CrossBow Ministry

His express image

ARE WE LIKE UNTO OR THE EXPRESS IMAGE:

“ God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;”

Jesus is eternal, yet all we recognize about Him is the 33 +-years He spent on this earth ministering to the Jews and His eventual death on the cross. As Christians we compare our walk on the earth to His walk, when “the word became flesh and dwelt among us”. Was His reason for doing this to show us how to be good Christians in the flesh? When we are in the midst of a difficult situation, when our Christian metal is being tested, we are encouraged to ask ourselves, What would Jesus do, and we look back in the bible when Jesus was tested and what His action was to “overcome the world” and compare our situation “like unto” His situation.

Many times Jesus described the Kingdom of Heaven as “like unto” an earthly activity. This is what it looked like or seemed like, but it was only a shadow, not the actual Kingdom of Heaven. These parable sayings were used to confound the Jews. Only those who were called out, or had an “ear to hear” could hear these sayings and even then His disciples did not understand what He was talking about. They were following a man sent from God who was “like unto” a prophet to them, not the Word of God.

The beginning of seeing Jesus as spiritual did not come until God revealed it to Peter. They could not see the spiritual Jesus, only the son of man. Our understanding today is the same. Most of us are gentiles and we compare the “flesh and blood” walk of Jesus in the earth with our walk, not seeing the spiritual (eternal) word of Gods walk on the earth. He was the manifestation of God speaking, the Word of God in the flesh, not a parable, not “like unto”, not the son of man doing Gods will, but the Son of God being the express image of God in the earth.

We now hold whatever translation of the bible we use as the infallible word of God, following the instructions therein, and denying the power of the Word in us. Because we see Jesus as flesh and blood, accepting only His sacrifice as relevant to our forgivness, to be nailed back on the cross every time we sin so we can be forgiven again, we fail to see the spiritual walk He has given us. We only perceive Him in the flesh. We only see Him as “like unto” the Christian walk we pursue. The Greek word for “like unto” homoios literally translated in the Strongs concordance means similar (in appearance or character). To be similar in the flesh to Jesus is not acceptable to God. To be perfect in His spirit is. To be born of the flesh is to be born of the seed of man. Jesus was never born of the seed of man. He had no earthly father as we do. He was born of the seed of God. He became flesh because he was born of woman, but his generation was from the seed of God. Our old birth is “like unto” the birth of Jesus, born of woman but the seed was of Adam and not of God. Our new birth, just as Jesus, is born of the seed of God, and is the “express image” of God.

I have recently read and heard in religious circles that Jesus was married and probably had children. This has outraged some Christians, but it is accepted by others in order that Jesus would be “like unto” us. You see for us to be “like unto” Him He needs to be “like unto” us. So we draw Him into our image. We make Him” like unto” us in every other way so why not have Him be married with children.

“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us”. WHY? “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

The Hebrew word for image in the Strongs concordance here is tselem; meaning to shade; a phantom, i.e. (figuratively) illusion, resemblance; hence, a representative figure, especially an idol: (I don’t usually leave the figurative descriptions in word studies but these express the true meaning of the word so well.) The image and likeness is dominion over all the other things that were created. We are “like unto” God in this respect only. Are we corruptible? Are we sin? Are we death? Do we need salvation? The list goes on. Is God any of that? We Were “like unto him” (a phantom) yet needed the “express image” born in us in order to see Him as He is.

I was once asked during a bible study, Do you think Jesus ever sinned? This is typical of those who would want to consider Jesus only as man so we could be “like unto” Him instead of seeing him as the “Word of God”. We continue to recognize Jesus only as one who was beaten, humiliated, hung on a cross, despised and rejected, because in this we are forgiven.

The reason we exist on the earth today is to manifest the “express image” of Jesus the Son of God, not just to be “like unto” the son of man. “His” Church will be “His express image”.

“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”

Tom Paine, Evangelist

Being encouraged

This post is by Richard Hughes, an Apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is posted with his permission.

