3.1 Measured by Christ
© 2019 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
One could conclude, by the ending of the last chapter, that I am suggesting that the darkness any believer in Jesus holds in their minds contrary to all the goodness of Christ their only life is the “fault” of that person. Nothing could be further from the truth. You see, the primary problem for all is that God is not yet known.
The purpose of this text is that God through us might remove the veil of darkness cast over all peoples, and the gross darkness upon God’s people, so that Father can be seen and known as He really is. Jesus tells us exactly who is “at fault.” – An enemy has done this. That enemy has come to steal, to kill, and to destroy (John 10:10).
Who Brings Accusation? If God is for our sakes, who could be against us? He who indeed did not spare His own Son, but gave Him for us all, for our sakes, how shall He not also together with Him grace us freely with all things? Who will bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the One justifying! (Romans 8:31-22).
No charge can be laid against our brothers and sisters in Christ for Jesus carries all that they are utterly inside Himself.
It is so easy for our minds to change; all we have to do is to speak the truth, to speak the same word that is the Lord Jesus, to speak Christ our only life, to acknowledge the good things of Christ inside of us, the only reality we are. Yet we become confused at the resistance, at the contrary speaking, when we seek to show our brethren the Jesus of their hearts.
The Great Contradiction. And this is the great contradiction. Every true Christian knows the Jesus who lives in their hearts. And in knowing Him, they love Him and know instinctively that they are carried inside of His grace. Yet if you were to see fully the “Jesus” they hold in their minds, that is, the mental definitions by which they perceive a concept of “Christ Jesus,” you would find an incredible disconnect, as if they know two very different “Jesus’s,” the true Jesus of the heart versus the imagined “Jesus” of the mind.
In this chapter, we want to understand this splitting apart between heart and mind in the soul of the Christian, specifically in terms of how we are constructed as humans in the likeness and image of God.
Two Questions. In the last lesson I asked two questions. – “First, why did I extend a fantasy self out over my real self, that is, out over Christ my life? And second, what constituted that fantasy self, that is, what false words created an imaginary ‘Daniel Yordy?’” Although the “why” is always of greater importance, the “why” and the “what” cannot be separated, and so we will go back and forth between them.
The root cause of all disconnect from God is unthankfulness. God made us just like Himself. It is God who has made us and not we ourselves (Psalm 100:3). We reject being made like God; that is, we hate ourselves, our weakness, and our lowly form and estate. We perceive and lust after a “superiority” for ourselves.
Unthankfulness. Unthankfulness, in fact, is the highest rebellion and the root of all iniquity. And inside the human soul, this unthankfulness, that is, the visceral hatred of being made in God’s image, is expressed in this way – “I should be a better person.” This sounds like a “noble” proposition, but it is, in fact, self-cursing, and self-cursing is the human disguise for the loathing and disgust felt towards a God who is meek and lowly of heart and who reveals Himself through our human weakness.
We will look more closely at the root of unthankfulness in the next chapter. Here we want to continue inside the present Christian soul, keeping that root cause in the background of our understanding.
Changing the Mind. The Jesus of the heart is the real Jesus, Himself in Person, living inside of us and energeoing all that we are.
The “Jesus” of the mind is a creation of the human intellect and thus is a fantasy. Although each mental image of “Jesus” is slightly different from one person to the next, all such “Jesus’s” hold similar traits. The primary reason why a Christian is unwilling to embrace, to know, and to live inside of the Jesus inside their hearts is that the “Jesus” of their minds forbids and condemns such a thing.
God has set Himself upon this task through you, then, to gently change the mind of each individual Christian until their mental picture of Jesus is in full agreement with the knowledge of the real Jesus alive inside their hearts in all glory.
The Presence of Jesus. The problem is this. To remove one little part of their imagined mental “Jesus,” they will fight you tooth and nail, convinced that you are taking the “real” Jesus away from them.
It is this huge dilemma we must understand. God cannot just “remove” the Jesus of their minds; rather, He must first increase their knowledge of the Jesus of their hearts. Here is how Paul put it. – And then lawlessness will be unveiled which the Lord Jesus will eliminate with the breath of His mouth and will render inoperative by His presence made visible [and known] (2 Thessalonians 2:8). As the presence of Jesus Himself inside their hearts is made known to them, so the false mental images are revealed and then vanish away as unreal.
The Mental “Jesus.” The primary quality of the mental “Jesus” is that their “real” Jesus is far away from us right now, making Christ in our hearts just a nice idea. – Jesus came back then, Jesus is coming someday, but right now, Jesus is up in heaven somewhere, far away from you!
