It should be obvious that Paul is talking about something other than a physical crucifixion and a physical death, burial, and resurrection. Although he says, “I was crucified with Christ” he does not mean that he was present with Christ in the flesh at the moment of crucifixion; instead, he intends to show us something much more profound. We will soon discover that this experience of being crucified with Christ is not unique to the apostle Paul, but is true of every born-again child of God. Not only Paul, but all disciples of Jesus have been crucified with Christ.

How is this possible? The Bible says that there is an invisible but very powerful union that exists between Jesus and all His disciples; they are one Body. It is a spiritual union. This spiritual union forms the basis of our relationship and fellowship with Christ. Jesus says, “I am the True Vine… live in Me, and I will live in you” (Jn. 15:1,4a). Jesus compares this union to a vine that has many branches. Each branch lives in union with the vine. The same life flowing in the vine is also flowing in the branches. Jesus says He is the True Vine, and we are His branches. This is spiritual union. As branches, we can only grow and produce spiritual fruit so long as we continue to live, dwell in, abide, and be part of the Vine. So then, union with God is not the reward for spirituality; it is the basis of spirituality.

With this analogy we can now understand what Paul means when we look at some of his other statements. He tells the Corinthians that “He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” (1 Cor. 6:17). To the Ephesians, Paul compares this spiritual union to the union that exists between a man and a woman when they are married: “And the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the [Ekklesia]” (Eph. 5:31b,32).

Certainly this is a great mystery. How God is able to make us one spirit with Jesus is beyond human knowledge. But this we know: however it is accomplished, it has its beginning in the Cross. The Cross is the starting point of our union with Christ. In the Cross, God sees us in the place of Christ and sees Christ in the place of us. That is to say, in the Cross, all our sinfulness is attributed to Christ, and all His righteousness is attributed to us.

How wonderful for us – but how terrible for Him! Yet this is God’s Way, and the Bible refers to it as identification:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:21)

The Bible never identifies us as being one with Jesus in His preexistence with God, or in His birth, or in His sinless life on earth. But when Jesus submitted to the Cross He indentified with us by taking on our sins and accepting the penalty just the same as if He had sinned Himself. In the same manner, when we submit to the Cross, God identifies us with Christ just the same as if we were sinless. Jesus becomes our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30). It does not say that He gives these things to us, it says He is these things to us.

Was Jesus crucified for His sins? No, He was crucified for our sins. Are we now wise, righteous, sanctified, and redeemed because of anything we have done? No, God simply identifies us together with Christ, as if we were crucified together with Him. He loses everything and we gain everything. This is why salvation begins with repentance, surrender, and faith in Christ and His finished work on the Cross. It cannot be accomplished otherwise. What a glorious Lord we have!

Being “In Christ”

You may wonder how this union with Jesus was accomplished. I do not have the answer to that, but I consider it to be so because God says it is so. God placed us in Christ. I do not fully understand how He did this, but I know that He did it, and I thank God for it. The Bible says that “because of [God] you are in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:30a). Disciples of Jesus are one with Christ because God has placed us there. We are in Christ, and Christ is in us. We may not understand how this can be so, but it is so. We are spiritually one with Christ. This oneness, this union, this partnership and fellowship with Him is the basis of our spiritual life and our walk with God.

Passengers in a commercial airliner must entrust themselves to the plane when they wish to fly somewhere. They place themselves in the jet, and once there, their destiny (for better or for worse) is linked to the plane. If the plane rises to 30,000 feet, the passengers rise also. If the plane crashes, the passengers crash right along with it. When the plane arrives at its destination, the passengers arrive at the exact same moment. Is it possible for the plane to arrive in Seattle but for the passengers on the plane to arrive in Dallas? Or could some of the plane’s passengers arrive in Miami while the rest of the passengers arrive in Denver? Of course not. Is it possible for the plane to arrive one hour or one minute or even one second before or after the passengers arrive? By no means. All the passengers who are in the plane arrive whenever and wherever the plane arrives. In the same way, when God placed us in Christ, He forever linked us to Christ’s death, burial, resurrecti0n, ascension, and being seated in the heavenlies. So God considers us to have been crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, ascended, and seated as well. It cannot be otherwise. So long as we remain in Him (Jn. 15:5) our destinies are linked.

I once placed a $20 bill inside of a book. I then misplaced the book. What happened to the $20 bill? The bill was lost when the book was lost. The bill and the book were linked together because I placed one inside the other. In order to find the bill I had to find the book. Once I found the book, I also found the bill. In like manner, God has placed us in Christ. When Christ was crucified, we were also crucified. When Christ was raised, we were also raised. The two have become one, and what is true of Him is true of all those who are one with Him.

Now, follow me closely here. Before my father married my mother and conceived me, he was in a serious automobile accident. You ask, did he survive the accident? You know very well that he did survive, because I am alive and able to write these words. But had my father died at the age of sixteen, I would have died also, because I was still in my father. His death would have been my death; and not my death only, but also the death of my children, and their children, all the way down the line. We would have all died together with him, having never even lived. But his life, his survival, his overcoming the accident was just as much my life, my survival, and my overcoming. His testimony of life and overcoming death is verified by my life, and the life of my children, and on down the line. Spiritually speaking, this is similar to what God has done for us by placing us in Christ. Christ was crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, ascended, and seated; and since we were in Him when it all happened, God considers it to have happened to us as well. We who are His children now share in the very life of Christ, and each of us bear witness to the resurrection and overcoming of Christ. When God raised Him from the dead, He raised us from the dead as well.

The key to all of this, of course, is to see ourselves in the exact same way that God sees us. We must see that God has made us one with Christ; only then can we say, along with Paul, “I am crucified with Christ” and experience the reality of the fact. Once we see that then it will be very easy to see that we who were crucified with Christ were dead, buried, resurrected, ascended, and seated together with Him also. Tremendous benefits accrue to those who God has made one with Christ, for when we are made one with Him then our spiritual history becomes linked with His. We are “blessed with every spiritual blessing… in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). In ourselves? Never! Only in Him!

This excerpt taken from the book, Embrace the Cross, by Chip Brogden.

