Moment by Moment Cross Pt 3

…Have you yet to come to your senses and seen that because of co-crucifixion you are a child of God and can lay aside the struggle that comes from trying to change?  Is it any wonder that Satan wants to blind you from this glorious truth and keep you in a state of looking to yourself to plot some way to overcome the old self?

As a believer you are completely in Christ (Romans 6:6; Ephesians 2:5-6; Colossians 2:10).  Again, the history of Christ becomes our experience and our spiritual heritage.  As Nee succinctly puts it, “God has put me in Christ, and therefore all that is true of Him is true of me.  I will abide in Him.”  Remember that Christian growth is merely accepting what you have always had from the first day you gave your life to Christ.  Your death in Him has already taken place, so how long will you let this rotting old self remain in our house?  He is, you know, beginning to smell, and no matter how you dress him up, you can no longer hide the obvious and fool your loved ones – he is dead!

…We cannot say it enough: Before we can experience the fullness of His life, we must participate in the fullness of His death…we must be firmly rooted in the death of Christ before we will begin to experience His life.

…If we are once again living in defeat, we may also be tempted to think, The teaching doesn’t work!  But that is impossible, simply because it is not something that we do, but rather something that God has done.  It must work; it does work… “That may be, but I still find myself once again living in defeat.”  Again, it is because you saw the cross as a one-time event, as a method, as a cure-all, and not as the moment-by-moment participation that God intends it to be to keep us near to Him.

I think of all the thoughts I was first introduced to after becoming a Christian.  Not by teachers or friends exhibiting maliciousness, nor intentional, nor as one trying to mislead me…simply by their misunderstanding or having been misled previously.  But all of that caused me for 15 years to read and hear many of the same truths Michael shares in his teachings, getting a tinge in my spirit (God’s Spirit in me) to the truth that was there, but never getting complete revelation of all that God had for me. 

But thank God for the day that revelation started to flow!!!

Check out in summary form some of the most exciting news Michael shares in this portion of SIW that a Christian can have revelation of:

Now…for each of us, we would do well to stop and soak on EACH point until God has revealed the “much” of what He has for us.  Just seeing God in the first point is enough to think about starting 2015 out with a completely different outlook for what each day will hold…for those seeing Him for the first time in “laying aside the struggle that comes from trying to change.”

And for all the rest of the points, as we say here in East Texas…”Hooooooooo-boy!”

As we celebrate the birth of Christ today, I say “Thank you, Lord, for ALL it means to me to be a ‘child of God.’”  And, thank you, Michael and Betty (and all that are a part of ALMI, in Colorado, and New Jersey, and around the world), for getting the message out to a hungry bunch of Christians around the world!

Joy to the world!  The Lord is come!