God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow ... And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:9-11

Showing posts with label God's Realm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God's Realm. Show all posts

Thursday, October 9, 2008

The Church: Matrix of Christ

Before we get into some important aspects of the matrix of Christ, let's get a basic definition of what matrix means, as many will think of the movie and the artificial world it revealed.

First of all, matrix comes from the Latin word "mater," which means mother, essentially referring to the womb.

It's a place where something originates, takes form, develops or is embedded.

While the word and what it means can be applied across many disciplines, we only want to look at it as it applies to Christ, because it gives some valuable insight into who He is and the purpose of His church.

Now, have you ever wondered what it would have been like if Adam and Eve hadn't eaten of the wrong tree, and instead had partaken of the tree of life?

You see, Adam and Eve were supposed to be a matrix of Christ. They were supposed to internalize Him by eating of His fruit, as portrayed by the tree of life. If that had happened, they would have had children born outside of what we call the old man, the first adam, and would instead have seen the new man spread across the earth from
the beginning.

For even though Adam and Eve were without sin, they were in reality incomplete in the sense of not partaking in the most important reason for their creation: fulfilling the eternal purpose of God, which was to fill them with Himself in Christ. That's what Jesus as the tree of life in the center of the garden was there for.

Adam and Eve were made in the image of God, but they weren't in the order of God, in that their spirits didn't have Him indwelling them. To have eaten of the Christ as the tree of life would have enlivened their spirits unto God, and as such, began the fulfillment of the purpose of God in creating man.

When I say they weren't in the order of God, I mean their souls hadn't subjected themselves to their spirits because to do that they had to eat of Christ. Once they did that their spirits would have been filled with God and their beings subject to and from heaven, rather than to the earth and flesh.

Basically Adam and Eve were between two worlds. The world of God and Satan, and they had a choice of which life they were going to live by, they had a decision to make. The decision was which world they were going to allow to enter into them.

In other words, man was built to be a container, a matrix. One way or the other that will happen, that's a choice we're not given. It will either be from a higher life or a lower life. There is no middle ground.

Those that attempt to live in the middle ground end up with mixture, which is one of the more hated things in the eyes of God, as it brings confusion to those viewing and/or partaking in it. That's the counterfeit woman called Babylon, also mentioned in book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ as the Great Whore.

It's interesting to note that the offer to eat of the tree of life was rejected again when Jesus physically appeared on the earth. When did that happen? When He told his followers they must eat His flesh and drink His blood. They again decided to reject God's eternal purpose of filling His chosen matrix of His people with
Himself.

To help us understand this a little, Jesus followed up His statement by saying His words are spirit and life. In other words, quit looking at things outwardly or hearing things He taught carnally. We must learn that He lived from another life than His own, and so are we to. And the words He spoke were about and from another realm.

That's why He encouraged us to pray for His kingdom to come and will be done on earth as it was in heaven. This is one reason why what is called the Lord's supper by most, where Jesus told us to eat it in remembrance of Him, is more than likely not referring to simply remembering His name or what he's done, as that's not too hard to do for any halfway serious Christian.

Rather, I think He's referring to what internalizing Him as the tree of life means; what it means to eat His flesh and drink His blood. We are to remember as we digest food and get physical sustanence, to also digest or internalize Him, and to receive our much more important spiritual sustanence.

What does it mean? That we are one with Him. That we are to be in union with Him. He is the bread of life that we are to eat of and internalize. I think that this is much more in line with what the rest of the scriptures reveal than simply eating unto the Lord to remember Him with the idea that we somehow forgot He existed.
What being a matrix of Christ means One important aspect of all this in our practical lives is that being a matrix is much different in being a place where Christ dwells, than it is in how He dwells in the overall universe.

Christ dwells in the physical universe, which is said to be continually expanding. The universe or heaven of heavens can't contain Him.

So when He dwells in the spirits of His people, He's doing something different than simply having a general presence there. He is very active within us, and He is working to shape and form Himself within.

The only matrix or container that can hold who He is is His people. That's much more than just carrying Him around within us, it's a deep working and shaping of Himself within us: individually and corporately. It's a very practical process that happens over our lifetimes if we have a revelation of it and allow it to. It is primarily meant to happen organically within a group of believers.

