49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” Luke 24:49
This most precious clothing of the soul, the gift of holy spirit, poured out by Jesus Christ from the Father’s right hand, is the power and ability to overcome all of the inevitable challenges of life that will seek to cause us to run and hide from God’s presence in shame. There is no better way to cover the soul of man nor is there a more advantageous position that an individual can find than to be accepted by grace into the church of God by the death and resurrection of the Savior, Jesus Christ. No amount of good works either from the law of Moses or the laws of man, no disciplining of the body towards ascetism or honing of the soul towards the higher ethos will ever give an individual the warmth and security and complete covering of the soul’s nakedness before God than that which God himself provides for his people by way of the new birth.
When Adam and Eve first sinned, they sewed fig leaves together into aprons to cover their nakedness. In place of this, God gave them the best covering that was available at that time: the blood and skins of animals. In this incredible day of Grace and salvation, God has once again given the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, the best of what is available: the righteous life and death of His only begotten son.
We are no longer naked and ashamed, hiding behind coverings of our earthly making. We are now completely covered in Christ Jesus from any sense of sin, guilt, shame or shortcomings. This is the great message of the gospel of salvation: He has removed our poor, earthly rags that barely cover the soul of man and has replaced them with the unhemmed garments of purity, faith and love. We no longer need to flagellate ourselves mentally or emotionally with the consciousness of our unworthiness, groveling before the creator like a subject comes on their face before a mighty Gentile king or emperor. Rather, through the kindness and goodness of God as exhibited in the face of Jesus Christ we are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb and He himself has provided the garments we are to wear.
So then if this great thing has been done for us, why is there still those among us who are suffering mentally and emotionally? If this salvation is so great that it has now swallowed up the curse of the Law and overcome the weakness of our flesh, why do we still see members of the church of God begging in the town squares for understanding, for peace, for love, for acceptance?
There is one place and one place only to look and it is at once the most satisfying and terrifying of answers to the human soul. When all else is stripped away and we finally kneel in our own gardens of Gethsemane, we face the same agonizing choice that Christ faced in his earthly body: “not my will but thy will be done.” The inner heart of man, that which we direct through our mind and emotions, the seat of our personal life, that which makes you, you and me, me…this is the place where the battle now rages. “It is me, oh Lord. Help thou my unbelief.”
17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.
20 You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. 21 Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Eph 4:17-24
There it is, in all its simplicity and glory: “put off your old self (habits, ways of thinking…your old clothes) and “put on the new self” (the one that God created in you when you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior). This is the true secret to victorious living. Once a person has “clothed with power from on high”, it is up to individual to make the salvation we have been given the dominant awareness and reality of our hearts and minds by purposefully removing the tattered rags of the sin nature (our old man) and putting on in our heart and our thoughts the beautiful new nature of the spirit so that we will not “conform any longer to the pattern of this world“ but we will be “transformed by the renewing of your mind.”(Rom 12:2)
Are you still trying to “clean up your act” by dry cleaning the sin nature of Adam and Eve? Worse yet, have you rejected the old man with it’s deeds but rather than accepting the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ are trying instead to clothe yourself in some self-righteousness by prayer or good works or some other such ascent to godliness? Be wise and forego the agony for He who loves you has already ascended to the right hand of God to prepare a place for you and He will come back again to get you. Therefore, be wise as serpents but harmless as doves, accept the grace of our Lord Jesus and begin the heart strengthening work of sowing God’s thoughts and words into your conscious and subconscious mind. Reject the dead, lifeless philosophies of this world and the vain imaginings of the pontificating, supercilious old fool that lives within all of us who thinks he knows what’s really going on. Reject that poor soul and instead put on the rich wardrobe of the mind of Christ.
3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Cor 10:5
Are you still trying to “clean up your act” by dry cleaning the sin nature of Adam and Eve? Worse yet, have you rejected the old man with it’s deeds but rather than accepting the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ are trying instead to clothe yourself in some self-righteousness by prayer or good works or some other such ascent to godliness? Be wise and forego the agony for He who loves you has already ascended to the right hand of God to prepare a place for you and He will come back again to get you. Therefore, be wise as serpents but harmless as doves, accept the grace of our Lord Jesus and begin the heart strengthening work of sowing God’s thoughts and words into your conscious and subconscious mind. Reject the dead, lifeless philosophies of this world and the vain imaginings of the pontificating, supercilious old fool that lives within all of us who thinks he knows what’s really going on. Reject that poor soul and instead put on the rich wardrobe of the mind of Christ.
3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Cor 10:5
@ 2008 Joseph Ricciardi Jr
