Your Image Is Showing

The topic of what we do, or our works and giving from the heart freely causes an out pouring of convoluted discussions with many groups and individuals we work with.  Being generic, I will not be passing into the area of domestic violence – we all know safety and life is always my response to that.  But we can all apply, even in those situations, the truths which are applicable below.

We as humans cannot achieve sanctification; we are only able to manifest it.  Humanity does not contain this ability apart from Christ because He embodies sanctity.  When the Spirit of Christ dwells in us, and He is at work maturing us it is His image which is being exposed, and not our own sanctimonious efforts.  We then are the proof, that He indeed is alive and walking out salvation as He sanctifies our lives. 

Christ is our highest calling, our head and He abides only within Love – who is God.  If we do not love well we do not know Christ personally and are grieving His Spirit which resides in us; if we profess that Christ is the son of man, God’s son.  We are not speaking of moral natural qualities here, but of divine relationships on which we are depending on His power to enable us to BE dependable as He has proposed.

As to not be too abstract so that you may fully understand, we will take a look at the relationship second most important to the one with God – Husband and wife.  1 Corinthians 7:14:

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean but now they are holy. 

Two things I want to bring out: God has set His active power to work through his body, from one to another to care for all this as He wills.  It is a choice to be made by the one placed and it has a promise and a warning attached to the placement. The consequences are farther reaching than the one individual; in fact they are very life altering if this individual hardens their heart to God’s task.  Secondly, unclean in this passage means that the children are left uncovered and exposed to the abominations or deceitful schemes of Satan’s domain.  How can we know this and not flinch at the thought of yanking their blanket away and turning a blind eye?  Please tell me this makes your heart hurt a bit to think about!

In Ephesians Chapter 5 Paul teaches Christ’s followers how to perceive that the Image of Christ is manifesting and how to work toward the unity of the Spirits goal in our lives.  He also explained this through God’s will for dependency in order to sanctify.  Paul explained that wives are to be dependent on their husbands, just as the church is to depend on Christ.  The overall condition of churches, in many cases  is due to their lack of dependency on Christ, instead they are “self” sufficient.

Christ wants for us to depend on Him.  He longs for our desires of His dependable out pouring, in hopes that we will receive every drop of his power, provision, loving kindness and ensure our safety and prosperity.  When we believe He is standing by ready to cover us, we bring glory to His honored position; and it brings God great delight when we acknowledge, through reception, that He did not subject all things in vain. 

But what if God were as the husband who desired to be detached and unloving, as to allow their dependents to suffer harm by turning a blind eye to His position.  What would we perceive about such a God?  It is this very point which enrages the passions of our God.  He places people in authority for the purpose of them using their prestige for good and not the building of their image or selfish gain.  God alone provides and gives grace to the one who embodies His image, in order that His image will be seen as righteous, just, pure and loving.

When we choose to harden our heart and mind, we sear our conscience in order to shut Him up / out.  When we shut up His truth we lose bits of our wealth time and time again.  Those under us are the ones who suffer, here is why:  The leader will feel their survival is best for everyone else and begin to take from the very ones closest to them – and being hardened with a seared conscience they believe this is just. 

Think of it this way: Just as a baby, within their mother’s womb,  is to depend solely on the wealth of their mothers body, if a husband is not getting his sustenance from the Lord he will rape the nutrients of the very one he is placed by God to give into.  God ordained the husband to be the savior of his body by being subject to the covering of Christ.  This way his wife can be vulnerable and depend on her husband without fear and she then has the ability to undergird the needs which are depending upon her. 

This is why a husband is to love his wife and reserve his best for her – She has no one else effecting and passing His character on through to her as God designed it.  When He covers her in the Love of God’s power – the two of them are One offering unto Him.  But if he will not, he proves that he hates his own flesh and therefore he is rejecting the very gift of life God blessed him with attesting that it is not respectable. 

Can you imagine how this distortion is perceived by those who do not know God’s word?  God tells us that if we cannot love someone we see that it will be impossible for us to love an invisible God. 

Let me leave you with these thoughts to ponder for a few days:

If you won’t love something you can see, touch and smell,

Then you will never be in love with Me.

If you won’t intimately relate with your husband or wife,

Then you will never be intimate with Me.

If you cannot put your desires below your spouse,

Then you will never submit to Me.

If you cannot abandon all others for the sake of your physical wife,

Then we will never be married and I will never own your life.

Think about it – this is a test; will you pass or fail?  Do not depend on a grade between, there aren’t any!

Extending peace in love,

Candace

©Candace Huffmaster 2013, All Rights Reserved

Kaleidoscope Butterfly, Inc™