Month: May 2020

PEARLS OF GREAT PRICE CHRIST’S LIFE STUDIES

HAVING THE MIND OF CHRIST: EIKON||CHRISTOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

APOSTLE GILBERT KARUZA

The answer to the question ‘what is man? ’ is found in the explanation of the Greek term, ‘ eikon’ (image). What is the image of God said to be in man?

The Apostle Paul explains creation from redemption; Adam from Christ, the earthly from the heavenly. What man is is reflective of what God is. Christ Himself provides the answer to the question concerning what man is. God became man yet He did not cease to be God. This reveals the proximity that exists between God and man.

Man was tailor-made for God. The uncircumscribed could become man, yet, after the incarnation, He permanently remained man.

Many theologians have attempted to explain what the image of God is but most of them hold to what is known as the substantive view of the image of God. This means, for example, God is rational, therefore, man is rational; God is creative and He made man creative. But from this logic, what will they say about angels? Angels are said to have a higher intelligence than man. Therefore, that substantive view is not accurate. Some would point out that our physical attributes are the image of God. But when God made man in His image, He made them male and female. Would this then imply that God is an androgyny? Being made in the image of God is not about a physical or rational attribute.

To know the archetype from which man was made in the image of God would mean to understand what it means to be in God’s image because the image has a template from which it was made. The Apostle reveals who the image of God is. What are the implications of us being made in the image of the One who is the image of God?

But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. – 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 KJV

The message of Christ that was entrusted to the Apostle Paul reveals God and man in the same person of Christ. He says there are those to whom this is hidden. This means, they don’t understand it. The fact that they don’t perceive it is a diagnosis of their state of being lost. They are perishing or spiritually dying because of their non-participation in Christ.

All that we are is in Christ. If you don’t perceive Him, who is the Message, then you are perishing; you are dying spiritually because all that you are is in this Christ, whom you are not perceiving. This passage is not in reference to the unreached. When Paul wrote this, he was doing an apologetic defence on his gospel. He was addressing those who claimed to be Christians.

They could not perceive the Gospel because they had a notion of God refashioned in man’s image – what man would expect God to be like. This speaks of the traditional concept of God passed down from one generation to the other. The Lord Jesus said, “your tradition has rendered the word of God of none effect” (Mark 7:13). If Jesus didn’t say this, we wouldn’t believe that it was possible for anything to annul the effect of the word of God. By the traditions of men, you will receive what you perceive as being handed down to you instead of the word of God. Thus, in your own mind, the efficacy of the word will be annulled.

Those who fail to perceive Christ have a notion of God furbished by tradition, a concept of God other than what is revealed in Christ.

The Son, the Logos, is also known as the image. Because He is the Son, He perfectly images His Father. Because He is the Logos, He is the knowledge God has of Himself within Himself. The Logos became man; what God knows of Himself became man. Christ is the archetype from which Adam was moulded. Adam’s creation prefigures the incarnation. Adam in the image of the Image was a sign that the One in whose image he was made would take the very body that was fashioned from dust, from the virgin womb, to actualise what it means to be in the Image.

What we know of God is imaged in the person of Christ. God is the ineffable, He is the unknown One. He is beyond the grasp of our human rationale but in order to deal with us, He reveals Himself. He images what we can grasp.

God, having spoken to the fathers long ago in [the voices and writings of] the prophets in many separate revelations [each of which set forth a portion of the truth], and in many ways, has in these last days spoken [with finality] to us in [the person of One who is by His character and nature] His Son [namely Jesus], whom He appointed heir and lawful owner of all things, through whom also He created the universe…The Son is the radiance and only expression of the glory of [our awesome] God [reflecting God’s Shekinah glory, the Light-being, the brilliant light of the divine nature] and the exact representation and perfect imprint of His [Father’s] essence… – Hebrews 1:1-3 Amp.

In the Old, there were partial, fragmentary revelations given by various means. Some of the prophets received what they knew by visions, others received by dreams or what was taught to them by previous prophets and they had a deeper understanding. Others studied what other prophets wrote and God gave them more. For instance, Daniel studied the prophecies of Jeremiah. But all of the revelations were inconclusive, pointing to the fact that there would be a final revelation.

The age in which we are currently living is the age of finalized revelation. In other words, there is nothing that God will reveal that will add to what was revealed in the event of the incarnation, the crucifixion, death, burial, quickening, raising and seating of Christ, and the canon given to the apostles.