Yesterday, our family had occasion to visit one of the 'mainline' churches in town. They had three morning services. The 9 AM service was in their huge gymnasium building. The 10 AM service was in their older large "sanctuary" building. And the 11 AM service was back in the gymnasium. (pretty slick system) Both the 9 and 10 AM services were packed full of people. We left before the third service.

The sermon was part one of a six part series on the psychology of interpersonal relationships based upon Adam and Eve's experience in the Garden of Eden. I never did hear the name of Jesus from the lips of the preacher. One of the songs extolled the work we could do to realize God's grace. Another lifted up the name of the 'lord', but never named him.

I was truly troubled by the experience, and amazed that such fare could attract so many. It was disheartening. "What a horrible waste for God's people", I thought, "What robbery". Can you imagine having the ear of thousands, and not lifting up the hope we share together in Jesus? What a shame.

Afterward, as I sat in our living room with these thoughts running through my mind, I suddenly saw a footpath extending before me through a dark wilderness. I was standing on the path, and it stretched as far ahead as I could see. I had the feeling I was standing at the beginning of the pathway looking down through time toward its end. I saw that the whole length of the path was strewn with litter. No part of it was clear and no part of it had any less litter than any other part. Nonetheless, I could discern evidence of many who had walked down the path before me. When I looked at my feet, I saw that the litter was chaff.

As I considered the vision, I realized the path represented the Christian walk as it extended from the crucifixion to the catching away of the very last believer on earth; and the chaff represented the denominational doctrine, false prophecies, and misleading teachings that have been deliberately thrown into the pathway to ensnare us. The path of the Christian walk through this world was strewn with chaff from the beginning. Nonetheless, the pathway was always discernible through the wilderness. Even though the whole of the way it was covered with chaff, the pathway was never completely obscured. A traveler could always see the path to walk on it, and follow where it was leading.

As I thought about this, I recalled the prophecy of John at the baptism of Jesus when he spoke of Him as having a fan in his hand ready to purge the floor and gather the wheat. I saw that John 'saw' the threshing floor - the pathway down through time - covered with chaff just as we do. And so, he was thrilled to see Jesus standing before him. For he knew, as we know, that Jesus shall deliver all who are His in the way, and that He will not lose any whom the Father has placed in His hand. Therefore, the threshing floor - the pathway - is safe for all who believe in spite of the enemy's relentless efforts to obscure it. And John was encouraged.

Even so, I was encouraged, and I pray you will be too. For our God is absolutely sovereign.

With love in Christ Jesus,

Dick

Religious forms and spiritual truths:

The word religion appears 5 times in the KJV bible. Three times it comes from the greek word threskia and literally translated it means a ceremonial observance, and twice the greek word is ioudaismos (Judaism). Today the word religion is described in Websters dictionary as a “belief in and worship of God or gods; a specific system of belief, worship, etc., often involving a code of ethics.” Websters thesaurus adds “all that centers about mans belief in or relationship to a superior being or beings”.

I say that religion is created by man in order to sustain mans faith in God. Mans inability in and of himself to understand (to know) God is replaced by mans ability to create his own form of religion to honor God and does not require knowing Him. “ Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.” Just as the men of Athens, wanting to cover all the bases, had erected an idol to the unknown god, man in his infinite wisdom has created a religion for every possibility that exists in the world knowing that there must be a god. In the early church at the time of the first apostles there was a simple spiritual truth being preached. “ That Jesus was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” This “grace and truth” is given to all those who are born of the will of God and in that “grace and truth” is the power to become what Jesus’s Church is going to be. Yet those who are “Born Again” would rather rely on religious forms and religious traditions to convince them of their salvation. The first apostles established the Church on spiritual truth and not on threskia and ioudaismos, but ceremonial worship and jewish tradition did enter in and corrupted the teaching of “grace and truth”.

H.L. Mencken wrote this summation in one of his articles; “ The cosmos is a gigantic flywheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride.” You see it is the vanity of man to believe that God created so that we could ride. It is the religion of man that God intended for us to make this a better place. It is the religious vanity of man to think that Jesus died on the cross so the world would be a better place. The “kosmos” was not created so that man would have a place to play, it was created in order that the creator would be glorified in the earth. So that Jesus would have His Church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. “ Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.” There will not be peace in the world, there will only be peace in Jesus. It has never been all about the created man. “The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.” It has always been about the “Born Again” man.