What is it God wants to happen in all this? Looking at it from the garden of Eden perspective, He's bringing two worlds together, which in reality is what the garden of Eden really was. It was where physical man and the invisible God met. Both worlds at the time were able to be seen by Adam and Eve.

When I say He's bringing two worlds together, I mean that what is real in the invisible world is to be just as real or mirrored in the visible world. Eden was the invisible and visible worlds meeting and where invisible and visible beings interacted and lived; most importantly God and man, who were created in His image.

Now of course the two worlds are out of balance because of the sin of man, but the people of God are meant to bring the two worlds back together again, in the sense of His kingdom coming and His will being done in both realms. (Realms is probably a better description than worlds.)

Bringing the two worlds together as one can only be done through redeemed believers in union with Christ. Not in union theoretically, positionally or revelationally - but practically.

The amazing gift of God to His people as it relates to the realms we dwell in, is that He has made us into a hybrid creature, built to dwell in the visible and invisible realms at once.

The whole idea of the eternal purpose of God is to reveal Himself in man in two different realms, where there is nothing that contradicts one another. He does it through filling everything with Himself. That is the road Christ has given us to travel, and it's what has been in the heart and mind of God from before the beginning.

a

Monday, August 27, 2007

God’s Invisible Realm

One of the aspects of the early church that was emphasized and lived out from day to day was the realization that there was another world that was much higher and more real than the one that we could interact with concerning our senses.

As we all know our Lord dwells in heaven. His will there is done completely and perfectly. He reigns there with complete and total response to His desires.

I want to touch on a couple of aspects of where He dwells. First, it is the real world. This world that we can see with our natural eyes and interact with from our senses is only a shadow of that realm. When people many times tell us to live in the real world, they don’t really know what they are talking about. The real world is a spiritual world, a land of spirit. The physical world is the world that is secondary.

That is why when Jesus responds to the request to teach His disciples how to pray, one of the things that He tells us is to ask that His kingdom would come and His will would be done on this world in the same way that it is done in heaven.

Jesus didn’t come to take dominion in heaven, He came to take dominion of earth. Heaven is perfectly executed in His rule and reign. It’s the earth that He has purposed to reveal Himself in.

When I say the earth I mean that inner work in the hearts of brothers and sisters. Jesus revealed to us that it is what is inside of us that needs the cleaning, not the outside. If we clean the inside, the outside will take care of itself.

This is why when He reveals the pattern of the tabernacle and the temple to us in the Old Testament, we always have the inner place that moves out to the outer place. This is that inner work that Christ does within us through the Spirit. This is heaven coming down to earth.

Again when we look at New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, we see that river flowing out throughout the city, this is the Spirit of God moving from within to without.  

The point is that God brings this world into the spirits of believers. This world is none other than Himself living in the very recesses of our beings.

Heaven itself, in the person of Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit dwells within us in a most real way. Nothing anywhere in earth or in heaven is greater than this reality. Nothing is more intimate or transforming.

Yet few really comprehend what this amazing Christ within us means. We are told that our hope of glory is Christ within us, and that is very true.

We need to embrace this with everything that we are able so that Christ may have His way in the earth.

Jesus tells us that the kingdom of God does not come with observation. That’s because of the truth that His kingdom isn’t of or from this world.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were flustered by not knowing where Jesus came from. They saw the kingdom of God being revealed within their midst and yet quibbled about what city He had been born in; like this had any relevance to heaven coming to earth right before their eyes.

The first Adam was from the earth, the second Adam was the Lord from heaven. His roots were in another realm, and so are ours. That’s why Jesus says of His disciples that they were not of this world either.

When you believe you are born from another realm, another world that is different and greater than this one, you will cause great offense to some people, including other believers. Whether you know it or not this offends many of you. You are trying to please those in this world rather than our Lord who is from heaven.

We must understand that our roots are in heaven and this is what we pray will come down and expand into this tragic world.

We must learn to love this deep, inner working of the Spirit of God within us as He shapes and forms us into the image of Jesus Christ.

We live in this world but live from another. We will never be able to respond to our Lord’s desire if we don’t hold close the reality of a world beyond the one we see with our natural eyes.