Loving the Christ-life!

By Tammy Lacock

“But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” (1 Corinthians 6:17)

In this week’s podcast, Warren Litzman helps us understand what it means to be joined to Christ in one Spirit and how this union takes place and delivers us.

We first see this union in Mary’s encounter with the angel telling her that God will place His very own seed inside her, and she will give birth to a new life, the life of God’s Son, our Savior. Here she was joined to Christ’s Spirit.

Warren also reminds us of Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus in John 3:3: “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

There must be a new birth, a birth in spirit. Nicodemus didn’t understand at the time what this meant. Not until Christ raised up the Apostle Paul would we have any understanding of what it means to be born again.

Paul didn’t know Christ in the flesh before He died on the cross. He knew Him only in Spirit, the way we, too, are to know Him now. Christ revealed to Paul what it means to be born again, or to be joined to Christ in one Spirit. He calls it the “mystery”:

• “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.” (Colossians 1:27)
• “How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery (as I wrote afore in few words." (Ephesians 3:3)

The “mystery” revealed to Paul is this: Christ literally lives in every believer.

Paul understood, more than anybody, what this meant and how it happens. When Jesus drank the cup in Gethsemane, He was “drinking” into His body all of our sins, past, present, and future. When He died on the cross, we died too. When He was buried, our old lives were buried. When He rose from the dead, we arose, too. We went through the entire process with Christ and arose to an entirely new life with Him. Our new life, our rebirth, is Christ living in us, our only hope of glory. The Satan-nature, passed down in us by the curse of Adam and Eve, has been replaced by Christ’s divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Paul tells us over 146 times that Christ’s life, His Spirit (he uses interchangeably), now lives in us, and we in Him. By Christ’s death, we now have a new life in Him! We are born again by being joined to His Spirit. Without God’s Seed, Christ, in us, we would have no salvation.

This is what Christ meant when he said on the cross in His last three words, “It is finished.” God’s intention for us, who He created us to be, is finished. We are complete now with Christ in us as our new life.

Without Christ in us, without being joined to Him in one Spirit, we could not function the way God created us to. Paul goes on to explain throughout his epistles, however, that although we are perfect in spirit at salvation, our souls — where our minds, wills, and emotions reside — are not yet transformed to our new life. Our minds, Paul says, must be continually renewed, by the help of the Holy Spirit, if we are to grow up and learn of Christ and our new life in Him. Our souls are being perfected (matured) as we get to know Him and love Him as our new life.

Are you an actor or a true Christian?

Without knowing their true identity in Christ, Christians today are actors, trying to be somebody they are not. Christianity is a union, a love affair, a marriage to Christ, in operation. It is a personal relationship with Him. It is not what we do or don’t do, what religion says, that brings us closer to God. It is Christ in us.

A mature Christian knows their true identity, who he/she is in Christ. They’ve had the revelation of the mystery, that there is no separation now. They see Christ as their only life and, therefore, cultivating a relationship with Him is first and foremost.

As born-again believers, Christ is in you as you, joined in one Spirit. A Christian is a Christ-person, complete and “finished” in Him!

Now, let’s get to know Him!

Tammy Lacock

“Follow me as I follow Christ.” (Romans 5:10)

In this week’s podcast, Warren Litzman sets out to explain the gospel that is meant for us today, a gospel that after years of preaching, was finally revealed to him by the prompting of the Holy Spirit. He shares with us a gospel that has been plainly written in all of the Apostle Paul’s 14 epistles, and yet is not being preached much at all in today’s churches. The Apostle Paul tells us that Christ revealed this gospel to him personally and he, in turn, reveals it to us!

Warren first reminds us that the Apostle Paul never knew Jesus in the flesh. Although he and Christ may have been in the same circles before Christ’s death, he was not a follower of Jesus. In fact, Paul was determined to destroy Christ’s followers and did so many times. Paul came to know Christ, only in Spirit, when he was knocked off his horse and blinded on the way to Damascus to persecute Christians. It was then that he began a spiritual relationship with Christ. His entire life was radically changed. He moved into an entirely new existence. He was a chosen vessel by Jesus Christ, Himself. Christ revealed to Paul a gospel that was not given to any other writer in the Bible.

Paul’s gospel is this:

Something happened to us, on a personal level, when we accepted Christ as our Savior. Throughout Paul’s epistles, we see that Paul knew Christ differently than any other writer. He knew Him at a personal level, yet in spirit. He received the grace of God through Christ and revealed this to us in his epistles. Paul’s gospel is the gospel of Christ and His grace poured out onto humanity.

