The person who lives in the power of the resurrection
of Jesus is raised to a plane of life which is
outside the boundaries of natural law, outside
the possibilities of the natural man. When he's
born again, when he's had that wonderful spiritual
experience, After he's passed from death unto
life, he begins to live under a divine law as
Christians. You and I are living under a divine
law. He becomes possessed with a divine nature.
He begins to manifest the beauties of a divine
character. The standards by which his life are
governed or all divine. Our trouble is that we
hang on to the flesh, to our moral comprehensions,
to our intellectual attainments, to our human
understanding, to the circumstances and the environments
in which we find ourselves. And while we do,
we're closing the door to God's wonderful inheritance.
We're missing heaven's best. We're missing that
which is really ours because of our unbelief.
On the spiritual possibilities, we're closing
the door to those spiritual possibilities that
are inherent in every life which is actually
hid with Christ in God. Know that. That's the
reason that Jesus said, don't worry about tomorrow.
Don't be over -anxious about tomorrow. Your father
fully recognizes the need in your bodies in this
respect. You ought not to be living on a plane
so low that you're going to be affected by material
things until the same kind of worry that the
heathen or the... pagans engage in, the unregenerated,
the unconverted. You need to be living on a plane
higher than the plane of which they live, the
plane that will rob you of your spiritual inheritance.
Haven't you in the stillness of a moment, that
moment when you were So worried, almost beside
yourself with frustration, haven't you heard
his gentle whisper? Let them live down there.
You're my child. You come up here and live with
me. You belong to me. You're my property. You
were not made for the lower plane. Let them live
on the lower plane with its human boundaries
and its mortal limitations. Identify your life
and yourself with me. Rise above the shadows
through which you have to travel and above those
material things which mean darkness or light.
or happiness or joy, laughter or tears. Physically,
you're in the world, but spiritually, you are
above it. You should not live in the flesh. You
should live in the spirit. You should not live
in the flesh and try to get the spirit to serve
you and help you out of your difficulties. But
you should live in the spirit, and then the flesh
would be... Come subjected to it in its mastery
over you. Jesus is saying, when I died, you died.
When I rose again, you arose also. When I ascended,
you ascended. You are now identified with me
in the heavenlies. The life you now live, you
live by my faith. That's scripture. The life
you now live as one of his children, you live
by his faith. This is the message of the Christ
which comes sweeping across the soul, entering
the realms of the spirit and life divine, begins
to banish all the darkness from our understanding.
Oh, child of God. You who have been redeemed
through his precious blood. I beg of you, don't
allow circumstances to become your master. Don't
allow your environment to be your master or to
master you. Do not let your sorrow master you.
Do not excuse your imperfection. by pleading
the limitation of your human nature and the weakness
of your human powers. Know ye not that the resurrection
life is according to the eternal possibilities
of divine nature and not according to the limitations
of your own? The Spirit of Him that lifted up
Jesus. The spirit of him who raised Jesus from
the dead is dwelling in you. And you are no longer
to live on the plane of anxiety, of fear, of
worry, of depression. All of these things come
into the mind and the life of people who are
living on the... lower plane. If we are exercising
our privileges, we are actually made partakers
of the divine nature. And before long, imputed
righteousness becomes personal righteousness
through the power of his own imparted life. I
am only righteous as my righteousness is imparted
by Him through my life. I have no righteousness
of my own. Neither have you. It's His righteousness.
It's His perfection. Jesus gave His life for
us. actually gives his light to us. Take it.
Take it right now. You've never dared to claim
your inheritance as a child of the king. Receive
it. It's yours. He's standing at the door knocking.
He wants admission. He wants you to stop your
struggling to be like him. and doing your best
to imitate him. That's not sufficient. That absolutely
is not enough. He wants to enter the corridor
of your being. Never mind your imperfections.
He'll take care of all that. Never mind your
shortcomings. They're nailed to the cross with
him. Never mind your limitations. You'll find
yourself doing what it is impossible for you
to do of yourself. When you commit yourself completely
unto him. For he brings with him and his eternal
indwelling spirit the limitless life. It's eternal.
