abba father ; part 1

He is our God. He created us by his design. Of his breath we are.

Rom 8:15-17For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

The spirit which he breathed in us in creation and we became living souls finds its fulfillment in the spirit of Christ regenerated in us. We are resonating God. He created us to resound him.

Yes we have received the spirit of love power and of sound mind. He is our father and there is an African saying that goes ‘mtoto wa nyoka ni nyoka’ an offspring of a snake is surely a snake.

We have been born of God; conceived of God. We know this when we receive the gospel by faith. To them who received him and yet those who believed in his name he gave them the right to become the sons of God. (John 1:12) You see Jesus didn’t come to bring or to pioneer a new movement called Christianity or a group of moral perfectionists. He came to reveal our identity; that we came from God, that we are the God kind, first to the Jews and by extension the whole mankind. He tells Nicodemus “we speak of our testimony but you people don’t believe our testimony”(John 3:11)

He came and mended the walls of hostility that stood between us and God. We thought we were enemies with God but he came and reconciled us to God by his physical body. Jesus tells Nicodemus , we have a testimony, this is our testimony but you don't believe our testimony. Many of us have been introduced to God the headmaster and not God the father of our lord Jesus Christ who is also our father. He is a father full of love. The story of the prodigal son is not so much about the son but so much about the loving father who is waiting to receive us back to his fold. He is our father , the great evangelist who doesn’t wait for us to make repentance speeches but he runs towards us and hugs and kisses our dirt away.

You may see yourself as the worst sinner, a mass of corruption and full of sin consciousness; that doesn’t matter. Love has no competition. No amount of sin offers enough competition to the breathtaking recovery love brings; the Love of the father for where sin abounds grace much more super abounds.

Abba father; behold the proximity

 John the Baptist preached to the people to repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. The long awaited messiah was at the proximity. The kingdom of God which was thought to be as far as possible is now at hand. It is reachable.

The message bible puts it well that the word of God was made flesh and came into our neighborhood

John 1:14the Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish. (Message)

This is what God wants you to see in him, a true and a generous father. He is not about to play dice with you. He is moved with all generosity of love towards you. You may have heard of an Angry God, of judgment and fire. God may have been misrepresented and you may be confused of who God is. The summary is this; our Abba father is love. His love is greater than wrath. And  God's love casts out every fear. In his justice we do see love for he gathered the entire wrath and he consumed it all in himself through his son at the cross.

I don’t know which God you know today; for many know of a God who is not the Lord and the father of our lord Jesus Christ. He is your father, he loves you. In tmy last post I wrote that faith working through love is only possible for them that have all their eggs in one basket. Our one basket is Jesus. He is the only life we know and have. We are not insecure or anxious. What if the only knowledge you had today in the whole world today is that you were loved? Would such knowledge be enough to be your life? Would such knowledge be in great danger, that if you knew God as love you would continue sinning and dishonor him? Would you love a father who is about to chase you away on account of your sins as religion puts it only to reach to you when you are out there and miserable?

Off course Not! If we as parents cannot deny our little ones love how much do you think God loves us? Is little? Is it only if we accept him? Does he love us to the extent that we can obey him and he may somehow withdraw his spirit from us when we don’t have enough obedience points? No Great is his faithfulness. When we are faithless he remains faithful. His faithfulness is the guarantee of love. We love because he first loved us.

faith worketh through love part 2

faith working through love does not work for a person who has not put all his eggs in one basket(R t Kendall)[1]

Kendall my recent favorite writers who wrote in the 80s says that faith working through love is not possible for one who has not put his eggs in one basket –Jesus Christ.

If we have not believed that we have peace with God through the justification that comes with Christ (rom 5:1) then we will be toast like the waves of the sea. Many believers live in the fear that they will somehow be eternally lost if they  don’t carry out their part of being faithful in obeying God effectively.

Kendall says that if it hits you that you are justified and made at peace with God in Christ Jesus forever you will regret that you ever doubted in your heart of your eternal salvation. Yet isn’t it what we see in the church, believers are not sure if they are even going to heaven.

It becomes utterly frustrating that believers are the most active spiritual beings and yet  are the ones who are doubting the God they worship. If we have not put our eggs in one basket by being convinced of our eternal dwelling in Christ, then no matter how perfect we are religiously, we have missed on Christ and his love for us in availing God’s fullness to us.