If you are truly born-again then you have experienced this at least once in your life, in at least one area of your life. At least once you have come to recognize your inability to save yourself, and so you surrendered to Christ and trusted Jesus to do in you and through you what you could not do on your own. That surrender was, in essence, “taking up the Cross” with respect to your salvation. I have died to saving myself. I cannot save myself; and since I cannot, I will not. I will only trust in the Life of the Lord to do what I have (at last!) learned that I cannot do. This is what is means to “embrace the Cross” in the area of salvation. And we see that when the death to Self is thorough and complete – that is, when we stop trying to save ourselves and cast ourselves upon the grace of God, then God raises us from the dead. That which was impossible before is now accomplished by God. We are thankful recipients of His grace, and He receives all the praise and the glory since we have done nothing and He has done everything. This is the principle of the Cross.

It does not matter what your situation is; the Cross is sufficient. If the Cross is the power of God for salvation, then the Cross is also the power of God for your relationships, your spiritual growth and development, your life’s purpose, your encouragement and strength, and your victory over everything which hinders and distracts and comes against you. At one time in your life you learned you could not save yourself – that was the work of the Cross. Now, accept the work of the Cross and learn that just as you could not save yourself, neither can you love God, love your neighbor, forgive those who have sinned against you, cast out devils, be a bold witness for Christ, or fulfill your destiny in your own strength. Just as you once relied upon Christ to save you, so now you must rely upon Christ to live through you every day. Just as you continually rely upon Christ for salvation, so you must continually rely upon Christ for everything else.

“As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord…” That is the Gate. “…So walk in Him.” That is the Path. If you can admit defeat, if you can surrender yourself over to God in the area of “salvation” then you can (and should) do the same thing in every other area of your life. Walk in Him as you received Him: by unconditionally surrendering to His Will, His Purpose, His Power, His Lordship. Embrace the Cross! The sooner the better!

When we cease doing what we cannot do, then He begins to do what we cannot. This is the fruit produced by those who are truly born again. Our works are not religious works at all, they are simply the works of Him Who now lives in us. When we cease struggling and surrender to crucifixion then He comes forth in power and glory to raise us from the dead. This is what it means to be a Christian and a disciple of Jesus.

A brother came to me who suffered from a bad habit. He had tried every means known to man to break himself from this habit. No stone was left unturned. First he tried all the “Christian” cures: prayer, fasting, binding and loosing, exorcism, positive confession. He had made vows to God and had threatened himself with dire consequences if he ever broke his vows. But break them he did. When all these attempts to address the problem spiritually failed, he tried some psychological remedies: visualization, counseling, psychotherapy, self-help courses, motivational speakers, natural remedies, prescription drugs. He even wore a rubber band around his wrist so that he could snap it against his skin whenever his thoughts began to go astray. In this way (he had been told) the pain would interrupt his thought patterns and he would “snap” back into reality. He had red welts on his wrist from snapping the rubber band over and over. Obviously the rubber band trick wasn’t working. In fact, nothing had worked. This is the condition he was in when he sought me out.
“I have tried everything, and I cannot break this habit! What else can I do?” he asked.

“Let me repeat what I just heard you say,” I answered. “You said you cannot break this habit.” He nodded. “Then you asked, ‘What else can I do?’” He nodded again.

“Listen to what you just said,” I replied. “You said, ‘I cannot… what else can I do?’” He didn’t understand, so I tried again. “What you are saying is, ‘I cannot, I cannot, I cannot.’ Then, in the same breath, you are asking, ‘What else can I do?’ And the answer is: nothing. There is nothing else you can do. You have done it all. So if you really believe that you cannot do it then stop trying to do it. Every time you try, you are expressing a belief that you still think you can do it. Clearly you cannot.”

He thought on this and said, “Yes, but if I stop trying, then it will surely defeat me.” I answered, “You are already defeated. Now you must admit your defeat so that you can overcome. What do you have to show for all your trying? Nothing but a series of disappointing failures. Do you see that if you cannot, then all the trying in the world is pointless? If it is impossible for me to lift 1,000 pounds then I should not even attempt it. This habit is 10,000 pounds to you. Can you lift it? No. Do you still think you can? Then God will allow you to keep on trying, and will wait for you to give up trying. Sooner or later you must learn to stop trying to do what you cannot do. The purpose of these multiple failures is to teach you one thing: you cannot. If you will learn this lesson then it is worth failing a thousand times. If you have truly learned it this time then go to God and tell Him that you quit. Tell Him that you have tried to do it your way but you are powerless. Surrender it all to Him. Give up trying and admit that apart from Him it cannot be done. Go to the Cross and die with respect to this thing and see what God does with it.” He thought on this and wanted to disagree but his experience had proved that the more he tried the more often he failed.

Then something happened. He finally saw that there was no use in trying to do what he could not do. “I cannot,” he said, “Therefore, I will not!” A new hope had dawned within him: he saw that “What is impossible with men is possible with God” (Lk. 18:27). But now he understood that in order for God to do what is impossible for man to do, man must first realize that it is impossible for man to do it! He saw for the first time that God can do more for him in five seconds of “giving up” than he could do for himself through a whole lifetime of “trying.”

So together we prayed, and his prayer went something like this: “Today, Lord, I am finished. I give up. I have tried everything and nothing has worked. This is impossible with me, but not with You. With You all things are possible! Therefore, I trust You to do what I cannot do. If you do it then I will overcome; if You do not do it then I will forever be defeated. Just as I trust in You to save me, so I trust in You to overcome this thing. I cannot, but You can.” Without realizing it, this brother had embraced the Cross. He “died” to all his efforts and God “raised him from the dead” with a tremendous deliverance.

Embracing the Cross is not a once-and-for-all act, but a daily attitude of knowing our insufficiency in order to know the sufficiency of Christ. Jesus asks us to take up the Cross “daily” (Lk. 9:23) and Paul said “I die daily” (1 Cor. 15:31). Since we daily meet with temptations, tests and trials, so we must daily affirm and re-affirm who we are in Christ: the crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, ascended and seated Branches of the crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, ascended, and seated Vine. As disciples, we take up the Cross daily, which means we are always in a state of surrender and submission to the Lord Jesus, constantly forsaking our own way for His Way. This moment-by-moment yielding to Him is summed up in this saying: “Not I, but Christ” (Gal. 2:20ff).

