January
8
He died for all, that
those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him (2 Corinthians
5:15 NIV).
We can only know Christ
after the Spirit, so that Christ for us in this dispensation is spiritual in
the sense that all that we know of Him or can have to do with Him can only be
in the Spirit. “Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the
flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know
Him in this way no longer” (2 Cor. 5:16). He is known after the Spirit. Our
resources are spiritual. The weapons of our warfare are spiritual. Everything
has got to come to us from above. The one great effort of the enemy, which is
again and again successful through this dispensation, has been to bring the things
of God down to the attachment with this world, attachment to this earth, to
make them something here....
You only need to read
John to see how unattached everything is, how everything is lifted clean out of
this world, and everything is bound up with the fact that Christ is in heaven,
and that the Lord’s people are here, but not here; here, but not known; in the
world, but not of it; a mystery people in this world so far as the world is
concerned... unrecognized, unknown. And yet by that very means and for that
very reason, the most potent force that this universe knows: the spiritual,
hidden, secret people of God in this earth. To take hold of Christianity and
mold it, and shape it, and systematize it, and crystallize it, and make it some
mighty movement here; with its roots here, with all its associations such as
man can see, appreciate and approve; to register itself upon the ordinary
consciousness of this world as being something; all of that is contrary to the
Word of God and is contrary to spiritual life and spiritual power. Christ is in
heaven, and we are lifted out, translated, seated together with Him in the
heavenlies. Our present purpose in this world is testimony only, by which
others will be taken out of the nations, a people for His name.
This photograph is by Carin Roaldset.
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