One of the things a Christian does not get hold of, is the present consciousness of Christ in the body of the Christian, somehow the thought arises that when Christ left the Earth His presence is no longer here with us, that His presents is now in heaven. But Jesus emphasized prior to His ascension the great commission.

Mat 28:19  Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit:

Mat 28:20  teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.

Christ promises His omnipotent presence with us always and everywhere present in the soul, present in the spirit and body present until the end of the age. When Paul went down the Damascus road and God’s glory shown on him he heard a voice speaking and when he demanded to known who it was the voice said I Am Jesus whom you are prosecuting. Jesus’ presence was to deliver Him from sin and to free him from his wrong doing. At a later stage when Paul returned to Jerusalem while praying in the temple the spirit came upon him.

Act 22:17  And it came to pass, that, when I had returned to Jerusalem, and while I prayed in the temple, I fell into a trance,

Act 22:18  and saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem; because they will not receive of thee testimony concerning me.

Act 22:19  And I said, Lord, they themselves know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee:

Act 22:20  and when the blood of Stephen thy witness was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting, and keeping the garments of them that slew him.

Act 22:21  And he said unto me, Depart: for I will send thee forth far hence unto the Gentiles.

You see my brothers Jesus is just as close to the Christian soul as He was to Paul. Christ is a living presence with us and in us. He is a joy and power and the glory in our lives. When a soul reaches out to the heights of God it will only be because of the guiding and counseling and indwelling and infilling of the Christ. Christ in us, that is the place that Jesus purposes to occupy in the Christian life, that place of real presence that through His grace and love He supplies to us. What we so need in this life His guiding council His transforming grace His joyous soul absorbing presence winch in the ultimate commands all the intensity of our nature.

Paul expresses it so wonderfully in words Christ is all, and in all. Paul gives us the vision of the presence and  power of Christ with us that through the presence of Christ in our life’s we should become His presence His nature His fullness through His indwelling a divine force revolutionizing our nature and making us like Him to the final and ultimate purpose to be in his own likeness within and without.

Eph 4:13  till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

Paul again expresses the same thing.

Col 1:22  yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before him:

That transformation is to be an inner transformation of our life our nature into His nature, into his likeness through the Spirit the power that takes possession of the soul and accomplishes the will of God in our absolute transformation into the real beautiful holiness of the character of Jesus. When we think of such a nature such a character (Jesus) that is God’s purpose for you and me.

In this truth Paul puts it again in another form.

Gal 4:19 I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you .

Until by the transforming operation of the Spirit of God we are remade, retransformed in our soul, into the nature into the statue of our Lord Jesus Christ. His was the perfect character and every other Christian character in real heirship must be like God’s Son. The transforming grace of God must take away sin from the soul of man and body, it will give him the overcoming  strength instead of human weakness, it supplies the grace that makes him like the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the marvel He has undertaken to accomplish, to transform the soul of man into the likeness and character of Himself and then present us to the Father Holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight.

There is a union between the Christ and the Christian that is so deep so pure so sweet so real that the very condition of the Human spirit are transmitted to his, and the conditions of the Christ spirit is transmitted to ours. There is always a inflow of Christ’s spirit to ours it separates man and cause him to triumph anywhere and everywhere. The Christian life is designed by God to be a life abundantly in the presence of the triumphant Christ.

Indeed the mature Christian having entered into that consciousness of overcoming through the Spirit of Christ is privileged to transmit that same overcoming power and spirit to other lives in and through the power of the Spirit of God. That is why the Christian who is joined with the Christ, Lives  moves and has his being in the same Spirit that the Christ is and has, and is therefore the reproduction an incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Soos altyd liefde in Christus
Shorty van Vuuren M.S.