Loving the Christ-life!

By Tammy Lacock

“Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” (2 Corinthians 4:10)

In this final part of The Cross, Warren takes us into the very heart of the Apostle Paul in the hopes that his gospel of grace will take hold in the hearts and minds of those who hear it.

Without Paul’s writings, we would never fully understand what exactly happened at the Cross. Paul was the only one raised up by Christ Himself to explain it.

Paul’s gospel explains the abundant life Christ promised to us by His death on the Cross. As believers in Christ, we are now complete in Him, by the uprooting of the sin-nature passed down through the curse of Adam by Satan, replacing it with Christ’s nature, His Incorruptible Seed.

By His very life within us now, we can now truly live free, free to rest in Him and experience and know His Peace “that passeth all understanding,” even amidst our inevitable sufferings. By Christ in us now, we stand perfect before God as His bona fide sons and daughters. There is nothing we can do to be perfect. Christ is our perfection. Paul’s gospel of grace tells us that even when we fail, God only sees Christ.

In 2 Corinthians 4:10, Paul expresses his intimate love for the Christ within him by acknowledging our need to bear the suffering in our bodies and death to ourselves as the only means by which Christ can be manifested through us as believers. Just as by Christ’s death we have been given new life, so too, by our own suffering and death to our old lives, Christ’s life can now come through us. Life comes through suffering and death. The suffering and death to ourselves manifests His life through us to others. The trials and tribulations in this life are meant to cultivate a deep and unique relationship with Christ, one that becomes a love affair as we continue to live and breathe in Him.

Through Paul, God’s ultimate plan for us is revealed: To know and live Christ as our new life, to live and rest in Him knowing everything is in His hands, and to reciprocate His perfect love for us by making Him our first love each and every day and through every single suffering.

His death ushered in our new and everlasting life. Christ in you and me, the hope of glory!

“Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” (Colossians 1:26-28)

By Tammy Lacock

This week, Warren Litzman dives deep into Christ’s death on the Cross so we might understand exactly who we are now in Christ.

In His last words, “It is finished,” Christ testified that His death was the culmination of God’s plan of salvation for humanity. If not for His death on the Cross, we would not have new life. We would remain dead in this world, never to experience eternal life with Him.

By Christ’s death, Satan’s nature, which was passed down to us by the curse of Adam, can now be uprooted and exchanged with Christ’s nature, joined to our spirits making us one spirit in Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). We are brand-new creations, crucified at the Cross with Christ, and raised to a new life in Him in His resurrection. We are no longer defined by anything outside of us. Our identity is Christ, alive and well in each of us.

The Apostle Paul was the greatest psychologist of all time because not only did Christ reveal to him his new identity, but He revealed to him exactly how the believer in Christ can now live in freedom from sin.

Warren explains, through Paul’s epistles, that the reason we continue to make poor decisions as believers is because we don’t know who we are. Paul’s gospel of grace—that we are saved not by anything we do or don’t do, but by Christ’s perfect sacrifice on the Cross—reveals to us our new identity in Christ, and by Him we are made bona fide sons and daughters of God.

“To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col. 1:27)

“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Rom. 8:16-18)

We can be confident of eternity with Christ in heaven when we know Christ is already in us now. Once we start to get a grip on Christ as our new life, the Holy Spirit continues to renew our minds, bringing us into a closer unique relationship with the Christ in us, through our everyday circumstances and situations and especially through our adversities.

God’s plan of salvation is finished. By only believing in Christ as our Savior, we are redeemed, co-heirs with Christ to God’s kingdom. Yet the Apostle Paul tells us this is just the beginning of our new life in Christ. By cultivating a deep relationship with the Christ that lives in us now, through the renewal of our minds, we can begin to experience here and now the abundant, eternal life that Christ’s death promises.

“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

By Tammy Lacock

This week, Warren Litzman makes it plain and clear exactly what God did at the Cross. We must look to the Cross to understand God’s boundless and unconditional love for each and every one of us. By Christ’s death and resurrection, the sin-nature (Satan nature) passed down through the generations from Adam’s curse by Satan, is literally uprooted and replaced with the incorruptible seed, Christ. This is what it means to be saved, born again. By just believing in Him, we are made brand-new creations and bona fide sons and daughters of God, to live eternally—now and in His heavenly home.

Jesus was more powerful in His death than when He was alive. By Christ’s death, we are no longer bound by Satan and this world. When Christ died, we died too, to our old lives operated by Satan. We have a new Operator in Christ. In Him, there is no more sin and death for us.

It’s important to understand that God didn’t change our minds when we got saved. Our spirits were saved, being joined to Christ making us one spirit in Him (1 Corinthians 6:17), yet our minds have a lot of catching up to do. The Apostle Paul makes this clear throughout his epistles, helping us understand our new life now in Christ. Now as new creations in Christ, and by the help of the Holy Spirit, we must now allow the Holy Spirit renew our minds, by letting go of the old knowledge of good and evil, sin and death, which we were cursed with by Adam’s sin. We look to the Holy Spirit to replace it with a new knowledge, “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ,” as the Apostle puts it in Philippians 3:8, “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.”

