United with Christ or Hooked Up to An I.V.

If the man Christ Jesus is not our personal mediator between God the Father and ourselves, then because there are no vacuums, there is going to be someone else a surrogate and substitute which will leave us with but a form of godliness lacking any and all power.
The Father has covered all the bases, he has left nothing to chance, those who have ears to hear and eyes to see will not live vicariously from the regurgitated revelation others received, they will in fact thrive and flourish as a result of feeding and feasting upon the hidden manna of Christ in them, the hope of Glory!

I love when Jesus asked those (disciples) who followed him “Who do you say that I am,” the responses were varied and mixed, then Jesus asked, “Who do you say that I am,” to which Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.”
Jesus acknowledged that this was not a result of any human ingenuity, but the direct initiation of the Father’s doing.
It is upon this foundation alone that only He can lay the building and establishing of His church will be built.

I am witnessing so many that are trying to find a short cut of knowing Him personally, and believe me there are so many that have set themselves up as a substitute for the man Christ Jesus in the lives of those He alone has fathered.
Many have fled what has been coined as “the institutional church” but in my opinion I see many of those who were and are part of that exodus now hooked up to an IV (intravenous), having an appearance of life but perhaps are simply once again being deluded into having but an facsimile of life derived from what the ‘grace teachers’ are laying out for their nutriment.

I love the graphic illustration in the book of Acts where a certain Jew was trying to exorcise a demon from a person, the demon in that person manifested it self by saying, “Jesus I know, Paul I know but who the hell are you.”
There are NO shortcuts to know Him and as our brother Peter said, “Continue to grow in the grace and the true knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I want to include a quote from something I read today that beautifully stretches this out even further. This was taken from A Wilderness Voice (Michael Clark & George Davis) “All Things New."

We are comfortable with our old wineskins because it gives us the feeling that we are in control. Where men are in control, God is not! He is forced to leave those old wineskins behind and find new ones to pour the new thing He is doing into. God always leaves old wineskins to their religious rigidity and chooses new ones for His new wine. Men prefer the old wine over the new because it is no longer alive and doesn't stretch their religious wineskins. As they cling to their traditions, they make what God is currently saying to them of no effect, and doom themselves to become spiritually extinct. Men call this the "Post Christian Era" for a reason. Christianity has ceased to be relevant with His relevancy. God continues to reach out to a dying world so we have a choice to make. We can either move on in the flow of His Spirit or cling to our dead and "safe" traditions and institutions.
Jesus told Nicodemus that those who are of the Spirit of God are like the wind with no man knowing from where it comes or where it is going. The wind is symbolic of the Spirit of God and it by nature refuses to be confined by the structures built by men. One dear brother put it, "The opposite of the wind is bricks!" We either move with the wind or are left behind. God will move on and we will be left standing there like that old Pharisee saying, "How can these things be?"
Paul wrote,
Therefore from now on know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet from now on know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:16-17 KJ2000, emphasis added)
The nature of Christ's continued working in us is to make all things new within. The wine is always stretching our wineskin. As He does, even our ideas of who He is are no longer static because we cease to know Him after the flesh. After being confronted by the living God at the end of his trial, Job cried out, "I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees you. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:5-6 KJ2000). We all should abhor the religious self in us that has been limited to the hearing of men as opposed to hearing the Spirit. When Saul of Tarsus (later known as Paul) had his first encounter with the living Christ, he was knocked to the ground and blinded. The first words out of his mouth should be our continuing prayer: "Who are you Lord?" God delights to manifest Himself to those who want to see Him as He is. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."
Our old things pass away as the Spirit draws us deeper into His wondrous, uncontainable truth that He prepared for us from the foundations of the world. Life is no longer static and dead. Instead we are alive with a continuing fresh view of the greatness of our God and His Christ. Yes, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God" (1 Corinthians 2:9-10 KJ2000).

Rich