Wednesday, July 31, 2019
The Crucified “I”
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the {life} which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me. -- Galatians 2:20
What is the “I” that was crucified with Christ, and exactly how did that “I” get crucified? I am always making a feeble attempt to give definition to phrases that have for so long been used by believers that few stop to think about and grasp their meaning. Think of how the phrase, “How are you today?” got so overused that saying it today just means, “Hello.” Rarely does someone care to hear a prolonged assessment of the state of another’s health and disposition. The world and the enemy have plotted to overuse words to reduce their significance, words like Jesus or love. “I have been crucified with Christ” has been thrown around, quoted, and memorized to the point that its meaning and importance have been diminished. My motive in discussing what it could mean is that believers might increasingly understand it and incorporate it into their being. If the reader differs with my definitions and descriptions, I urge you to search for a definition that you can satisfactorily accept, that it might encourage you in your walk with Christ.
Imagine a team of physicians converging on a live man lying on an operating table; they were charged with the task of finding the “I” in the man. Would they be able to find it? No! It is because the “I” of Galatians 2:20 is not a material thing but an attitude; the “I” has wrapped itself, like the roots of a great tree, around every visible fiber of the man. Try to cut it out of the mind and next find it in the will; remove it from the will and discover it has grown back into the mind. “I” is the attitude of glory, pride, righteousness, and strength; in short, it is the attitude of wanting to be God. Being made in His image is not enough, for “I” wants to be worshipped and occupy the center of the universe that belongs to God. The body cooperates, for since it was made from the dust, it is not drawn to the spirit and therefore enjoys the indwelling “I” that allows the flesh to follow flesh.
A wet sponge placed on a dry one will become dry itself, because its water will flow to the other in transference. The day one believes on Jesus, God takes his body and nails it together with Christ on the cross, nailing, as it were, the two sponges together, the believer’s dripping with proud “I” and Christ’s empty “I” of humility. What happens next is transference; the believer loses all of his “I” attitude and life as it soaks into Him. When it is all over, the believer is nothing but a dry sponge, no anti-God attitudes and no life. The believer’s “I” coming into Jesus to do battle for supremacy is no different than the other battles He had already won; He kills the believer’s “I” attitude or life center. It may not be hard to imagine one sponge soaked with “I” being nailed to the One void of “I,” but what of the billions of people, and all at one time? There was so much anti-God “I” in Jesus on the cross that the Father had to cut the umbilical cord. The great I AM, Jesus, the Word, had always been in unbroken fellowship with God, Who was Jesus’ “I” attitude and life. The break killed His body. II Corinthians 5:21, “He made Him who knew no sin {to be} sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
What is the “I” that was crucified with Christ, and exactly how did that “I” get crucified? I am always making a feeble attempt to give definition to phrases that have for so long been used by believers that few stop to think about and grasp their meaning. Think of how the phrase, “How are you today?” got so overused that saying it today just means, “Hello.” Rarely does someone care to hear a prolonged assessment of the state of another’s health and disposition. The world and the enemy have plotted to overuse words to reduce their significance, words like Jesus or love. “I have been crucified with Christ” has been thrown around, quoted, and memorized to the point that its meaning and importance have been diminished. My motive in discussing what it could mean is that believers might increasingly understand it and incorporate it into their being. If the reader differs with my definitions and descriptions, I urge you to search for a definition that you can satisfactorily accept, that it might encourage you in your walk with Christ.
Imagine a team of physicians converging on a live man lying on an operating table; they were charged with the task of finding the “I” in the man. Would they be able to find it? No! It is because the “I” of Galatians 2:20 is not a material thing but an attitude; the “I” has wrapped itself, like the roots of a great tree, around every visible fiber of the man. Try to cut it out of the mind and next find it in the will; remove it from the will and discover it has grown back into the mind. “I” is the attitude of glory, pride, righteousness, and strength; in short, it is the attitude of wanting to be God. Being made in His image is not enough, for “I” wants to be worshipped and occupy the center of the universe that belongs to God. The body cooperates, for since it was made from the dust, it is not drawn to the spirit and therefore enjoys the indwelling “I” that allows the flesh to follow flesh.