God wants us to come back to life. Our minds have been corrupted and now need a full housecleaning. Christ living in us now brings us back into the awareness of our status as God’s bona fide sons and daughters and therefore, our inheritance of eternal life in Him. Satan’s knowledge of good and evil no longer can take hold, once we decide to give our minds over to Christ and begin living our new life in Him.

By Tammy Lacock

This week, Warren Litzman takes us deep into the heart of God by the very sacrifice of His Son Jesus.

God is Love. It’s in His nature to act in pure love. He knew, even before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4) that the only way to reconcile us to Him after our continued falling away by the curse of Adam is through a pure act of love.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

God paid the price as ransom so that our cursed and sinful natures would be exchanged by Christ’s nature. Through the perfect sacrifice of His Son at the Cross, God now has the right, according to His nature, to place Christ—God’s very seed and eternal life—in every believer. God paid His highest price for us, to bring us back into reconciliation with Him and to the life He originally intended for us, a life in Christ. God’s perfect plan of love was finished at the Cross and is now manifesting through Christ in the believing sinner.

In Christ, we are now free in a world that wants to keep our minds set in bondage. The Apostle Paul tells us that, by the help of the Holy Spirit, our minds must be renewed to our new life in Christ if we are ever to fully live who God created us to be. As His bona fide sons and daughters, we must now get to know the Christ that lives in us if we are ever to fully understand the boundless, unwavering, and unconditional love of our Heavenly Father.

By Tammy Lacock

This week, Warren discusses the importance of understanding the Trinity as integral to the heart of God’s perfect plan.

The Trinity of God consists of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, each a distinct personality manifestation of God and each having a significant role in God’s plan.

At the Cross, we see God the Son fulfilling the Father’s plan. We see God in His deepest role as Father. The completion of God’s plan consisted of Christ being the perfect, sinless sacrifice, His death on the Cross as atonement, not only for the original sin passed down to us by the curse of Adam, but for every sin—past, present, and future. When Christ died, we died, too; our sins and our old selves were nailed to the cross and buried with Him. When He arose, conquering death, we arose, too, with Him as our new eternal life. By His death, we are reborn. God the Father’s deepest desire has been fulfilled: to fill His heavenly home with sons and daughters, made righteous by His Son’s sacrifice and His life now literally living in each and every believer. They are now a new creation, a new life, by their own choosing. At the Cross, we see this deep, reciprocal love between Father and Son, as well as their unwavering, boundless, and unconditional love for a fallen world. That’s us!

The only way we could ever know of God’s plan and His unconditional love for us through His Son Jesus is by revelation. Jesus tells us in John chapters 13, 14, and 15 the main role of the Holy Spirit, which is to comfort us and teach us of Christ and how we are to live our brand-new lives in Him now. Only the Holy Spirit can reveal to us this radical new knowledge, what the Apostle Paul calls “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:8).

God’s plan is perfect. There is not one thing outside the boundary of this plan. He’s got the whole world in His hands. Every person involved in Christ’s death was necessary, all fitting into God’s plan. It had to happen for His plan to be fulfilled.

We may fail in God’s plan, but He doesn’t. He loves us so much, wanting us to live meaningful and purposeful lives in Christ here and ultimately with Him in Heaven, that He won’t allow His plan to fail.

By Tammy Lacock

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5 KJV).

This week, Warren Litzman shows that as brand-new creations in Christ, we now have the same spirit that was in Christ by His death on the cross. And by His Spirit, we have His mind readily available (1 Corinthians 2:16).

Warren takes us into the mind of Christ on the cross as a means of understanding His mind, His deep relationship with the Father and the heart of God’s plan—God’s deepest desire to have sons and daughters in His house—can now be fulfilled.

If we can understand Christ’s mind throughout His ministry and, most importantly at the cross, then we might be able to let go of our old mindsets, along with our old selves nailed at the cross, and allow His mind to come through us. The Apostle Paul was the only man raised up by Christ Himself who understood our new life in Christ and what it takes to actually live it. He knew our minds are still attached to our old selves, the self that died at the cross with Christ. He tells us to be “transformed by the renewing of [our] minds.”

By the help of the Holy Spirit, who comforts and teaches us of our new life in Christ, we can begin to cultivate a unique and personal relationship with the Christ that now lives in us. As our knowledge and relationship with Him deepens, we learn to let go and let His mind come through.

By Tammy Lacock

This week, Warren Litzman takes us to the Cross yet once again in the hopes that we can understand who Christ really was, as we live and move in Him now. As we go through Christ’s suffering and death while on the cross, we see a man who still wasn’t thinking about Himself.

Christ was loving and affectionate to His mother and to John, the only disciple at His crucifixion. He made sure His mother would be taken care of by John. He was loving and forgiving to the thief on His one side, assuring him he would be with Him in paradise. And He personified love in His last words when He asked God to forgive those who participated in His suffering and death and said, “They know not what they do.” The only suffering He acknowledged was by saying “I thirst.” Even in His last words on the cross, He didn’t complain. Jesus had no time to think of His pain and betrayal. His death was the epitome of forgiveness. He knew He had to die for our world to be saved, to receive the gift of His eternal life within us. He loved even unto His death.