This excerpt taken from the book, Embrace the Cross, by Chip Brogden

“And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness… and Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee” (Lk 4:1, 14).

The Cross does not eliminate weakness, it brings strength out of weakness. With less of me there is more of the Lord. So these wilderness experiences are designed to teach us something about weakness. When you are weak, when you have no strength, then Christ is revealed. You become conscious of a supernatural strength rising up from within. If you’re fasting you’re still hungry. The hunger doesn’t magically go away. If you’ve got a thorn in the flesh God doesn’t wave His magic wand and just take it away. What does He say? “I’ll not take the thorn away, but I will give you more grace, and you will learn by experience that My grace is sufficient.”

See, you don’t learn the sufficiency of Grace until you have experienced the insufficiency of Self. The sooner you give up the better. I go back to my original statement: we spend too much time crying and praying and asking God to take us out of whatever we’re in, and the thing we’re trying to get out of is the very thing God intends to use to teach you something of Himself. You say, “That’s a hard way to learn!” Well, who said it would be easy?

The only people who say it will be easy are the ones who have never walked in the wilderness before. They sound like they have great faith, but that faith has never been tested. They have no depth of experience. They haven’t walked with God through the valley of the shadow of death. They’re doing everything they can to walk around it, and they think that’s faith. They think victory means elimination of problems. Actually, victory means living independently of your circumstances. I still have the thorns, I still have the weaknesses, I still have the problems. My wife and I have been through enough to fill up three lifetimes. Now I’m doing what Paul did: I’m boasting in my weaknesses. I won’t bore you with all the details of all the things we’ve endured, I don’t want to make this teaching all about me. I’m saying this to encourage you.

THE WILDERNESS WALK

What is your heart’s desire? Is it to know God? To walk with Him? To grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus? Then let me tell you something: the depth of your revelation can be measured by the depth of your suffering. Little suffering means little revelation. Much suffering means much revelation.

You don’t become intimate with God by studying books, reading books, or listening to other people teach. Enoch walked with God. Abraham walked with God. David walked with God. Paul walked with God. They were on a journey together. They were walking it out, and working it out, together. It was a marriage, no question about it. If I want a relationship with my wife I don’t go around and interview all her friends and relatives and ask them to tell me about my wife. I don’t type her name into Google and see what comes up. If I want a relationship with my wife it takes more than a marriage certificate! It takes more than a wedding ceremony! That might be enough to satisfy the legal requirements of marriage, but if that’s as far as you go then it won’t last. I think that’s the problem with some people in their spiritual walk. They fulfilled all the “legal” requirements of “getting saved”, they had a ceremony, and they hung their marriage certificate on the wall and said, “Well, I can cross that off my list, now I’m saved.” Well, that should be the beginning of the relationship, not the end of it.

I’m just speaking plainly. It’s time to go on to maturity. Let’s get serious about our spiritual life. I tell you, when you experience some pain or weakness or sickness in your body, you get concerned. You seek relief. You seek medical attention. You seek the prayers of the saints. You seek healing and deliverance. If we were as concerned for our spiritual life as we are for our physical life, we would know God.

Or look at your financial situation. If you can’t make ends meet, or you lose your job, or something unexpected comes up that you don’t have the money to pay for, you get concerned. You pray. You ask for help. You do whatever it takes to get out from under that financial difficulty. If we were as concerned for our spiritual situation as we are for our financial situation, then we would know God. Oh, there’s no question about it. Absolutely. And often God can’t get our attention unless He permits, unless He allows, something to happen to us in our body or in our finances. Sometimes it takes something drastic to get us to pay attention to our spiritual life.

“LED BY THE SPIRIT… INTO THE WILDERNESS!”

Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted, to be tested. Now that’s one purpose of the desert; that’s one reason why God leads us into the wilderness. We want to cover up our weakness, and God wants to expose our weakness. Hypocrites want to hide their true condition and make themselves appear to be better than they really are. They get so good at hiding their true condition that they actually begin to believe they are better than they really are. Then they start trying to fix everybody else: pointing out their weaknesses and shortcomings. Well, they just haven’t spent any time in the desert. They’ve never been confronted with their weaknesses. They don’t know what hunger is. They don’t know what thirst is. They don’t know what isolation is. They don’t know what it is to be stripped down to nothing. They’ve never been broken, never been humbled, never taken up the Cross, never died to anything. So they’ve got plenty of time on their hands, and they spend their time looking for specks in other people’s eyes while ignoring the log in their own.
I’m telling you, the Narrow Path that leads to Life takes you through the Spiritual Desert. If you haven’t experienced it yet then you will if you stay on the Path. People are still looking for a way around it, a way over it, a way under it, but God’s Way is through it. A lot of people turn back! They say, “Let’s go back to Egypt. It’s hot out here, it’s dry, it’s lonely. Oh, I need fellowship. Oh, I need something for the kids. I need teaching.” And pretty soon they go right back into a place that they said not too long ago God had called them out of. They were led up by the Spirit into the wilderness, but before that Spirit can teach them anything they’re trying to get out of there.

In the wilderness you don’t follow your feelings. It says the children of Israel were led by a column of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. When the cloud moved, then they moved. When the cloud stayed still then they stayed still. I mean, it’s really as simple as that. Walk in the Spirit. If you begin to be led by your feelings then you’ll make the wrong decision every time. Most of the time, the right decision doesn’t feel good. Doing the right thing is usually difficult. The easiest thing to do is to quit, to give up, to go back to Egypt. But I’m telling you: get to a place where going back is no longer an option; then going back is no longer a temptation.

This article is based on an audio series titled The Spiritual Desert: How God’s Purposes Are Fulfilled In Your Wilderness Experiences.

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The ministry was my whole life – and I mean the ministry of pastoring, teaching, and so on. Even when I left Organized Religion the ministry was an idol to me. What could be more spiritual than ministry? What could be more “good” than being in the ministry? But over the process of years the Lord showed me how He judges things, not according to our standards of good and bad, but according to His standard of Life and Death.

That which Jesus originates in Himself and empowers me to do is living and produces fruit. That which I originate in myself and carry out in my own strength is Dead. The branch cannot bear fruit of itself. And people saved, sermons preached, and churches built apart from the Life of the Lord are simply dead activities carried out by dead branches.