Jesus clarified that no man had at any time discerned the voice of God, nor had they seen Him at any time except the only begotten son of God ( Jn. 1:18; 5:37 ). All the partial revelations of the Old Testament were tainted by the human reasoning of the recipients. Human nature was still corrupted by Adam’s sin; this was before the cross and before the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. They thus were not able to accurately interpret what they saw. They received by inspiration but many of them still had their prejudices and different cultural influences, which affected what they received.

We know what God is like by what is revealed in the Son. He is the express image, the archetype image of the person of the Father. We were appointed for conformity to the image of the Son before creation ( Rom. 8:29 ). We are designed according to His sonship. The image of God speaks of the sonship that the Logos, Jesus Christ, had with the Father before all ages.

To be created in the image of God is to be created in order to share in the sonship of Christ, to be the sons of God. This is our supernatural vocation.

PEARLS OF GREAT PRICE CHRIST’S LIFE STIDIES

HAVING THE MIND OF CHRIST :ON DIVINE PHILANTHROPY

APOSTLE GILBERT KARUZA

_But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour”– Titus 3:4-6

Kindness is the state or quality of treating another as kin. God treats us as kin. The whole phrase translated in the passage as “the love of God our Saviour” is derived from the Greek term “philantropia”, which refers to the generosity and fondness or affinity that God has towards us.

God is fond of you. He has affinity towards you. Fondness is a great liking that makes you susceptible. It could be presented from a pejorative stand point as a weakness. When you are fond of someone, you are predisposed to them; your mind is already made up. God’s mind is already made up concerning you.

The philanthropy of God is His fondness, affinity, predisposition toward you in His generosity in its most extreme degree.
The philanthropy of God, His generosity, fondness and affinity have appeared for mankind.

The incarnation is the philanthropic mission of God to rescue humanity. God saved man by donating Himself. In the ancient liturgies of the Church, God is addressed as the Lover of mankind. This was at the forefront of their portrait of God. To what extent is He the Lover of mankind?

“Philantropia” speaks of His compassion, or more precisely, His mercy. Paul says that the philanthropy of God appeared not by works of righteousness. Righteousness is not awarded as a result of our toil; it is not a reward for good behavior. The equity of God reveals how He perceives us. When we use words without the revelatory concept, we will superimpose what we think they mean and we will use them with a misconception. One of such words that have been misconceived is the term “righteousness”.

Righteousness is equity. It speaks of what we are worth to God; what we are as relates to how He sees us. The righteousness of God is revealed; it is how He perceives you.

When Paul speaks of the washing of regeneration, he is talking about being immersed into the realities of regeneration. When he speaks of the philanthropy of God, he immediately introduces us to God’s mercy. God demonstrated the philanthropy of His mercy, richly, abundantly, generously through Jesus Christ. Paul explains the event of the incarnation as the philanthropy of God, as the mercy, the “eleos” of God. “Eleos” means to co-suffer. God possesses impassability; this implies He cannot suffer. Not that He is untouched.

Passability, suffering, misery is imbedded in the human nature. For God to co-suffer, He voluntarily chooses to descend into our nature of passability, to sympathize with us. When we shed tears, He tastes the salt. His love for us costs Him ; He invests Himself in His love for you. He gives Himself with the warmth of devotion to descend in solidarity with humanity in their fall.

What does God see when He looks at our world? Jesus Christ is the statement of faith of what God believes. He equally reveals what God sees and the way He sees it. For example, in Matthew 9:36, the abundance, generosity and riches of God’s mercy is revealed. It says, when Jesus saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them (Matthew 9:36; Matthew 14:14, Matthew 15:32). He was moved with compassion towards the people not in response to anything they did.

Compassion means co-passion, that is, to suffer with. It comes from the root word splankna , which refers to the entrails of God; an inner movement within His entrails; in other words, God’s feelings. In the ancient world, the entrails were thought to be the seat of emotions. God is touched by the situations in which we find ourselves. He is predisposed, He has affinity, fondness, a great liking, a weakness for man. This is our God! He sees you in the conditions in which you are in and He is not indifferent.

In view of His great mercy, you are not going to faint; you will not have your resources exhausted. He knows your state. He is touched with the feelings of our infirmities. We bear the infirmities but He feels it. The gods of human mythologies despise man and are so powerful and so separated from our suffering that we have to pray, to hope to seize a glimpse of their attention. But in the self-revealed portrait of God in Christ Jesus, we see that God enters our passability, descends into it kenotically, to feel the infirmity of our suffering.

