Christ in me and I in Him

Oct. 1 09
Hey....I want to do a little boasting.
Can you see me now? I am hidden. The crazy thing is that I have been hidden in Christ for most all of my life to date and didn’t really know it. This wonderful truth has just now found me? What a pearl!
This amazing miracle actually happened when I was five years old. I had no idea it was so transformational. I proceeded to live the next 54 years doing my best to live for Jesus, but missing the mark on a regular basis, trying very hard on most days, but with little evident transformation. (compared to what Jesus looked like). I am amazed that I have made it this far in my life without understanding this most wonderful piece to the puzzle. If I could have a redo of my life I would jump at the chance, but on the other hand my redo is now. May the rest of my life be given over completely to living from my truest identity which is in Christ. God truly has saved the best till last. Now I was basically a good kid, and most people would say that I have been a fairly descent person. But with so little actual understanding of what had really transpired in my new birth experience, I have lived a relatively mediocre Christian experience. Jesus made a promise that my life would look a whole lot more like His. In fact He said that I would be doing the works He did and even greater works. He promised peace, His peace, “my peace I give to you” and His Joy, “my joy will remain in you and your joy will be full”. Let me list some of His promises to His bedraggled group of followers and to me the night He was betrayed.
- Where I am going you can’t come but you will follow afterwards.
- I am going to prepare a place for you in Father’s house
- I will come and receive you to myself that where I am there you will be also.
- I am the way to the Father, the truth about the Father, and the life of the Father.
- You will know the Father. He that has seen me has seen the Father.
- He that believes in me, the works that I do will he do and greater works than these because I am going to the Father.
- Whatever you ask in my name I will do…if you ask any thing in my name I will do it.
- My father will give you another comforter, that will abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth
- He will be in you.
- I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you.
- You will see me. Because I live you will live also.
- At that day you will know that I am in my Father, and that you are in me and I am in you.
- You will be loved by my Father, and by me, and I will manifest myself to you.
- My Father will love you and we will come and make our home with you.
- The helper, the Holy Spirit, will teach you all things, and bring things that I said to your remembrance.
- Peace I will leave with you, my peace I will give to you..
- I am going and I am coming back to you.
- Rejoice that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.
- Abide in me and I in you. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit.
- If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it will be done for you.
- You will bear much fruit, glorify my Father…so you will be my disciples.
- As the Father has loved me I have loved you. Abide in my love
- I have spoken these things that my joy may remain in you and that your joy will be full.
- You are my friends. I no longer call you servants but friends.
- All things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
- I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit would remain
- Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give you.
- You are not of the world. I have chosen you out of the world.
- When the helper comes, the Spirit of truth, He will testify of me and you also will bear witness.
- These things I have spoken that you should not stumble.
- It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go the helper will not come, but if I depart, I will send Him to you.
- When He comes He will convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment
- He will guide you into all truth.
- He will tell you of things to come.
- He will take of what is mine and declare it to you
- All things that the Father has are mine therefore I tell you He will take of mine and declare it to you
- You will see me because I go to the Father.
- Your sorrow will be turned to joy.
- Your heart will rejoice and your joy no one will take from you.
- Again whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give you.
- Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full.
- The time is coming when I will tell you plainly about the Father.
- The Father Himself loves you because you have loved me and believed that I came forth from the Father.
- You will be scattered but these things I have spoken that in me you may have peace.
- Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.
And then you will notice that He prayed for me, Yes He did. He prayed for His disciples but He also prayed for me, the one who would believe on account of their preaching. He prayed that I would be one with Him. “that Lloyd may be one in us, as You Father are in Me, that he also may be one in us, that the world might believe…and the Glory that the Father gave Me would be given to him that he might be one just as We are one. I in him, and you in Me and that he may be perfect in one that the world may know”…..He prayed “Father I desire that Lloyd Clark also whom you gave me may behold my glory which you have given me…and the love with which you loved Me may be in him and I in him.”
Believe it or not, that’s the truth.

