"He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him." 1 Corinthians 6:17
I've been reading Destined for the Throne by Paul Billheimer, and this book explains 1 Corinthians 6:17 pretty well. Billheimer says that our bodies derive their reality from their relationship to the spirit; therefore, the spirit is the real us. And because the Christian's spirit is joined to the Lord, in our essential beings we are seated with Christ in the heavens, as it says in Ephesians 2:6. We are united with Christ as members of His body, and because of this we are partakers of all He is and all He has. In other words, EVERY blessing and EVERY good thing that we read about in the Bible and EVERYTHING that Jesus has and is is ours too. Think about that for awhile! (See also Ephesians 1:3).
For example, Jeremiah 31:12b says, "Their souls shall be like a well-watered garden, and they shall sorrow no more at all." I used to think this referred to heaven and wasn't for now. But now I think it does apply to us now. Galatians 5:22 says that the fruit of the Spirit is joy, and certainly God's people have His Spirit now. I'm not saying that we always feel joyful. But God turns our sorrow to joy. I have experienced this. I was discouraged because of struggling to learn my new job (at Lifeway Christian store). I felt like a worthless failure. I asked Jesus to speak to me about this. He took me to Romans 8 where it says that He is for me, God gave His infinitely valuable Son for me (thereby placing infinite value on me), and He will, with Christ, freely give me all things. The Lord also showed me that my job isn't the important thing. What's important is that I believe Romans 8, that my boss connects with Jesus and finds peace, and that the Lifeway customers are loved and respected (and they may have to learn patience!). My discouragement turned to joy.
My father's funeral wasn't a happy time; all of us were grieving. Yet the Lord comforted me and gave me peace in my heart, and there's joy in that.
These thoughts are amazing to me, and I'd love to get your comments about this.
Blessings,
Sandra
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Clarification from Sandra: When I said that we partake of everything that Jesus has and is, I was excluding one thing: deity. Forgot to mention that. We are children of God but not God. We are not the creators and sustainers of everything. We have an eternal future, but not an eternal past. We are not omniscient, omnipotent, etc. But we are recipients of the gift of righteousness, glory, spiritual life, and many other spiritual blessings. That gives us a lot to rejoice about.
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