If God did not withdraw his son from us but freely gave him for us, how much more with him will he grant us all these things we need for life? If God does indeed withhold something from his people until they show some loyalty , then I think God is fair enough to let us know that. If our conscientious religion catapults the heavens to move or if the prayers of the righteous manage to arm twist the arm of the Lord to move for his people, then what is free has been undermined by the performance of man.i am not against prayer, but prayer is prayer in the right context, its communing with God-agreeing with God concerning Christ and what he has accomplished for us aas we see them manifest. No wonder then Christianity has become a frustrating venture of making God move while believing in his son at the same time.We are soon caught up in the man towards God movement- not unless we do something God won't move.

If God has withheld something from us until our performance ratifies his blessings then I bet even that we are wnot worshiping him from the depths of our hearts.

We may say awesome things about God but on the other hand shoot up our defensive darts because we are somehow convinced that God is a short changer who is after our loyalty and obedience. When we see something awesome with our God we may quickly be reminded to cork our religious guns and get back to war and the summary becomes, its all about us.

With our lips we may sing great is thy faithfulness but with our hearts we are singing great is my faithfulness. It’s a schizophrenic spirituality that gives birth to slaves, to zombies.

Would we think that if God requires more works from us to ratify what he has already done, that we would love him more? Is God suffering from personality issues. Is God Emmanuel and on the other side he is about to hide his face from us? Do we honestly want to think that God is withholding anything from us? Anything whatsoever?

What if God wants us to know that Christ is our life now and as effortlessly as breathing the air bet our lives in Him. What if that which we think God will bless us with later he has blessed us now already? Would he love us to know and experience the blessings ; indeed we have been blessed with all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realms in Christ.(eph 1:3) What if God wants to us to know as David forsaw that blessed is the man to whom God does not see iniquity?(psalm 32:1-3) what if we are that generation? Wouldn’t God be glorified in seeing his sons captivated by such realities?

 Friends what if all these are real stuff that God wants us to know? We are in him, all our eggs in one basket. The singer sang and said how great is our God. He is great and the things he has done in us are great. They can only be measured in the weight of Christ, stay blessed.

---

[1] Kendall R T,Once Saved Always Saved(Chicago:Moody Press,1985) 60-65

faith working through love part 1

Galatians 5:6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.

I am currently reading RT Kendall’s old time book “Once Saved Always saved” and he says

Good works do not help the slightest bit with reference to our eternal salvation.Once a person has rested his case in the finished work of Jesus Christ, there is nothing further he can do to help, neither is there anything he can do that can hurt.[1]

Christ saved us single-handedly by his own blood ad this was before we could ever make any repentance speech. We are saved according to the riches of God’s grace. God’s motivation and love in saving us is our reference point; its all of God who in Christ was reconciling the world to himself nt counting the sins of men against them.

Religion catapults us back to that old way of rule keeping. I have seen people suddenly using a modest activity like praying as a bench mark for Christian living. Most peole are motivated by fear and not love to pray. If anything we do as believers comes from the notion that God is withholding something from us unless we pray then we have made prayer our salvation.

Its amazing How God rebuked the children of Israel for changing their religious activity and temple worship into idol worship.The practices that were supposed to draw them near to God pushed them further and further. When what we are doing is not according to love; Herein he first loved us, then we will be motivated by fear.If we are holding fast to our salvation, praying every day, calling the Holy spirit, paying tithe, with the grasp in our hearts that somehow if we don’t do such things , we will be eternally lost, then we are motivated by fear and not love and such things however spiritual they are just nullify the accomplished work of Jesus at the cross.

The intensity of our Christian activity is not determined by the vibrancy of our activities, neither circumcision nor uncircurmcision avails anything- in this case put any law or standard for Christian living, but faith working through love. When faith worked through love the effectiveness of God is working in you. God energizes himself in you so that you can live a life that pleases him. i know those who are going to refute this are going to say “are you saying that we should no longer be devoted to God, pray do this or do that?” What am saying is that neither conscientious activities or us disregarding such activities count but faith being expressed through love.it doesn't matter how spiritual you regard yourself, How anointed and superficial you appear to be; such is not the expression of faith.