Stop asking what is right or wrong, what is good or bad. Start asking, “Is this living or dead? How does the Spirit of Jesus respond to this? Do I sense life, or do I sense death?” That is the key. Now if we follow the Life of the Lord we will do the right thing every time. We will do the good thing every time. We will not have to wonder what the “right thing” is, and we will not have to worry about doing the “wrong thing”.

Is it still difficult for you to grasp? Then imagine, if you will, a person who dies and stands before the Lord. They begin to recount all the good things they did in their life. Will this help them? Will God consult the Book of Good and Evil and count up all the works, and weigh them in the balance, in order to determine that person’s destiny? No. In the Book of Revelation we see that God does not judge the dead according to the Book of Good and Evil, but according to the Book of Life. See, the question is not Good or Bad, but Living or Dead? Now apply that to your spiritual life here on earth and I think it will help. If we begin to rely upon the Lord for discernment we will begin to see things as He sees them, and He will show us how to judge our actions not according to our limited understanding of right and wrong, but according to Life.

Jesus says that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The Way is Christ – that is, we give up our own way and embrace Jesus as WAY. He is the Way, the Narrow Path. As we continue in the Way – as we abide in Him – we eventually come to the Truth. The Way leads to the Truth, and Jesus is the Truth. The Truth is not a set of facts about Jesus. Jesus Himself is the Truth. The Truth is not a set of teachings or theological books. The Truth is a Person. That is why the Truth leads to Life. Truth must be living to us. Truth must become Personal. It must take on a Personality. Truth is personified into Jesus. The Way brings us to the Truth, and the Truth brings us to the Life. If Truth becomes merely a “thing”, a database of knowledge, then it is a dead thing. The Way leads to the Truth, and the Truth leads to the Life. And this Life produces abundant fruit because it is so abundant.

The Vine is living. The Branches grow out of the Vine. So long as the Branches remain in the Vine, they are fruitful. It is so in the natural realm; it is so in the spiritual realm. How could it be otherwise? The same Life that flows through the Vine is flowing through the Branches. Again, how could it be otherwise? The Branch does not have to do anything to “generate” its own life; the Branch simply relies on the Vine for its sustenance. So how does the Branch produce fruit? Not through effort. Not through works. Not through hoping. Not even by prayer! “Lord, I pray that you would make me to produce fruit.” The Lord will say, “I am the True Vine. Abide in Me and you will produce much fruit, and your fruit will remain.”

So how do I abide in Christ? The Lord puts you into union with Christ from the moment you are born-again. “Of God are you in Christ Jesus” (I Cor. 1:30a). This oneness with Jesus is not the reward for having lived a good life for many years. When you became a disciple of Jesus and trusted Him for salvation, you entered into the Secret Place of the Most High and you now dwell under the shadow of the Almighty (see Psalm 91). Christ is your Fortress, your Refuge, your Secret Place. You are blessed with every spiritual blessing, you are chosen in Him, you are accepted in the Beloved (see Ephesians 1).

Now just stay where you are, there in Christ. You’ll make mistakes, especially in the beginning. You’ll continue to rely on the Self-Life until you learn how to rely upon the Christ-Life. You’ll learn. It takes time. You don’t have to start all over again every time you make a mistake, just pick up where you left off. You begin to understand after awhile that, “In me – that is, in my flesh – dwells no good thing” (Rom. 7:18). You lose confidence in yourself, and you begin to have more confidence in the Lord. You begin to trust in the Life of the Lord. “I don’t understand it, I don’t even like it, but this is how the Life is leading me, and I cannot disobey that Life, because every time I do it always results in Death.” You learn this. Peter learned it. James and John learned it. Paul learned it. You will learn it also.

What does it look like when you begin to lose confidence in yourself, and you begin to rely more on the Life of the Lord? Well, first of all, you’re not going to be so proud as you were before. You’ll walk a little more softly, you’ll be a little more gentle, you won’t come off as being a know-it-all or a braggart. That’s a wonderful benefit of abiding in Christ. If I’m depending on Him for everything I certainly can’t boast of anything in myself!

What else? Well, if I’m losing confidence in myself and relying more on the Life of the Lord, how will that affect my prayer life? Do you think I’ll pray more or pray less? Well, the self-sufficient, those who are confident in the flesh, pray very little, if at all. Why pray? I can do it myself. I don’t need God. Only when things get out of control, beyond my ability, do I cry out to God. Prayer is a last resort for the carnal man, but for the spiritual man, prayer is a first resort. Prayer is like breathing. The spiritual man is praying all the time. Is he always on his knees, whispering? No. Prayer becomes an ongoing conversation with God, sometimes spoken, sometimes unspoken. You don’t pray because it’s time for your daily devotions, or because you’re in some kind of deep trouble. You pray because your Life depends on it – your spiritual life. It wells up and overflows. That is communion and fellowship. It isn’t forced, it isn’t contrived. It’s spontaneous, natural, flowing, free. But it may not even be expressed outwardly. It’s an inward state. Nobody sees it. You’re there in the Secret Place of the Most High.

This article is based on an audio series titled Abide In Me: The Way of Spiritual Abundance.

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Are we willing to go deeper than the obvious, surface level explanation of what Jesus said here?

The “word of faith” people, the “name it and claim it” people, have always taken the “abundant life” in verse 10 to mean that God is going to give us the “abundant life” of this world – money, and the things that money can buy. To them this is a proof-text for prosperity, for material things. I know it is a stretch. It’s hard to understand how people can lift this verse out of the passage and teach it that way, but carnal people manage to teach it and believe it. That’s why the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit because they are spiritually discerned.

Well, let’s go deeper. “The Good Shepherd gives His Life for the sheep.” In one sense of course, in the most commonly interpreted sense, Jesus is speaking of his death on the Cross. He lays down His life for the sheep so they can be saved. Well, that is the natural side of it, I suppose. I’m not saying that’s incorrect. But is there a deeper meaning that can apply? Oh yes, I’m believe so, because you see the word here is present tense: The Good Shepherd GIVES His Life. If He were only referring to His death on the Cross, He might have said – “The Good Shepherd WILL GIVE His Life for the sheep.” And now, since He has already died on the Cross, it would (to us) be past tense.

