Knowing the power of Co-Eternal Life

I am not one for devotionals but this year I have been going through "My Utmost for His Highest" from Oswald Chambers. I endeavored so that my wife and I would have a launching point to discuss and to pray about, I also have been making notes in the hopes that one day my kids will read them and understand where Daddy was in 2009.

On Easter the devotional was so profound I wanted to share it with those that view this blog. My notes will be in blue. If you want to read the devotionals they are free on-line at http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php

April 12, 2009

Death no longer has dominion over Him. . . . the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God . . . —Romans 6:9-11

Co-Eternal Life. Eternal life is the life which Jesus Christ exhibited on the human level. And it is this same life, not simply a copy of it, which is made evident in our mortal flesh when we are born again. Eternal life is not a gift from God; eternal life is the gift of God (This is such a profound and wonderful truth). The energy and the power which was so very evident in Jesus will be exhibited in us by an act of the absolute sovereign grace of God, once we have made that complete and effective decision about sin.

"You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . ." (Acts 1:8)— not power as a gift from the Holy Spirit; the power is the Holy Spirit, not something that He gives us. The life that was in Jesus becomes ours because of His Cross, once we make the decision (Are willing) to be identified with Him. If it is difficult to get right with God, it is because we refuse to make this moral decision about sin (Because we are not willing to do away once and for all with sin, we make provision for it and hold back a little for ourselves, we want to continue being our own god, we are not willing to be fully consecrated or set apart for and to God). But once we do decide, the full life of God comes in immediately. Jesus came to give us an endless supply of life— ". . . that you may be filled with all the fullness of God" ( Eph 3:1). Eternal life has nothing to do with time. It is the life which Jesus lived when He was down here, and the only Source of life is the Lord Jesus Christ.(all other sources are just frauds and deception by Satan, the father of lies, to keep our eyes off of the risen Christ and that is why the Bible says satan has blinded the eyes lest they see the glorious gospel of Christ)

Even the weakest saint can experience the power of the deity of the Son of God, when he is willing to "let go."(like the trapped monkey, see the story below***) But any effort to "hang on" to the least bit of our own power will only diminish the life of Jesus in us. We have to keep letting go, and slowly, but surely, the great full life of God will invade us, penetrating every part. Then Jesus will have complete and effective dominion in us, and people will take notice that we have been with Him (I think about the man with the shining face or Moses coming down from the mountain top so that his face had to be veiled and they knew he had been with God).

***In order to catch spider monkeys, hunters in South America simply walk through the jungle and drop heavy containers on the ground. These containers have very a narrow top and a wider bottom. Inside the containers the hunters drop a special kind of nut which is particularly attractive to the monkeys. Sometime later, the spider monkeys come down from the tops of the trees, smell the nut, but the tops of the containers are so narrow they have a tight squeeze to get their hands inside. Once they grab the nut at the bottom, their fist is too large to remove if through the opening. And the container is too heavy for them to carry.

So instead of letting go of the nut, the monkeys just sit there until the hunters come back, pick them up, and throw them in a bag.

The spider monkeys are not prepared to let go of a small nut in order to gain their freedom.