In Galatians 2:20, we get one of the richest views of Christ’s ministry for us:
20 I have been crucified with Christ; 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 gave Himself for me.
The soul can have difficulty in understanding the reality that is unveiled to us. We have shared in His crucifixion.
This is the legal side of our identification with Christ.
You see, we participated with Him in His crucifixion. He became one with us.
He laid aside his divine attributes when he came into the earth realm and became one with suffering, lost humanity.
Because he was the last Adam he shared in the innocence (his blood was pure) of the first Adam before he fell and chose the way of the tree of life, instead of the path of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which the first Adam chose. It is called “the do it yourself” path. It is that union of soul and body that acts independently of God, the flesh.
The only difference between Jesus and us is that our soul was shaped by nature, nurture and trauma, but Jesus’s soul was not, this is why when he was still a youth his parents lost track of him, because he was more aware of his heavenly father than his earthly father, but submitted to his earthly father after this in order to honor his earthly parents, this is the only time recorded in scripture, that he was so caught up in the spirit that he was not aware that his natural parents were worried about him.
He also changed the water to wine, before his time, because He saw his heavenly father honoring his earthly mother.
Can you imagine raising a child like this, who always obeyed you, sort of taking the challenge away from raising children. Normally children do not want to share their toys, but the divine nature gives, because it is love.
Jesus was one with us in His substitution.
He shares with us; He shares our sins, our infirmities, our diseases. He took them upon Himself.
The sharing was so real that “he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
He not only had sin been reckoned to Him, but he also literally became sin, just like when in the Old Covenant the high priest laid hands upon the scapegoat and transferred the sin of Israel upon the goat, Jesus actually became sin.
Deity cannot become sin; Jesus did not die spiritually like a lot of believers may have been taught.
His soul was made a sin offering. He took into his soul the sin of the whole human race for three and half hours on the cross. The righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God.
In the new creation, we shared with Him. He is the Head; we are the body.
He has imparted Himself to us, and when He imparted Himself to us, He gave to us a new self in the place of our old self.
That old, fallen, sin-ruled self was displaced by the impartation of the seed (DNA) of God conceived in our spirit creating the desire to please our heavenly Father.
But our soul (self-individuality) must come into agreement with our spirit-ruled, Christ within us to become a manifested adult son, which is a process dependent upon the choices we make in our daily life.
Therefore, God commands us to put on the new self which is our soul in submission to the spirit of Christ in our spirit. When our soul comes into agreement with our newborn spirit, then we become a whole person and no longer divided where our spirit desires one thing and our soul desires another.
But whosoever is born of God overcome the spirit of this world, but it could take our entire lifetime on earth, because our body is still mortal but the older our body gets the less, we desire to fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
Or we can choose to walk in the spirit, and go from grace to grace, faith to faith, strength to strength and glory to glory.
Once we reach a level of spiritual growth which is called maturity it becomes impossible to fulfill the lust of the flesh because we immediately cast down those thoughts and eventually they no longer enter our mind, we put the enemy under our feet and he has no access to us, unless our bonds with other people give him access to our souls, that is why Jesus said.
Matthew 10:34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. 35 For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; 36 and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ 37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
The living word has now become Christ in us. This is the new creation, our spirit is a new creation and is born of God, it is an instantaneous experience.
But our soul is being saved, it is going through a process of renewal. And our body is yet to be saved or glorified.
Jesus became one with us in our soul on the cross. So legally our old man was crucified but we must appropriate it, so that it becomes a vital reality here on earth.
Colossians 3:1–3 Paul says: If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life (Zoe) is hidden with (together with) Christ in God.
Zoe represents God’s life in the hidden man of the heart, which represents our spirit together with Christ.
So, our spirit is one with Christ, it is one and the same spirit. The eternal life of God is hidden in our spirit. When our spirit is born form above the seed in our spirit- “Christ” is born in it.
1 Corinthians 6:17 But he who is joined (present tense- the vital aspect of redemption) to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
The word one heis which means one numerically. One person. One and the same spirit. So, our spirit is the spirit of Christ.
John 10:30 I and My Father are one.”
The word one hen meaning one in essence although two different personalities. Had it said heis it would have meant one person- complete word study dictionary.
To better understand our union with Christ. What is more real than this: “I am the vine, ye are the branches.”
John 15: 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
Here Jesus shows us that we are the fruit-bearing part of Him.
We are the love-revealing part of Him.
We are the part of Him that blesses and touches humanity. We are the part of Him that brings eternal life to lost man. We are sharing in His resurrection.
If we share in His resurrection, we share in His victory over Satan: we share in His victory over sin.
We have been raised together with Him.
We are sharing His victory over the adversary.
Then Satan knows that we conquered him in Christ, that we were “together with the Master” when He triumphed over him, and stripped the principalities and the powers of their authority, making a public spectacle of them.
We are sharing in the things on High where Jesus is enthroned at the right hand of God,
We are seated with Him (legal aspect of redemption).
Ephesians 2:5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made (past tense-legal redemption) us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made (past tense-legal redemption) us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
We are seated as one with Him on the throne now legally.
He is the Head of the body; we are members of the body. Where the Head is, the body is.