He descended into our human suffering to feel it because whatever divinity touches is healed. As He is touched with the feelings of our weaknesses, He heals the condition and brings us to wholeness. This is what is called mercy.

PEARLS OF GREAT PRICE CHRIST’S LIFE STUDIES

HAVING THE MIND OF CHRIST:KNOWING CHRIST

APOSTLE GILBERT KARUZA

God wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth ( 1 Timothy 2:4 ). This shows us that the post salvation focus of the believer should be the acquisition of the accurate and precise knowledge of Christ. To know Him as He is should remain our emphatic focus.

“For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead”. 2 Corinthians 5:14

The term “constraineth ” comes from the Greek term “sunecho” . “Sun” is a preposition which indicates an association closer than close, a proximity which can only be described in terms of union because it refers to one being in the other. The term “echo” refers to a harmonic resonance whereby what happens in one happens in the other.

The love of Christ has joined us in an association closer than close, a proximity that can only be described by union, whereby Christ is in us and we are in Him; and whatever happened to Him from the cross to the throne, equally happened to us. The Apostle Paul uses the term “in Christ” one hundred and sixty-four times, directly, to refer to the summary of the Gospel, the signature of God that certifies what happened in His Son, resulting in the new Creation.

“And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again”. 2 Corinthians 5:15

The result of what happened in Christ gives us the perspective from which we are to evaluate all things. The conclusion drawn is that if one died for all then all were dead. Thus the death of Christ equals to the death of all because in His incarnation, He didn’t just become a man, but He became the Man — the consummate man whom Adam merely prefigured in his creation.

He came to perform in reverse what Adam’s act of disobedience did to the human race. So, if Adam’s disobedience resulted in the death of all, and Christ comes in inverse of the first Adam, His death being the death of all would reverse the disobedience of Adam.

At the cross, God identified Himself with the human race in the depth of her alienation from God. God did not simply give us a prescription that would result in us being made whole if we applied it to ourselves. The Great Physician became the patient. The unassumed is the unhealed and Christ did not simply assume an aspect of our humanity, but He fully took upon Himself the diseased and corrupted human nature of Adam.

When He died, that condition was brought to an end. That is why Christ was buried; so, for the three days and the three nights, the ages are summed up in that one event and the resurrection morning is the first day of the new Creation. This is the news of the Good News. It is so new that it brought something new to God Himself.

The Godhead in the eternal Son was now clothed with true humanity. Many people don’t know what happened at the cross. Sin was abolished; all temporal economies were brought to a conclusion, such as the Law of Moses. All the promises made to the forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as well as David, were brought to their fulfilment in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

The Good News does not stop at the cross. Apostle Paul tells us that unless Christ was resurrected from the dead, there would be no certification that what He did on the cross was valid. So, if Christ is not risen from the dead, Paul says we are still in our sins. This would imply that if Christ is risen from the dead, then we are no longer in our sins. Irrespective of what you may consider to be your failures in your personal life, you are not in sin.

There is a difference between being made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus and spiritual growth or attaining maturity. The faults you may commit are categorised as the works of the flesh and the works of the flesh indicate the areas where you do not trust in Christ. It is an issue of failure to identify yourself with Christ.

As hard as it is for many who are trained in religion to believe, as the believer in Christ, you cannot lose your righteousness when you falter. This is because righteousness is based on certain legalities which were fulfilled and met by Christ. He is your righteousness because He stood in as you, representing you by taking on the position of the last Adam. You are to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; not just be saved and live in ignorance. If you were to be counted as a sinner, then, the incarnation, His crucifixion, death, burial, quickening, raising and seating would have to be undone and that is not going to happen. Our association with sin has been eternally dissolved at the cross in the death of Jesus Christ.

Identifying yourself as a sinner results in the actions that people describe as sin. Unless you understand that at the cross there was a mutual exchange of equivalent value, that Christ became what we were that we might be made what He is in Himself, you will always struggle with the issue of sin and assume a mistaken identity.

Christ died for all but after His death, there is a reality that ensues. The term translated as “unto ” in the verse can be translated by the word “as”. Thus the verse would read: “…that they which live should not henceforth live as themselves”.

The cross and the resurrection resolved the identity issue. Adam’s original sin was about him missing the mark regarding his origin. He voluntarily refused to accept what God said about him. It is the same thing many of God’s sons are doing right now.

