Illusions vs Faith

I woke up this morning with a verse on my tongue accompanied with a sight which didn’t last more than a fraction of a second. The verse I had in my mouth is where Paul admonishes the Romans not to be conformed to the patterns of this world. The image I saw was our globe covered with a mesh. In my mind it resembled a mesh of illusions enveloping our planet, and thus that was the way I understood it.

When Adam fell his worldview changed instantaneously. To his great distress he now discovered that he and Eve were naked. When sin moved in and took over the command center, his spirit, his faith faculties abruptly dissolved, and all he had left were his third dimension senses. Faith is fixed on our Father. Settled in faith we do not take into account our own appearances, because it is in Him we live and have our being. Faith denotes that we are off a self-focus and onto a Christ focus.

Our natural human faculties cannot disclose this world’s appearances as falsehood. We are not talking about everything God created in the material realm, because He plainly declared it as good. The mesh or pattern alludes to a religious system which is present within every human who haven’t accepted Christ, and thus is manifested in everything the unregenerate man does.

The unregenerate man follows the cravings of his flesh, that is, his regular human faculties which every man is endowed with. Paul thus says that our sight, hearing or emotions do not convey to man the complete image of this universe. If we only rely on those senses we are conformed to this world.

When Jesus found His abode in us He endowed us with powerful faith faculties which are meant to see their perfections through practice. This is the means by which we expose any religious system which is raising itself against the fixed knowledge of God.

This fourth dimension faculty empowers us to not walk by sight but by faith. It is this faculty that assures us that we are in a union with Christ. It liberates from trying to live the Christian life. It persuades every one of us that Christ is now at our control center. If He is the great I am, then we are reflections of His being who spontaneously express Him.

By faith we say goodbye to self effort and any external law which are merely images of the basic elements. Children need an outer framework for their lives. Adults don’t. Since Christ is in every believer He spontaneously and effortlessly fulfils every command in the new creation. If we effortlessly expressed sin when the devil was our master, we now effortlessly express righteousness because of the new indweller.

So we simply are as He is.

Our body is a wondrous thing. If we want to make it stronger and fitter we have to exercise. That involves resistance and pain. I personally know a lot of people who do not like that particular scheme very well, but it is the only way to develop our muscles, whether it is heart, lungs or biceps.

When it comes to our faith it needs practice as well. However, now we have a personal trainer who sets up our training program. It involves some suffering and tribulations so we can come to the realization that He is not out there, but inside with all His resources. We will go astray now and then so that we by faith can acknowledge that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Everything is seasoned with some self-effort until we realize He is our life.

Faith is simply how we respond to our training. To be conformed to the patterns of this world is thus to say to our Personal Trainer: “I give up – I prefer appearances to faith. I don’t think you are love, so I want to do this my own way.”

The world says: “Who do you think you are?” Faith says: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9) That’s the pinnacle of our confession! Now we have entered a faith level which is in accordance to Paul’s encouragement: “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” (1 Cor 11:1)