He explains it this way:

We were all born into sin by the curse of Adam in the garden by Satan. The only remedy for this sin-nature is Christ. By His death, burial, and resurrection, we are set free from death and this sin-nature, the bondage of this world, and brought to a new life in Him. When we accept Christ as our Savior, at a personal level, we become brand-new creations because of Christ’s life in us now. His nature literally replaces the sin-nature. Only by this exchange of nature, can we truly know who we are now and who God created us to be, God’s bona fide children, reconciled to Him!

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

“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)

Ephesians 1:4, Paul tells us that we were chosen as a new creation in Christ, as God’s children, even before the world was created. It was in God’s plan, before we were even created, that our sin nature would be replaced by Christ’s nature, His seed. And it was in God’s plan before the foundation of the world that the Lamb, Christ, be slain for this to take place.

In fact, Paul was the only person in the Bible who could explain how this worked, calling it “the revelation of the mystery.” He was the only one who knew how God made human beings. Paul knew, revealed to him by Christ, that we were created before the foundation of the world to possess the life of Christ. Our sin-nature is contrary to our creation and, therefore, we are not complete until this sin-nature is replaced by Christ’s nature.

Paul explains that we were created a tripartite being: body, soul and spirit. Our new life in Christ is a spiritual matter and in our spirits is where He lives.

“But he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” (1 Corinthians 6:17)

At salvation, we are transformed in spirit. However, our bodies and souls remain unchanged. The only way we can live who we were created to be in our bodies and souls, is by our completion in Christ in our spirits. Paul knew, by his personal relationship with Christ now living in Him, that although our spirits are now complete, perfect in Christ, our souls have yet to be complete and perfect. By the help of the Holy Spirit, our souls (where our minds reside) must be constantly renewed in our daily walk. The more we get to know Christ on a personal level, the more our minds and bodies are reconciled to Him.

Paul’s gospel is Christ. It’s a gospel of God’s amazing grace. It’s a gospel of hope in a sin-filled world. And it’s a gospel that finally tells us who we are and who we were created to be, a Christ-person and a child of God, no more separation from God. He passes this gospel on to us throughout his epistles. It’s clearly made known here in Colossians 1:27:

“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.”

Christ in you and me, before the foundation of the world! Dive into Paul’s epistles for yourself, and may this mystery be revealed unto you!

By Tammy Lacock

In this week’s podcast, Warren Litzman continues explaining what is in Christ, as God’s seed in us. By God’s power of the cross, through faith, Christ now lives in us. How are we ever to know Him if we are ignorant to what is in Christ?

There are four components of the seed of Christ which Warren shares with us through four different scriptures so we may continue to renew our minds, grow up in Him, and know and love Him more every day.

He starts off with the story of Jesus lost in the church in Luke 2:49, “And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?”

Here, Jesus, at the age of 12, introduces to Mary and Joseph a new Father. Jesus let Joseph know that he wasn’t His father and that Jesus was focused on His heavenly Father’s business. Jesus introduced the powerful truth that the same Christ in us is focused on our Father’s business. Being born again by Christ in us, we are now God’s offspring; and we, too, are about our Father's business! So what is that?

Ultimately, it is sharing the gospel of Christ, Christ in us, to the world.

“Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” (John 4:34)

In John 4:34, Warren explains that just as Christ was here to do the will of His Father and finish His work, by Christ in us, we too are here to finish God’s will for each of us. This, too, is our meat, what sustains us.

The will of God for each of us is in what we do every day: in our jobs, in our home life, wherever God plants us. The world doesn’t need more evangelists or charismatics. Our pulpits are in our everyday situations. This is where people will see Jesus coming through each of us. This is real Christianity. Now being joined to the Lord in one Spirit, everything we do is for the Lord.

“I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” (John 17:4)

In John 17:4, Jesus is talking to His Father about finishing His work, His will for Him.

Warren explains that we, too, are here to glorify God by being who we were created to be and finishing His work for us. In Ephesians 1:4, Paul tells us God “hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.” In order for us to glorify God and finish His will for us, we must know who we are now. With Christ in us, joined to us in spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17), we are God’s bona fide children! We glorify God by allowing Christ now to live out through us, not by anything we do on our own. God’s first choice for us, before the foundation of the world, is to glorify Him by being who He created us to be. We glorify Him by knowing Christ and allowing Christ to operate through us.

By knowing Christ in us more and more every day, we can step into what Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “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.”

Christ is our life now!

