BEYOND SUBSISTENCE MODE
17/11/24 11:22
You can subsist as a person or flourish. I am in my senior years now. My body is not what it was and I am prone to the diseases of age. But I would prefer to be my now self than endure a re-run of my youth. Some of it was painful. Some pains inflicted by myself and some pains inflicted by others. I enjoy my life, have a wonderful wife, daughter and granddaughter and live a life of discovery and adventure with the Lord. I am able to live life with Jesus as my life. Not as a religion.
BLOWS
I have friends who have taken some knocks – really bad ones, like the death of a daughter or the divorce of a loved wife. It’s tough when you love someone and they don’t like you or love you. Keep in mind that Jesus came among us as the Messiah to offer the love of God and life to all as Himself and was murdered for His efforts
TO GIVE LIFE.
The mystery of iniquity, aka evil, is that there are those who oppose life on the ground that they have some status/entitlement to lose if people are exposed to the un-diluted life/truth. Truth is seldom opposed outright. Just rationalised away in spin and perverse theology.
In the World, a large part of evil comes from the view that certain people, rivers, lakes and coral reefs are expendable. Expendable for the benefit of others. This is the case with monetarism where life is depicted as economy. It has been apparent in the covid pandemic that certain sectors deemed no longer of much use – namely the aged - were deemed expendable for the sake of commerce and industry. Jesus the Christ was deemed expendable for the sake of vested interests. It’s the way of evil.
WITH US
Jesus’ cross is not only about the atonement. It’s about at-one-ment in which the Son of God participates in all the pain, both tiny and major that we endure in our lives as people. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.
The love of God for you and for us is seen in God’s participation in our lives. In all of our lives.
SOVEREIGN UNDOING OF DEATH AND PAIN
Myk Habets following Thomas Torrance writes about the Christ of God, “Becoming what we are in our lost and damned condition in order to save us and reconcile us to himself in the undoing of all disorder and in the triumph of divine Love and Light over all darkness and evil. In the resurrection of Jesus, God has manifested the measureless extent of his power to share with us to the uttermost our perdition and condemnation in order to lift us up to share with him his divine Life and Light, delivering us from the power of darkness and translating us into his Kingdom.” (1)
BAPTISM INTO HIS LIFE
We need less talking about our ‘receiving Christ’ and more immersion in the reality that we have been received into His Life. This life is both oneness with Him and union with Him in the communion that is the trinity.
BIG WIN
The big win for humanity in Jesus is oneness with God. This is renewed union in which the separation of the fall is undone in the person of Jesus. Note that this union is closer and more intimate than our pre-fall condition. In the person of Christ, God is woven into us and we are woven into God as individuals and as the Church. Because the Spirit of God is incarnated in our being we are one with God in the mystery and reality of the spirit come in our flesh. This oneness with God is similar to the oneness of the trinity – individuals who are part of each other, yet uniquely themselves. It’s called perichoresis. Whereby we are part of God, yet uniquely ourselves.
NEW BIRTH, NEW YOU, NEW STATE OF BEING
Our life in the Spirit – the Living Way of the post cross age - is analogous to human parenthood. The joy of love brings physical and spiritual union. A baby arrives who is a combination of the genes of both parents. Yet the child matures to an adult who is entirely themselves. This is a physical parable of the incarnation. Because Christ has united with humanity, God has united with humanity. You are made one with Christ as a daughter/son. Yet in God your mature as a unique son/daughter of God. The Spirit of sonship is lived in your flesh. This is the living way of freedom, holiness and wholeness for you and for us.
(1) Myk Habets, Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance
