The Good Of The Father (Our Life In HIm)

 

In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in me, and I in you

Johns Account 14: 20, Concordant New Testament 

Growing up, God seemed to be somewhat of a distant entity to me.  One of the lies which the mainstream church has taught me is that I have somehow become separated from my heavenly Father who created me.  That the best which I could ever attempt to achieve was to become closer to God, or to do my best to emulate Him, to "Be like" Him.  Most of this theology is based off of the scripture that all have sinned {Paul to the Romans 3:23}.  Yet, forgotten in this passage are Paul's own words which we find in the next verse.  That we are now justified through the Father's grace and the deliverance from our Savior Christ Jesus {Paul to the Romans 3:24}.  Yes, we have sinned, but God in His grace has removed that from us through Christ.  Funny thing, I rarely if ever heard these liberating words ever spoken from a mainstream church pulpit.  What I did hear was a lot of guilt and shame over what I "Had" been.  I use these words in the past tense because that is not the man that I am today.  The man that I am today is alive once again IN the Father {Johns Account 14:20}.  I am alive despite the old identity dying at the side of Christ Jesus on that cross {Paul to the Galatians 2:20}.  For it is Jesus who took my sin upon Himself on that day {Paul to the Corinthians (2) 5:21}.  It is Jesus who has died to sin, in the words of Paul, "Once for all time" {Paul to the Romans 6:10}.  Yet despite the scriptural references of my life in the Father, the mainstream church continues to proclaim the separation I experience with Him.  How can that which has been created be separated from the creator?  We accept the truth that we have been created in the Fathers likeness {Genesis 2:20}.  That it is God who breathed into us the breath of life, creating a living soul {Genesis 2:7}.  Knowing this, how is it that anyone can proclaim that we have been separated from God?  In reality, the theology of the mainstream church continues to enslave us with a false narrative.  Yet the liberating truth we find through the gospel of Christ Jesus sets us free of the bondage of this false teaching.  

Knowing this, that our old humanity was crucified together with Him, that the body of sin may be nullified, for us by no means to be still slaving for sin, for one who dies has been justified from sin.  Now if we died together with Christ, we believe that we shall be living together with Him also, having perceived that Christ, having been roused from among the dead, is no longer dying.  Death is lording it over Him no longer, for in that He died, He died to sin once for all time, yet in that He is living, He is living to God.  Thus you also, be reckoning yourselves to be dead, indeed, to sin, yet living to God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. 

Paul to the Romans 6:6-11}.  

The church gets one thing right when they speak to the freedom of living in Christ Jesus.  For in Jesus there is freedom from the bondage of sin.  Despite this, the church skews this freedom into something which we must earn of our own accord.  Yes, we can indeed achieve freedom in Christ if we are more "Like Jesus."  But although we may see ourselves as being like Jesus, we all too often even heard the truth of our own life in Him.  So, our life becomes a struggle between knowing of Jesus and continuing to struggle with what we see as our sin.  And why wouldn't we believe in this, it's what we hear each and every Sunday.  My own realization of my life in Christ was not realized until I was free of the teachings of the church.  As luck would have it, my good friend had also been recognizing the same struggles in his own spiritual life.  Through our mutual conversations, I came to know a deeper relationship with the Lord.  Something which I had never known while in the church.  The freedom that I have now come to see through my life in Him is not something I picked up from a Sunday sermon.  As with Paul, I received this revelation "When it delights God" {Paul to the Romans 1:15}.  This is our life in the Father. 

~Scott~