The Daily Word of Righteousness

Pursuing the Heavenly, #6

Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. (Hebrews 6:1,2—NIV)

The Book of Hebrews exhorts experienced Christians, believers who have been saved, filled with God's Spirit, who have experienced the power of the age to come, who have coped joyously with the confiscation of their property, to not stop with these rudiments of salvation but to press forward to maturity and the consequent rulership of the creation.

The rest of God is found when our new life in Christ is governing our whole personality. God's will has become our will.

Perfection is found when we have established our position in Christ, no longer going up and down as we decide whether to save our life in the world or lose it in Christ.

The land of promise is found when we are living in the heavenly Zion, agreeing with the Holy Spirit as He calls forth the kings of wickedness that abide in the recesses of our desperately wicked heart. We have to overcome numerous enemies before we can rest in the Presence of God, just as the Jews had to overcome numerous enemies before they could rest in the land of Canaan.

I think many of my generation will fool around with their retirement plans and their vacation trailers until they wither and die, never having laid hold on the Divine Glory available today.

Perhaps our hope lies in the younger people—that they will claim and possess the treasures in Heaven and, through the Holy Spirit, put to death their old earthly nature with its appetites and passions, its endless reasonings, its refusal to deny itself what it wants, its unwillingness to forsake its own ways and desires that Christ might live.

Christ Is Our Life

Look very carefully at the following verse, for it reveals the essential aspect of our life at the right hand of God.

When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:4—NIV)

When Christ who is your life. Our life!

Here is the key. Christ must be our life. Paul said it was not he who was living but Christ who was living in him.

How do we change from the adamic nature being our life to Christ being our life? For if Christ is not our life, then we have no inheritance in the Kingdom of God. All depends on Christ being our life, especially in the case of the governing priesthood that has its position at the right hand of God.

Each day we make a multitude of decisions, most of them minor, occasionally a major choice is required. If we are to maintain and strengthen our position in Christ at the right hand of God we must keep on holding our decisions before the Lord. No decision is too small for His attention; what we eat, when we eat, how often we brush our teeth, what we read, how fast we drive, and so on and on. All are to be held before the Lord. This is not as difficult as it may seem. When we set our mind to do it, it soon becomes a lifelong habit.

To be continued.