The second quality of the imagined Jesus is that He is “superior” by human definition, making us to be “inferior.” Thus “becoming like Jesus” becomes escaping from our inferior condition and “attaining to” His superior condition. And thus the Christian tries very hard to be and do what they can never be or do. And all the while this mental imagined “Jesus” is telling them, “You should be like me, and it is your fault that you are not. You are a sinful sinner.”
“Measure Up.” But where does the Christian first hear such abominable words, and from whence do they come? They hear them from the preachers.
Here is a comment sent to me by a sister. “Last night at a fellowship, we were given a piece of paper to measure our walk this last week. Of course, it brought guilt as I, the old I, did not measure up.” – To measure our walk this last week. –
You see, the first words coming back against you as you ask the question, “What about Jesus?” (a simpler version of “Who do you say that I am?”), those words are always, in one way or another, “What about sin?”
Struck and Wounded. All those dear people, under the instruction of their pastor, were measuring themselves by sin and not by Christ. I opened for my beloved… I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer. The watchmen who went about the city found me. They struck me, they wounded me… (Song of Songs 5:6-7)!
Instead of connecting these brethren with Jesus their ONLY life, present in them, the preacher strikes and wounds them with the story of separation from Christ, a Jesus far away from them. Instead of writing all the good things of Christ inside of them, measuring themselves by the HOLY ONE inside their hearts in all GLORY, now their only life, they see none of Him, but only a week of “falling short of God” in their own self-condemnation.
The Weapon of Evil. How on earth do the preachers hold such power over the saints of God, over those filled with all purity and glory? Here is their weapon. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9).
Jeremiah, of course, was speaking of the hearts of the unregenerate, empty of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because they do not know Paul’s Jesus and Paul’s gospel in their minds, they hold their own hearts, the very dwelling place of God, sprinkled clean from an evil consciousness (Hebrews 10:22), as being desperately wicked and utterly untrustworthy. The “Jesus” of their minds teaches them that the Jesus alive inside their hearts cannot be trusted. And so they believe.
Measured by Christ. Until we all come down to the oneness of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God, into a completed man, into the measure of maturity, [that is] the filling up, the sum total and abundance of Christ (Ephesians 4:13). – Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not be concerned with the flesh and its desires any more (Romans 13:14).
What does it mean to measure yourself by Christ and not by sin? What does it mean to put the Lord Jesus Christ upon yourself, upon all that you are? How do we do such a thing? The short answer is – We give thanks. Christ has already measured Himself upon us. – Christ became all of our sin and our shame in order to place upon us no disconnect from Father, ever, that is, Himself.
What about Sin? BUT – What about sin? What relationship does a believer in Jesus have with sin? First, all have sinned and fallen short of God; all are condemned in their iniquity by the righteous judgment of God.
Second, no Christian, in themselves, is capable of “getting right” with God or “attaining to” the image of Christ, or pleasing God in any way. Apart from Me, you can do nothing (John 15). Third, all, and especially all Christians must shut their mouth before a Holy God. All thought of being “right” or proving that “I can make it” must cease. God has found you guilty of all iniquity, AND God has executed you. – I AM crucified with Christ.
Knowing Jesus Sent. To believe in Jesus is to accept in all finality your just execution by God. Now, it’s no longer you living, but Christ.
That’s it. A Christian has NO other relationship with sin. To “try” not to sin is to reject God’s righteous judgment. The task of the Christian, then, is not to “fight against sin,” but to know Jesus Sent into them.
This is age-unfolding life, to know You, the only true God [the only true Source] and Jesus Christ whom You have Sent {into sustaining all by the word of His power} (John 17:3). How do we know Jesus Sent? We know Jesus Sent into our hearts by speaking the same word, by putting that same Jesus upon all that we are, by measuring ourselves only by Christ and never by “falling short.”
Two Stories of Self. To measure yourself by Christ is to acknowledge all the good things of Christ inside of you (Philemon 1:6).
Every Christian, then, has two stories of self available to them. Which story will they speak? The story always coming out from the “superior,” even arrogant, “Christ” of their minds teaches them that the Jesus alive in their hearts in all of His sacrifice is not enough for them. It teaches them that sin is their source and not God, and thus, that they are always falling short, disconnected from God and alone.
Unthankfulness is not something in itself, however; it’s just another word for rebellion. To measure one’s self only by Christ is the greatest surrender to the Father that any human could ever know.