“When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.” (John 19:30)

In John 19:30, Christ’s words, “It is finished,” tells not of His dying to His body and earthly life but His finishing the will of His Father. God’s intention for Him is finished. God’s intention for Christ was that through His human birth, sinless life, and sacrificial death, every human being who believes would be redeemed. Even more, His intention was that every human being have an opportunity to be what God intended by God placing His seed — Christ’s Spirit and life — in them. He intended for us to have a new life in Christ. Through Christ’s death, we are reconciled to God, our heavenly Father.

For us to live the life God intended for us, we need to understand what’s in this seed in us and renew our minds to this understanding, getting to know Him!

Warren ends with Philippians 2:5, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”

At some point in our walk with Christ, we need to “finish” our old ways of thinking and let only the mind of Christ be our guide. Paul tells us to search the Scriptures until our minds are renewed in Him, until we are about our Father’s business and finishing His will for us every day.

By Tammy Lacock

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” (John 12:24, KJV)

In this week’s podcast, Warren Litzman explains that the most important theme in the New Testament is the subject of the seed. Scripture (and more specifically in Peter’s, Paul’s, and John’s epistles) speaks of the seed in three distinctive ways: It has Christ’s life; it has God’s nature; and it has Christ’s Spirit. The seed is the very heart of God’s plan; and every time it is mentioned, it points to Christ.

The deepest things of God can be found in John 12:24. This verse tells of God’s unconditional, relentless, and boundless love for us. In this verse, Christ reveals what our Heavenly Father did through the gift of His Son, Christ, His seed. By His death on the cross, we too died with Him, our old lives buried and done. Yet as believers, Christ, God’s seed, replaces the sin-nature passed down in us by the curse of Adam. By His death, we are brought to a new life in Him by His seed planted in us by God.

We are no longer bound by sin and death, the bondage of the world. We have a brand-new nature, a new life! And this new life only comes by His death. We are now free in Him.

“Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3, KJV)

“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” (1 Peter 1:23, KJV)

Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:3, you must be born again to enter into the things of God. Being born again means a brand-new life. We are born again as a brand-new creation in Christ, by His seed now in us. Built into the heart of God’s plan was fact that He must die for us to live, to live a new life as a brand-new creation. Christ, the Word of God, is our Salvation. No one is saved from the corruptible seed of Satan except by Christ’s death, allowing His incorruptible seed to be planted in us.

By our new life in Christ, we are born again, now in God’s family. We are partakers of His divine nature. We are God’s bona fide offspring! We must know who we are now if we are to allow our new nature, Christ’s Spirit, to come through us and finally live who God created us to be. We are complete in Him. We are no longer bound by the law, what we do, to be saved. Being a Christian means being a Christ-person. We are sons and daughters of God now! As bona fide children of God, it is Christ’s nature, His seed, His Spirit, that we must now nurture for Him to break through the hull and spring forth through us. We must get to know and learn of Christ who now lives in us. The seed of Christ will lie dormant like an “old man in a rocking chair” if we don’t acknowledge Him and get to know Him. We are one in spirit with Him now. (1 Corinthians 6:17). By the help of the Holy Spirit, in our day-to-day circumstances and situations, we must allow our minds to be constantly renewed as we give in to Christ, learn of Him, and let Him be our new life.

New life comes only by death.

In order to live fully in Christ now, living who God created us to be, we must acknowledge our death in Christ, reckon ourselves dead to our old lives, and grow up in Him in our new life more and more every day.

By Tammy Lacock

“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” (Romans 10:4, KJV)

In this week’s podcast, Warren Litzman continues to explain our seven freedoms we come to learn in our new life in Christ. Through diving into Paul’s epistles, we can begin to understand to let go of the bondage of law (in all of its forms and subtleties) that hold us back from living our complete freedom in Him.

In last week’s podcast, Warren discussed the first four freedoms in Christ: The Freedoms from Self, Sin, Satan, and Body). This week he finishes with the last three freedoms.

5) Freedom to Love

Christ within us is the lover. It’s His love, not ours, coming through us now. His love ends the law that separates us.

We are free, by Him, to love each other, our neighbors, even if those neighbors are our enemies. We draw no line between our friends and our enemies. Jesus told us that our enemies can even be our family, as was His own brother. Paul tells us we “see no man after the flesh” (2 Corinthians 5:16), which means we love them no matter what they do or don’t do. We are free to love everyone.

6) Freedom to be a Son.

