Christ

In my written and spoken messages I make frequent reference to the preeminence of Christ. Just what do we mean by Christ having the preeminence? What do we mean by giving Christ the preeminence in all things?

We must allow our Husband to rule, and our desire must only be for Him. Some people want a “Prenuptial Agreement” with their Husband. That is, they are willing to come to Jesus, but they are not willing to bring all they have to Him, to have everything put in His Name, to forsake all others until death do they part. They are foolish virgins.

Let me ask, how can you make the Lord your habitation, your dwelling place? How is that possible? This can only be interpreted spiritually, it is absolutely impossible, and hardly conceivable, if we think of it naturally. How can I live in the Lord? Well, it’s like Nicodemus saying, “How can a man enter into his mother’s womb and be born again?”

It is said that familiarity breeds contempt. In the beginning we coveted the presence of the Lord, but today perhaps we take it for granted. In the beginning we were awed by Him, but today perhaps we are not so amazed. His visits become more routine, more ordinary, more commonplace. The Lord is taken for granted.

When everything is stripped away you are soon left with little but your own thoughts. In prison, John had a lot of time to think. And the essence of his thoughts were along these lines: Did I make a mistake? Did I really see the Spirit and hear the Voice, or was that just my imagination? And if He isn’t the One, do we need to start looking for another?

How can this man give us His flesh to eat? So wondered the crowd, and so we wonder, even when we know that Christ is referring to Himself in a spiritual sense. So what is meant by this strange command? How may we apply it to our Christian life?

At His feet we discover there is a difference between the Holy and the Human; the One Who comes from Above, and the ones who come from Below; the One Who is Spirit and Truth, and those of us who are merely flesh and blood. His feet are burning brass. This is His majesty, and His righteousness.

Having the Son, possessing the Son, being one with the Son, we have and possess everything God is. It never has been a question of seeking ten, one hundred, or one thousand different things from God. If we do not know from our experience, we should at least know from the Scriptures, that Christ is the Gift of God.

When He tried to hide Himself, He could not be hidden. I want you to think about that. When God was ready to reveal Him then He could not be hidden. He could not even hide Himself. I tell you, this idea of Christ increasing is the most powerful reality in this universe! Nothing can stand before it, nothing can resist it, nothing can stop it.

God is not moving backward, but in the Son and through the Son, He moves steadily forward. Christ MUST increase. Just as we cannot have gravity without having the law of gravity, so it is impossible to have the Life of the Lord but not have the Law of that Life. And the Law of Life is that Christ must increase.

Christ is revealed or hidden from men as He so desires. So many professed disciples of the Lord Jesus fail to recognize Him. The Lord tells them to go to Galilee, but they go to Emmaus. Many people sitting in church would not discern the Lord Jesus if He walked up the aisle and sat down on the altar.

As we grow out of infancy and begin to wrestle with the deeper questions and issues of the Christian faith we will learn to say, I know WHY I believe. The ultimate experience, however, is to be brought to a place where we can say with confidence, I know WHOM I believe. Knowing WHAT is a beginning. Knowing WHY is progress. Knowing WHO is maturity.

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.

Some Christians think they have to have the right book or the right man of God or the right formula or the right church or the right this or that before they can be victorious. My friend, you already have all the resources you need to live a victorious Christian life. Trust in His Life, yield to it, rest in it, revel in it, rejoice in it!

The branch who abides in the Vine does not have to know how it abides. So long as it abides, it shares in the Life of the Vine. It does not have to ask how it works, and it does not have to be concerned with producing the fruit. It does nothing but abide, and the Life of the Vine keeps it.

There is something more significant to be seen in Mary who sits at the feet of Jesus versus Martha who is “much serving.” Jesus is not contrasting service and worship and saying that worship is better. No, Jesus is contrasting “many things” with “one thing.”

If we are abiding in Him then we will be as He is. If we have put on the Lord Jesus then we are being changed into His likeness, we are being made into His image, and we are in the process of being transfigured. The Light and the Life will respond spontaneously and effortlessly to any demand placed upon it.

There is an ocean of difference between repeating what you have heard and speaking of what you have experienced! Is it any wonder that there is much learning, but no experiential knowledge of Truth? If we speak of ourselves then we can only impart knowledge. But, if we resolve to only speak by revelation, we can impart Life. Only revelation can change a person.

When the servant’s eyes were opened, he saw what Elisha saw. When Elisha said, “The ones with us are greater than the ones with them” it must have sounded like lunacy. It cannot be understood with words alone: the eyes must be opened. If words were enough then Elisha would not have prayed for the eyes to be opened.

Trusting His Life effectively positions the fulcrum in such a way that you exert very little force, while the Lever (Christ) does all the work . Of course we eventually arrive to the place of total rest and exert no self-effort at all. Simply “ask, and it shall be given unto you.”

The one in Christ is seated with Him in the heavenly places. If we see ourselves in Him then we cannot help but understand that since the battle is already won, and Victory is ours, then we do not need a method or a technique designed to “get” a victory which we already possess.