To be continued

Something inherently "good" in man

Something inherently good in man

“God don’t make no junk”.  This expression has been used from the pulpit, on church signs, in various forms of print and seems to point out that there is something inherently good in created man.  I use the term created man because God makes a difference between “created” and “born again”.   “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.”

The difference between the “created man” dust of the ground + breath of life = living soul Adam and the you must be born again Adam is, they are not from the same “seed”.  The only connection is, the “born again life” dwells in the “created life” vessel. 

I was perusing the blogs 4 God, weblogs, to see if I could find anything of a spiritual nature and discovered an abundance of articles on gay marriage, the tsunami, Iraq, catholic church forums, all about me’s and so on, but hardly anything about God.  His name was used a lot but mostly as a preposition or an adjective, hardly ever as a noun. Most everything was about the fortune or misfortune in the daily life of man covered in the guise of religion.  It would seem the only reason we (mankind) exist on this earth is to satisfy mans religious expectations and God’s expectation is reduced to a secondary (or even non existent) status in the context of the world.  H.L. Mencken said “the cosmos is a gigantic flywheel making ten thousand revolutions a minute.  Man is a sick fly taking a dizzying ride on it.  Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride”.  This might have been something Mencken was partly right about. 

“And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.  But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.”

God’s reason for us being here is somewhat different.  We are here not to be what man inherently is, but what man inherently isn’t.   Adam was created in Gods image and likeness.  The Hebrew here is literally translated, in His shade and resemblance. This shade and resemblance was for Adam to have dominion over the earth and everything in it, including his help meet, (another time) but it did not include Gods righteousness.  Adam did not inherit righteousness when God created him.  Adams stay in Eden was abruptly ended when his participation in the edenic covenant came to an end through the only act of unrighteousness he could do. “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

The first man Adam can do “good” according to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil but that does not mean he is being righteous.  The last Adam is our only claim to righteousness and the only thing inherently spiritual in us.  That Adam is born of God not created in His image    We have received of the fullness of Christ and grace for grace.  Grace is not a religion.

Thomas Paine,  evangelist

Stewardship of the mystery

Written by David Paine, an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ

Subject: Stewardship of the Mystery

OPEN LETTER TO THE CHURCH

Dearly beloved, the assembly of called out saints, permitted of God to hear and participate in the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light the stewardship of that very mystery that has remained a carefully kept secret in God, the one Creator of all things, so that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God would be made clear to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places:  greetings!  The stewardship of the mystery has always been and still is one of the unfulfilled purposes of God for the Church in Christ Jesus our Lord.

STEWARDSHIP OF THE MYSTERY

Stewardship:  OIKONOMI’A - a word in the tongues of men (Greek) that means “the administration of a household or estate.”  Mystery:  MUSTARI’OU - another word (Greek) that means “a shut mouth, secret or mystery imposed by initiation into religious rites.”  Thus being "born-again" and "called-out" is the “permit” and only the church has the right to hear, to know and to speak of this most wonderful and mysterious stewardship. The stewardship of the mystery has such far reaching and broad application in the church’s primary function that it’s impossible to be correctly involved without the specific knowledge of this mystery.  The Israelites were so dumb-founded in the wilderness that when God gave them bread from heaven they could only say MANNA ("what is it?"); when, in fact, it was God’s provision to sustain and enable them to come into the promised land.  Ignorance of the stewardship of the mystery keeps the church ever wandering and never possessing all the promises that are available only in Christ.

CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY

We may pray all night, fast for days on end, cry out in the name of Him who is seated at the right hand of God and find others who will try to agree with us for the sake of answered prayers and all that we may have done is receive the blessings reserved for our sojourn in the wilderness.  But if we dare hope for the absolute fulfillment of all the promises of God, we must understand and practice the stewardship of this mystery.  What is it? “Christ in you the hope of Glory.”  We may indeed know the ascended Christ but until we know and see him in each other, the corporate glory of being conformed to His image (“when we see him we shall be like him”) remains unfulfilled in the church.  Alas, the opaque veil of our own flesh cannot hide the glory of the transforming life of Christ where the liberating Spirit of the Lord is.  Then the veil (at worst, “a glass darkly”) is taken away.  Those who find themselves participating in that most blessed of all environments are changed from glory to glory.  Most Christians are trying to get God to send something new, exciting and powerful down from heaven when the always new, the most exciting and thrilling that heaven has to offer has already come down and dwells in those who have been born again. That holy presence of Jesus and our ability to see Him in each other is the transforming power for bringing forth His glorious bride.  The mystery of  “hidden treasure” in earthen pots (flesh) has been widely ignored and the glory of the stewardship has gone unseen…

Ah, but a new day…

                                                                        to be continued…

Stewardship of the mystery 3

Continued . . . page 3, Open letter STEWARDSHIP OF THE MYSTERY When Jesus said, “I am the Vine, ye are the branches” He was speaking to those men whom He first identified as apostles. He told them that He had “called and appointed them” that they should “go and bring forth fruit.” These men were of the “first water” of apostolic ministry. Paul (not one of the twelve, though contemporary with them) was later saved and Jesus, in a conversation with Ananias, said that Paul was a chosen vessel and that He (Jesus) would show Paul what great things he must suffer for His namesake. Paul was emphatic that his apostleship was not of or through man. Paul, in the clearest possible voice, wrote that the gospel he preached was not of man, he did not receive it of man, neither was he taught it by man, but through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Paul, like the twelve, was taught by Christ. The twelve were taught by Christ before His death. Paul was taught by Christ after His death, resurrection and ascension. Apostles today can and should be taught by the resurrected and ascended Christ. This privilege is not limited to apostles only. Apostles today, just like Paul, should know what their personal relationship with Jesus Christ has wrought. What Christ says has the eternal “Go!” in it and no man has anything to say about it. Paul confirmed that there is “one faith.” Paul must have been speaking of faith in principle, since denominational doctrine/teaching/belief is the precise cause of disunity. “One body?” Please! Jesus taught Peter, James and John; and Jesus taught Paul. Who teaches the denominational ministers of today? Who knows? Thus there is Disunity spelled with a capital “D.” Divisions are synonymous with being infants. Infant Christians are being blown and carried around by every wind of doctrine (false teaching). There is a ministry that employs “the same craft that gamblers use” (Greek for “sleight of men”) and who, by well-meaning but mistaken planning, waylay literally thousands into numberless systems of error called churches. Paul saw divisions and lies as enemies of God. Picture a branch and all along its full length, like birds on an electric wire, there are “churches,” so called, of every size, shape and description, each one hawking its own denominational name. Is this the fruit that Jesus sends His apostles to bring forth? Have you ever seen all different kinds of birds flocked together on the same wire? Birds are smarter than that. Denominationalism may be a religious zoo, but it cannot be a valid representation of “one body.” Does anyone care what Jesus wants? It takes a valid “branch ministry” to bring forth a valid manifestation of one body, the precious fruit of the earth which the husbandman waits for. Is this not hypocrisy when a prophet (or preacher) has to become part of an “association” of prophets or go to school to find out and say what Jesus is saying? You cannot be a John the Baptist and let an association or school of prophets (or denomination or any man) control or edit your words. Equal to that is when apostles are not being personally taught by Jesus. The reason Jesus ascended on high was so that He could fill all things, i.e. so that He could teach and speak to His own ministers. How can there ever be sheep that hear His voice until there is a branch ministry that hears His voice? The branch ministry is the conduit through which everything in the vine flows to the fruit. Most churches today are not the result of a pruned branch but of a branch that has cut itself off because they esteem denominational opinion more than the voice of Jesus. The primary function of branch ministry is to let Jesus, the Vine, the “all in one,” flow so that everything that is in the Vine becomes visible in the church. All the fullness of God was in Jesus Christ when He tabernacled here in the flesh. The branch is even now being called and sent into all the earth to make Christ, the fullness of God, visible through the church in all the earth. The Body of Christ, being brought to perfection, will one day become the full and only focus of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. In that day the branch of the Lord will be glorious . . . to be continued Thought: Is denominationalism the wilderness that keeps the bride from entering the promise land? Selah.

Stewardship of the mystery 2

Continued . . . page 2 Open letter – STEWARDSHIP OF THE MYSTERY NOTE – Having received such quick and favorable response to the first page, only encourages me to elucidate more. There is a public domain, i.e. status of publications not protected under copyright. There should be a church domain; so please consider anything that I may write or say as much yours as mine with all rights released. Send it, burn it, speak it, decry it, use it, write it, make any use of it that pleases you. This has always been true and still is concerning my written contributions. God loves you. STEWARDSHIP OF THE MYSTERY Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have the things which God has prepared for them that love him entered into the heart of man. Is this really true? Yes, it really is true! This is a flesh and Spirit revelation. The flesh can receive nothing so it can do nothing. But God has revealed what He has prepared unto us by his Spirit: for His Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. What no man can know, the Spirit of God knows. The day/light/Spirit speaks and the night/darkness/flesh shows knowledge. We have received the Spirit of God so that we may know the things that God has freely given to us. As Spirit-born we can know and move in the stewardship of this mystery. Clearly, we are not talking about church property needs but corporate body participation. Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord. There is no power in and of the natural man that God uses to perfect His bride. The natural man is ever learning without ever coming to the knowledge of the truth. I’m excited to say that we, having been born of the Spirit (which is not our flesh), have received the ability to be stewards of the mystery. I speak of the knowledge that empowers us in the most blessed of all Christian activities. Our flesh must learn that Christ in us already knows and is already able to minister. The measure of the gift of Christ does not need to be taught. The knowledge then, that every measure is already able to minister, is the mystery. Letting, uncovering, encouraging and making room for every measure to minister is the stewardship. Where the life of God is there is liberty, and we with open (unveiled) faces as looking in a mirror behold the glory of the Lord and are changed into the same image from glory to glory. “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves” involves more than a collection of the veils (flesh). When the heart turns to the Lord the veil is taken away (opened) and the transforming Glory of Christ is revealed in, through and to every believer. GLORY TO GLORY What therefore is it, brothers? When you come together; each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be for edification. All things for edification includes more than this list of five things. The perfected body, his bride, will be the fullness of the one (Him) that that fills all things with all things. This is the assembling of the glorious church. The true stewardship yields to the Spirit’s management and distribution of the unspeakable gift of Christ that’s in every part. The revelation of this is more glorious than the sum total of the separated parts. The fullness of the gentiles has to do with the effective glory that breaks forth as transforming light when the body of Christ is being fitly joined together. This is precisely why the gift of ministry (Eph 4:11) is given to the church. Less than these five is not enough. And more than these five are the inventions of man which God does not need or want. The tradition of divisions allowed in denominational teachings are lies at the core for they justify schisms while maintaining that Christ is not divided. Divisions are in disharmony with the scriptures; they are anti-Christ and exist primarily because of a denominationally produced ministry instead of a ministry that grows out of and is truly under the headship of Christ. Selah. To be continued . . .

The church at Boiling Springs

The Church at Boiling Springs

“And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”

   It is our desire to be an extension of the Church Jesus began, using it as the model of fellowship and worship.  As we walk in the truth He has revealed to us, more will be revealed for us to walk in.  He will prepare our hearts to receive His apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers in order that we may come “in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

The beginning of this walk is in understanding the “principles of the doctrine of Christ”.  These foundational principles are “repentance from dead works, faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgement.  This is only the milk of the “oracles of God” but necessary to go on to “full age” and be able to receive the “strong meat” of Gods instruction.  We invite men, called by God, to the Ephesians 4:11 ministry to learn these foundational principles so that they are able to preach and teach in the Church and to establish more local bodies across the area.  It is our desire that Jesus will be glorified in the earth and this will happen when His ministry is participating in its calling.  The Church at Boiling Springs is committed to Gods purpose.  “I pray for them:  I pray not for the world, but for them, which thou hast given me; for they are thine.  And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.”

