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YOU BELONG AND ALWAYS WILL

Significant numbers of Christians live their lives in a degree of uncertainty. They are certain that they do not measure up and uncertain about their acceptance with God. Some have no joyful expectation of eternal life because their 'Christian life' is dependent on them. Even their relationship with Jesus is a project that they own and feel they do poorly at.

Of course we do have agency in our relationship with Jesus but not the kind many have onerously adopted. Jesus has taken responsibility for our relationship with Himself, so much so that His relationship with God is our relationship. He is so to speak every man and every woman. This is the vicarious humanity of Jesus.

To see Jesus is to see you.

It's an advantage to know that we are flawed human beings. But it is unbelief to live from this position or make an obsession out of sin-management and overcoming. This is not the crux of our God-Fellowship. Jesus is. It's Jesus and our inclusion in His person and His fellowship in the trinity. You are included and belong. From Paul's day to this, people have become uneasy about the radical nature of grace. Grace is never cheap. It is expensive because it cost the life of Jesus so that you can have His life. Unfortunately thousands of Christians have been brainwashed into a hybrid grace that is partially earned. If it is partially earned it is actually all earned and we have lost your joy and much of our ability to be fully human and fully alive.

Grace is not earned. At least not by you. Jesus has earned your belonging. He guarantees it.

The Kingdom is not about morality. It's about God's life manifesting as your life.

The atonement of the cross is not just about forgiveness. It's about drawing you into the life of God. Not just into a state of spirit-filled ecstasy either. Although that can be a component. Jesus has drawn us into genuine fellowship with every member of the trinity. Don't be side-tracked by 'oneness' theology than makes God some kind of an abstraction and captures people in sub-Christian ideas. The three-personed God is ultra-personal which is why God must never be defined as the law but known in Jesus Christ who is the one we are becoming and the Door into fellowship with fullness in God.

It's about God's life manifesting as you: Your life in His Spirit

Our life in God is infinitely more than sin, law and behavior management. It's about belonging. And knowing that we belong. Father's passion is for us to accurately know and experience the nature of the fellowship He has provided and which is already ours: The inheritance of the Free Woman as Paul calls this in Galatians. This means we must seriously question any assertion that it is ok to have one's own 'christ' or one's proprietary gospel. There's only one way and in this case we can rejoice that it is His Way and not some cunningly devised fable.

There's One Way and this is the Narrow Way that is His life as yours.

Baxster Kruger writes, "Reconciliation is not about Jesus suffering punishment so that the invisible, faceless and nameless god up there somewhere can forgive us. It is about the Father's forgiveness in action, entering into our estrangement and its hell, and penetrating the fundamental problem of sin. As James Torrance would say, "The Father does not have to be conditioned into being gracious." There is no sense in which He needs coercing to forgive. Forgiveness is first, overflowing out of the way the Father, Son and Spirit love one another. With this forgiveness rises passion for it to be known and received. Reconciliation began when the Father saw that His children could not see His heart, and when the Son realized that we could not receive his Father's love, and when the Spirit saw the joy of fellowship with the Father vanish from our lives. Reconciliation is about the Father sending His own Son into our darkness." (1)

You belong. You belong in the fellowship of the trinity.

(1) Kruger, C. Baxter. Across All Worlds: Jesus Inside Our Darkness (Kindle Locations 767-774). Perichoresis, Inc. Kindle Edition.

Created By
KEITH ALLEN
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