But He said, “The Good Shepherd GIVES His Life.” It is present tense. It is always present tense. He is always the Good Shepherd. We are always His sheep. And so He always gives His life. In what sense does He give it? Is He constantly crucified? No, that is the natural. What is the spiritual implication? He is giving His Life that we may have that same Life. And because He IS the Life, this Life is an abundant life, and this abundant life leads to spiritual fruitfulness.

Just as the Good Shepherd gives His Life for the sheep, so the True Vine gives His Life for the Branches. Do you see the connection? It’s the same thing. It’s exactly the same thing. The Good Shepherd gives His Life for the sheep; the True Vine gives His Life for the Branches. This Life He gives is not for the purpose of making my life better; it is given so that I can exchange my life altogether, and rely upon the Life of Another.

There are two aspects, two sides to this glorious truth: first, that I AM IN CHRIST; second, that CHRIST IS IN ME. If the first is true, and I am living in Christ, then the second follows naturally – Christ is living in me. He is giving His Life for me on a continual basis. We call this the exchanged life. It is a function of learning how to let Jesus live His life through me.

This is why the denial of Self, as typified by the Cross, is so essential to the spiritual life. “The carnal mind is against against God” (Rom. 8:7). The Self-Life interferes with the Christ-Life. Why? Because “No man can serve two masters” (Mt. 6:24).

And so you have those Two Universal Spiritual Principles that we have discussed elsewhere: the Law of Increase and the Law of Decrease, found in John 3:30. “He must increase.” That is the first principle. It is a spiritual law, that Jesus must increase. But there is something that hinders, something that resists this increase of Jesus. That brings us to the second principle, “I must decrease.” Me, Myself, and I – the Self. I must decrease in order for Christ to increase.

This has global implications, universal applications, but let’s bring it right down to everyday life. Let’s make it personal. It means, in a very practical sense, that when I become a disciple of Jesus I am starting out on a Path in which I am learning how to depend upon the Life of Another; and in order to live that way, I have to give up living the way I am accustomed to living – according to my thoughts, my mind, my will, my opinions, my understanding.

All that pertains to “me” is very limited. As a disciple of Jesus, I am learning just how untrustworthy “I” am, and I am becoming more and more cognizant of my need to depend upon the Life of Christ, CHRIST IN ME, THE HOPE OF GLORY (Col. 1:27). There is no hope in me. “I know,” Paul says, “that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing” (Rom. 7:18). That is the key. There is a man who is beginning to grow spiritually. He has learned something – “I KNOW.” How does he know? Through a lot of trials, and sufferings, and problems, and mistakes, and difficulties, he has learned not to depend upon himself anymore.

In Philippians, Paul says, “We are the circumcision, who worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” No confidence in the flesh. Why? Because Jesus said the flesh is weak. The flesh is fallible. The flesh is limited. I know that it seems as if the flesh is very powerful, and that you can do anything. It sometimes seems easier to just press on ahead and do what seems right; make something happen. Oh, it takes too much time (we say) to wait on God, to know the mind of the Spirit, to just watch and pray and abide in Christ. But those are the words of the immature, the babes. Spiritually mature people have lost all confidence in the flesh, in their ability to do anything, apart from Jesus.

Now I have just shared with you the secret of abiding. It means to have no confidence in the flesh, to wait instead for the Life of Another to lead. Always take that position. Always allow the Lord to lead, to initiate, to work, and don’t do anything of yourself. Now, that is easier said than done, isn’t it? What a battle it is! The flesh does not want to decrease. But as I am decreased, Christ is increased. Stated differently, the measure of Christ in a person will increase in exact proportion to the measure that their Self-Life is decreased.

Well, how does that happen? It happens quite naturally, as we keep hitting our head against the same impossible situations, the same besetting sins, the same difficulties and disappointments over and over again – and eventually we come to the place of saying, along with Paul, “I know that in me – that is, in my flesh, in my Self – dwells no good thing. I no longer have confidence in my flesh. I have learned that the Branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the Vine. So I cast myself upon the Lord, and I trust in His Life to raise me up, to work a miracle, to do what I cannot do myself.” That is spiritual maturity. Now Jesus can do something, and He takes up right where we leave off.

“The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it ” (Ps. 24:1).

Throughout history God has personally and decisively intervened in the affairs of mankind in order to bring about His own Will and Purpose. It should come as no surprise that the Creator of Heaven and Earth, Almighty God, can, will, and does move upon us according to times and seasons of His own choosing. God has complete freedom and liberty to do as He wishes, whenever He wishes. This is what the theologians refer to as “omnipotence.”

Because God is omnipotent (that is, all-powerful), He is not limited or restricted (as some suppose) by man’s “free will.” Some have erroneously concluded that because God has given man the freedom of choice, man can therefore shut God out simply by refusing Him. If we follow this line of thinking then we are compelled to believe that God sits upon His throne in Heaven, looking down upon all the inhabitants of the Earth, waiting to see if anyone will freely choose Him, invite Him in, open the door of their heart, make a decision, or formally surrender to Him. Until then (we are told) God’s almighty hands are tied, and He is powerless to save, or heal, or move, or do anything He wishes to do, because – alas! – He must have man’s permission before He can do anything. This would mean that the Creator has essentially become imprisoned by His own creation. Not only does this call into question the omnipotence of God, it also challenges His omniscience: wouldn’t an all-knowing God perceive that man would be able to usurp His throne via “free will”? Knowing this in advance, would He not then do something to prevent it from happening?

When put in these terms, it is easy to see the foolishness of deifying man’s free will. The very idea that man can defeat God simply by refusing to obey or acknowledge Him is absurd. While it is true that God has given man a free will, He has not given man free reign, nor has He endowed man with omnipotence or omniscience. God has granted man free will, but God has not relinquished His own Will. Man is free to act and move and think and decide – but then, so is God.

The question is whose will is stronger: God’s Will, or man’s will? Who has more power and authority: the Creator, or the thing created? Does man really defeat God when he refuses to acknowledge or affirm Him as God? Or does it only appear that way?

