It has come these days with new light and power that the first thing we have to see to as we draw near to God day by day is that our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. If we listen in the stillness till our hearts begin to respond to what he is thinking and feeling about the matter in question, whether it concerns ourselves or others, we can, from that moment, begin praying downwards from the Throne, instead of praying upwards from ourselves.
~ I. Lilias Trotter
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Ephesians 2
Oh beloved, it is true.
Life on this plane is so brutally difficult, and there are so many enemies of our soul, that we simply cannot win. We will be disdained, hurt, rejected, and killed by our enemies. And even those close to us, will often swing at us in their pain and fear.
We will be
Judged
Slandered
Forgotten
Doubted
Blasted
Hated
And purposely misunderstood.
It really is too much. We cannot win, if we try to fight in this theater.
Those who are in the heavenly places see God’s counsels in what to the wisdom of the world is arrogant stupidity.
~Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)
And so. It is really a good thing that we are not here. Really.
Can we see it?
G_d understands the battles through which we are passing in this world. He understands how devastating things are in this cosmos. We will have trouble. We will be killed. We will be hurt. But now, thankfully, all of this is irrelevant.
So, He has already seated us above the storm, with Him.
Jesus did not just come to give us a few supplies for the battle, and then give us some remote possibility of everything turning out OK in the end. No, He has already seated us with Him, in Heavenly places, that we might fight the battles we are surely going to face from a completely different stance.
And that stance is as a radical overcomer, saved from our sins, saved from ourselves, and working from a position of His Strength.
Said simply: We have, in Him, already won.
So, are you struggling with all the stuff that is flying at you in this life? It is definitely a problem if you (and this fool of a writer) do not understand our actual position. While it may feel like we are stuck on the ground, the reality is that we are already seated, with Him, in heavenly places.
Maybe it is time we begin acting like it.
If all Jesus Christ came to do was to upset me, make me unfit for my work, upset my friendships and my life, produce disturbance and misery and distress, then I wish he had never come. But that is not all he came to do. He came to lift us up to “the heavenly places” where he is himself. The whole claim of the redemption of Jesus is that he can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human soul, not hereafter only, but here and now.
~Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)
