Welcome To The Arena Of Indubitable Truth!
Topic:
In Christ (Part 14) By Chukwuemeka C. Asiegbu
Text Of Interest:
“But
ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and
church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of
all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of
the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things
than that of Abel.” Heb
12:22 – 24 (KJV)
So, all the things that do happen in
the kingdom of darkness are not permitted to take place in the Kingdom of light,
because light and darkness has nothing in common. Interestingly, sometimes there
are seemly manifestations of things from the kingdom of darkness in the life of
a believer but the occurrence of such things shouldn’t serve as a point for one
to think that the believer is possessed. Such things are happening as a result
of weak faith or better still, lack of knowledge, because if the believer is
well equipped in the knowledge of who he is, it will only take his resistant to
terminate such manifestations. The truth is that a believer can be oppressed by
powers of darkness but there is no way they can occupy him or her as in
possession. This is true because the believer has denounced his allegiance to
the kingdom of darkness once he accepted Christ; therefore, they have no right
standing to occupy him or her.
Now, let’s see how Apostle Paul puts
it in his epistles to the Corinthians and I quote
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature old things are passed
away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath
reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of
reconciliation.” (2Cor 5:17-18). Here, verse number 18 is very specific on this
issue; it says ‘all things (about the believer who is now in Christ) are of
God’ meaning that whatsoever that has to do with the believer, must be found in
God and must not be outside God. The entire being of the believer is located in
no other place but God. This is true because God didn’t purchase the believer
half-way but through Christ He accomplished all needed requirements for the
believer to belong to Him (1Cor 6:20, Rom 8:32).
The quotation in 2Cor 5:17, stipulates
that the place to be is in Christ, which of course gives a perfect explanation
that in Christ is a place and if it is a place is important to examine what is
obtainable in this place called in Christ! A better understanding of the place
in Christ will definitely enhance one’s knowledge of who he is in Christ and
equipped him or her to do better. Because if one knows better he or she will
actually do better and if the reverse is the case definitely there is going to
be stagnated growth in the life of that individual. When one understand the
environment where he or she lives well he will do great exploit within the
environment. So, it is possible that one can be in an environment but without having
the right understanding of the environment he or she will not know the
resources that are available in the environment. Yes actually, is important to
be in the environment but more importantly is the fact that the understanding of
what works and goes on in the environment is needed, if not, the benefits he
supposed to accrue by virtue of being in the environment will surely elude him.
On the other hand, someone who doesn’t live in the environment may have greater
insight in the happenings of the environment than the residence of the
environment simply because he has inclined and devoted himself to know the
environment though he doesn’t live there.
The danger in this situation is that
he or she may be ridiculed or bamboozled by someone who takes advantage of his ignorance
and as a result causes so much damage in his life. In all of these he may be
bemused about the situation and the happenings around him because he is yet to
come to terms with the intricacies of the making of his environment. Is quite
an obvious telling and painful when one realizes that he or she has made
himself or herself a slave where he is supposed to be a master or he has made
himself poor where he is supposed to be rich. I mean he allowed sickness to
ravage his body and made a mess out of him while on the other hand he is
supposed to live a life free of sickness. And is very disheartened to know that
there are some treasures beneath your surroundings and you don’t know about
them until you are very old in your life. If you have known about them early
and better, life would have been better around you. And worse still is when an
outsider comes around to harness those treasures right there before your very
eyes!
The fact I want to reiterate here is
that coming into Christ or being in Christ is very important but it is also
very important to understand what it means to be in Christ, if not there is no
way one can maximize the benefit of being in Him. There will be no distinctive
and notable difference between he that is in Christ and the man that is outside
Christ! Is important therefore, we understand the things that have been made
available to us in Christ and then assures our hearts that we will not by any
means lose ground to any evil contender (1Cor 2:12).
To be continued…..
Till I come your way again, keep on
basking in the Arena of Indubitable Truth!
Chukwuemeka C. Asiegbu
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