Many believers probably don’t understand their stake as a righteous people. Many people are working hard to be counted righteous before God. We are aware of God’s promises but at the same time our antennas are tuned to what we are supposed to do next. It seems like our preoccupation naturally is to methodologies methods and ways. We are enticed when we are given five things to do, seven principles to watch for. Its in regard to this that Paul says these conscientious effort do not amount to anything. They don’t improve or enhance on our eternal state of being blessed. Whether we are not praying enough or whether we are over praying, we are already blessed in Christ Jesus with all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realms. Whether we want to be convinced that its our effort that activates thee blessings or whether we are aware of these blessings; human activity is not the measure of How God operates.

God’s dealing with us is according to the measure of Christ’s gift(eph 4:7) when we operate in that understanding, then faith is operating through love

---

[1] Kendall R T,Once Saved Always Saved(Chicago:Moody Press,1985) 56

Mystical union part 2

What if the vine and the branch are one?

John 15:1-5 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing

Enough of door step Christianity; we have not been called to taste the wonderful things God has for us as if from a distance. We have a consequence of living in union with Christ because of the wonderful operation Christ did at the cross.

Many believers have pushed their full consequence of their union with Christ forward to a future date and have missed out on the present awareness of the fullness that is theirs in Christ Jesus.

Jesus was quick to bring these disciples up to page with what he was going to do at the cross. It began in the previous chapter when the disciples pushed the events forward, show us the father then it will suffice us, John 14:8. This is fter he narrated to them that I am the way the truth and the life.

What if Jesus is the shortcut of the many ways we have devised to reach to the father? You know what I mean when people are in undated to stand in the gap for nations, when people think that without our necessary spirit the Lord will not visit his people.

Where did believers derive this notion that we have to roll up our spiritual sleeves to pray, devote ourselves to pull down the spirit from the heavens?

What if the vine and the branch became one? And the only way we treat ourselves is in the context of ‘in Christ’. I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me,,,,,,,,,,

You are a branch in Christ. When we see a branch we know it as a tree, when we see a leaf we see the bigger picture of the tree. Stop seeing yourself as a branch which is struggling to plunge itself inside the vine. Jesus defines you as a branch in him. You are not striving yourself into Christ neither are you inside the vine more and more. You are in Christ fitted perfectly. There is a difference with you becoming aware more and more and more how you are in Christ and the once and for all operation Christ accomplished in the cross.

The responsibly of the branch of any tree to bear fruit comes from the vine. Yu are untied with Christ. What we are learning is hat our mystical union opens our eyes to behold God’s energy working in us to bear fruit. For God is at work in us to will and to act according to his good purpose; phil2:12-13.

Jesus serves us with a washing until we are clean indeed. This therefore means that we are not orphans who live by self effort. We are united with Christ and from him we derive maximum spirituality. The branch and the vine is now one.

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing

We are in Christ, we are connected mystically to the vine ; we are drawing nutrients from the everlasting source. Whatever is of Christ is passed to us. We are invited into the fellowship of the father and of the son; this is what union means.

We are in Christ. Any teaching that leaves as orphans by telling us what to do to please God. Any teaching that does not draw from the fullness of Christ leaves us in the position of striving to connect with the vine. Christ wants you to rest and draw from him; by the rythms of unforced grace. He teaches us the smart way to live and this is by him and in him. Stay blessed

mystical union of the body, part 1

Every human being, soul yearns to belong, to be associate with family. It’s the security of any human being to belong to a niche of people in who   trust,  confidence and assurance is realized. Perhaps the greatest institution to ever exist is family. God created us in his own image and likeness. He created us and associated us in his family through adoption.

For God chose us (associated us)in Christ before the creation of the world that we should be holy and blameless. God chose us and associated us in his family. We are not of our own. We have a father who is the genesis of our existence.

It’s a tragedy that many believers have not fully grasped that they belong to the family of God. The tragedy which has been amplified by religion is to live a Christian life as orphans. The zeal and passion exemplified by religion is as a moral guess work to please a God who is far away in heaven and may expel his people any time if these people don’t please him enough.

