Living According to Heaven Part 5
God can woo you to Him, but you do not have to come to Him. 1 Cor.6:19-20 speaks of one’s body being the temple of the Holy Spirit and we have to recognize that our lives are not our own. When John preached in Matthew 3:22 that God’s kingdom was at hand, it is clear that he was not about his own agenda. However, there is a misunderstanding in the body of Christ as to who we are and to whom we belong. To live according to heaven and to realize that we are exclusively God’s is vital.
When God breathed breath into Man, He meant for there to be communion with Him, but sin entered the world and stymied this. So God sent Christ to the earth and even though He was God, He submitted Himself as Man in order to operate as God expected Man to do in the earth. He submitted His will to the Father’s even in the Garden of Gethsemane where the Man side of Him flinched at the prospect of what was to come. God indeed, bought us with a tremendous price, but we come into the relationship with Christ, but operate in subtle rebellion.
“I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
Paul said that he had been crucified with Christ after having a fight with the apostles who had been living by double standards. Indeed Peter was still living by the law in calling for circumcision. When Paul encountered Christ on the way to Damascus, he realized that his life was no longer his.
The rebellion in the church is seen in such areas as when a call is made for evangelism and people respond by saying that this is not them. However, it has nothing to do with the individual. When one commits oneself to another in a marriage, one’s body now belongs to the other person and if temptation comes, one must remember the covenant that one has made and resist the temptation. There must be a relationship with the other person therefore and likewise, there must be a relationship with God. This is why Christ slipped away so often to spend time with God.
The body of Christ is the only army that does what it pleases and when we do what we want, we put our brother in jeopardy. So if we have difficulty doing what God dictates, we should find someone in the church to whom we can be accountable. Indeed, we sometimes find ourselves fighting with spirits of lust because we have exposed ourselves to such spirits in the world. We must watch our companionships, the people with whom we associate and guard ourselves very carefully. Connect with people who encourage for “iron sharpens iron.”
Recognize that we are exclusively God’s and that we do not want to disappoint Him for we are preparing ourselves for the wedding when the Bridegroom appears. After we recognize that our lives are not ours and that we have been bought with a price, we must respond out of love and not out of duty. This is because we grow weary when we constantly respond out of duty. In John 21:15, Jesus asked Simon Peter if he loved Him more than the disciples because He was making sure that He recognized his call. Jesus was speaking of the agape type of love, but Peter responded in filial love. In finding a successor, it must be someone who loves you a great deal, for it is they who will carry on your work and Jesus realized this. It is therefore out of a place of love that we carry out the mandate of Christ and that love comes from agape love, not filial love.
So we should not think that we can manipulate God. Eternity is for us not for God, so we should not blame God if we struggle through our own folly. God is calling us to a place of love that surpasses everything. In Romans 8:35, Apostle Paul asks: “What can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus?” He then assures us that we are more than conquerors and that nothing is able to separate us from God’s love. Never forget that Jesus Christ is interceding (praying) for us and that when we step away from Him, it hurts the Father’s heart. God is calling us back to that place of fellowship that existed in the Garden of Eden so that the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our God.