There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. We are born again now as His sons and daughters, partakers of His divine nature. We are free to be a child of God, to rest in Him. We are free to learn as we grow up in our new life in Christ. We continue to learn obedience to Him. As a son, we learn to no longer lie, cheat, steal, or contradict who we are now. And even though we still inevitably sin as we grow up in Him, there is no condemnation. Our sin is a sin to us, not to God. Our sin hurts us, not God.

He forgives and loves us no matter what.

7) Freedom to be who we are in Christ.

We are free to be our real self, and our real self is Christ as me and Christ as you. Our manifestations of Christ are unique to each of us. We are free to fail and free to suffer. The status of our minds given to Him will determine our actions. The Apostle Paul tells us that by the help of the Holy Spirit, our minds are continually renewed in our knowledge of Christ, who now lives in us. We realize through our personal relationship with Him that He is our freedom. We are not free by anything we do or don’t do.

We are now free to live who God created us to be, complete in Him!

Freedom is a person; freedom is Christ.

He is our only life.

We are now completely free in Him!

By Tammy Lacock

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” (Galatians 5:1-4 KJV)

In this week’s podcast, Warren Litzman explains, primarily through Galatians 5:1-4, that our freedom has absolutely nothing to do with self-effort and everything to do with the person of Christ. Christ did the work on the cross and we are free because of Him, whether we accept it or not. Our believing doesn’t make us free. Whether we believe or don’t believe doesn’t change what Christ did at the cross. The Apostle Paul drives this point in the above four verses: If anyone still lives by the law (what we do or don’t do to be saved or even to be closer to God) then Christ is of no profit to them. In fact, they have fallen from God’s grace. Religion, through Satan’s deception, has most Christians striving to be closer to God by their works. And yet, Paul tells us to completely let go of living by the law and stand free in Christ. He is our freedom.

He is our new life! Old things have passed away now.

Warren details through Paul’s and John’s epistles, that there are seven freedoms in Christ. He discusses the first four of them in this podcast.

1) Freedom over Self

In Galatians 2:20, Paul tells us that our selves are crucified with Christ, yet we live. Christ is our new life; we are one with Him in Spirit. And He now comes through us, our bodies and souls-minds.

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

Our selves are subject to Him now.

2) Freedom over Sin

There’s no other way religion can operate without the guilt of sin. Religion doesn’t tell us the truth about sin. Yet in 1 John 3, he tells us four times that he who is born of God does not commit sin against Him. God forgives us over and over when we go to Him. However, if any man commits sin, one that he wills to commit, he sins against himself, not God. Our sin only hurts ourselves, not God.

In Christ, we are no longer bound by sin.

We no longer sin to God, only to ourselves.

3) Freedom over Satan

We are no longer bound by Satan’s nature. By Christ in us, we now have His discernment at our disposal. Therefore, we are able to discern spirits, and therefore able to know if we need to face Satan or see our adverse situations from God as a way of helping us know Him. No longer do we need to make excuses for Satan in our lives. Christ already overcame him at the cross. We don’t even need to rebuke Satan. We are God’s children…we go to Him!

4) Freedom over our Bodies

We have freedom from the pulls of our bodies. No longer do we need to give a mind to these pulls. We are free from these pulls when we give our minds over to Christ, who now lives in our spirits. We can now bring our bodies under subjection to Him. His wisdom will discern what our bodies need and don’t need.

Freedom is a Person. Freedom is Christ, now living in us. May we let go of the bondage of what we must do or not do to be closer to Him. As Paul says, stand firmly and confidently in Him, knowing not what we do, but knowing Him.

By Tammy Lacock

In this week’s podcast, Warren Litzman explains just how deeply rooted we are in the law. Religion has rooted in our minds that we must be good, do this, don’t do that to be saved.

The law was set into motion in God’s plan with Adam in the Garden of Eden when He commanded, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Yet when Adam and Eve encountered Satan in the garden, Satan appealed to Adam’s most basic emotions and senses (that of his body … a down motivation) by displaying the beauty of the fruit and distorting God’s word saying, “Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 2:17; 3:4-5, KJV)

Warren explains that God built into humanity our ability to freely choose, but the foundation for choice came with Adam and Satan’s first interaction. Satan used third-dimensional knowledge (that of the senses) to appeal to Adam. So here Adam had a choice between God’s knowledge (which runs the world) and Satan’s knowledge (distortion of God’s knowledge) and chose to believe Satan. In that moment, by just believing, Satan’s nature became Adam’s nature. This is where the fall of man begins. And of course, without the fall, there would be no need for a Savior.

