in Christ. It is a living fact no matter where we are or the circumstances we are in; we are free because of Christ living in us. He that the Son of Man sets free is free indeed! It does not matter if you are in a house church or traditional church setting, or no church setting. Certainly Jesus was free as He sat in the temple listening to the Pharisees wrongly teach the scriptures. Paul was free when he was sitting in jail. The setting never defines who we are, except for our place in Christ where the Father has set every one of us. There are many everywhere who need to find the freedom in Christ we have received. 

There is another very special thing about the Body of Christ. The different types of members. Not all of the members are the same. We do not look the same, we do not act or behave the same, we do not even grow the same. Using the human body as a factual illustration opens up great lessons for us. And all of us have one, so we take this great classroom around with us and we have the greatest teacher in us. Who can take the things concerning Christ and reveal them to us. We have many members that make up our one body. Our eyes are not our ears. Our eyes do not look like our ears. Our eyes do not behave or act or function like our ears. In fact that is one of the major reason that they are different for the glory of God. Different members are needed for different functions. This is huge in my mind to discern and appreciate the many members in the Body of Christ. It helps me not to compare myself with anyone else, and to not judge others as well. I can not understand why some members act the way they do, just like many can not understand why I act the way I do. We are different but have the same life of the same Christ in us. My eye does not understand my ears. But they work together and I am glad that my eyes see and my ears hear. This can be the source a lot of misunderstanding. When we think that everyone else should do like us; act like us, grow like us. We can forget that most of the other members of the Body are not like us at all. God has designed them to be different in order for Christ who is the the Life and the Head to express Himself through them. The only thing that is the same about every member in the Body of Christ is agape, love. It s the only thing that gives anyone the evidence that we are real members of the Body of Christ. I John 4:7,8.

At a later time maybe we can consider the different functions of the Body of Christ and the fact that each member supplys to the other members what it receives. We are very limited in our understanding of how the members of our physical body works. How much more are we limited in our understanding of how the members of the Body of Christ works? But we need to understand so that the Body of Chrst can be built up to the maturity of the fullness of Christ. And this is what is happening within the Body of Christ. I want to shout right now. Father you are wonderful!!! You are beyond words!!!

You have any thoughts about this? I would love to hear from you.

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Christ In Me??

Paul is an amazing man. I like his honesty. When he looked at himself he declared that he was the chief of all sinners because he wasted the church. And he said that he was ignorant when he did it. Not giving an excuse, but just telling it like it was, he was ignorant. He did not know who God really was, and he had really misunderstood Jesus Christ and what He was all about.

What a breath of fresh air it would be for all of us to say the same thing. We were ignorant. Just did not know. I thought I knew, but I really missed the whole point. Therefore I wasted the church with wrong teachings and wrong understandings about God and what Jesus was really all about. It would do all of us some good if we would just admit it. My hand is raised. How about yours?

Well Paul is also an amazing man because of what God showed him. Paul was taken back to his birthday, the day when he was born into this world. He has a very different view of it years after his conversion, born again experience, receiving Christ, or however one might say. He saw that God was in the delivery room, and not just present, but he saw that was the one who had separated him from his mother’s womb. God was running the show. I don’t know who was there, I am sure they were not down at the general hospital in the maternity ward. But one thing is certain, God was on the scene, actively involved in Paul’s physical birth.

God was there due to the fact that there was an established plan, purpose and down right reason why Paul was born. I feel a shout coming on as I write. God was present when you were born. God was actively involved with your physical birth. You may were down at the general hospital in the maternity ward. But unbeknown to you God was right there. Oh… He had an established plan, purpose and down right reason for you when you were born as well. I hope you feel like shouting or whatever it is that happens when you can hardly contain yourself for the joy that is in you when you hear great news.

God was also there when the man who was blind from birth was born. No body understood why this blindness happen to this man. Many thought it was because of sin. Some body had to sin for this to happen. They sinned in a way that caused this blindness. That was what many thought. They had concluded that either the parents had sinned or the man himself had sinned (I guess before he was born?!?). Jesus had to bring a ray of understanding that no it was not sin, but it was for the glory of God. I am not going to act as if I understand all of what that means. I will say this. There was reason and purpose beyond the understanding of everyone there including the man himself. Jesus opens the door just slightly to say God’s glory is a mystery in many instances beyond our sight. Healing happened.

Paul receives an understanding that is wonderfully powerful. He states that God had separated him from his mother’s womb and called him to reveal Christ in him. In other words Paul was saying that God wanted to unveil, to make known, to show off, to present His Son in Paul. This was radical thinking. This was radical truth. This was radical teaching. It still is today. You are here,  I am here and everyone around us  are here so that God might reveal His Son in us! Some have not heard the call yet. Others know that they have been called, but don’t know to what they are called or why. they were called. While others have discovered this amazing truth that God wants to reveal His Son in them.