Certainly it appears as though we can limit God, or delay His Purpose through disobedience, ignorance, unbelief, or stubborn refusal to submit to Him. But appearances can be deceiving. When the righteous suffer and the wicked are rewarded, are we to deduce that wickedness is better than righteousness? The foolish will assume that “stolen waters are sweet” (Pr. 9:17) and will abuse the freedom of choice God gave them, indulging in all manner of sinful and selfish acts. But those with wisdom understand that “God is not mocked… whatever a man sows, that will he also reap” (Gal. 6:7). Even if the harvest is delayed the spiritual principle is not defeated, because God is not mocked. When guilty men go free and innocent men are condemned, it appears that there is no justice; but those who know God realize that there is a day of judgment coming when He will set everything right and His justice will triumph even if man’s justice fails. Justice delayed does not mean that justice is denied.

In the same way, the fact that God’s Will and Purpose can be delayed or limited by man does not mitigate the final outcome. God’s Will may be temporarily delayed, but it will never be ultimately denied. In the end, God is and will forever be, God. If His Will appears to be defeated in the short-term, the only possible explanation is that God permits this delay and allows this seeming defeat, to serve a higher goal and purpose that is hidden from us in the short-term, but will be abundantly clear to us later on. Witness the cross of Christ: the Savior of the world despised, rejected, and crucified by the very ones He came to save. From a human perspective it appears that the death of Christ is a defeat, a terrible loss, and a grim reminder of God’s inability to do anything not allowed or permitted by man! But God is content to allow Himself to be misunderstood for a season because He knows what is coming on the third day: that Christ will rise again – and in that rising again God has forever silenced the naysayers!

Man’s will is finite, changeable, and severely limited. God’s Will is infinite, unchangeable, and unrestricted. Yet man’s will is thought to be (by men, of course) some inviolable, sacrosanct thing that God Himself cannot touch; while God’s Will is, at best, merely optional – something rarely done, and hardly ever achieved, because it must unfortunately bow to the will of man. With this distorted view of reality, man effectively turns God’s Will into a Great Wish, since God supposedly cannot do anything without our cooperation and assent.

Instead of exalting man’s will to the point of diminishing God’s Will, what if we began to esteem God’s Will with as much reverence and respect as we do our own will? For the Scriptures say, “[My Word] shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isa. 55:11, ESV). Only a fool would challenge the authority of God’s Word. Why then would anyone challenge the authority of His Will? Let it be known that God’s Word is the expression of God’s Will; His Word contains His Will, and both are equally unfailing. Jesus embodies both the Word and the Will of God. Christ the Word was “made flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:14) and this Living Word says, “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of Me in the scroll of the book” (Heb. 10:7, ESV).

Thus we see that what is truly limited and restricted is not our great and mighty God, but our own judgment and capacity for spiritual understanding. We can choose for or against God and either reap the rewards or the consequences of our choices, but we are not all-knowing, nor are we all-powerful. Even when God appears to be limited by man, restricted by man, rejected by man, or (as in the case of Christ on the cross), cut off and destroyed by man, God is nevertheless working towards the fulfillment of His own higher Purpose, and He will eventually get what He wants, even if He has to raise people from the dead to get it.

This divine zeal to accomplish His own Purpose can be easily demonstrated from the Scriptures. Many are the occasions in which God intervenes in the affairs of man and imposes His own Will, Purpose, and Desire – with or without the cooperation, acknowledgment, or permission of man. He acts as we would expect the Creator to act: decisively, with great power, great authority, great wisdom, and great love. Scripture overflows with testimonies of God intervening on behalf of individuals, groups, and nations in order to save, protect, provide, destroy, punish, or judge. But in this writing we will limit ourselves to an examination of what I call the “Four Spiritual Interventions”: those critical acts recorded in Scripture that are most significant in terms of God’s Ultimate Purpose and Intention – those heavenly interventions that altered the course of history.

Of these Four Spiritual Interventions, two have already come to pass; one is currently occurring; and one is yet to be. And so this is a matter of utmost importance to us all. These Four Spiritual Interventions are not just things to be studied, but they reveal something of the nature of God’s Will and His ways. Our spiritual life and walk with God will either be strengthened or weakened by our ability to grasp what will be expressed, and so spiritual wisdom and discernment are called for. May the Lord enlighten us to see what follows.

(To be continued…)

Why is there evil?

A better question: Why is there good?

Someone once asked Brother Lawrence, the French monk, if he wondered why there was evil in the world. Brother Lawrence replied that he was not surprised by the evil in the world, he was only surprised that there was not more, considering the malice that people were capable of.
In the worst evil, Life and Light come forth and God is glorified.

Goodness, holiness, love – that they exist at all in this world is miraculous.

The real miracle is that good exists, and that God can bring good out of evil. How is it possible? It is a miracle.

All of human history – sin, failure, rebellion, death – all this evil will continue. Not only will it continue, but the Bible says that wicked men and seducers will become worse and worse (2 Tim. 3:13). God will permit evil to come into its fullness. Then, the Bible says He will work all things together for good (Rom. 8:28). He will destroy death, and there will be no more sorrow or crying (Rev. 21:4). He will reverse the curse and bring everything out of weakness, out of death, out of darkness, out of foolishness – all this evil – and will bring forth strength, life, light, wisdom, and good.

You say that’s impossible. Yes, with man it is impossible, and we see no way out of this mess. But with God all things are possible (Matt. 19:26).

Your adversity, your distress, your trouble, your affliction, your persecution, your tribulation, your suffering, your trials, all of them are designed to show you how God turns Weakness into Strength (2 Cor. 12:9); Death into Life (Rom. 8:2); Darkness into Light (Acts 26:18, John 8:12); Foolishness into Wisdom (1 Cor. 1:27-30).

Look at the New Creation: “If any man be in Christ He is a new creation; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17). He turns everything around in you the moment you are born from above. He continues to do this throughout your life.

He says the same thing in the Book of Revelation, but this time referring to the heavens and the earth: “Behold, I make all things new.” (Rev. 21:5). There is the principle. He is doing it in you now, and in me, and one day what He has done in us He will do in all creation.

Good out of Evil. You see it in Joseph. What did Joseph say to his brethren? “You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20). Joseph is a type of Christ.

“The Stone that the builders rejected became the Head of the Corner.” (Matt. 21:42). Despised and rejected of men, betrayed by Judas, forsaken by the disciples, condemned by the Jews and crucified by the Romans. You say what has happened to you is unfair? The crucifixion of Jesus was the most unfair event in human history. Man killed God. Can you imagine that? How evil is that? How dark is that? How foolish is that?