To this day, especially by means of religion, the minds of human beings are deeply rooted in the law, third-dimensional knowledge. By the curse of Adam by Satan, we are born into sin with Satan as our nature.

Therefore, we must be “born again” to have an exchange of nature from Satan’s to that of Christ’s (John 3:3).

How are we born again?

By just believing in Christ as our Savior, we are rebirthed with Christ’s nature, His seed. By Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, our old lives are “crucified with Christ” and we arose to a new life in Him (Galatians 2:20). By our rebirth, we take on Christ’s nature and are now bona fide children of God, no longer children of Satan (children of the “evil one,” of the “liar,” of “disobedience,” of “wrath”). God doesn’t correct our sin nature, he gives us an entirely new nature, that of Christ.

No longer do we need to live by the law, doing this and that to be saved, to be closer to God. We must be born again!

By God’s Grace, the Apostle Paul tells us that by just believing we are made brand new creations. Christ is now our new life. Christ living within us as our new nature is the gospel for us now. By the help of the comforter, our teacher, the Holy Spirit, we can now have this radical mind change and move from law to grace in our daily walk.

By just believing, our lives are no longer ruled by Satan and his distortion of God’s law. We now step into grace, the Christ Life, and live by Truth, by Him!

“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23-24 KJV)

By Tammy Lacock

In this week’s podcast, Warren Litzman sets out to make a very fine distinction between being rooted in the law and being rooted in Christ. He accomplishes this by diving into Chapter 3 of Galatians where the Apostle Paul tells us that by Christ’s death and resurrection, the law was nullified. By God’s grace, we now live not by our own faith, but by His faithfulness. He says even God’s promise to Abraham was based on God’s faithfulness to him and not by anything he did. God promised Abraham the inheritance of eternal life through his seed, the seed of Christ. By His faithfulness, we recognize that there is nothing we can do, or not do, to be saved. Christ did the work on the cross. He is our salvation!

Warren emphasizes the importance of understanding what Paul means by the “law.” It was set into place when Adam made the choice to believe what Satan told him in the garden. Satan said if you eat of this tree, you will be as gods. Satan set into motion the idea that we need to do something in order to be gods, or to be closer to God. With this, He nullified faith. And yet Paul tells us, we now live by faith, not our faith, but the faithfulness of the Son of God. The law robs us of faith; therefore, to be under the law, what we do or don’t do, is sin.

God’s promise to us now as believers is a new life in Christ, a life free of sin, and yet we are still deeply rooted in our idea of redemption by obedience to the law. By His death and resurrection, we are freed from the law, the curse of Adam by Satan. Christ fulfilled the law by overcoming sin and death. We are no longer made righteous by anything we do or don’t do. We are made righteous by Christ, He who now lives in us by God’s grace. He is our life. Religion has robbed us from this by keeping Christ outside of us when actually the only Christ that now lives is the Christ in you and me.

Warren explains God built into creation the ability for human beings to choose. Further, God’s plan hinges on choice because without it, He could never experience true reciprocated love from us. Adam chose the law, the knowledge of good and evil, over faith, the knowledge of Christ, who is life. As a result, he fell from abundant life in the garden and died. He chose sin and death over life.

The great news is, by God’s grace, we can choose life, the life that now lives in us, Christ. It’s a personal choice because it doesn’t get more personal than Him living in us. We can choose to live by Him and allow Him to come through us. We can choose to know Him and love Him more and more each day, each moment.

Paul says our ability to choose is a mind-thing. The mind is the true battlefield, where we can choose to live by the law or by Christ, who now lives in us. With the help of the Holy Spirit, whose sole purpose is to teach us of Christ in us, our minds can radically change. At some point, we begin to move from what we do to please ourselves and God to what He did on the cross. We move from what we do or don’t do to who He is and who He is now in us.

By being rooted in Christ, we begin to reciprocate God’s love, His ultimate desire and plan, by the faithfulness of Him who now lives in us and is our new Life.

Christ is Love, Christ is Life!

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 KJV)

In this week’s podcast, Warren Litzman explains the Apostle Paul’s Galatians 2:20 experience and how this knowledge is foundational to our understanding of what it means to be a born-again believer in Christ.

In Galatians 2:20, Paul tells us we are “crucified with Christ.” This means everything that has made us who we are before coming to Christ has died. Our old selves, our pasts, have died with Christ. We are no longer Jew or Gentile, male or female, black or white. No more labels telling us who we are.

