Romans 8:10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.

Romans 8:34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ Jesus who died and, rather, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

Certain religious teachers attempt to systematize the revelation in the New Testament. Under the influence of such systematic teachings, some suppose that since Christ is in the third heaven He cannot be elsewhere, particularly not in us. Nevertheless, the Bible says that Christ is both in the third heaven and in us as well. Furthermore, although Christ is in us already, He is coming. This means that He is both here now and He is coming. I cannot reconcile this. I simply believe both aspects because the New Testament reveals both. The problem many believers have is that they have been religiously indoctrinated regarding the objective aspect of the Lord's coming, to the neglect of the subjective aspect. They pay their full attention to the Christ in heaven and firmly believe in His coming back. However, they neglect the fact of the indwelling Christ, perhaps not even realizing that Christ is now within them. As we are awaiting Christ's coming back from the heavens, we need to enjoy Him inwardly. The Lord Jesus said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and he with Me" (Rev. 3:20). The Lord's word here indicates that He is here already. How we need to experience the living, subjective, indwelling Christ! My burden is to minister such a Christ to the Lord's people. What is the use of knowing how to rightly interpret the Bible if we do not have a direct, precious, and intimate enjoyment of the living Christ?

Everything that is in-between the initial conviction of the Holy Spirit that shows us our sinfulness and need for a Savior, UNTIL we receive the physical change in our mortal bodies and go up to meet Him in the air, is ALL Him working in and on us to fulfill His purpose for us.

And it does not stop with going up through the air, but rather is all a preparation for how we will enjoy Him throughout eternity.

Sadly, there are many people that do not recognize that at any given moment throughout the process, there are graduations of His working within us, and often times we are the ones that limit what what and how He deals with us.

The earnest desire of our hearts should be for EVERY limitation to be broken away that we might impose on how intensely that He wants to work with us.

I dare to believe that He could do more in five minutes of our complete surrender, than in an entire lifetime of kicking and screaming against every little detail that He wants to form within us.

Much of the problem has to do with being able to catch the vision of His glory and how devoid the fallen condition is of THAT glory.

We need to be entirely captured, enthralled, and lost in the wonder of HIM, so much so that we can entirely forget about just who we might think that we are without Him.

Shalom,

JS5777

JS5777 said:

Much of the problem has to do with being able to catch the vision of His glory and how devoid the fallen condition is of THAT glory.

Hi James. Good to hear from you. I agree with you. In the end, sin is to come short of the glory of God.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,