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To: Alamo-Girl; betty boop; hosepipe; marron; Kolokotronis; Quix; .30Carbine
this awareness of being alive in Christ while yet in the flesh is breath-taking

Indeed.

And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we [are]. - John 17:11

Oh, A-G...may God bless you. :)

12,776 posted on 04/15/2007 9:19:48 PM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: kosta50
And may God bless you, dear kosta50!
12,777 posted on 04/15/2007 9:21:55 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: kosta50; Alamo-Girl; betty boop; hosepipe; marron; Kolokotronis; Quix
I have not followed anywhere near this whole discussion, but kosta50, your post falls so finely in line with a devotional reading of mine this morning that I just had to post it. I include your ping list in my return; hopefully others will be blessed by these words, too, from Mighty Is Your Hand: A 40-Day Journey in the Company of Andrew Murray, Devotional Readings Arranged and Paraphrased by David Hazard (we are part of a great cloud of witnesses!) -

Rise and Walk

Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:31

When Jesus saw [the invalid] lying there,
and knew that he already had been in that condition
[for thirty-eight years], he said to him,
"Do you want to be made well?"...
[Then] Jesus said to him, "Rise...and walk."
John 5:6,8

There are many marks of spiritual health, and the apostle John points out to us one of them - walking. Jesus said to the sick man, "Rise and walk," and the man was restored to full health and vigor, able to take part in all the work of life.

This is a wonderful picture, suggesting the kind of spiritual health that God wants to restore to us....It is the Risen One who says to us, "Rise and walk." He gives us the power of resurrected life.

Our new life is a walk in Christ: "As ye have...received Christ Jesus...so walk ye in him" (Colossians 2:6 KJV).

Our new life is a walk like Christ: "Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did" (1 John 2:6)....

It is a walk "in the light, as he is in the light" (1 John 1:7). It is a walk of faith - with all its power coming from God and Christ and the Holy Spirit, flowing to the soul that is learning how to turn away from the world and to stop drawing our strength from the power offered by the world....

How wonderful we would find our daily lives to be if we discovered how this spiritual walk is possible - if we actively believed that God sent His Almighty Son and the Holy Spirit to call us and prepare us for an earthly life with heavenly power beyond anything man could dare to imagine or hope for!

....

Christ's condition for spiritual health and powerful success is to bring us into such dependence upon Him that we shall not be able, for one single moment, to live without Him.

If we want to live in this world, having a life of true spiritual power, we must learn that Christ himself is our life in a sense that so many cannot begin to conceive. The prevailing feeble and sickly Christian life is due entirely to the fact that we do not lay hold of a divine truth:

As long as we continue to expect Christ to do something for us from heaven, in single acts of grace from time to time - and each time, trusting Him only to give us the earthly answer, which lasts only for a little while - then we will never be restored to perfect spiritual health. But if we see, just once, that there is to be nothing of our own for a single moment, if we learn to accept it from Him and trust Him for it, then the life of Christ becomes the health of our soul.

Health is nothing but life in its normal, undisturbed activity. Christ gives us health by giving us himself as our life - and so He becomes our strength for our walk in the spirit.

~Excerpted from The Ministry of Intercessory Prayer




Amen.
12,817 posted on 04/16/2007 1:39:37 AM PDT by .30Carbine
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