forbearance without any anxiety

Living Stream Ministry Podcast ::

In Ephesians 1:3 and 2:6 the apostle Paul says that we have been blessed and have been seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Well, it might say that in the Bible, but what does it say in your experience? Day by day, are you in the heavenlies or do you find yourself spending your time in anxiety? Most of us would have to truthfully answer that we spend much more of our time wrestling with anxiety than enjoying a life with Christ at peace in the heavenlies.

The truth is, that after man fell, human life became a composition of anxiety and worry. So how is it then that the apostle Paul also said in Phil. 4, “Let your forbearance be known to all men. The Lord is near. In nothing be anxious…”?

This book (Phil) is a book about living Christ and magnifying Christ. And practically, what does it look like to live Christ and magnify Christ? It looks like living a life full of forbearance and without any anxiety. So Paul brings us to the very practical side of our actual living and our expression. Forbearance is the sum total of the entire Christian life. If you were to add up the christian life, what does it look like….it looks like forbearance. If you add up the human life apart from Christ, what does it look like…one huge sum of anxiety.

So these two go together. So practically for us to magnify Christ and to live Christ…what does it look like? It looks like living a life full of forbearance without any anxiety. Very practical.

Paul..he knew what the human life was…nothing but anxiety. And what was the christian life…nothing but forbearance. To live Christ is to have forbearance without anxiety. This is to live Christ. For me to live is Christ. And this is what…no anxiety but full of forbearance. We cannot understand such a chapter as Phil 4 by merely studying the Bible. We need our experience to tell us what Paul really meant. Forbearance is the totality of the proper christian life. And what is the totality of the human life? That is anxiety.

So Paul picked up these two things to charge us on the positive side…to let our forbearance be known to all men. For years and years I heard and got to read a number of books on Gal. 2:20. Actually, I didn’t see exactly who was living this way. The answer is in Philippians. Because Paul in Philippians has stepped further not only to tell us that Christ lives in us…but even the more to tell us that to him is to live Christ.

You have to realize to have Christ living is us is not so much as to live Christ. This is much further. And to live Christ is to be full of forbearance and no anxiety. If you just have “this much” anxiety, you are void of Christ “this much.” How much Christ is here in your daily life…this will be measured by forbearance and anxiety. If you have forbearance, you have Christ. If you have anxiety, you are void of Christ. If you have forbearance, surely you don’t have anxiety. If you have anxiety, surely you don’t have forbearance. You cannot have both at the same time.

The first prerequisite to have no anxiety is to realize that every circumstance is an assignment from our Father…especially the bad circumstances. Just learn to know whatever comes to us is of our Father. Especially the unprofitable things are His better assignment.

Living Stream Ministry

There’s something in us that makes us passive and weak to the things of God

Living Stream Ministry Podcast ::

Today in Romans chapter 8, we’re going to talk about being free from sin and death.

Romans 8 is a chapter of experience, and the death here is NOT the physical death to which we are subject in the old creation. So when we talk about being freed from death, we’re not talking about some kind of miraculous cure for our mortality. Or some premature deliverance from the power of death in a physical way.

Death in Romans 8 is a terrifying and powerful spiritual source and force that has its source in Satan, the origin of death. In Hebrews 2, Paul talks about the Devil…the one who has the might of death. The death in Romans 7 and 8 is that issue of sin in the flesh which weighs upon us and weakens us and darkens us and eventually deadens us…especially as we endeavor to pursue the Lord.

Sin with its law incites us in the flesh to do things contrary to God. But death works to weaken us when we are interested or burdened in carrying out something in the Lord and for the Lord.

There’s something in us that makes us passive and weak to the things of God. We need to call it by its right name; it’s death, and God and His organic salvation has a way of deliverance from it…a way to overcome it…in Christ as our resurrection life. So we need to pay attention to this. It has a lot to do with our daily experience of Christ in Spirit.

Living Stream Ministry