MINISTRY WITH SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT

‘The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you--they are full of the Spirit and life’ John 6.63 NIV. What words were these? Were they ‘No one comes to the Father but by me?’ Were they, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven?’ or where they ‘Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you? Then again, ‘Could it be, ‘This is my body given for you?’ which is what Paul was referring to when he spoke of ‘Christ in us’ and Christ our life?

The core of the Kingdom is that Jesus did not leave us a religion. He gifted us Himself to manifest as our persona from our inner being.

We have been talking about the vital power of the new covenant and incarnation. Without this oneness with God much if what we do can be well-meant ‘something and nothing’ because all of separation is off the flesh. We are separated in the law because the law is of Adam’s knowledge of good and evil. But you are of Christ and His incarnated life expressed as you. This life is not just about dealing with sin. It’s about our union with the unlimited, eternal life that flows from the triune God into us to ignite the world with healing, wisdom and genuine life.

When we speak of the spirit of sonship, we are assuming that we have embraced our adoption in Father, that separation is over and that we and Father are one. This is the ground of our being and the soil of the anointing. Any life in the gifts will fade that is not rooted in the oneness that has become ours in Jesus. In Jesus Christ we have the kind of oneness that the trinity have with each other. God is part of us and we are part of God, yet distinct as daughters and sons. This kind of relationship is called perichoresis.

ROOTED IN GOD

Each member of the trinity is a distinct person with a unique way of expanding the Kingdom. Jesus statement about the source of spirit-life, is premised on some key facts of the new covenant.

Firstly, that we have been made one with God and possess the intimate fellowship that each of the trinity enjoy with each other.
Secondly our oneness with God is unconditional. It is ours forever, based on Jesus’ performance and not ours.
Thirdly the union we have been given is an interweaving of being - the merging of our being with the being of God, yet leaving both parties as unique persons. Thus, the heavenly family are able to express themselves through us without manipulation or control - but in a manner in which we remain totally ourselves, doing what we love to do and what Jesus is suggesting we do.

INTERWOVEN WITH GOD

It will be seen that life in the Spirit is a life of union with God. Not something independent with a life of its own. Spiritual gifts and life in the Spirit are analytically distinct but flow properly from union with God. The gifts grow out of the life which is our union with God. It is for this reason that we need to ensure that we are living in our gifted union, our inheritance of sonship and not in old covenant law-keeping and separation. Tied to the law we are not in the Spirit. We should rid ourselves of such illusions because such mindsets insulate us from the flow of His spirit and life and leave us circling our pet mulberry bush.

LIVE IN FULLNESS

Should we be captured by even one strand to the law, the gifts will sputter and generate conflict between the flesh and the spirit or even be polluted by unclean spirits. Our calling is 100 percent spirit and never mixture. Dr Stephen Crosby writes,

“The prophetic spirit is more than predicting the future, or "reading someone's mail." It is a bursting forth, evidence of the glory of the new relationship Christ has wrought for the believer with the Father. The glory of Christ shared with believers is the inhabitation, inworking and outworking of the Spirit of sonship. In Christ, at last, God found a Man in whom His glory could dwell bodily, no longer limited to a gold plated box in a tent, and the staggering wonder of the new covenant is that He shares that glory with those who are His!” (1)

This is the amazing fact of your life in God. The primary example of the manifest presence of God where you are is you!

(1) Crosby, Stephen. The New Testament Prophet: Understanding the Mind, Temperament, and Calling (Kindle Locations 1117-1121). . Kindle Edition.