He wraps you in it. He clothes you in it. Actually,
your life is hid with Christ in God. Your resurrected
Jesus brings the life abundant to your soul.
That's it. Life. Abundant life. He came that
we might have not only life, but that we might
have it more abundantly. You are not made for
defeat. When he rose triumphant over the grave,
he struck the words defeat and impossible out
of the dictionary of the redeemed. Did it ever
occur to you that every time he worked America,
he did more than give the petitioner something
for which he asked? I never asked one thing of
him, but what he has always given me, more than
I have asked, always. When he gave the blind
sight, He gave the blind man part of himself.
When he opened the eyes of blind Bartimaeus,
he gave Bartimaeus something more than just the
sight in his eye. He gave to Bartimaeus a part
of himself. That's the reason. We have witnessed
thousands of miracles of healing. Terribly. When
that one is giving the testimony of the healing
of their sick body, they'll always say, but there
was something more, something even greater than
the healing of my physical body. Oh, what I got
spiritually. Oh, the spiritual miracle that took
place was far greater than even the physical
healing. That's scripture. Jesus not only gave
you the miracle of healing, but at the same time,
he gave you a part of himself. I've never seen
a person who's been healed by the power of God
physically who was ever the same person again.
You just cannot be the same person. You can't.
Because in receiving that miracle of physical
healing, He did not stop there. He gave you literally
a part of himself when he called Lazarus from
the grave. He did not pick the lost life of Lazarus
from somewhere and hand it back to him. He gave
Lazarus part of his own resurrection life. The
truth is that when men receive healing, they
actually receive the healer. He's the Christ
of the new creation. He's the power of his resurrection
and secures for every one of us a full and a
free salvation sustained continuously in the
power of his presence and in the strength of
his might. Being raised with him, we walk from
that moment with newness of life. If we will
recognize him, if in our ways we will acknowledge
him, then there will come the direction of our
paths and the guidance of our lives into the
ways of the divine will. Oh, that we might know
him. And the power of his resurrection. Not in
the future alone. But now. Why am I saying these
things? Because they're a part of your inheritance.
When you and I get home to glory and we see what
might have been ours. What we could have had.
And we were too blind to receive it, too ignorant
to enjoy it. Oh, even with all that I know and
the life that I now live, I still believe that
when I get home to heaven and see Jesus, I'll
realize for the first time that I could have
had so much more. There was so much more for
me, and I was too stupid to see it. To take it.
To enjoy it. When there is an inclination for
us to just sit back in smug satisfaction, as
we contemplate the services we've rendered and
the deeds we've done, Let us never forget that
Jesus is the only door by which we can approach
the presence of the Father. There's no other
way. The difficulty is that the spirit of morbid
materialism, which penetrates this present evil
age, has infiltrated the church until we have
substituted religious education for regeneration.
and good lives. We've substituted good lives,
goodness, morality, for the life that is hid
with Christ in God. We're making substitutions
every day of our lives. It ought not be so. There
is a way, the Scripture says, that seemeth right
unto man, but the... end of the road is death.
The whole Bible is Christ from Genesis to Revelation.
The whole Bible is the revelation of one person.
There's a difference between what we think to
be the will of God for us and the will of God
being wrought in us. Know that. Can you not hear
the angels singing? Look up, look up, his child.
Your redemption draweth nigh. Know ye not that
this is the hour of the unfolding? of the revelation
of Christ. Know ye not the importance of this
hour? Be not satisfied to live on the lower plane.
Be not satisfied with God's second best. Live
on the highest plane possible. Do not be satisfied
until you know that you're receiving from him
his very best, your full inheritance in Christ
Jesus. Oh, my friend. The secret? Surrender.
That's all. Just surrender. Trying so hard to
stop struggling. You sit there agonizing. How
often in a miracle service I've seen folks sitting
there, their fists clenched, struggling as though
they could heal themselves. Open your hands.
Release your fingers. Raise both arms just now
as a token of full surrender. Let him live his
life through you.