When they arrested Him, Jesus said, “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” (Luke 22:53). He allowed them “their hour”. Go ahead and take the greatest concentration of evil you can find, bring the full force of death and hell and satan against the Lord Jesus, let evil do all it can do. What is the end result? He is raised up triumphant over it all.

Jesus did not avoid death. Sometimes death is unavoidable. Sometimes darkness is unavoidable. Sometimes evil appears to have the advantage. But in death, in darkness, in the worst evil, Life and Light come forth and God is glorified. If not here where we can see it, in the End, when all things are revealed, when He makes all things new and wipes away every tear from every eye.

Most of our fears are a consequence of not knowing God well enough. Fear comes from uncertainty. If we are confident, secure, and certain about who we are in Christ, and who Christ is in us, then we won’t be worried about what the devil might do, and we won’t be worried about what other people might do.

Now folks, that’s a lot off your plate. Imagine what a relief it would be to just live your life in friendship with God, unaffected by worries and fears about the devil, unmoved by worries and fears about other people – what they might think, what they might say, what they might do.

Think about all you could accomplish if you were truly unafraid. I’m not saying you go out and take foolish risks. I’m saying fear holds us back. God tells us to go but we’re afraid to go. God tells us to stay put but we’re afraid to stay put. God gives us something to say but we’re afraid to say it. God gives us a talent or a gift that will bless and encourage and help other people, but we’re afraid we’ll make a mistake, or afraid we’ll look foolish, or afraid we might fail.

Let me go ahead and allay those fears right now. Let me share something with you that will set you free from fear of failure, fear of making mistakes. I’m still relatively young, but I’ve been at this for a long time. People say, “How can you know so much and be so young?” I’ll tell you why, it’s because I’ve made enough mistakes for three people twice my age. By the time I was twenty I had made enough mistakes for someone eighty. I have failed more times than I have succeeded. I have fallen down, gotten up, fallen down, gotten up, fallen down, gotten up, and sometimes I think God created me to be an example to others of what NOT to do. I’m only just beginning to experience some victories, some successes, some fruitfulness. I’ve had to learn it the hard way.

But here’s what I want to share with you, to set you free from fear of failure, fear of making mistakes, fear of stepping out, fear of stepping up. Here’s what God showed me: His plan, and His purpose for my life, is based on my making lots of mistakes. His plan accounts for the fact that I’m going to fail. He already has that factored into the equation. We don’t take God by surprise, or derail His purpose, by anything we do or fail to do. His purpose and His plan for your life is not dependent on you never making a mistake. Not only does He know that you will make mistakes, and you will fail, He makes His plans based on the fact that things are going to come along to try and mess up His plans.

Have you ever made plans to do something? Do you plan for things to go wrong, or do you plan for things to go right? Most people come up with a plan and the plan assumes everything is going to go the way it should. But what happens? Something always goes wrong, and then the plan collapses.

For me it happens every Saturday. My wife gives me a little home repair project, and I think it’s going to be pretty simple, just need a hammer and some nails and this and that. So I plan to take five minutes to do this simple repair. Then I get five minutes into the project and realize it’s worse than I thought, I need a watchamacallit and a thingamajig and I don’t have what I need, so now I have to make a trip to the store. They don’t have what I need so I have to go somewhere else. Then I come home and the part I thought I needed doesn’t fit, I need something larger or something smaller, and now I have to go back to the store again. What should have been a five minute project becomes a five hour ordeal.

Now, do you think God is like that? Do you think He is so foolish as to have one plan that relies upon you and me doing everything perfectly, never making a mistake? Do you think you can make a mistake or fail so miserably that you can outsmart God and thwart His plan for your life?

Certainly we can delay His purpose, and we can bring a lot of unnecessary suffering on ourselves by being willfully disobedient, but if our heart is right and we’re doing the best we know how to do then God is able to work everything out for His glory, even our mistakes, even our failures, EVEN OUR SINS. I’m not saying go out and sin, because there are consequences for sin. I’m talking about your past right now. Don’t worry that your past disqualifies you, because it doesn’t. You can’t go back and undo these past mistakes, past failures, past sins. I’m saying don’t let fear about your past keep you from loving God now, living life now.

Don’t worry about being perfect in the future, because God’s purpose for your life is based on you being imperfect. God wants to show the world how He can take anything and bring good out of it, how He can take imperfect people who make mistakes and still do something good with their lives.

That is going to be the history of mankind, we’re all going to be amazed one day when we look back and see how God worked all things together for good, brought light out of darkness, and used evil for good.

There already is a fellowship of saints. It is a spiritual fellowship, and it is based on Christ having the preeminence – not the fellowship having preeminence. All this yearning for fellowship and being with others is the result of being hung-over from the religious system. You’re trying to fill a void that religion used to fill.

The purpose of solitude in the spiritual desert is to get you to see that Jesus is Enough. You’re not going to die from lack of fellowship, but if you don’t learn that Jesus is Enough then spiritually speaking you’re dead already. He’s the One you need to be focused on – not starting a fellowship, not finding a home group, not making something happen with other people.

And already I can hear the “yeah buts”. “Yeah, but God made us to be social beings. Yeah, but God knows we need encouragement from other believers. Yeah, but the Bible says forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is. Yeah, but we’re all supposed to be part of the Body of Christ. Yeah, but there’s just something about gathering together with like-minded believers. Yeah, but you just don’t understand what it’s like.” Yeah, but I do understand – I’ve been through that part of the desert before, and what I’m trying to tell you is God wishes to know if you love Him or if you love fellowship with others. God wishes to know if you are in love with Him or if you are in love with things about Him. God wishes to know if you seek Him or seek a meeting about Him.

There are times and seasons where He calls you to be alone and apart with Him. I’m not saying it will always be like that, but what if it is? What if He calls you to walk alone with Him for the rest of your life? Is Jesus enough for you?

I asked that question of a group of Christians once: is Jesus enough for you? Because most Christians do not believe this. They want Jesus, but they also want fellowship with others. Really, do you know what Christians want? Not fellowship with others. That sounds so spiritual. Really what they want is acceptance from other Christians. You go deep down and that’s what they want. They want to feel accepted by other Christians. Well, all I can tell you is that you’re setting yourself up for a huge disappointment. Eventually there will come a time when you will have to decide between the truth that God has revealed to you and the acceptance of other Christians. Now it hurts when you are not accepted by other Christians. It hurts when other Christians misunderstand you and speak all manner of evil against you falsely when you have spoken the truth to them in love.