A wet sponge placed on a dry one will become dry itself, because its water will flow to the other in transference. The day one believes on Jesus, God takes his body and nails it together with Christ on the cross, nailing, as it were, the two sponges together, the believer’s dripping with proud “I” and Christ’s empty “I” of humility. What happens next is transference; the believer loses all of his “I” attitude and life as it soaks into Him. When it is all over, the believer is nothing but a dry sponge, no anti-God attitudes and no life. The believer’s “I” coming into Jesus to do battle for supremacy is no different than the other battles He had already won; He kills the believer’s “I” attitude or life center. It may not be hard to imagine one sponge soaked with “I” being nailed to the One void of “I,” but what of the billions of people, and all at one time? There was so much anti-God “I” in Jesus on the cross that the Father had to cut the umbilical cord. The great I AM, Jesus, the Word, had always been in unbroken fellowship with God, Who was Jesus’ “I” attitude and life. The break killed His body. II Corinthians 5:21, “He made Him who knew no sin {to be} sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Monday, July 29, 2019
Saturday, July 27, 2019
Thursday, July 25, 2019
He Who Knew No Sin Became Sin
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. --II Corinthians 5:21
Spiritual glue is holding all things together (Colossians 1; Ephesians 4; Acts 17). Jesus is the invisible nuclear glue that is holding all things together. He is the positive. Like opposing ends of magnets, God is naturally attracted to man, and man is very drawn toward God. Think, though, of trying to force together two positive sides of magnets; those repel one another, and it is very difficult to bring them near to one another. Man is fine as long as he views himself as the negative that he is when compared to all that is positive in Christ. However, through pride and believing himself sufficiently positive not to rely on God, man invites sin into his being, which causes the glue holding him together to be repelled by the sin. The glue withdraws, and the man is less and less a reflection of the image of God. If sin continues to be invited in, the man will, in time, no longer resemble the image of God; in fact, the sin makes him sick. God did allow for a fix for all of this. The sin could be taken out of a man and placed on an animal, though because an animal is not created in the image of God, sin so distorts it that it must be killed. The animal was a good representation of the loss caused by what man had done. For example, a dove represents freedom, song, and peace, all things that man lost through sin and the dove would lose by way of death. Sacrifice of a man was never required until the fullness of time when the sins of the whole world (past, present, and future) had reached their culmination. On the cross God broke the divine umbilical cord that ran from Himself to the Son and placed on the Son the sins of the whole world. That sin was so great that it drove the very life out of Him, at which point sin, Satan, the world, death, captivity, and hell encased Him. He sank to the depths of hell but, to the surprise of all, broke out! He conquered all that had encased His life, ripped open the gates of hell, preached, and even took captivity captive to disable the free exercise of its power. He then waited until God raised Him back into His slain body, in which awaited the sins of the whole world. This time He entered back into the body with the power of an indestructible life, met the sin, and conquered sin in the body! His Life was so powerful that it even transformed His earthly body. It is one thing to accept that He has done all that in His body, but the next step is for the believer to acknowledge the truth that Jesus can do it in his own body!He can, He will, and He has.
Spiritual glue is holding all things together (Colossians 1; Ephesians 4; Acts 17). Jesus is the invisible nuclear glue that is holding all things together. He is the positive. Like opposing ends of magnets, God is naturally attracted to man, and man is very drawn toward God. Think, though, of trying to force together two positive sides of magnets; those repel one another, and it is very difficult to bring them near to one another. Man is fine as long as he views himself as the negative that he is when compared to all that is positive in Christ. However, through pride and believing himself sufficiently positive not to rely on God, man invites sin into his being, which causes the glue holding him together to be repelled by the sin. The glue withdraws, and the man is less and less a reflection of the image of God. If sin continues to be invited in, the man will, in time, no longer resemble the image of God; in fact, the sin makes him sick. God did allow for a fix for all of this. The sin could be taken out of a man and placed on an animal, though because an animal is not created in the image of God, sin so distorts it that it must be killed. The animal was a good representation of the loss caused by what man had done. For example, a dove represents freedom, song, and peace, all things that man lost through sin and the dove would lose by way of death. Sacrifice of a man was never required until the fullness of time when the sins of the whole world (past, present, and future) had reached their culmination. On the cross God broke the divine umbilical cord that ran from Himself to the Son and placed on the Son the sins of the whole world. That sin was so great that it drove the very life out of Him, at which point sin, Satan, the world, death, captivity, and hell encased Him. He sank to the depths of hell but, to the surprise of all, broke out! He conquered all that had encased His life, ripped open the gates of hell, preached, and even took captivity captive to disable the free exercise of its power. He then waited until God raised Him back into His slain body, in which awaited the sins of the whole world. This time He entered back into the body with the power of an indestructible life, met the sin, and conquered sin in the body! His Life was so powerful that it even transformed His earthly body. It is one thing to accept that He has done all that in His body, but the next step is for the believer to acknowledge the truth that Jesus can do it in his own body!He can, He will, and He has.
Friday, July 19, 2019
With Him Or In Him
For in Him we live and move and exist.As even some of your own poets have said, “For we also are His offspring.”--Acts 17:28
A friend of mine was asked where he was with the Lord. He responded, “I am in Denver.” We laughed when we talked of it, but what he said was really quite true. I have often been asked, “How much time do you spend with the Lord each day?” It is a false concept to think that we are “spending time with the Lord,” and therefore confining His presence to a time and a place. It is much more accurate to say that we are spending time in the Lord. This is a great secret. The presence of God is not something that we must search after. Psalm 139:7, “Where can I go from Thy Spirit? Or where can I flee from Thy presence?” The presence of God is simply something that we acknowledge by faith. We live in His presence, we enjoy His presence, and He is forever near, as near as the words in our mouths. Today, all day, we are in Him!
