Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today- no more law to follow, rather reflecting my experience of God is the way to Kingdom life.
Romans 7:4-6 NLT
[4] So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. [5] When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. [6] But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.
Observation
Here we see the only model for Kingdom transformation – death and resurrection. “You died to the power of the law,” and you are resurrected into a new life, a life united with Jesus. And this new life enables a capacity I never had before, a capacity to “produce a harvest of good deeds for God.”
In my old life, I knew the ways of the Kingdom from the perspective of the law, the law code spelled out what was right and wrong. The problem was that it did NOT have the power to produce the walk in me. When I knew what I should do I found that it raised up in me a desire to do the opposite. So rather than enabling me to walk in the ways of God the law killed me to the ways of God as it aroused my sinful nature to rebel. The law said “don’t do, and do do” which aroused not a passion to follow but rather my sinful nature to rebellion. So rather than becoming alive to the ways of God, the “result was death.” We all know this. We all know that the law never produces life. This is why Jesus fulfilled the law and then put the law book away never to be referred to again. I do not live the life of the Kingdom from a compulsion of fear and manipulation powered by law. This is the way of death, not life.
United with Jesus I am resurrected to a new way of life. My life in the Kingdom is now empowered by the new way of living in the Spirit. You see walking in the Kingdom is not about obedient observance of law, it’s about participatory experience. The ways of the Kingdom are the same as the nature of the King. I am made in the likeness and image of the King. So to live the way I was designed I come into the intimate presence of God, I participate in His nature, His love, mercy, forgiveness, peace, joy. I understand that I am experiencing my true self, that this same love, mercy, forgiveness, peace, joy, etc, is me, and then I go and reflect, or mirror, what I have participated in and experienced into the world around me. You see God is the initiator and I am the reflector. Kingdom life is a reflection of the intimacy that is now available to me in the presence of God. That is what Jesus did, he made the way to permanent presence and experience permanently open.
Nothing of the life of the Kingdom is manufactured in my strength by outwardly observing some law and then committing myself to its fulfillment. This is tragic and disgusting. Kingdom life flows as I come into the presence of God, experience him personally, receive an experience of the true-self me, and then go and be me, go and reflect that which I have personally encountered and experienced. The church is the facilitator, pointer towards participatory experience, it is not the mediator of law. It must get the way of the kingdom and align its ways.
If you need to love someone, come and be loved, then go and be you, the reflection of the love you have encountered, for that is your true self, you’re made in the image and likeness of God you-self. It’s got nothing to do with law obedience, die to this disappointing and traumatic way of life – and realise that your resurrection in Christ has everything to do with being resurrected into the true-self me, the overflow of being in His intimate presence. It’s in His presence that I learn me, and me becomes alive, me becomes healed and delivered, me becomes free. Discipleship then is simply going and being me. What good news!
Application
I will live free from law obedience, I am staying dead to this life, no bringing it back to life and giving it voice or place of manipulation. The law is dead, it is up to me to ensure that it stays dead. I will live in my union with Jesus that ensures my rightness for intimacy with the Trinity. From my experience and participation in the fullness of their being, I will live reflecting and mirroring my experience. I will live aware that everything in the Kingdom flows from participating and experiencing the very nature of God from the intimacy of His presence and not objective knowledge that studies from afar. His presence will be my joy and classroom for life.
Response
Thank you that you close the courts and the book of the law. Thank you for the freedom that flows when religious observance to rule-following is finally silenced forever. Thank you for your passion to personally give me life, then enable me to live that life. Thank you that the new way of living is life in the Spirit not in the law. Your invitation to your presence is astounding, no wonder we miss its magnificence and wonder and retreat to the common way of law. Help me never to do that. I am blessed, I know the way to life and it’s open to me freely.
Meditation
Meditation truth – life flows from my participatory experience of God himself.
Consider:
Are you trying to follow the letter rather than the Spirit?
Do you come often into God’s presence to experience Him, to be true-you?
JOURNEY DEEPER
