We are awakening, as it were out of a deep slumbering sleep, to how our knowledge of Christ defines our lives, as his body and Ekklesia. In a way that is missing from the fractured churches of this worlds order. Because many of them are of mans own making as close copies of the true Ekklesia. When we consider all that the Lord Jesus said, plus Paul's revelation of him in his gospel, we can clearly see why those false churches and their religious ideologies cause man so much dysfunction and even disarray, strife, anguish, and more agony of soul, a belief of separation, judgments and far off future events. Where many are crying out for a fresh revival, some calling these things homecomings, all most daily. All done in an a tempt to draw "lost souls" into their snares as in a spiders web of religious restrictions.
Colossians 3:5-11 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all." (KJV)
Colossians 3:5-11 "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator." (ESV)
Colossians 3:5-11 "Consider the members of your body as dead and buried towards everything related to the porn industry, sensual uncleanness, longing for forbidden fruit and other such things, by lust and greed, which are just another form of idol worship. (Idol worship is worshipping a distorted image of one's self!) These distorted expressions are in total contradiction to GOD's design and desire for our lives. (The sentence, "upon the sons of unbelief" was added later in some manuscripts. As a means of leveraging.) We were all once swept along into a lifestyle of lust and greed. But now, because we realize that we co-died and were co-raised together within Christ (mans original form), we can flush our thoughts with truth! Permanently putting these things behind us: things such as violent outbursts of rage, depression, all manner of wickedness, [1]slander and every form of irregular conversation. (The lifelong association with sin is broken; the dominion of the character of GOD is revealed again in ordinary life. The word, [1, G988 from G989 blasphēmos, a derivative of G984 and G5345] blasphemos means any attempt to belittle someone else and to cause someone to receive a bad reputation.) That old life was a lie, foreign to our design! Those garments of disguise are now thoroughly deleted (burned in hells fires, by our co-decension in Christ) from us in our understanding of our union within Christ in his death burial and resurrection (all with a "co" prefix meaning divine action.) We are no longer obliged to live under the identity and rule of those old (blood stained cloths of a woman's menstrual period [Isaiah 64:6]) robes that we wore before, neither are we cheating anyone through false pretensions. (The garments an actor would wear define his part in the play but they cannot define him.) We stand fully identified in the new creation renewed in knowledge according to the pattern of the exact image of our Creator. The revelation of Christ in us gives identity to the individual beyond anything anyone could ever be as a Greek or a Jew, American or African, foreigner or famous, male or female, king or pawn. From now on everyone is defined by Christ; everyone is represented in Christ. (In seeing him not just as recorded history but revealed in us, we discover the face of our birth as in a mirror! [James 1:18]) (The Mirror, with editing)
Until our next visit may our LORD be your guide into his being.
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