Adam decided to establish an identity independent from God, on the basis of his own works, to be like God apart from God. That is the definition of religion.

The very root of Paul’s anthropology is that man is created in the image of Another than himself. Thus man can only truly be man by identifying with Another than himself — that is, God.

For God to raise us to what is truly man, God Himself became man. In the resurrection of Christ, you can no longer live as “yourself” because we have all accumulated a list of aliases which we suppose as our identity. Once you accept Jesus, within the ramifications of accepting Him is the response of accepting yourself because He gave Himself for you. Accepting Christ without accepting yourself is in a sense rejecting what Christ did. You can’t live unto yourself.

“Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more”. 2 Corinthians 5:16

The cross of Christ, His resurrection, gives us the basis of the new knowledge of man, whereby we no longer analyse persons on the basis of our sense observations. This includes your perception of yourself. All were included in the death of Christ, represented in His resurrection. So, no matter what you may think of someone based on your observation through the senses, or by natural standards, that is not who they are. This is equally true concerning you.

There was a knowledge of Christ which was possessed, which came from the observation that the Twelve had of Him while He was on earth. Now, there is supposed to be a transition. Knowing Christ means you understand the exchange of equivalent value. He became what you were to make you what He is in Himself. This is what is known as union.

PEARLS OF GREAT PRICE CHRIST’S LIFE STUDIES

HAVING THE MIND OF CHRIST: HE HAS QUALIFIED YOU

APOSTLE GILBERT KARUZA

“Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son”. Colossians 1:12-13

The greatest of all sciences is to know oneself.

Unbelief in your in your divine identity is your experience of hell on earth. If you do not know yourself, you are living in poverty. The true riches of God, as contained in the gospel revealed to Paul, have to do with what Christ has done with us; what He has shared with us cannot be evaluated in monetary value.

The phrase “giving thanks” is the Greek term eucharisteo, which means to respond to what has been freely given. If we were to translate the word according to its etymology, it would mean “grace works well”. Grace works well when we live in thanksgiving.

Paul makes use of the Greek aorist tense in the phrase “which hath made us meet ”. It speaks of an action, which is complete and has occurred once and for all.

We have been made qualified by the Father and this qualification cannot be undone. The term “made” is the Greek word “ginomai” , which means to leave one state of being to enter into another. Our state of being has been altered in Christ Jesus and we have been made what He is.

Union with Christ is found at the heart of the message Paul gave in his epistles. Jesus is the eternal Son of God. He is also known as the Logos and the Logos refers to the knowledge God has of Himself. The self-discourse of God, His self-knowledge became flesh.

The eternal Son of God became Son of Man. He who is by nature God, became and assumed that which is by nature man, remaining what He is as God. Within His one person, God and man have been made indissolubly one. Jesus Christ was made identical to Adam in His fall. Many people think of Jesus as simply being instrumental for the atonement. They think He just came to do something for us; they see Him as a means to an end. Those who think this way ascribe to what is called the penal substitutionary atonement. According to this theory, when Adam sinned, the Father became so enraged that God and man were severed. So, Jesus had to come to take on Himself the anger of God and condition God to love us. But it was God who was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself: God and the whole world in the one person of Christ.

Jesus was born in the likeness of sinful flesh (Hebrews 2:14). He was made what we were – this is the first movement of grace – in order that we might be made what He is in Himself, and this is what happens in His resurrection.

Ginomai refers to a sudden, irreversible alteration. We were made in Christ, in His resurrection, ascension and session. God has made us qualified, adequate in power, rendered us sufficient, fit to share what is His.

Many people love the definition of grace as unmerited favour. One of the words translated as “unmerited favour” is the Hebrew word “ratsown”, which in many instances is translated as “mercy”. If a beggar on the streets extends his bowl to you and you drop in some change in the bowl, that is an example of unmerited favour. But, when God becomes man and joins you to His life, irreversibly alters your status and makes you qualified, fit to share in what is His portion, that is not unmerited favour. That is the Pauline concept of charis; that is what is called grace.

We are qualified to be made partakers of His inheritance. The eternal Son of God, consubstantial with the Father, has made you fit to share His inheritance.

