Sunday, March 13, 2005

A Better Mouse Trap


This portion in particular really spoke to me afresh, of NOT SEEING the reality of Satan within our Flesh!

I just don't see how the Holy Spirit - who is part of the Holy and Blameless Almighty - could reside in a stained and sinful person. I thought sin separated man from God... then how can God dwell within us, lest we be cleansed? If the Spirit is in me, I'm free from the chains of sin. Sinless!

We are FOREVER clean in our spirit-union, BUT, in our soul where there is to be an outer expression of this dynamic and miraculous union, it will not come into any visibility by clinging to the "right to myself". "He who losses his (soul) life will find it. It is in this arena (in our soul) the battle unfolds moment by moment. I see the overcoming we are called to do, is also in this same arena. My soul needs to be enlightened and the only source is the Light-Christ Jesus. Not knowledge, 2+2=?? Its as if our soul is a mirror,..... mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the pharisee-est of them all? Who's grooming who?

A quote from my friend Bill:

"If Jesus was different at any point from what any person who accepts God's offer of salvation can be, then Christ's earthly life was ineffective.
What would God prove by coming to earth as Holy God and living a sinless life? The answer, I believe, is "nothing". Not only did Christ have a fleshly (Satan or sin) part in His physical body, He had to have such a part. The only way that Christ could possibly touch us was to become like us, exactly like us except without committing sins. The only way that Christ could fully relate to us in our earthly condition was to experience our life:

"Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted." (Hebrews 2:18)
It is only in this way that Christ could become the perfect sacrifice to create a way to freedom for us. To take this even further, it was essential for Jesus to have a component of Satan in the flesh because Christ came not just to provide forgiveness of sins. The Father's plan was much more comprehensive than just extending to the remission of sins. After all, the temple service provided animal sacrifices for the purpose of forgiving sins. What the Father was looking to do through the life, and death and resurrection of Christ was far deeper than simple forgiveness:

"For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man." (Romans 8:3)
The shed blood is for the remission of sins. The broken body is for the breaking of Satan's (sins) power over our lives. When Christ was taken to the cross, Satan (in His flesh) had to go with Him: "And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross." (Colossians 2:15) If for no other reason than this, Jesus had to have a flesh part of His makeup. This allows the sacrifice of Christ to extend to us as the offer of a new life through our death to the old sin-slave nature."

Rich

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