To worship in truth as well as in spirit we must learn to identify with the death and resurrection of Christ. If we are “in Him" then we have died with Him, and are also raised with Him. To “die with Him” means that we become helpless to the world, Satan and the flesh because He took our sin upon Himself on the cross, and there defeated the forces of hell that are against us to draw us there. At the same time, as Romans 6:5 says, “if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.” Therefore, by identifying with the cross and resurrection we experience everything He experienced by faith alone.
Christ was made sin for me that I might be made the righteousness of God in Him (II Corinthians 5:21). I am made something I am not by His power. At the same time, as Paul said, there’s the law of sin that is present in me “bringing me into captivity.” These two principles operate side-by-side. How do I deal with this dichotomy?
Philippians 2:12 tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling “that we may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” I’d like to think that by faith in God’s grace, and the work Christ did when He came to die for us, I could be automatically like Jesus. The truth is that even though I understand and have faith in the work He’s done for me, the manifestation of it is not evident in my life automatically. What do I do?
First of all, something must be sparked inside me to desire change, and that something came to me and to you when we were born again. It’s the work of the Holy Spirit in us to transform us into the image of Christ. He puts the desire to grow in us. True worship, meditation on Scripture, and prayer cause us to love the Lord and His people. I want to go to a church where I find love and not judgment in the flesh. I want to see the kingdom glory shared among us fresh each day. I want to tell you what God’s doing in my life and I want to hear what He’s doing in yours.
It’s here that the problem creeps up inevitably. Just as sure as the desire to grow is there, so is the law of sin and death working side-by-side with grace as Galatians 5:17 says – “for the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would.” This law works in me, in you, in the church and in the world to “steal, kill and destroy” the kingdom of God among us. It doesn’t take much for something to come between me and another person. Sometimes it’s as small as just a feeling. Other times it’s things a person may say or do, or not do, etc. Whatever it may be, the blame lies with the law of sin and death that is always at work against us to oppose the work of God.
To deal with this I must go back to the cross and begin to identify with Christ’s death again. A couple of Webster’s dictionary definitions of “identify” are: 1) to consider as identical; equate, and 2) to associate with. I associate with His death by seeing myself “in Him.” I know in my mind that I am on the cross with Him and that my sin nature is crucified there. I know that there He also destroyed all the works of the devil. I remind myself that although sin entered the world through one man, by one man also I am made righteous (Romans 5:19). I “reckon myself to be dead to sin,” and by identification with His resurrection I am empowered to be “alive unto God.” Faith identifies with the Word of God, and not with what I “see” or even know to be operating within me. I don’t have to beg and plead with God to deliver me from the law of sin that works in me. All I have to do is deal with it (work out my salvation) by faith.
I think we’ve stopped our growth just before identification. We’ve acknowledged that the law is good and holy, that “I am carnal, sold under sin,” that Jesus died to set us free from sin, but we’ve failed to properly identify with the power of the resurrection. We believe in it all, but we fail to work it out in our lives daily. We stop short of the glory of God. I Corinthians 15:56 says that the strength of sin is the law. The power of the law holds us in guilt until we know enough of the truth that sets us free. We’re dealing with powers that are bigger than we are, and the only thing that will deal with these powers is truth. We need to evangelize ourselves once again and let the Word of God strengthen us and empower us as we meditate on it in prayer, asking the Holy Spirit to minister to us His truth. We must allow our spirits to soak in God’s presence through worship, and express our love for and praise to the Lord. This is where we will be transformed from what we “are” to what He “is”—Who is the “Great I AM”!
So, to worship God “in spirit and truth” means taking an active role and not a passive one we might interpret “trusting in God” to mean.
When Paul said “in everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (I Thessalonians 5:18) I believe he meant more than just obediently accepting the bad that comes our way. To identify with Him during bad times we can give thanks that Jesus has overcome the world so we have overcome the world, that because He has destroyed the works of the devil they are destroyed in our lives also because we are identified with Him in everything. Everything He is we can be because we’re “in Him.” There is so much work we can do through identifying with Him. We don’t have to sit back and let Satan run over us because we’re “waiting on God.” A lot depends on how we handle the trials in our lives and what we do when we come into temptation or come under the power of the law of sin and death that works in us.
If we worked out our salvation like this every day, as simple as it is, we would have new cause to worship. We’d not only be coming into His presence but we’d be truly expressing thanks for the work that we know He’s doing in us now, even though we do not see the evidence of it at the moment. We’d truly be in partnership with Him and the sensitivity of the movement of the Holy Spirit would become stronger. Through this the fullness of the kingdom could be restored because we will have dealt with the obstructions.
After dealing with our sin by identification, we need to go deeper and identify with the fullness of God revealed to us through the manifestation of His name. Jesus is the “fullness of the Godhead bodily,” and that means that everything God has ever been revealed as in the Old Testament or the New is in Jesus. If we’re “in Him” then this also applies to us by identification. He’s “the God who heals us,” so we should expect healing in our lives. He’s our righteousness, our defense, our shepherd, our provider, our shield and fortress, our strong tower, the lover of our souls, everything the Word says He is. We are complete in Him only when we identify with Him.
Every time we’re not experiencing what He can be to us, it’s then that we need to work out whatever it is that’s in the way. It may be fear, it may be doubt and unbelief, guilt or lack of wisdom. Whatever it is we need to recognize the lack is on our part and that He desires to fulfill us in these areas, thereby bringing a little more of the kingdom into our lives daily. We must not allow anything to come between us and our God.
Together we could bring true reform into our midst. We could make the Word come alive as in a revival. What would follow would be no less than what followed the apostles as they lived and witnessed the Word of God ? signs and wonders confirming the truth.
We have been identifying with “what is” (our humanness) instead of “calling those things that be not as though they were” (Romans 4:17). Let’s not “stagger at the promises of God through unbelief” but “be strong in faith, giving glory to God” (Romans 4:20) as we “look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, which are eternal and not temporal” (II Corinthians 4:18). God has called us to “salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth...to the obtaining of the glory of Jesus Christ” (II Thessalonians. 2:13, 14). Let’s meet His call and “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God.” Let’s fight the “fight of faith” with our spiritual weapons which are “mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds” (II Corinthians 10:4). This can all be accomplished by identifying with Christ’s death and resurrection. “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me: and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God” (Galatians 2:20). Because He rose from the dead and is glorified, I have risen from the law of sin and death and live by the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” I’ll accept nothing less.
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