PEARLS OF GREAT PRICE CHRIST’S LIFE STUDIES

HAVING THE MIND OF CHRIST: SOPHRONOSIMOS_

APOSTLE GILBERT KARUZA

Sóphronismos | A Mind Untainted by Inferior Thoughts

Peace is a vital necessity for our lives. The Apostle Paul instructs us to let the peace of God govern our mind. In his epistles, he differentiates between the indicatives and the imperatives and the indicatives. He also makes a difference between what we learn and what we practice.

There is a difference between us acquiring knowledge and us experiencing knowledge. We can learn about the peace of God that we have received through Christ, but until we begin to practice His peace, it will not be a reality in our lives. As small as it may seem to be, peace is one of the major things we are practice in our lives.

God has given us His life which has completely separated us from the life of the natural mind which is essentially oriented to see things selfishly; only seeing the things that are of benefit to us. Such a mind will eventually be infested with inferior thoughts.

When your thoughts are only about “me, myself and I”, there is no way you can exceed the inferior level of life. It will cause you to be infested by negativity, walking based on instincts, and you will be reactive instead of proactive.

Our mind (Greek word, naos ) is supposed to be the holy of holies. We have the seat of God in us. He has made His abode in our naos . However, we often departmentalize our life, thinking that God is only present in our spirit and has nothing to do with our soul or our body.

When Christ was incarnate as us, He was not incarnate as spirit. He took upon Himself our bodies. This would imply He is interested in our bodies to the same extent to which He is interested in our spirit. Jesus Christ took upon Himself our souls, our fears and doubts. He had the same feelings as we do. He did not just take an aspect of our being in His incarnation, but He became 100% what we are. He assumed our totality.

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. 1 Corinthians 1:30

The Apostle Paul reveals what Christ became through His perfect works for us. The four points he mentioned in this verse present a holistic person.

01. Wisdom: Christ has been made our wisdom. He bore upon Himself our former manner of thinking and by so doing He redeemed it and gave us His own wisdom. He reversed our manner of thinking by becoming our wisdom. This is the extent to which He went in identifying with us. If Paul begins by citing wisdom, this would mean wisdom is of great importance in our walk in the flesh. Christ understood the system and knew the things that could frighten us and take away our peace. He thus became our wisdom that in the midst of circumstances and situations, we can walk through and still be whole, untainted and unlimited.

02. Righteousness: In becoming our righteousness, Jesus Christ made us of the same quality as Him, every aspect taken into consideration. He takes us from what we think we are in our present state and transfers us that we may be as people who are not affected in our manner of thinking by this sphere impacted by the fall of Adam.

03. Sanctification: This speaks about God consecrating our souls and separating our souls from that which hurts; taking us away from a secular way of life whereby we are subjected to feelings, and bringing us to a consecrated state of life. He separates our soul from whatever takes away His quality of life from us. Our sanctification equally talks about God separating our minds from that which is common (pain, doubt, fear, etc.).

04. Redemption: This speaks of Christ ministering to our body. It speaks of the separation of our body from all the effects of the fall. Let who Christ is and what He has become for you be your focus. These are major aspects in your practice of the peace of God. This is the level to which we are to understand the identification of Christ.

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Romans 8:5-6
The peace of God in you has nothing to do with the happenings of your life; it is not related to what you have. It is related to your naos. Let the practice of peace be the daily practice of your life.

  “For when you would have ten thousand teachers in Christ, however, you do not have several fathers, since it was I who begot you in Jesus Christ by the Gospel.” 1Co 4:15

A father according to Paul is the one who generates you in Jesus Christ through the Gospel. One who does not know the gospel cannot be a father in Christ. To beget here comes from gennao which means to bring to life, to convert. This is a conversion that brings you to life by teaching the too good to be true news of God’s love.

Since the word father himself comes from pater which means the one who influences the thought of the other in order to bring him to his lifestyle. Fatherhood according to Paul is achieved at the level of what is known as the mindset. Because it is from this thoughts machine that we draw our concepts, reasonings and ideologies that determine our mode of perception. And we interact with our world as we perceive it.

You therefore understand that a father in Christ is much more than a person who shares with us some biblical verses or advice to get us out of a specific situation. He is the one who brings us to Christic life by the exact doctrine according to the Pauline revelation.

  Affirmation: Father, thank you for this wonderful person whom you used and continue to use to bring me to the life of Christ by the exact doctrine, by presenting Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery. Amen!

Mark 14:36 “And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.

