The same brother asked another question – here is it is and my response.
Thank you Dennis, for your mail.
I read it several times and experienced it as fresh water on dry soil.
I think many of the Christians around me want to see a stronger interaction between their Christian perception and psychological insights and come to certain psychoanalytical steps to be more healthy in soul. I think the thought behind it is the increase inner healing and to become more conformed to Christ. And these people always seems to have a corner on the market. Maybe Watchman Nee taught the same thing when he referred to the breaking of the outer man in order to release the Spirit. But we don’t stretch out to be more like Jesus. We are Christ in the oneness of spirit.
Recently someone wrote that we ‘BE’ the healed and whole in every part of our anatomy. We are not half baked; when Jesus went to the Cross and rose again He revealed that we were redeemed THROUGH and THROUGH (I Thessalonians 5:23 AMP).
But how can we say that if the redemption of our body is still in the future (Rom. 8:23)? Doesn’t what that person wrote sounds somewhat like Christian Science, seeing matter as an illusion, seeing a present redemption where it is still future?
I look forward to hear from you.
My Reply
Yes the”future” verses are glorious too.
But we cannot live in the future now, and we cannot ensure our place in the future by trying to overcome. So we are learning to live every moment by His faith.
How can Jesus say:
Joh 3:12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
Joh 3:13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
Ascended, Descended and in heaven???
Jesus was standing there on the earth as we are, yet he was, and by association/union with Him we ARE in heaven already.
It is not mind over matter, but the Faith of the Son of God. It is other worldly, crazy faith.
Yes we await the redemption of our body in the future, definitely, and thankfully! But while we wait, we confess that “we ARE as He is”- now in this world, in this life, in this weak mortal body.(1Jn4:17)
If we die before the”twinkling of an eye” event, we die with this hope on our lips and in our heart, for it is the same hope that Abraham expressed when he was taking Isaac up the Mountain.
Heb 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
Heb 11:18 of whom it was said, “IN ISAAC YOUR SEED SHALL BE CALLED,”
Heb 11:19 concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.
Concluding? The tests we face with our weak bodies and those we love as well, all lead us to the same conclusion. We conclude that God is able to raise us up. God who has raised us up in spirit and is raising us up in soul, will raise us up in body. He is faithful Who also will do it.
Also in that passage we see our mother Sarah
Heb 11:11 By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.
She had passed her “use by date” as far as man’s estimation, but not according to the Faith of Christ that was in her. She also judged or concluded that God was able.
Heb 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
Heb 11:14 For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.
Like Jesus they confessed that although they were on the earth, they were also from elsewhere. They were ascending and descending, they were in heaven so to speak already by their confession only….but in saying ‘only’ I do not want anyone to think it is just glib words. The confession of our completeness and perfection in Christ-SPIRIT, SOUL AND BODY is what causes God to say that He is NOT ASHAMED of us.
Heb 11:15 And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return.
Heb 11:16 But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
Paul says these Patriarchs are now desiring a better land(immortality and also the Kingdom)….that desire comes through the teaching and groaning of the Spirit –of which we are sharers in. We have opportunity every day to call to mind the sins and weakness and falling short of the body and soul for both are flesh….but we have been brought to the place where we are enabled to receive the promises, be assured of them(by a simple faith choice) and choose to embrace them–confessing crazy things about ourselves!! hahahahaha
Joy inexpressible and full of glory!!
Dennis