Paul needed to know this before he could preach! Otherwise all he could preach would be dead doctrines. Stuff that had been handed down to him. He was taught by the best. He had the best genealogy, from the tribe of Benjamin. He had the highest authority, a member of the Sanhedrin and letters from the High Priest. He had the greatest zeal above his contemporaries. But he did not have what it takes to preach God’s good news. He needed a personal revelation of God’s dealing with him even his being here, and he needed to see what God had done in him. He had to know that in order for God’s Son to be revealed in him, he needed to know that Christ was in him and he needed to know how did Christ get in him. This was an absolute necessity for Paul. It is an absolute necessity for you and for me.

You can tell the difference between someone who has a head knowledge of the Word of God. They have been taught the doctrines. They have been tested to see if they can recall what they were taught. They can remember certain ways to recall and to present the major points concerning certain doctrines. What is missing is what is absolutely necessary, a personal revelation of God’s dealing with them in such a way that they know that Christ of a truth is in them and that they must have Christ revealed, displayed, shown, made know through them. Only then can one speak. Only then does anyone have anything worth saying. It is Christ in you the hope of glory. It is Christ alive in you.

Please notice that this was so radical that Paul did not go to Jerusalem and meet with the other Apostles right away or soon thereafter. What he had revealed to him would have surely been watered down and maybe even challenged by the others. No Paul spent three years letting this God-given revelation take root in his spirit and soul. It rearranged all of what Paul thought he knew about the scriptures. It gave him a new way of seeing everything and everyone. He saw himself radically different. God gave him an understanding about himself that no one else could give him. It was so radical that everything that he had treasured and had gained as a result of his hard work and privileges that came with his advancements he saw and counted them as garbage when compared with the knowledge of Christ. Paul understood that the more he knew of Christ the more he knew of who was in him and who was being revealed in him.

What about you? Have you come to know that Christ is in you? Have you taken the time alone with God to let the truth about you take root. It took Paul 3 years in the desert after he saw Jesus. How long will it take for you with all of the distractions all around? Whatever it takes, please take time to think about who you really are and God;s involvement with you. Be ready for some radical changes in your thinking about God, yourself, other people and the circumstances around you. You may have started, but been distracted. Don’t worry about that. Just take some more time. Take a little today and a little tomorrow. Those little times will added up. Remember Christ is in you and He delights in revealing Himself to you as well. And the Holy Spirit is there to take the things of Christ and show them to you, for they are yours.

If this has been a help to you, please share it with others, and let me know your comments.

Don Curtis

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Greater Than John The Baptist?

If you follow Jesus you will soon find Him saying some unbelievable things. I am sure that those 12 men who followed Him around had to scratch their heads many a time. He said more remarkable things. He made statements that no one else could make. He spoke like no other man had ever spoken before. No on can speak like He spoke. He spoke with authority and continues to speak with authority. His words are spirit and life. His words are life changing. All of what He said is absolutely true. You and I can let His words live richly in us. We can open our hearts totally to Him knowing that He gives us life and it is an abundant life.

What Jesus would say got Him in trouble on many occasions. In fact the very first time He stood up and read from the scrolls, He was driven out of the temple and was near death. They wanted to kill Jesus because of what He had said. You can read about it in Luke 4:18-30. Fascinating story. Church folks were ready to kill the Son of God.

There were other times when what Jesus said went way over everyone’s head and no one really understood what He was talking about. There were times when those who followed Him began to rethink their commitment to Him and many turned and went away. Still there were other times when even those who were the closest to Jesus, His disciples or the twelve, as they were known, were slow in believing what He said. They often missed the point of it all.

Just for a few moments I wanted to call our attention to something He said that affects you and me right now. It’s powerful. Jesus was talking to a large number of people about John the Baptist and said that there was no one born of a woman who was greater than John the Baptist. Now we can handle that with little or no problem. He was a great man used mightily by God. That being true, we may want to suggest that Moses or Abraham, or Isaiah or Daniel or maybe David could be considered for the title of the greatest born of a woman. Do you have any suggestions? I think all of us might. However, since Jesus said John the Baptist was, we all surrender to His statement due to Jesus being THE truth.

Jesus goes on to say something else that is mind-blowing. After saying what He did about the John the Baptist, Jesus went on to say that the least one in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than him, John the Baptist. Can you believe that? Jesus said that whoever is the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than John the Baptist. WOW. That means that if you consider yourself as the least  one in the Kingdom of Heaven than you are greater than John the Baptist. He goes on to say let him who have ears to hear let him hear. Are you hearing this?

Have you thought about the magnitude of what God has done for you as a result of Christ’s living in you? Without the faith of Christ working in us, this saying of Jesus would be unbelievable. It would go way over our heads. Some would simply walk away because it is a hard saying. However it is true. It has to be true. I must be true. It is true. Jesus started off by saying TRULY I SAY TO YOU. So Jesus knows how radical of a thing He was about to say, so He gives an intro to it by saying truly I say.

It is one thing to be born of a woman, in fact it is the only way we come into this world is through a woman. however, anyone and everyone born of the Spirit of God is greater than John the Baptist or anyone else born of a woman. Oh, this really elevates the status of all who are born of the Spirit of God. Have you given much thought to your status as a Child of God born of His Spirit? Have you considered and received this truth that you are greater than John the Baptist?