Although God was referred to as our Father in the Old Testament, Jesus’ frequent use of this title brought a whole new understanding of our relationship with God. Jesus referred to God as His Father, and He spoke of God as being our Father as well. This infuriated the religious Jews of Jesus’ day who considered it blasphemy to call God their Father, because they understood that to mean they were equal with God.

We are instructed to call God our Father, revealing the kind, gentle, loving nature of our God. The term “Abba” is an affectionate term that a young child calls his father, which corresponds to our term “daddy.” It is a term used to express intimacy and affectionate fondness. It removes the idea of God as a strict judge and carries the image of Him as a loving Father who cares, understands, and is our best friend. “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God” (1 Jn. 3:1).

We are sons of God by adoption. Jesus was the Son of God by nature. As Jesus said to the Jews, ye are of your Father the devil (Jn. 8:44; Eph. 2:3).

However, Jesus purchased us and made us adopted sons of God. This is different from our modern definition or concept of adoption where by you choose a child who is not of your lineage and then legally placing him into your family. Adoption means to be placed into a position of Sonship. This is the ancient Oriental understanding of that term.

This position of Sonship implies that we have been placed into a Son. We are sons in the Son. Being located in Christ implies that :

WHAT HE IS , WE HAVE BEEN MADE

WHERE HE IS, WE ARE

WHAT HE HAS, WE HAVE

The word children is the word Teknon which speaks of being issued out of God as your source, as the species of God and this shows us indeed that God is our Father.

We are not just heirs, we are joint-heirs with Christ. To think that we share equally with the one who has inherited everything God is, and has, is beyond comprehension.

Romans 8:37
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

The word, “more than conquerors” in this text means we are more than champions or one who has won a battle. The battle over sin has already been won. This verse describes a final victory.

Revelation 12:10
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. 11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

The Bible calls the devil the accuser of the brethren. He is one who brings opposition against our faith. He does not need to appear to us literally. He rather uses words or wrong information especially from the law. The history of our victory in Christ remains our ever-dependable weapon over his accusations. We are to carry this banner of victory everywhere we go.

Hebrews 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

The Father’s love has conquered sin and death for us.

Romans 6:14
For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. Based on his love for us, he now dwells in us and so we have dominion over sin.

1 Corinthians 15:55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? 56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have an assurance of the resurrection or transformation of our mortal bodies based on his love for us

The father indeed is for us.

Confession: The father’s love is my victory.

[[2Co 6:16]] KJV And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

You’re now the living ark of testimony and the tabernacle of His presence: “…for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them”

He dwells in you now. His hands are in your hands, and His legs are in your legs. He walks in you and talks through you. Where you go, God goes. You’re in Him and He’s in you! [[Act 17:28]] For in him we live, and move, and have our being;..

Not only are you now in the presence of God, you carry the presence of God. Every time you show up, you come with the presence of God: Christ in you, the hope of glory!: [[Col 1:27]] which is Christ in you, areas hope of glory:

You are now one with Spirit with Christ, you are inseparable. [[1Co 6:17]] But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Wherever you are Christ is there, what a great wonder ? You are the presence of God.

In the Old covenant, the children of Israel transported the presence of God from place to place every time they carried the Tabernacle of Witness, which contained the Ark of the Covenant. In 1 Kings 8:9, the Bible tells us specifically that “There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the LORD made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.” The only thing in the ark was God’s commandments.

Today, your heart is the ark of God; that’s where the Word is. Remember what the Lord said in Jeremiah 31:33 : But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” This was fulfilled in us when we were born again.We were born again by the Word of God, and have become one with the Word;

We are living epistles, “written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God – not in tables of stone – but in fleshy tables of the heart” ( 2 Corinthians 3:3 ).

       *PRAYER*

Dear Father, I thank you for your dark ness presencein my life. Your glory, lives in, and operates from the quarters of my heart. Therefore, sickness, disease, and darkness have no place in me, in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

FURTHER STUDY:
|| [[Rom 8:10]] KJV And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.||

|| [[2Co 3:3]] KJV Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.||

A righteous man is one who has an unrestrained and unfettered access to God. This is seen in the place of prayer where he has an audience with God anytime he stands to pray.

1st Peter 3:12
For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.

Apostle James also harped on this fact. James 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

In the place of prayer, the believer makes power available.

Furthermore, based on this right standing with God, he can drive out demons, lay hands on the sick and they recover and undo every work of Satan.

Mark 16:17 -18
And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

Confession: I always have audience with God in the place of prayer. I can demonstrate the power of God based on my right standing with God. I am righteous!