But the bottom line is your spiritual life and walk with God does not depend upon the acceptance of other Christians. You might think it does, and it sure makes things easier, but it is not a condition of following Christ – making sure other Christians understand and accept you. The deeper you go into God the more unacceptable you will be to other Christians. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is Himself, “Despised and rejected, a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Jesus would not be, and is not, accepted by most Christians, and do you know that does not change Him and His relationship with His Father? He is Lord whether you accept Him or not, my friend. And if you are His disciple then He accepts you whether the rest of the Christian population accepts you or not.

What I have found is that whenever I ignore the season God has me in, and I try to create fellowship, or seek fellowship, outside of the time and place appointed by My Father, it always ends in disaster. It creates problems, it becomes a disappointment, or it turns into a distraction from what He wants for my life.

And that is never more true than the period of time when you are fresh out of the religious system. You’ve been under a religious spirit for so many years, and don’t think you can just wake up one day, stop going to church, and be set free from that religious mindset. You think you need fellowship, you think you need meetings, you think you need other people in your life, you think you need all these things, and you are in error. That’s the religious habit talking. It’s just like a drug.

“Oh brother Chip, I’m so lonely, I’ve been going to church every Sunday for twenty years and now we just sit home on Sunday and we feel so empty inside!” Well praise God, if that’s where God has you right now then thank God for it. Stop looking for other people to fill a void that only Christ can fill. You’ve been covering up that void with a lot of religious junk and He’s stripping all that away. He’s trying to build something in you, so let Him do it according to the times and seasons that He has appointed. Don’t rush through that process. Get comfortable with just you and God. My goodness, you don’t even know what it’s like to walk with God and just be hidden in Him because your whole life you’ve been following Him in a crowd, worshipping Him in a crowd, praying to Him in a crowd, learning about Him in a crowd.

Enoch walked with God, and he didn’t have anyone else to fellowship with.

Noah walked with God and he didn’t anyone but his family.

Abraham walked with God and he didn’t have a house church to go to.

Moses spent forty years in the desert and it didn’t hurt him a bit, he came out better than he went in.

Jesus walked with God and every single one of His friends and disciples denied Him and fled when He needed them the most.

You give people too much credit for your spiritual well-being and don’t give God enough credit. I’d rather be alone with God than have a crowd of people without Him.

Now that doesn’t diminish anything the Bible says about the Body of Christ. But you’ve got to learn how to get connected to the Head before you try to get connected to the Body. Body Life is only as good as the Body’s relationship to the Head. The Body has no life in itself apart from the Head. If you read what the Bible says about the Body of Christ, you notice it doesn’t say that we are supposed to seek out our place in the Body or try to insert ourselves into place. It says He sets us in the Body of Christ according to His will. His will, not ours. You try to set yourself in place and you’ll get it wrong.

The Bible does not say “hold fast to the Body” or “hold fast to the members of the Body”, it says “hold fast to the Head.” The Bible does not say, “Seek ye first the fellowship of others”, but “seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, and all these things – including fellowship – will be added to you.” You learn to do that and the rest will take care of itself, in the time and manner that God sees fit.

Take your hands off that whole issue of fellowship and cast that concern onto the Lord. Go to Him and say, “Lord, here I am in a desert place, it’s dry, and it’s lonely, and it looks like there’s no fellowship. But You are My Rock, My Fortress, My Hiding Place, You lead me and direct my steps. You be My Fellowship. If you see fit to bring me into relationship and fellowship with others, fine; but if not, then I trust that You are more than Enough to meet my spiritual, emotional, and social needs. I can live without fellowship Lord, but I cannot live without You!”

Now folks, I have been in that place so many times I don’t even have to pray about it anymore. I’ve just learned to trust God in this area, and I know He is sufficient. It’s settled in me. It’s not even a thing I pray about anymore. I want it to become settled in your heart as well. Let the desert do its work.

The Terrible Price of Misconception

The Jews completely failed to discern the mission and the message of the Lord Jesus. Theirs was not only a passive inability to understand what was going on, but an active resistance to the Son of God and everything which He represented:

“He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own [people], but His own [people] received Him not.” (Jn. 1:10,11)

What was the result? Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70, just as Jesus said it would be.[1] The Temple was burned to the ground yet again. That religious system that sought so many times to destroy Christ was itself destroyed.

Do we suppose that the religious system of our day – “Churchianity” – is any less likely to meet the same fate? Are not the fundamental errors made by our religious leaders the same, if not worse, than the mistakes made by the Jews? Consider how many people Organized Religion has killed in the name of Jesus � from the Roman Catholic crusades to the Salem Witch Trials and beyond. Will God tolerate this indefinitely?

If the King were to re-visit our churches today, just as He visited the Jews two thousand years ago, is it not reasonable to expect that He would be as unrecognizable to us now as He was to them then? Are we not just as likely to perceive Him as a threat to our religious order, and put Him out of our churches, just as the Jews sought to destroy and discredit Him at every opportunity?

These questions are intended to be rhetorical, but I will answer them according to what I believe in my heart to be true, and what I have seen in my own experience. The Church today would not recognize Jesus Christ if He walked down the aisle and sat on the altar. The spiritual blindness and dullness in the Church today is worse than the Judaism that rejected and betrayed the Lord. They were corrupt – but we are no better. The Jews only had part of the picture; we have the complete picture. The Jews did not have the benefit of a New Testament to explain everything for them; but we have it, and we have the entire benefit of hindsight, a complete Scriptural record, and two thousand years of church history to show us the error of our ways. “Now all these things happened to [the Jews] for examples: and they are written for our warning, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”[2] In spite of this we turn a blind eye to it all and simply toe the party line. Meanwhile the Kingdom of God is unnecessarily hindered and delayed.

But it will not be delayed forever. Jesus must increase, therefore He will increase, and He is increasing. There will be a day of reckoning, and “to whom much is given, much is required.”[3] We who have been given so much more than the Jews will be held accountable in direct proportion to the light available to us.