OK, if you have been reading the last two posts then you may be scratching your head wondering what the hell is going on. Well, that is exactly what I believe is the healthy question: “what the hell is going on?”
In so many areas and in so many ways we “Christians” in the west have pushed off into a far far away place ideas and concepts that Jesus intended for us to deal with right now and right here. We are His children and He intends to bring His restorative justice into our lives to shape our eternal existence. One day we will sit with Him and commune with Him as His child just like Jesus. We are being transformed into His image and likeness because He is the example-human, perfected in love. His “fulfilling the law” was to bring to life something that was dead in us by revealing what love really looks like. We now can live the fullness of the eternal life of knowing Him. We get to live from love. We get to live free from hate and anger and division and exclusion and rejection and judgment and so much more.
Some day we will be just like Him and know Him as He knows us. We will “see” Him “face to face” as a mirror of ourselves. We will see our perfect human nature in His face which reflects our intended design. This is why we are empowered today in this moment to step into the freedom that He reveals in our identity. We are His kids. We are His children. We are made to be like Him. We have all the fullness of the Godhead in us in Jesus. We are in Jesus and He is in us and the triune God is in Him as Him. Listen, we are closer to God that we can measure. We are inseparable from Him. We are in union with Him. He is giving us His will and His way. He is speaking to us in our language. He is compelling us with His goodness and love. He is expressing His life through us. We are living His life. Can it get any better than that? Sadly we really don’t believe it…most of the time.
This is why I have been talking about demons. They are a product of our fallen nature and a creation of our fallen-human structures and receive life from our agreement with the lies of the accuser. Yeah, we make the buggers and we can get rid of the buggers. When we hurt and hate and reject and exclude and scapegoat people, we make something hideous and ugly and grotesque and horrible and frankly scary. These beasts then take on a life of their own and torment the hell into us. They work outside our control but get their energy and power and influence from us. They feed on our lies and dysfunction. They breath our curses and criticisms. While we insist on battling each other and judging each other and belittling each other, the demons are laughing. The voice of the accuser is cheering. Our battle isn’t with each other…really it isn’t. Check out a familiar passage from the Mirror Bible.
Eph 6:10 In conclusion, and with reference to the theme and context of this writing, I encourage you to realize your strength in the Master; your union with him is your limitless resource. 6:11 Fully immerse yourself in the detail and significance of every individual part of the armor of God. (Acquaint yourself with all that God’s victory in Christ represents.) Just like every aspect in a soldier’s armor significantly completes his battle uniform to best equip him to face every method and strategy that a fallen mind-set could possibly employ against him. 6:12 People are not the enemy, (whether they be husbands, wives, children, or parents, slaves, or bosses. They might host hostile, law inspired thought patterns through their unbelief or ignorance but) to target one another is to engage in the wrong combat. We represent the authority of the victory of Christ in the spiritual realm. We are positioned there (in Christ); we target the mind games and structures of darkness, religious thought patterns, governing and conditioning human behavior. (Mirror Bible)
So how do we get free from these demons? Jesus of course. His love in us sets us free from the demonic strongholds. The “heavenly places” are just a greater reality that we see only as shadows. The kingdom of heaven is here in us and with us. His name is Jesus. We have access to His power and goodness and kindness. He even gave us hints on how to be successful with Him in us. He told us to forgive and not judge and not criticize and not hate and not curse. He told us to treat each other like we would want to be treated. He told us to not be selfish but lay down our lives for each other. Yeah, He told us and lived that life. He lived the “perfect life” as the “perfect human” who “loved perfectly.” He loved so well that He went to a cross where we demonically killed Him to death and He forgave us to life. Figure that one out, will you? Yes, that is our God. He is that good.
Our structures and “legions” are not His plan. Our demonic constructs are not His plan. His plan is Him in us. His plan is us in Him. His plan is for us to realize and accept and know that we are meant to be the “perfect humans” just like Jesus. Whether it happens right now or next week or 100,000 years from now…it will happen. That is His plan. Check out what Paul says about “structures.”
1 Cor 15:22 In Adam all died; in Christ all are made alive. 15:23 All are individually made alive in the order of Christ; he is the first fruit and in his immediate presence we are personally revealed as his own. (Mirror Bible)
See that word “order?” The Greek word is “tagma” and it is the word for “structure” or “ordered arrangement.” If you remember from the last post the word legion was what the demons called themselves. I explained how this demoniac conversation reveals so much about our fallen-human structures. Check it out here.
Now back to tagma. This is God’s structure. We are made alive in Christ. Yeah, His structure and order and “legion” of things is our adoption as His kids. His master plan is our redemption as humans. His ordered arrangement is His children knowing who they are when they see Jesus.
So Jesus sets us free from the demons because of who He is and who He reveals. When we can “see” this truth of our identity in Him and our God’s true identity in Jesus we are empowered to go after those demons. We are free to “go deeper” and find where it all began in us. We can find the wounds or the psychosis or the dysfunction. We can be transparent and vulnerable with our Abba to uncover the lies and the accusations of the accuser. We can have confidence to “engage in the battle” and “submit to the double-edged sword” and “let our mind be renewed” and “find our image in His image” and “be transformed from glory to glory.” Yeah, we let Him do the surgery. We let Him pull out the roots. We let Him save us. It may hurt a bit. It may take some really big trust (faith) to let our loving God do what He does best…restore His children. He loves us that much.
So no more demons, OK? Say by by to those little annoying buggers. They have no power at all over any of us. We can stop empowering them to torment us. We can stop letting them tell us lies and we believe them. If it sounds like the voice of the accuser, then ignore it. If it sounds like the liar telling you God isn’t good enough or you aren’t worthy enough or you’ve gone too far to be rescued…come on!…blast that sucker with the power of your identity in Jesus. Blast those liars with your certainty in His love for you. He is that good.
Where are your demons? They are running over the cliff dead for good.
Yay God!
Lance
alancetotheheart 