Bokeh

Living Christ – Facing Temptation

Living as Christ is from union with Jesus, oneness. We live from the “It is no longer I but Christ lives in me” Gal. 2:20.

  • Our life is hidden with Christ in God – Col 3:3

  • Christ who is our life – Col. 3:4

  • Union – John 14:20

We live life, in every area, as Christ in us. He (Grace) from our union meets every aspect of our life as Himself. (Vicarious Jesus)

  • This includes temptation – Hebrews 4:15

  • Temptation is continuous, Jesus was tempted.

  • Being tempted does not mean something is wrong with you.

Dealing with temptation biblically

  • Is NOT using willpower, self-effort, or any methods.

  • Is only done from our union – Gal. 2:20

John 1:1 – “with” in the GK. Is pros.

  • It means toward, facing one another – face to face.

  • The Godhead, the divine dance, is the trinity in relationship as one, yet distinct

  • Distinction is not separation.

  • Just as God was fully embodied in the humanity of Jesus, we too are fully one with, inhabited by the same Godhead.

  • John 14:23 – abode – same GK word in John 14:2 mansions.

  • Jesus goes away and prepares a place in the Godhead where we now abide (John 15) live, move and have our being (Acts 17:28)

  • The key in this union is the face to face.

The Purpose of Temptation

  • James 1:2, 1:12-15

  • Temptation's purpose is to draw you away.

  • Draw you away from what?

  • To solicit you to function as the old self – false self.

  • We temporarily forget who we are – Gen. 3:13

  • We forget we are Christ in human form.

  • Temptation is two-fold

  • 1) to get us to move from the face to face (union) into a separation mode. We are pulled to respond as if apart from Him. John 15;5

  • 2) then to, in our own strength face the temptation

  • The old self – the two-nature life we thought we were, resisted temptation in many ways prescribed by religion.

  • Sin results. The more we resisted the more power the thing had.

How to Deal with Personal Temptation – New Covenant Style

  • In the New man, New creation reality, the true self – from identity

  • We do not resist or struggle against it

  • We do not recognize it as sin, we admit and accept it for what it is, the normal pull from the outside world, trying to draw us from our in-Christness.

  • This takes the power out of the temptation. It bites but no teeth.

  • What you resist, resists you, what you fight, fights you.

As I free the temptation to be a temptation, I equally free myself from being bound to it by my false believing in it.

  • I am free to remind myself (Renew my mind-Rom. 12:2) remember and recognize – who I really am – Christ in me.

  • Recognition is faith in its completed form.

  • Remember is to bring a past fact into present reality- experientially.

  • I recognize Christ is my all in all, my peace when I am tempted to worry, courage when I am tempted to fear, love when I am tempted to hate. I am the manifestation of who He is, IN ME.

If I was not tempted to hate, I could not manifest love. The temptation is trying to get me to do something I am not in Christ. Instead I love rather than hate, manifesting Jesus – from union.

  • If I wasn’t tempted to hate, I could not express and manifest love.

  • The temptation has been turned around as an opportunity to live Christ.

  • This is the new covenant, new man reality that reverses our outlook on temptations, it becomes an adventure of faith where we can count it all joy!