It’s a frustrating venture to worship a God who you don’t know his next move. A relationship motivated by fear and suspicion will never go far. Even if we are religiously inclined and as pious as possible, if we simply don’t grasp the heart of the father, we are as the elder brother who would rather earn his son ship than to just simply belong. The reality that persuades us that we belong to God simply catapults us towards God. It’s the heritage afforded to each humankind since we have been created in the image and likeness of God.

Jesus said that his body is real food and his blood is true drink yet many believers are deprived not infinitely grasping the consequence of being found in the body of Christ, the de la cream of the heart of God.

Beloved what a manner of love the father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God and that’s who we are ; 1^st John 3:1-2. But the children of God are squabbling in trash and yet they are sons of the king.

How I pray that they eyes of our hearts be enlightened t see the hope to which we have been called, the inheritance that is ours in the saints; eph 1:18-19. Oh that we may grasp that our lives are hidden with Christ in God, right there at the centre where we received our atonement. That we may comprehend that we are of the body of Christ, of his fullness we have received grace upon grace. We are in him and his fullness has been emptied in us.

Enough of water melon Christianity. He loves me, he loves me not. I am forgiven, am not forgiven unless I repent. Many Christians are caught up in a shambolic schizophrenic Christianity. When God blesses me, he loves me, when I don’t see any signs of blessings, he doesn’t love me. Many know God as their father, he will never leave them, but when they have not prayed enough or read the bible enough then God will depart from them.

How can we call God our father and then immediately we pray like David that he will not cast us away from his presence? How many revival meetings have been prepared to ask God to come back to us. Why do we battle with the thought that God is about to spew us from his presence because we have failed to honor our performance contracts whereas God himself promised that in this new dispensation he will never hide his face from us. Jesus himself testified that e ill never be left as orphans.

When we don’t understand that we are of the body of Christ, we are in him, we will ask God to do things he has already done. The church today is full of activity but unfortunately many people don’t know that they are sons of God and hence derive joy and satisfaction f knowing that you belong in the family of God. It’s a pity that today’s average Christianity ushers believers to the door and not inside the house here the party is happening. We seem to be intrigued by the window shopping aspect. We seem to stare at God’s promises as in a window. We are in awe with what our redeemed lives offer us but immediately create distance and we are plugged back to works and hope some day we will experience full adoption as sons.

As a result of fully inculcating the “door step” Christianity, many believers console themselves with isolated scriptures like one day tears will be wiped from our eyes or Jesus has gone up in heaven to prepare a place for us, mansions in which we will leave and where will be finally free from corruption. While so much expectation is placed I futuristic events, many believers are missing out on the present. The present lives that is theirs in Christ Jesus.

Many believers are yet to be enlightened on the full consequences of the redemption. Wonderful truths like there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ; therefore those who are in Christ have become new creation, the old is gone and behold all has become new, these wonderful realities have escaped the core of Christianity and are otherwise viewed as conditional clauses rather than being used to release believers in the union they have in and with Christ.

We have been crucified with Christ and the life e live in the body e live as a consequence of our union with Christ.

Let’s have fun together as e explore the mystical union we have with God and in God. Let’s investigate the integrity of image and likeness and the value of mankind redeemed in Christ. Lets break free from religion and traditions of men which urges us to earn our way up to God.

imagine this part 2

 

What we lost in Adam will never be compared to the immense technology of Christ that restores us to all things. Paul describes Christ in Colosians that he is before all things and him al things hold together. In other words in him all things consists.

Col 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,

If I call us to imagine the speed in which God reconciled all things to himself by the cross making amends for fallenness of man, it dazzles us all. Probably we have imagined in our mental faculties and the best that even theology can point us to is our future glorification will happen at rapture. We have been catapult by theology to believe that our complete glorification and redemption will happen in some future day at the rapture as if the events to come are greater than the cross.

We have been left to imagine ourselves as filthy and frail Christians awaiting for full adoption as sons hence glorification. Theology and systematic theology has done its best to peg the necessary verses to assert the finality of its belief system. While we are careful to wait for this event many believers fail to grasp and experience the full meaning of resurrection. We have yet to fully grasp the full meaning of reconciliation. This is because people’s imaginations are filed with the thoughts of Adam; thinking ourselves independent of God and then catapulting the things of God to ourselves.