There is so much all around us that works against tnderstanding this kind of truth. The biggest hinderance is found in religion and religious systems. The separation of God’s children into classes of clergy and laity hinders the reality of what Jesus said about all of those in the Kingdom of Heaven. What would happen if all of us understood who we were and understood how God sees us? For one thing we would shake off all man-made religious systems and practices that treat us like we are less than John the Baptist. In fact many religious systems that I have had some contact with treat you like you are just a sinner saved by grace, who needs deliverance or something more. I thought Jesus took away the sin of the world. If He took them away then… Oh that’s another story.

This truth that Jesus spoke needs to be spoken over and over again. We need to hear what Jesus says about us. We need to hear how God feels about us in light of Christ living in us; in light of us being the very Body of Christ; in light of us sitting together in heavenly place with Him; and in light of us being sons and daughters of God. I earnestly believe that more understanding is needed about the magistry, glory and wonder of the new birth. More is needed about the richness of the life of Christ that is in us, and what His life in us makes us to be. Not something that we shall be, but what we are right now. I know that we shall be a lot more than what we are right now, but I believe that many are lacking a fuller understanding of what we are right now. As Paul stated there is a glory of what we are right now and there is a glory of what we shall become. But there is a present time, right now glory that Jesus has given to us. Every one of us born of His Spirit has it. Paul’s prayer for the church was that they would have wisdom, knowledge and understanding of the hope of God’s calling, of the richness of their inheritance, and of the exceedingly greatness power of God’s towards them. I thank God and I am excited that many are coming once again into a fuller understanding of Christ in them the hope of glory.

We could pray that we might know that we are greater than John the Baptist and how we might live with that understanding as the greater one Christ Himself is in us right now. Please pray that for me and for those who we gather with us here at Christ’s Church in Maryland as we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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God’s Mystery Revealed

Isn’t it amazing that God is revealing truths right now that the Old Testament prophets did not know? Have you thought about the fact that you are privileged to hear truths today that were not spoken to Moses, Abraham, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Joel and Daniel? It is amazing. God used them for very special tasks that only He could do as they were moved by the Holy Spirit of God. We are told that even the angels were trying to look and see what God was up to as He dealt with man down through the ages.

Paul comes along as God’s messenger with a very amazing word from God that reveals the mind of God concerning you and me. This revelation is not off the beating path of God’s Will. Rather it is an illumination, a bringing to light of what God had planned before He created anything. What is exciting to me is that God hid this from everyone during the past ages, and decided that He would make it known in the times of the New Testament, which includes the time in which we are living right now.

God wants His mystery to now be known by the church and everyone that is a part of the church, the one and only Body of Christ. What excites me is to know that God wants me to know something very special. So I can ask Him to continually make it known to me. i can go directly to Him and say, Father I am open to hear and receive your amazing mystery, please make me see it, receive it, and live in it.

It is exciting to see and hear of brothers and sisters from various nations coming into an understanding of this wonderful mystery of God. Many are finding great grace, and great peace, and great joy, and great freedom as they hear and receive God’s mystery of CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY!!

The glorified, living Jesus Christ in you and me is God’s mystery that He is revealing everyday to some heart that has been in bondage to religion and religious systems that all fail to present anyone faultless and blameless in the presence of God. Even many who for years have been trying to live right, to live as Christ in following His example have come to see that it takes Christ in them to have life. It takes Christ Himself in you and in me to men and women created in the image of God. It takes God in us to reflect God out of us. It is so simple. But it seems to take us a long time to come to it, and to really come to Christ.

There are some folks in the Body of Christ who have helped me see what I heard the Lord say within me; “I am not a part of your, I am your life”. I will never forget that day when sitting in a men’s retreat session, I began to thank God that He was a part of my life. He told me, no He was NOT A PART OF MY, BUT HE WAS MY LIFE. It took several years before I really began to understand what that really meant. I am still learning and I am thankful for those He has used to further my understanding and to confirm what He has already given me. He said that He has given us everything that we will ever need for both life and godliness. I just did not know it. Some of these folks are: Steve Pettit, Jim Fowler, Major Ian Thomas, Peter Wade, Bill Freeman, Malcolm Smith, Frank Friedman, Dan Stone, Fred Pruitt, John Bunting, Boyd William, Paul Anderson-Welch, Steve McVey, Bertie Brits, and just connected with Frank Viola. They are from the U.S. to South Africa. Those who have web links are listed among our links on this blog.

It is amazing how God uses various other brothers at various stages of our growth. There were many who helped in other stages of my growth that I am just as thankful to God for them. i guest you have noticed that I have used the word “amazing” a lot. Our english composition instruction would tell to use other words  the same one over an over agin, but it is amazing what God has done and is doing. Hope this was helpful to you. If so please pass it on to your friends family  and co-workers. Love to hear your comments, and checkout the links.