Ephesians Lesson 30 of 39 part 4

Ephesians 4:24

"And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." 

We are not to be a facade, not a counterfeit, but the real thing. This is not something we can manufacture of our selves because the people of the world know a hypocrite when they encounter one. Because one they are one and two because they are, they know who else is also. We all at one point or another are acting our part, what you ask? Say your sick, do you broadcast it to everyone your true condition, many do not. And if they claim to be a "Christian" they will say that they are healed by His strips or that they are taking a healing. When in fact of truth they are not and then they will say, "Life and death are in the power of the tongue", as an escape mechanism. Oh, there are many such examples but that one will do, they are play acting and that makes them a hypocrite before God and man. They wont go to a doctor or even a hospital because they may loose their standing as a person of faith, when in actuality they are stubborn and bullheaded. That is slandering God and His name by so doing and God will not be mocked by any one. If your sick by all means seek help, God has given gifts to man for that very purpose and if someone comes and tells you to do so, then do it. Back to Romans chapter 6, and let’s start with verse 5, and remember Paul always writes to the believer, he never writes to an unbeliever, he does write to those who profess belief but are in fact a disbeliever and he expects us to contact them.

Romans 6:5-6

"For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death*, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man** is crucified with him, that the body of sin (that influence of the old Adamic nature) might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin."

*the revealed illumination of the Lord Supper through His ascension, then Galatians 2:20. **the old Adam, that old sin nature, the hypocrite, that we are born with and because Jesus came through the line of Jacob though His was not a Hebrew or Jewish, for He was the Son of man.

We are not, we can NOT have or serve two masters, we will serve Satan (in Religion of man or are lost) or we will serve God through Christ, thusly having One LORD. If we are unable to call Christ Jesus LORD, we are none of His.

Romans 6:8

"Now if we be dead with Christ, (by faith) we believe that we shall also live with him:"

If we identify with His death, burial, and resurrection, by faith, then God identifies us in that same set of circumstances. I must warn everyone that this is not a form of head knowledge as a yes man but is rather by way of personal revelation. In other words the logos of God's Word has become the Rhema Word (life giving or living word) within you and your heart. We have been crucified the old Adam, we have now been given a new nature. And as He arose from the dead, we also arose from the dead. With this one difference He has resin in our heart as the Word of Life. As He paid the sin penalty on our debt, God sees us literally on the cross, in the person of Christ. He saw us in the tomb in the person of Christ, He sees us in resurrection power in the person of Christ, and we appropriate all that by faith. How because the shadow which the Prophets of Israel saw has become the Tree within us as the grain of mustard. We are seated in the Heavenliest in Christ at the Father of spirit's right hand, in His presence. We can not put it in a box, we can not lay it on a table and analyze it, but rather we take it all in by faith, and just simply believe Him. Why? Him because the word "it" is a living person, the ontological essence of Christ, the Rhema of God. In faiths receptivity of Grace, in Love and Truth. We are getting through to a lot of people that this is where it is at. We just simply believe it, because we can not always understand it. We can not fully comprehend it, but we can believe and receive it if we know that God has said it, and this is true. On our way back to Ephesians let’s stop at 2Corinthians 5, but before we do, allow us to look at James comments for a moment. 

James 1:27

“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”

What  does James mean by "unspotted from the world"? For our answer you will need to look at the LORD's prayer in John's synoptic gospel chapter 17 and verses 14-15, Romans 12:2, Galatians 1:4, 6:14 and Colosians 3:1-3, it might do well to also look at 1John 2:15-17 and 5:4-5. From here staying in James turn to chapter 4 and we find this: