Book 2 of Musings Life-giving Spirits

The more of Christ we have the more we influence other people for good

We are becoming life-giving spirits.

The Lord Jesus stated that the flesh counts for nothing. This is true. The flesh came from dust and shall return to the dust.

True life is the Life of God. The Life of God is termed "eternal Life," and so we sometimes think of it merely in terms of its lasting forever. It is likely that wicked spirits also last forever. So what distinguishes eternal life is not its duration but its characteristics, such as love, joy, and peace.

The Lord Jesus spoke of our bearing fruit. That fruit is His moral image. The moral image of Christ is the product of the eternal Life of God and produces the eternal Life of God and the moral image of Christ in those with whom it comes in contact.

The propagation of religion tends to be in terms of information and mental understanding and acceptance. This is why religion always will murder Christ wherever He appears. Jesus Christ is neither a philosopher nor a theologian. He is the Resurrection and He is the Life. That which is conceived because of contact with Him cannot be understood by theologians, and so they fight the Life of God.

The Lord told us that the Words He spoke to us are spirit and life. The Lord is the Word made flesh. He Himself is the living Word.

No philosopher, no religious leader could, or did (as far as I know), claim to be the Word of God made flesh. All philosophers and religious leaders deal in ordinary words. They seek to convince us of the merits of following their ideas.

Jesus alone claims to be the Resurrection. Jesus alone claims to be eternal Life. Jesus alone stated that His Words are more than ordinary words, but themselves are spirit and life.

The difference between the words of philosophy and theology, and the living Words of Jesus Christ, can be the difference between Antichrist and Christ. One encourages us to construct our own heaven and earth. The other leads us to the Father, to rest in God's Life and will.

We Christians often speak of bearing witness. What we often mean by this is, we are attempting to convey the fact of religion to the minds of our audience. We are making proselytes to our way of thinking.

The true witness of God occurs when the Life of God is seen, heard, and touched. This can happen only as the bearer of the Life is experiencing the sufferings of Christ and being conformed to His death on the cross.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. (1 John 1:1-2)

The Apostle Paul informed us of the manner in which the Life of God appears in us and then is communicated to others.

Paul said he was pressed down, perplexed, persecuted, weakened by afflictions. As Paul's body was sown to the death of the cross, the eternal Life of Christ lifted him from despair and death. The Virtue that lifted Paul was then imparted to others. Then they too lived in the Life of God.

All the joy, peace, love, wonder of the universe exists in the Life of God, in that which was removed from the Garden and Eden because of disobedience. Since that time the flesh of man has attempted to acquire joy, peace, love, and wonder. But what we have in the flesh is as the dried-out skin of a long-dead animal. We clutch the efforts of the flesh as though they will bring us the joy, peace, and fulfillment we are seeking. But we do so in vain.

Into the charnel house of very dry bones called the world strides the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever will receive Him receives the joy, peace, love, wonder, and fulfillment that all people seek. Those who reject Him reject their only hope of obtaining the deepest desires of their heart.

The flesh seeks fun, and finds it in the frantic grasping of fleshly lusts and passions. The end result of such fun is remorse, shame, sickness, death.

Those who receive Christ must endure the processes of redemption as God teaches us concerning Himself, and through many tribulations makes us witnesses of Himself.

These God-made witnesses, and these alone, are the salt of the earth. They are the light of the world. They are the only source of that which all people, knowingly or unknowingly, seek.

We serve our generation in the best possible manner when we hand over our life to Christ. The more we have of Christ, the more we have to offer the spiritually dead creatures around us.

The judgment of God is approaching America because of our sins. The best way we can serve our country is by gaining more of Christ each day. Then God can use us to assist those who will be paralyzed with fear and despair because of what they see taking place in our once-proud nation. We can point them to Him who sits as King of the flood. More than that, we can share our eternal life with them.

So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. (1 Corinthians 15:45)