What does it mean to be in Christ? It is speaking of a positional and experiential relationship that goes way beyond the relationships that we have with people in the natural world.
When we receive Jesus as our savior where our spirit becomes alive to him, we are co-crucified, we are co-buried and co-resurrected and co-seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ. Everything negative about our lives died with him, and everything positive about him has been made available to us.
How do we receive all the glorious attributes (the qualities or characteristics of someone) that are in Jesus Christ so that they are manifest in our personality?
In the spiritual realm everything of the spirit is transferable. To transfer means to move from one person to another, so that they take ownership of it. Transference is the spiritual law of how we are changed into His image. The image of Jesus is stamped upon us, we are marked with it, and it penetrates us so that we partake of it and reflect it.
The image of Jesus is a spiritual and mental picture of who he is. The eyes of our spirit and soul must be opened to see him, because it is spiritual and a substance that can be transferred to us, what we see him do and hear him speak penetrates us as we are seeing and hearing it. We experience his thoughts and feelings and attitudes and motivations.
Our spirit has senses, faculties, or abilities. Our spirit obtains information from the spiritual realm, the realm that is unseen with natural eyes. Our spirit gives us the ability to appreciate a particular quality of God when our spirit is made alive to God. Our spirit has the ability to perceive and be motivated by the desires of God.
When our spirit becomes alive to God it becomes alive to the realm of the kingdom of God, the atmosphere of heaven. Our spirit becomes alive to the nature and abilities of God. The eternal life or nature that is inherit in God comes into our spirit when our spirit becomes aware of it.
When a person’s spirit is dead to God, they are not aware of the unseen realm, but only the natural realm that their physical senses perceive. The only awareness of God that they have is in the limited function of the intuition of their spirit that still functions to some degree, in their intuition they know that God is real, but their spirit has no communion with God where his life is flowing into it.
If a person’s spirit is not born again, they are only aware of the natural realm, and the only God they are going to see, is the God that is manifested in and through us. We must learn how to reflect the nature of God so that people are attracted to it.
If we do not learn how to walk in the spirit, where we reflect the divine nature, we are going to walk in the flesh. The flesh is that union of soul and body that acts independently of God. When we are in the flesh, then sin or evil spirits have the opportunity to enter into us and manifest through us.
When we walk after the flesh, we become a stumbling block to people receiving Jesus as their lord and savior. Their image of God is what they see in us.
The church at large does not reflect the image of God. When a person’s spirit becomes alive to God, all of a sudden God becomes real to them to such a degree that this is all they talk about. They are always talking about God. The problem is they must now learn how to commune with God, where they are drinking and partaking of the Spirit of God and then release the flow of God’s Spirit so that other people can encounter the presence of God and desire to have what we have, a personal relationship with God where God is manifesting in their life.
When a person’s spirit becomes alive to God, they must learn how to walk after the spirit and not after the flesh. The flesh is that union of soul and body that acts independently of God and manifests that which is not like God. A walk in the spirit is a flow of God’s Spirit coming into and out of us where we follow his leading.
Most of the church walks after the flesh. Their spirit is alive to God but not communing with God, therefore what they manifest is religious behavior. They are talking about God but not manifesting his nature.
When our spirit becomes alive to God our soul becomes religious. Religion is a set of beliefs about God that do not reflect his nature. This is what the world sees when they meet a person who believes in God but does not yet know him intimately.
As we begin to experience what it means to be in Christ, we begin to have that intimate relationship with him where all his glorious attributes are being transferred to us, so we are reflecting his image. Then the desire of all nations will be awakened, and the world will come to us to have their innermost needs met, and as they learn how to drink of the Spirit manifesting through us, it will become a well of life within them and the kingdom of God will begin to fill the earth.