YOUR POSITION IN CHRIST

"Set your affection on things above.. for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:2,3).

When entering into God's presence in the morning hour, the Christian must realize who he is himself and where he stands in relation to God. Each person who claims access and an audience with the Most High must have a living sense of the place he has in Christ before God.

Recognizing Who You Are

Who am I? Who is it that comes to ask God to meet me and spend the whole day with me? I am one who knows, by the Word and Spirit of God, that I am in Christ and that my life is hid with Christ in God. In Christ, I died to sin and the world. I am now taken out of them, separated from them, and delivered from their power. I have been raised together with Christ, and in Him, I live unto God. My life is hid with Christ in God. I can come to God to claim and obtain all the divine life that is hidden away in Him for today's need and supply.

Yes, this is who 1 am. I say it to God in humble, holy reverence. I say it to myself to encourage others, as well as myself, to seek and expect nothing less than grace to live the hidden life of heaven here on earth. I am one who longs to say, who does say, Christ is my life. The longing of my soul is for Christ, revealed by the Father Himself within the heart. Nothing less can satisfy me. My life is hid with Christ. He can be my life in no other way than as He is in my heart. I can be content with nothing less than Christ in my heart.

Christ is the Savior from sin, the gift and instrument of God's love. Christ is my indwelling friend and Lord. If God should ask, "Who are you?" I would reply, "I live in Christ and Christ in me. Lord, you alone can make me know and be all that truly means."

Living His Life

I come as one who desires, who seeks, to be prepared to live the life of Christ today on earth, to translate His hidden, heavenly glory into the language of daily life. As Christ lived on earth only to do the will of God, it is my great desire to stand perfect and complete in all His will. My ignorance of that will is very great. My power to do His will is even greater. And yet I come to God as one who must not compromise, as one who in all honesty accepts the high calling of living out fully the will of God in all things.

This desire brings me to the prayer closet. As I think of all my failures in fulfilling God's will, as I look ahead to all the temptations and dangers that life has hidden in Christ, I may live for Christ. I can say to God that I come to claim. Not to be content without the quiet assurance that God will go with me and bless me.

Who am I that I should ask these great and wonderful things of God? Can I expect to live the life hidden with Christ in God and manifest it in my mortal body? I can, because God Himself will work it in me by the Holy Spirit dwelling in me. The same God, who raised Christ from the dead and then set Him at His right hand has raised me with Him and given me the Spirit of the glory of His Son in my heart. A life in Christ, given up to know and do all God's will, is the life God Himself will work and maintain increasingly in me by the Holy Spirit.

Presenting Yourself To God

I come in the morning and present myself before Him to receive His hidden life so I can live it out in the flesh. I can wait confidently and quietly, as one in whom the Spirit dwells, for the Father to give the fresh anointing that teaches all things. I can wait for Him to take charge of the new day He has given me.

I am sure you realize how important the morning hour is to secure God's presence for the day. During that time, you take a firm stand on the foundation of full redemption. Believe what God says to you. Accept what God has bestowed on you in Christ. Be what God has made you to be. Take time before God to confess your position in Christ. In battle, much depends upon an impregnable position. Take your place where God has placed you. The very attempt to do this may at times interfere with your ordinary Bible study or prayer. That will be no loss. It will be fully recompensed later.

Your life depends upon knowing who your God is and who you are as His redeemed one in Christ. Your daily Christian walk depends on this knowledge. When you have learned the secret, it will, even when you do not think of it, be the strength of your heart, both in going in before God and going out with Him to the world.