The authority that belongs to the Head belongs to the body. Now you can understand Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
You understand now why we were in Christ when he:
Colossians 2: 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
We share in that.
He has given us the legal use of His name. In that name is invested all the authority the Father gave Him after His resurrection.
That name is ours, and we have a legal right to use it.
The days of our defeat and failure are over.
Romans 6:1What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Notice that we shared with Christ in His death, we shared with Him in His resurrection, and we are sharing now with Him at the right hand of the Father (legal aspect of redemption).
We must appropriate it so that it becomes vital in our lives.
Jesus is sharing with us in our ministry as branches of the vine.
We are His testimony.
We are now His confession.
We are boldly telling the world who we are in Christ.
We have taken our rightful place in Christ. We are acting as a part of Him.
We share in everything that He did. This brings the reality of that great oneness between the Head and the body.
We shared in His sufferings.
We shared in His justification, when he was raised from the dead.
We share now in the authority and power of his name, bringing the dominion of the Kingdom down upon the earth.
We are entering into oneness with YHVH as partake of the divine nature, yielding to the inward life of God in your spirit, slowly but surely gaining the ascendency over your reasoning faculties until your mind becomes renewed through meditation on His Word, which is the unveiling mind of Christ.
You will have the mind of Christ, operating vitally in your life.
then you will be sharing in the throne of grace. You own a share in it. Instead of coming there, you will vitally be sitting there, if you being walking with God today, not tomorrow, today is the day of so great a salvation.
What profit is it to gain all that is in the world and then lose your soul. Live for something greater than yourself, live for the kingdom of God, seek it first, and his righteousness, and then all those secondary things will be added to you.
Ephesians 2: 6 and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Why in heavenly places?
Because our Head is there. Jesus is there.
Colossians 3:1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
How does Paul and John and the rest of those who are gathered about the Throne feel about us down here.
When they see us walking in the vital aspects of our redemption, they get excited and come down here, to share in what we are doing. They are the great cloud of witnesses that surround us.
But they are not going to come and visit a church that is building their own little kingdom. They don’t partake of that sort of thing, that little kingdom must come down, so that it can become a part of the great kingdom of our lord and savior Jesus Christ.
They do intercede with Christ for those kinds of churches. Did you know that?
Your loved one’s “those saints in heaven” are interceding for you, they want to see you get this thing vitally working in your life here on earth.
Can you see now how we reign with Him?
In His substitution, we share with Him from the cross to the throne.
We were crucified with Him; we suffered with Him; we died with Him; we were buried with him; we were justified with Him; we were made alive with Him; raised with Him; and are now seated with Him.
For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:17)
This is the climax of our walk with God on the earth.
That overflowing grace is the overflowing of the love nature of the Father that is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
The gift of righteousness gives us our legal standing before the Father.
The overflowing grace coming into our life and nature is spiritual substance, the substance and being of our Father into our spirits.
It is being filled with the Spirit to the point that we overflow creating a kingdom atmosphere, and it is in that atmosphere that the presence of God touches men and women still in the world.
We are not to be going to church to get filled with the Spirit, we are to bring the fullness of the Spirit with us to church and be testifying what God is doing in us and through us out there in the world.
A lot of churches have lost those testimony services, like in the early days, where the believers are sharing what God is doing in their lives and through them in the world. A kind of church that is not taking the time to do that is not making an impact on their city.
My job as a teacher is to spend all my time to equipe you to do the work of the ministry.
I only know of one person out their doing this Shawn Hurley and I do not share this as condemnation, but example, what Shawn can do, you can do.
John Wimber (who started the vineyard churches) prayed for people 100 times before, he started operating in the gifts of healing.
We are members of the body of Christ on earth, and each has his part to play.
Maybe you are a businessman and have your own business, or you have a high paying job, and God has called you to help finance the Kingdom, plus you have a family to take care of and this takes up most of your time, then keep doing that
Maybe you are an intercessor and spend most of your time in intercession.
I had the spirit of intercession keep coming onto me and I would say Lord, I do not have time for this, send me an intercessor, and he did. And I would give her some pray requests, and She could travel in the spirit and go check out the person in their home and then go into the courts of heaven.
But we had a difference of opinion concerning the last days, and I tend to lose some people on Facebook when I teach on that subject.
Can we still not be friends and agree to disagree on a certain subject? We are family, we are going to disagree on certain things, but we still have the same spirit of Christ in us.
If you are a soul winner, then hit the streets, and get one person saved a day, focus on that.
Whatever God has called you to do, he gives you the desire to do and then the ability (anointing) to do it.
Well, I want to be a preacher, well not everyone is called to be a preacher, find your calling and then fulfill that.
I love writing, but I also have a gift to be a preacher, But I must -+
first write some foundational things first, and I am learning a lot from it so that when I do start preaching it will be more powerful.
God has a certain order for each of us individually fulfill that and then God will promote you.
Norvel Hayes began working in the ministry of helps for seven years and then God promoted him to a public ministry of teaching and preaching.
Be faithful in the little and God will promote you to the lot, but sometimes what you think is little God puts a higher value on it to him, that what you think is the lot.