Through Paul’s epistles, Warren reminds us of the gospel of grace, the only gospel for believers today. He reminds us that by Christ’s death, God poured out His love and grace unto us. We are no longer corrupted by the curse of Satan by Adam. By Christ’s death, our Satan-natures have been uprooted and replaced by His incorruptible seed. By His unconditional and boundless love within us now, death and sin no longer have a hold on us. The Apostle Paul knew this when he said in 1 Corinthians 15:55, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”

Christ’s death accomplished all things: fulfilled the law, conquered sin and death, and ushered in grace and our new life. By God’s grace, Christ is now literally living within us. We now have His eternal Life and His unfailing love to draw from. Now we are free to enjoy a unique and personal relationship with Christ as we live and move and love in Him.

By Tammy Lacock

This week, Warren Litzman takes us to the Cross once again in the hopes that we can understand its deep root: God’s love.

Christ’s journey to the Cross started before the foundation of the world, for God’s deep love for us was in His plan before we were even born. God’s Word tells us:

“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” (Ephesians 1:4)

“But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.” (1 Peter 1:19-20)

God’s deepest expression of His Love is through His Son’s life and death. Warren takes us through this journey, culminating at the Cross. It’s here where the very death of Christ ushers in God’s grace and love poured out unto us. At the Cross, Christ conquered all sin — past, present, and future — and conquered death.

What takes place within each and every believer at the Cross is the uprooting of Satan’s natures, which was passed down by the curse of Adam’s sin and was literally replaced with the Seed of Christ, the Incorruptible Seed of God’s Son. We are no longer bound by Satan and this fallen world. Our new life is Christ. He is now alive and well in each and every one of us. By Him, we now have eternal life. We are joined to Christ’s Spirit making us one spirit in Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). By God’s grace, all we have to do is believe.

God sent a part of Himself to be born into this world to show us who He is and to save us from a fallen world that is spiraling deeper and deeper into the lies of Satan, to die a lonely and horrific death on the Cross as the ultimate sacrifice to redeem us and bring us back to Him, not to mention that all we need to do is believe. If this isn’t deep love, then I don’t know what is!

God is love. God is true love. What happens at the Cross is at the deepest root of who He is.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

By Tammy Lacock

There are two deep roots that were in God’s plan before the foundation of the world. These are heavenly roots. They have nothing to do with the world and nothing to do with the Devil. They have everything to do with us and God’s love for us through His Son.

These two deep roots sustain the final gospel of Paul, who by revelation from Christ Himself understood the Cross and its ushering in of God’s grace unlike any other writer. The following two verses form the foundation.

“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” (Ephesians 1:4)

“But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.” (1 Peter 1:19-20)

This week, Warren Litzman takes us to the Cross again in the hopes that we can understand the great power of sin and God’s grace and love poured out unto us through His Son as ultimate power. Warren takes us to the cross so that we can see Christ’s pure sacrifice, His suffering and shed blood and by seeing, fall in love with Him.

“But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” (Galatians 6:14)

Here Paul tells us that there is no other glory than the glory of Christ. By His death at the cross, the world has been crucified, and we are no longer bound by it. The world is under subjection to God’s plan. In grace, the world has lost its ultimate power, whether by sin or by law. For Paul, his new life in Christ is all that matters. Christ is his first love.

Our new life in Christ could not have been made possible without the Cross. God’s love and grace is so amazing that He rooted this deep into His plan, before the foundation of the world.

By Tammy Lacock

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

This week, Warren Litzman dives deep into the heart of the Apostle Paul’s gospel, where there is no separation between new life and the shedding of Christ’s blood. Warren once again details Christ’s journey leading up to His death.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, when Christ accepted His Father’s will and drank of the cup of every single sin ever committed — past, present, and future — we too were in that cup. Our sin-nature, passed down to us from Adam by the curse of Satan, was in that cup. We were poured into His body. And the sin of the entire world was so severe for His body to bear that it began to push out His blood. Through His scourging, His walk to Calvary, His crowning of thorns, and His nailing to the cross, His blood was shed and pushed out so much that it only took six hours for Him to die. His work was then finished. Christ’s death on the cross finished sin and death once and for all. And we, too, were crucified with Him. We were in Him when He died, and we are in Him now. When He went from death to life, we did too. By the Cross, He now lives in us, joined to our spirits making us one spirit in Him, brand-new creations (1 Corinthians 6:17; 2 Corinthians 5:17).

The beginning of knowing Christ is knowing where He is. In Galatians 2:20, Paul tells us exactly where He is: “Christ liveth in me.”

No separation. He tells us it is now time to get to know and fall in love with Christ who now lives in each of us as believers.

We fall in love with Him by now giving ourselves, our lives back to Him. He’s not coming and going. By the cross, He now lives in us. He is our new life. By the help of the Holy Spirit, may we develop and deepen our love for Christ by making Him our first love.