If our wills, desires, thoughts and affections are merely now and then good and holy, then the living spirit of God only now and then needs to govern our lives. The word plainly states that we are not sufficient of ourselves to think a good thought, and Paul even asserted he found nothing good in himself. The Father of all creation is the source of all goodness and holiness. Our holiness is not an occasional thing that begins and ends or is merely for such a place or action. Such a supposition falls dead to the ground because every man in Christ is taken over in totality by God.
No man can have holiness, happiness or goodness in himself till the life of God is in union with him as one life. To then make claims and assumptions that our actions, wills and affections only now and then are good and holy is to charge God of being unfaithful and therefore now and then withdraw from us so that all we have to rely on is our own nothingness which cannot produce anything good or holy. The Spirit of God is always operating in us and governing us as a principle of life as one life with us, and it is from this startling fact we infer that our thoughts, wills, desires and affections are perpetually good and holy.
When the scriptures use analogies such as vessels, branches and containers to draw an outline of our humanity it means that we can have but two states as testified by the two trees in the Garden. Either are we perpetually good and holy or we are not depending on which deity that indwells and governs us. Our first state of grossness we inherited in the first Adam. No work done in the first Adam no matter how noble or decent is counted as goodness because it is not done in God, but in the spirit of error. In Christ, the second Adam, whose office far supersedes the first Adam we find our second glorious state as one life with God in the similitude of Jesus Christ. When Jesus boldly exclaimed that he only did what he saw His Father was doing he testified to and accentuated that his will, desires, thoughts and affections were perpetually good and holy.
The Mystery Revealed 
“every man in Christ is taken over in totality by God”. Ole, the truth in this article is so welcomed. Very different from the sermon I heard this past week on how God will help us when we run into problems and only if we ask. Meaning, it is mostly me running things but every once in a while God will give us a bit of help.I see my need for a total God.
Lovely! Thanks, Stephen!
Yesterday I was tuning and I was going to do a status about the new way of living which is us living out of our core. So for example Brian Coatney may have depressed feelings, but it is definitely not his core.
Hmmm…as to affections this is how it worked for me. Newly baptised in the Spirit in 72 a lot of us felt the Holy Spirit divorcing us from the music at the time, which in that culture had a strong direction arrow within it towards free sex, drink drugs the shebang. We ditched everything. It was a leading. For me it all came to a head in Bible House, and i fully identify with Norman when he talks about the early stages of Christianity when we are to use his phrase “out at elbows ” with everyone….because we ourselves are not established in the new yet.
But I remember learning so clearly….it’s not the music…..it’s what it was communicating to inside me. It is out of the heart that flow all the unholy stuff. But our innercore is now Christ, so there is the conflict…..until one day….it’s nolonger a problem. It’s not pulling anything in me. Now previous moves of God even last century never identify the difference between a temporary thing the Holy Spirit gets you in to “settle you” and “an eternal law of the church” for all time. So for women, lipstick makeup and trousers remained a big thing. For our generation, you still get people banging on about John Lennon’s backward masking, and all that terrible beat music.
But let me tell you all a music truth. THE BEST way of communicating third level truth IS with rap, with rock, with all these things….because the very “throw out the old ,bring in the new” nature of the music is EXACTLY the right music for explaining there really is ONLY ONE LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE.
Whereas John Lennon and Bob Dylan were only beginning to scrape the surface in clashing with the Old World of Patronisation and Pathe News-speak, and stiff upper lip, and obedience to conformity…..beloved , we are smashing the whole of the Tree. They’re all grown up now and corporate, and as much part of the system that they were fighting against…
WE HAVE FOUND THE ALLTIME ROOT of all generations, and we’re placing an atom bomb underneath it….namely the discovery of what the Cross really means…as in Fred’s book “Laying the Axe to the Root.”.
One of my uni mates who hangs out with Intercessors for Britain , guy called Tim, was complaining about all the music of today…..I said , Tim, forget that for a load of crap….After 39 years of seeking God, IT IS THE MUSIC which best underpins what we are doing. As a piano tuner I’ve spent 30 years of my existence in quietness, no absolute stillness, learning to wait on God while I remotely go through the process of tuning…..I’m not about to turn the music down…..I’m ready to crank the music up….and hit the world with the TOTAL TRUTH.
Thanks Chris! The Spirit divorced me too from my music the first years of my walk, but these days I enjoy it as never before!
It is hard for me to believe a thing when I don’t “see” it and it seems that is where I am. I don’t “see” the holiness of my person but I believe it. It is not wholly a pleasant place to be but at the same time it is the Tree of Life for me. I still have doubts rushing all around me and many times I feel swept away by them but I always come around to what I truly believe, battered and bruised and reeling but believing. It can be very difficult but it is life.
Dear Patti, you so perfectly well mirror my processes too in your account. So many times I find myself in unbelief only seeing me doing my own stuff in separation, but the Spirit always woes us back to the truth and by doing so we are daily further established in who we are in Him. Thanks for your lovely comment!
Thank you Ole! You are so rich in encouragement…your blog is a safe haven for me!