What a beautiful Truth to know and experience Christ being IN us, rather than “up there somewhere.” So, how is it that so much energy is spent by so many Believers trying to find Christ to spend some time withHim, instead of believing God and His clear location of where Christ is?
A friend of mine was asked where he was with the Lord. He responded, “I am in Denver.” We laughed when we talked of it, but what he said was really quite true. I have often been asked, “How much time do you spend with the Lord each day?” It is a false concept to think that we are “spending time with the Lord,” and therefore confining His presence to a time and a place. It is much more accurate to say that we are spending time in the Lord. This is a great secret. The presence of God is not something that we must search after. Psalm 139:7, “Where can I go from Thy Spirit? Or where can I flee from Thy presence?” The presence of God is simply something that we acknowledge by faith. We live in His presence, we enjoy His presence, and He is forever near, as near as the words in our mouths. Today, all day, we are in Him!
What a beautiful Truth to know and experience Christ being IN us, rather than “up there somewhere.” So, how is it that so much energy is spent by so many Believers trying to find Christ to spend some time withHim, instead of believing God and His clear location of where Christ is?
Sunday, July 14, 2019
Wings
Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up {with} wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary --Isaiah 40:31
It has been believed for some time that the South American condor, when old, commits suicide. Many have thought that the great bird would gain enough altitude to ensure its death, fold its wings, and fall to the earth. I was talking to a friend from Argentina whose uncle, a famous gaucho, often observed the odd behavior of the condor and began his own investigation. He discovered that the condor was not committing suicide at all. Actually, increasingly with age the great bird lost its eyesight, so instead of catching the wind and riding high on his magnificent wings, the vulture would flap unnaturally with all its strength to avoid what it thought was imminent danger. The bird would continue fleeing what did not exist until it gained so much altitude that it would run out of oxygen, have a heart attack, and fall to its death.
I was recently told that many believers never receive answers to their prayers, so they need to learn to deal with disappointment. However, as believers we always receive answers to prayers, and the problem lies in so often praying wanting resolution; we want to know what to do or we want to direct the activity of God. We seek and do not find because we have wrongly defined what finding is. What we find when we pray, ask, and seek is faith, a simple thing that is much more enjoyable than immediate answers. Faith takes the whole situation out of our hands and places it in God's hands, removing us from the throne and stopping the frenetic beating of our little wings, giving us our birthright: the gliding, soaring wings of eagles. If through unbelief we begin to beat our wings and lose sight of Jesus, gaining what we think to be altitude, we are only giving ourselves heart attacks. I told Betty the story of the condor and asked, “Where do you think I will go with this story?” She responded, “For you, it can only go to one place: rest.” We laughed, but I acknowledged the fact. Rest in God will not make us tired or weary. Rest is not passivity but trusting in God’s activity.
- Mike Wells
It has been believed for some time that the South American condor, when old, commits suicide. Many have thought that the great bird would gain enough altitude to ensure its death, fold its wings, and fall to the earth. I was talking to a friend from Argentina whose uncle, a famous gaucho, often observed the odd behavior of the condor and began his own investigation. He discovered that the condor was not committing suicide at all. Actually, increasingly with age the great bird lost its eyesight, so instead of catching the wind and riding high on his magnificent wings, the vulture would flap unnaturally with all its strength to avoid what it thought was imminent danger. The bird would continue fleeing what did not exist until it gained so much altitude that it would run out of oxygen, have a heart attack, and fall to its death.
I was recently told that many believers never receive answers to their prayers, so they need to learn to deal with disappointment. However, as believers we always receive answers to prayers, and the problem lies in so often praying wanting resolution; we want to know what to do or we want to direct the activity of God. We seek and do not find because we have wrongly defined what finding is. What we find when we pray, ask, and seek is faith, a simple thing that is much more enjoyable than immediate answers. Faith takes the whole situation out of our hands and places it in God's hands, removing us from the throne and stopping the frenetic beating of our little wings, giving us our birthright: the gliding, soaring wings of eagles. If through unbelief we begin to beat our wings and lose sight of Jesus, gaining what we think to be altitude, we are only giving ourselves heart attacks. I told Betty the story of the condor and asked, “Where do you think I will go with this story?” She responded, “For you, it can only go to one place: rest.” We laughed, but I acknowledged the fact. Rest in God will not make us tired or weary. Rest is not passivity but trusting in God’s activity.
- Mike Wells
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