Yet, Paul tells us we still live. By Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, we arose, too, to a new life in Christ. Our old sin natures are exchanged by Christ’s nature, His seed planted in us by believing and by God’s Amazing Grace. This is what it means to be born again. We live now by the “faith of the Son of God.” Warren explains that faith is God’s knowledge in action. Therefore, we live now by the knowledge of Christ, who now “liveth in me.” Our old selves have been cancelled out, and Christ is our new life, literally living in us! The life we now live is Christ.

The problem lies in our minds. We must have a radical mind change, by the help of the Holy Spirit, in order for us to understand our new life in Christ. Our minds must get to a place where we can allow Him to break through into our souls and our outward expression. We must make up our minds to stop trying to be like Christ but rather focus on Him and who we are now with Him as our new life. It’s time to get to know Him!

Warren shares four very important things that make up Christ, who now lives in us. When we set our minds on these things, we will get to know Him more; and therefore, express Him the way God intended.

1. Christ was born to die. His death brought us new life. By Him living in us now, we too have it in us to die and be born again. This is the heart of Paul’s message in Galatians 2:20. We have the ability to die to our old lives and to anything that doesn’t align with Christ and God’s plan.
2. Christ in us lives without hang-ups. Again, it’s in our minds where we have our own hang-ups. The more we set our minds on Him, the more we will let go of the things that hold us back from knowing Him and expressing Him.
3. Christ in us is industrious. He’s not lazy. He works and earns his pay properly, fitting into His environment. He did this while on earth. And now He longs to work and be productive through us and through who God created us to be, one Spirit in Him.
4. Christ in us loves people. He’s a people-person. He wants to love people through us.

Throughout Paul’s epistles, He tells us Christ lives in us as believers. Galatians 2:20 lies at the heart of his gospel. By His death, we died too. We are dead to sin and our old selves, our old lives. Yet, he tells us, we live!

Christ is our new life, and by God’s grace, we now live by Him, through Him, and in Him.

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 KJV)

“For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12 KJV)

In this week’s podcast, Warren Litzman helps us, once again, understand the true gospel, the word of God, that needs to be preached today.

The Bible is a compilation of scriptures put together to form the word of God. However, when the scriptures use the phrase “word of God,” it narrows down the main subject and object of the Bible to Christ, the person. Christ is the word of God mentioned in Hebrews 4:12.

When the word of God, that is Christ, is properly preached, He will sharply divide the soul and spirit of the human being. With this knowledge, we can start to truly understand what God is doing in our lives.

We are made in the image and likeness of God in that we are tripartite beings also made up of 3 parts: the body, the soul, and the spirit.

It’s important to realize that when we are “born again” (John 1:1), something spectacular happens in our spirits, whether we feel it or not. The sin nature passed down by the curse of Adam by him believing Satan, is exchanged with Christ’s nature, the Son (seed) of God by just believing in Him as our Savior. This is what it means to be born again.

The Word divides soul and spirit according to Hebrews 4:12 to help us understand that our new birth, our new Life in Christ, took place in our spirits. We are perfect in spirit by Him. God no longer sees what we do or don’t do to be saved; He sees Christ. It is no longer our experience that saves us. Our salvation is a person, Christ within us!

The apostle Paul tells us the problem is in the soul part of us, where our minds reside. Our souls haven’t had the exchange of nature. It’s only by the renewal of our minds where the truth of Christ as our new Life in spirit grips us and pours over into our souls. This renewal comes from a personal relationship with Him and by the help of the Holy Spirit, whose sole job is to teach us of Him and who we are now with Him as our new Life. By the help of the Holy Spirit and getting to know Christ within him, Paul shares of his mind change and personal relationship with Christ throughout his epistles. We are to follow Paul!

“Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” (1 Corinthian 11:1, KJV)

In Galatians 2:20, Paul tells us that we too are crucified with Christ. We’ve had the exchange of nature in our spirits. We are dead to sin and dead to our old selves ruled by the sin nature. Yet by Christ’s resurrection, we are born again and live by Him. We are brand new creations in Christ by the joining of His Spirit to ours. We are now one spirit in Him. We are no longer Jew or Gentile, male or female, black or white. We are one body in Christ by the giving of His Life for us and who now lives in us.

Once we go through this mind renewal of who we are now in Christ, our experiences no longer motivate us, Christ does. If we are to grow up in Him and allow Him to manifest through us from our spirits to our soul expression, Paul tells us we must have a radical mind change. Yet it takes time. He tells us we must keep our focus on Christ, the Word of God, in all circumstances and situations. He must be our First Love.