Perhaps we need to appreciate if its God who did the work of perfecting us, he did it completely and perfectly. There is no eschatological event that adds substance , more substance than what we already have in Christ and this is why Paul was so confident of imagining people reconciled to Christ and was so confident in speaking the things to come.

He reconciled the things in heaven and the things in earth. Vs 20 if you think of the things on earth be it people, systems of governance, sickness, nature, animals. All things on earth have been reconciled by Christ making peace through his blood. Nnow lets allow our mental faculties too be catapult to the realm of the unseen. The spiritual, where the cosmic powers are, even where the things to come are including the future, end of days. Even those things even though not abstract , all have beenreconciled by Christ making peace through his blood.

Perhaps we should be catapult by this eternal activity of God in reconciling us to himself. The message bible puts verse 21 In an awesome fashion

Yet you are a case study of what he does,,,,,

If we imagine that we are the prime centre ; the direct recipients of what God does, then we will appreciate the value of our salvation, for the value of our salvation is directly proportional to the value of our redemption.

is the high time we cast off every imagination that sets itself ABOVE CHRIST.  (2^nd cor 10:5) Every philosophywhether warped or not , it must find its right destination in Christ.

The weapons of the gospel pulls down warped imaginations, , erected barriers and separated mindsets. The gospel removes any methods existing in your mind that you imagine can bring you to fullness. The weapon of the gospel is lethal shaping your lifestyle into the structure of Christ.

Let us let our mental faculties to take an unprecedented high. Let us be humble enough to imagine ourselves the same way God imagines us; He imagines us and he feasts in the reality of our redemption. The gospel is not a method towards God, its Revealing God incarnate and dwelling in us in the person of Christ, halleluiah

You are reconciled to God

imagine this, part 1

 

As a man thinketh, so is he. The power of imagination. The power of the thought, so magnanimous yet most misunderstood.

I love adventure as I earlier stated. A life that is obvious lacks creativity; its dull and scarce of spontaneity and definitely not worthy of the life Christ came to give us.

As a man thinketh so is he, and it all began in that Garden of Eden that the craftiest serpent would seduce the first couple to imagine that they would become like God. How on this earth could this imagination register in their faculties; that they could become like God apart from God? Weren’t they created in his own image and likeness and as by consequence bearing the likeness of God?

The tragedy is that man tries so hard to find satisfaction and arrive at this destination called fullness by his own strength which is an abuse of the integrity of image and likeness already imprinted in man. Take it this way. When we say we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, we are endowed with fullness of God. We are made holy, sanctified by a once and for all sacrifice of Christ (heb 10:10-14), the immediate faculty of our imagination is to delve into works. We immediately append such statements with statements like how s possible? I have not prayed enough, I have not escaped sin enough, am still in this body.

Why is it easy to accept and imagine with the full extent of our imagination that we are all sinners and we fail to grasp as rom 3:23 says that all who have sinned are justified freely through the redemption that is found in Christ. Isn’t it the same lie that propels us to think and imagine ourselves outside of the confines of Christ and his redemption?

Imagine this; that Adam was full capacitated to life by the breath of God, the extent of his imagination (God given) empowered him to name all creation without the help of God, unless it’s stated in the bible. I try to imagine the rationality that was operating in his system at that time, thinking like God after the image of his creator.

It’s the most Holy thing to imagine yourself as God imagines and knows you.

Imagine that God feasts in the thought; the summary and the conclusion of your redemption. He is so much at home at the conclusion that you are fully forgiven not according to your capacity to imagine you can confess all your sins but according to the capacity and the measure of Christ. Even sorrow for sin is overshadowed by a breath taking recovery we have in Christ’s full redemption from fallenness and sin

 Yet Adam is a prototype for the scripture speaks of two sets of Adam. The first Adam and the last Adam Christ. The effect of the fall was powerful; one man disobeyed and sin and death spread to all. You can imagine how in the order of Adam it was effortless to imagine of sin. Sin was effortless to man. No one needed to go to a special school of sin. The nature of sin was embedded into man, so much did man imagine the full extent of sinning that he would construct a tower to reach God. You probably know of that story of that tower of babel. Am filled with awe of the spectacle of imagination behind these folks, yet this was under the fall.

how much can our imagination catapult us to? when we realize our inclusion in Christ, find out more in part 2