The Cross, Death and Life in the Spirit
Salvation comes by faith alone. There are no added works to our salvation. When I was newly saved, I kept bumping into a group of people who stood at crossroads at streets, sharing the Gospel. When I told them I knew the Lord, they began to riddle me with questions of if I was saved, why was I not sharing the Gospel with the lost. I knew in my spirit that Christ had deeply touched me and changed my life, I knew the Word of God was dwelling within me, and I was relishing in the Word, though I was aware I was not a die-hard evangelist. However, their questioning was rattling me. One night, as I asked Jesus to show me about my salvation, I opened the Bible and immediately this verse flashed in my heart, “Luke 7:50: Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” I was immediately filled with a supernatural peace beyond any understanding. When God speaks, nothing can turn it around. Our works do not save us, not water baptism, though it is an act of faith in identification with Christ, not evangelism though these are the fruits and gifts of our salvation.
In our Salvation comes the infilling of the Holy Spirit daily. But for many, their own flesh lives block the fullness of the Holy Spirit working in them. One may say they are not saved, to that only God knows the answer. Maybe He is waiting for them to fully respond to Him and the process in their lives are long. There are people who are still entangled by lusts, weaknesses, indulgences, revenge, anger, and material greed.
The reason is many have not had a clear revelation of the Cross. Sometimes, even after believing, we have to have a fresh revelation of the Cross, and of course, we have a have a daily infilling of the Holy Spirit because one day, we are on the pinnacles of the mountain and on the next, down in the doldrums.
In Galatians 5, it is written, “But they who are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its lusts” (v. 24). If we are a tree giving bad fruit, the tree has to die. We reckon it dead, so there will be no more bad fruit. I die daily that Christ may live in me! It is only then that Christ through the Holy Spirit plants new seeds in our spirits, and soon we start to grow new beautiful good fruit.
By faith, we declare firmly that “I am crucified, I am dead, my flesh is dead. A dead human cannot sin!” By our faith declarations, through the Cross, Satan loses ground over us. He too is reminded of the Cross and he cannot mess with it because it is our spiritual transaction and covenant with God and he just cannot mess in that ground, he is siphoned off that territory, that is Holy Ground.
It is only after our firm declarations fastening us deeper into our Covenant Glory relationship with the Holy Spirit that we start to have real spiritual life, mighty victories in the spiritual realm where angels, Abba Father, Christ and the Holy Spirit start manifesting divine miracles, truths, revelations, illuminations, and the fruit of the Spirit starts to grow and glow within us, like the Tree of Life, Christ in us. The kingdom of darkness can smell the glorious sweet aroma of fruit on our lives and hates it and runs a thousand miles. Life in the spirit is glorious, wonderful, more wonderfully holy than the intoxicating of earthly wine, we are now intoxicated by His glory and love. There is no realm more exciting and rewarding to live in than the spiritual realm in the Kingdom of God, in such a time as this. Let us hunger and thirst for more and we will be filled.
Rita F. Kurian.
These series will be continued.
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