Fully in His Image and Living By His Life

March 10, 2013

Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Genesis 9:3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
Genesis 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

We spoke on this issue Friday in Sidney.

The forbidden fruit matches the forbidden meat in Noah's day.
Forbidden fruit was good for food and pleasant to this sight in the Garden like all the other fruit, but had one ingredient that was the killer.
Desire to make one wise and be like God.
Forbidden meat had BLOOD in it.
NATURAL LIFE.

I touched on this there, and saw more since then.

God wants us to have HIS LIFE, not knowledge of good and evil.
And Noah's forbiddance against meat with blood in it shows NATURAL LIFE.
Life of the FLESH is in the blood.
FLESH is fallen.
Combine the stories and we get the picture of LOSING NATURAL FLESHLY LIFE and instead GAINING GOD'S LIFE.

Fleshly life wants to live.

All LIFE wants to live.
But fleshly life in the meat for food represents natural life that we thrive on, since we thrive upon what we eat.
We must thrive upon God's Life which is eternal.
Not natural life, which is fallen.

And as much natural life that we refuse to let go and shed, or die, is as much Life of God that we cannot receive.

The SPACE in us that natural life occupies is that much space that God's Life cannot occupy.

Matthew 16:24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
Matthew 16:25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
Matthew 16:26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Losing our natural life allows for us to FIND IT again because natural life is gone and allows for eternal Life to enter.

John 12:25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

The way of the New Testament is death, burial and resurrection.

That means LOSING NATURAL LIFE in order to gain new resurrection life.
And our flesh has an aversion to losing its life.
This is what OLD COVENANT living is much more familiar to us, since it is actually based upon NATURAL LIFE DRIVING OUR RELIGION by SELF DOING GOOD WORKS.
So, when Jesus tells us to LOSE SELF, and SELF was encouraged by Law to do good, the flesh cannot hardly relate to Jesus and this New Covenant.

Having a law mentality cannot allow you to relate to the New Testament lifestyle.

It's much more comfortable with LAW and Old Testament.
Rules and regulations.

Spirit-led living is something totally different.

It is being empowered by God's Life to do good by HIM LIVING THROUGH US.
His LIFE IS HIMSELF!
HE IS LIFE.
So when we say we must live by HIS LIFE, that means HE LITERALLY LIVES THROUGH US.

It is quite and adjustment to go from law-lifestyle to Spirit-led living.

Self also throws another wrench into the picture because it thrives on self-glory.
IT WANTS TO BE LIKE GOD.

That is what the serpent told Eve to desire.

But LOVING JESUS is LOVING HIS LIFE and denying our own.

HE IS THE LIFE.

Noah had to SHED BLOOD TO EAT MEAT.

That represents letting go of natural self-led life to LIVE FOR GOD.
Letting go of the desire to exalt self and be the focus, instead of God.
Ridding ourselves of anything that places people's focus on us instead of God,
as though removing attention of us bing god to Him being GOD.

Eve had to DENY HERSELF in order to resist the devil's temptation.

The devil appealed to her desire to make herself wise.
She needed God's LIFE instead.
But it's one or the other.
For that reason God said they had to leave the Garden lest they take also of the tree of life.

In Matthew 16 when Jesus told us to deny self and take up the cross, he was taking us back to the Garden.

Matthew 17:1 And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
Matthew 17:2 And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.

His face shone like the Sun.

Matthew 17:5 While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.

Listen to what Peter said:

2Peter 1:16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were
eyewitnesses of his majesty.
2Peter 1:17 For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in
whom I am well pleased.
2Peter 1:18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
2Peter 1:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

He said that after he said:

2Peter 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS.

2Co 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

KNOWLEDGE IS LIKE LIGHT SHINING IN DARKNESS.

GENESIS.

So it's like saying the LIGHT SHINING FROM JESUS multiplies grace and peace to us, when it says it is through knowledge of God and Jesus that we have it multiplied.

LIGHT OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE GLORY OF GOD.

2Peter 1:3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:LIFE AND GODLINESS.

LIFE is what The Lord wanted us to have in the Garden.

It's what Jesus came that we might have.

GODLINESS is being LIKE GOD, not the way the serpent distorted it to be.

GODLINESS is having God SHAPE US INTO HIS IMAGE AND LIKENESS.
The IMAGE OF GOD is what God was after in the Garden.

LIGHT CHANGES US INTO HIS IMAGE.

2Co 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

That GLORY OF THE LORD we look at IS LIGHT:

2Co 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Law actually VEILS us away from that glory.

2Co 3:6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
2Co 3:7 But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:
2Co 3:8 How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?
2Co 3:9 For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
2Co 3:10 For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.
2Co 3:11 For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
2Co 3:12 Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
2Co 3:13 And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
2Co 3:14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
2Co 3:15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
2Co 3:16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.

The LAW resists the glory because SELF and FLESH is encouraged.

Self and flesh is the veil.
Flesh must be denied and let die.
That is the removal of the VEIL.

Even Jesus' flesh was called the veil.

Heb 10:20 By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
Heb 10:21 And having an high priest over the house of God;

We got through the veil of HIS FLESH...

It was rent.
But it died, and through his death we enter.
That implies we die with Him since that is what his death was for.
So it demands self denial.
Death of self.

So, being in His image occurs by removal of fleshly self life, and reliance on natural life, and feeding on resurrection eternal life.

The more He lives through us the more we are like Him.

The more we deny self, receive his knowledge and light. the more we come into His image.