Salvation is a term the body of Christ uses to describe the act of being born again in Spirit. A dead spirit cannot conceive thought or action concerning the living Spirit of God. Before the salvation experience we are described as dead. We are completely dead in fact. Sin has destroyed the entire being: body, soul, and spirit. Our flesh man begins to die the minute we are born. Man’s days are numbered by the Lord. We all die. Our soul is marked by what I believe is a genetic malfunction handed down through generations of sin from our ancestors. This leaves us emotionally unfit. Actions and thoughts are motivated from this standpoint of unbalanced emotions. We are without God or any hope because our spirit is dead. Nothing can be done about the unfit soul or the dying body unless life is infused into our spirit. Man’s attempt to address the issues of body and soul are futile. The deepest study of human behavior will only lead to, at the very best, shallow conclusions. Those conclusions cover up the unbalanced and sinful nature of our thoughts and actions. Our spirit must be infused with life. The Word of God teaches us that from the spirit of man we find healing in our soul and body. The infusion of the life of Christ into the spirit of man is the divine nature now having effect in our soul and body. In Matthew 11:28 Jesus says, “Come unto me, all ye that Labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The meaning of this verse is simply that Jesus can take the fragmented pieces of our lives and put them back together again.
The death of the body for the child of God takes place when the body can no longer resist the power of the living Spirit breaking forth into complete transformation and healing. For those without the power of the living Spirit death takes place at the point of completely being swallowed up in the death we have lived in on the earth. The eternal consequences for both are heaven or hell. It is the earthly consequences of living in either state that everyone seems to be obsessed with. My thoughts are for those who have been infused with the living Spirit of God to come to understand how we are to function now and how we are to engage in the present world around us.
John, being exiled on the Isle of Patmos, faced circumstance that with a dying body and unbalanced soul would certainly have led him to a state of distress and depression. That state should have rendered him completely inept to do anything. From a pit of distress, because of the infusion of the living Spirit of God within him, this became his greatest purpose and work in life.
At the beginning of the Revelation of Christ he encountered, it is said in chapter 1:2, “Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.” The strategic plan of action for the army of God in the darkness of this day is to first have an encounter with the living Christ. As a result of this we are then to bare record of the testimony of the one we encounter. The encounter with Christ that John experienced is sandwiched between verse 2 and verse 19. According to Revelation 1:19, John was told to write the things he saw, the things that are, and the things that shall be hereafter. The unfolding of the plan of action for us today is centered around the testimony of the living Christ in every aspect of life. This cannot be accomplished with a dead spirit. An unhealthy believer will fall back into the trap of living a dead life. A healthy believer will discern any event in life through the vision of the living Spirit of Christ. The real question becomes are you going through life dead or alive? Many who have been infused with life are still falling back to view things through the eyes of death. When we do that our soulish tendencies go back to the death emotions as though we had never been infused by the living Spirit. To walk through adversity requires life. His life is all encompassing joy when soulish tendencies are promoting sorrow. His life is peace in the storm. His life is complete satisfaction in a world full of discontent. We need more life.
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