My life has been a life of incredible contradiction, actually schizophrenic, sweet water and bitter coming out of the same stream. Paul’s explanation in Romans seven was very descriptive of my unattractive Christian experience. I lived most of my life in the sense realm, feeling my way through, praying for help and direction, asking for God to meet my needs, and watching Him provide. God has been there all along the way healing, leading, providing, loving and caring. I have wonderful God stories and really have lived a blessed life for the most part, five wonderful children who all love the God I serve, and to date five beautiful grand children. What else could I want? I have always been restless. I hate repetition. I want more, hunger for more and am generally discontented. I am a great starter and a poor finisher because I am a dreamer, always believing that the new will be better than the old and is worth the reach. It has taken me onto mountaintops of ecstasy and into valleys of despair. It has actually been quite a ride. Ask my wife. She is pure gold. But listen, this piece is the pearl and it is amazingly powerful. How could I have missed it?
This was the promise Jesus made the night He was betrayed and the rest of my reading of scripture continues to confirm it. I am hidden in Christ, with Christ in God. I am a new creature in Christ and who I am in Christ is huge. A world removed from who I was in Adam. This is the amazing story of Grace. Grace recreated me, restored me to my original value, gave me every advantage possible to man, favored me in God’s son, adopted me into His family, authorized me to respond to all of life’s challenges from heaven’s view point. I am accepted in the beloved. I have a place at the table, I am very special and I have heaven as my destiny but also at my disposal. My calling now is to live my life from heaven’s vantage point, bringing heaven to earth, May His Kingdom come, His will be done on earth as in heaven.” I have been translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear son. I have been born again and I am in the process of being transformed into something completely other than who I was, a completely new creation, old things past away , all things have become new. I am no longer Elmer’s and Adam’s son. I am now the son of God. My DNA has been changed to the DNA of Christ. The Holy Spirit lives in me. He is the proof that all of this is true. After all He is the Spirit of truth.
The sacraments of baptism and the holy communion are symbolic of the new life I have been given. The old man is dead and buried. The new man has risen with Christ and is now seated with Him in heavenly places. The participation in the bread and the wine are the reminder of the expense Jesus paid and the value of this reality, my new position in Christ.
From this vantage point of being hidden in Christ, all of life is now doable. Every part of it…the bad and the ugly as well as the good. Discouragement, fear, despair, and sin no longer have dominion over me. I have obtained a position of authority in Christ from which all of my life now flows. Christ in me is the hope of glory. My calling is to live my life as an authorized version of Christ, (as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become son’s of God), expressing His love, His kindness, His wisdom, His righteousness, His healing and His mercy into my world, supernaturally empowered by the indwelling Spirit of God. Now between you and me, I know that this is completely beyond the realm of possibility for Elmer’s boy Lloyd.. But this is the miracle of His life in me and my life in Him. This is my new identity, my new reality in Christ. Now, it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me and the life that I live in this body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. It is no longer my responsibility to battle with sin. It is no longer my responsibility to bite my lip and live selflessly. My responsibility is to abide in Christ, to draw near to Him and then to live out of my new identity. When I live from earth to heaven I am getting to the point that I just expect to fail. But living from heaven to earth He wins in me and so I win. No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man- BUT- God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond your ability (your new ability now that you are in Christ). We have a vantage point from which we are privileged and expected to live and to love, joyfully, peacefully and victoriously.
If you miss this piece to the puzzle of your life, I think you will miss something extra ordinary. You may live a good life, even have some great God stories. Paul prayed in the book of Ephesians that the eyes of our understanding would be enlightened, that we might know what is the hope of His calling and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. I believe that the truly attractive Life Jesus promised is only found in Him when we are convinced of who Jesus is and who we are in Him, that He not only loves us but lives inside of us, changing us into His image so He can live through us for the benefit of those around us.
Now I know that even though I haven’t had this truth in my noggin it has been at work in me from it’s inception, that day when at five years old Jesus moved into my heart. He has been faithful over the coarse of my life and in His timing has just now let me in on this pearl that has been hidden from me to date. I have a friend that say’s God hides things for us, not from us. I am curious now to see if He can expedite His plan of redemption in my life now that I have a little more insight into what he is doing. You just wait and see. Keep tuned for more of the miracle of Christ in me...or better yet dive in yourself. You don't need my permission to put your name where I put mine.
My name is Loyd Clark and I approve of this message.