A calling out

An open letter to the Church

The word church is used 77 times in the King James version of the bible.  It is translated from the Koina Greek word, ekklesia (ek-klay-see'-ah); which literally translated means, a calling out.

The word Christian is used twice in the KJV and it is transliterated from the Koina Greek word

Christianos (khris-tee-an-os') and translated it means, follower of Christ:

It follows then that those who have been “BORN AGAIN” have been called out to follow Jesus.  Jesus said, “Ye must be born again” and in the same scripture, “ Flesh is Flesh and Spirit is Spirit.  It is spiritually logical to conclude that His Church, (those who are Born Again) are called out of the Flesh to follow Jesus in the Spirit, because it is only in His Spirit that we are able to see or enter His Kingdom.

In John 3 Jesus tells Nicodemus that you must be BORN AGAIN to see or enter the Kingdom.  It is possible that after being BORN AGAIN a person would choose not to enter in to the Kingdom.  The parable of the talent illustrates that fact.  Hiding or burying the talent inside the flesh, ie; not showing or “manifesting” the “Born Again nature” received from God prohibits the fellowship between the “Born Again nature” that resides in others that are part of the body of Christ.  Seeing is one activity, and entering in is another.

 

Seeing Jesus’ Kingdom, “Being Born Again’ is the beginning, to enter in you must be a follower.  Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

Following Jesus is a spiritual journey. The necessity of the new birth is because the natural man is of his own ability unable to “see” or “enter” the Kingdom of God.

  The natural man, (the flesh) is absolutely blind to spiritual things and impotent to enter in for the natural man cannot understand, obey, or please God, only Jesus can please God.  The incorruptible seed that we received “Christ in us” when we were born again is pleasing to God because we received it from God.  It is a spiritual seed, and it did not come from the DUST OF THE GROUND + BREATH OF LIFE = LIVING SOUL CREATED MAN.  Man was created by God in Gen 2:7, not born of Gods seed.  The created man had one law to obey and could not do it. “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

  Following Jesus “being a Christian” is a spiritual journey.  We are called out of the flesh not just to be called out.  We are called out in order that we would follow.  We have received the Spirit of Jesus so we can manifest the Spirit of Jesus and in that revealing, we are Spiritual.  Jesus desires His “called out followers” The Church, to be His glory in the earth.  He will appear in His Church.

Jesus does not want to see the glory of mans wealth, the glory of mans beauty, or the glory of mans wisdom.  He wants to see the revelation of His Spirit in His people, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.  I would desire that participation just as the Apostle Paul did. “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, (the flesh) and reaching forth unto those things which are before, (the spirit) I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” 

This prize is A PERFECTED CHURCH, “till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:” This is the end result of being “called out”.

2004 years later, the called out followers that would be “the perfect man” are hidden in the denominational quagmire that is considered to be the Church by the world.  This world church is dedicated to make mans time on earth as comfortable as possible.  To solve social ills, more interested in being the “Laodicean” church, accepting the rights of the people as the doctrine they follow instead of the Word of God in them.  Allowing the spirit of compromise and the law of man to be preached in the assemblies in lieu of the foundational principles of the doctrine of Christ. These “Born Again” people are stuck in the forms and traditions of the “TARBABY” man has created for himself, not unlike the worshippers on Mars Hill who bowed to the altar of the unknown God.  They followed after the warm fuzzy feeling of emotional fulfillment for a few hours a week in order to feel good about themselves and to feel good about their sacrifice to the unknown God.  It is certainly time to face the truth of Grace.  It is not our activity, but Gods activity in us that pleases God

Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

Paul, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” understood what the truth of “Grace” is and that seeing the “Kingdom” is by “Grace” and entering in to the “Kingdom” is by “Grace”.