{"id":1116,"date":"2012-04-05T19:59:40","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T23:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=1116"},"modified":"2013-06-26T11:19:01","modified_gmt":"2013-06-26T15:19:01","slug":"leveraging-a-new-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=1116","title":{"rendered":"Leveraging a New Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>\u201cIf then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.\u201d<\/strong> (Colossians 3:1-4)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/leverage.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1118\" title=\"leverage\" src=\"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/leverage-300x195.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"195\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/leverage-300x195.jpg 300w, https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/leverage.jpg 319w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve all got problems. We all have <em>personal<\/em> problems. They are what Paul calls \u201cthings that are on the earth\u201d (v.2). We\u2019ll just call them <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>earthly realities<\/em><\/span>. But we also have <em>perception<\/em> problems. That is to say, we too often conclude that these earthly realities represent a <em>total<\/em> view of reality. But that\u2019s not true! There are also <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>heavenly realities<\/em><\/span> which must be factored in, if we are to live in a full embrace of <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>total reality<\/em><\/span>. Paul mentions five of them:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You have died with Christ. (3a)<\/li>\n<li>You have been raised with Christ. (1b)<\/li>\n<li>You are seated with Christ. (1b)<\/li>\n<li>You are hidden with Christ. (3b)<\/li>\n<li>You will be revealed with Christ. (4)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All these are just as true, real, actual, and factual and any of the earthly realities. To borrow from Paul\u2019s earlier words: you are \u201cin Christ\u201d (Col. 1:28) and Christ is in you (1:27).<\/p>\n<p>But how do we see these heavenly realities brought to bear upon our earthly realities? We must undergo a change of perception. Two choices are demanded of us in this regard:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Pursuit<\/span><\/strong><\/span>: \u201cseek the things that are above\u201d (1)<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Posture<\/span><\/strong><\/span>: \u201cSet your minds on things that are above\u201d (2a).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Apart from this, you\u2019ll continue to reside under the distortion of your partial perception of reality.<\/p>\n<p>Both of these actions must be undertaken continually and repeatedly. They must become a habit of life. Your minds must always be seeking after, in full <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>pursuit of reality<\/em><\/span>\u2014a perception that appropriately calculates in the heavenly realities of your standing in Christ and your resources as Christ dwells in you. This is not pie-in-the-sky, but the pursuit of reality. There must also be the <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>posture of reality<\/em><\/span>\u2014\u201cset your mind.\u201d We must sink footers deep, down to bedrock truth and frame up there our understanding of not only our earthly realities, but our heavenly ones as well.<\/p>\n<p>Settle this in your mind: <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><em>Reality upon the earth is defined by the realities of heaven, not the other way around<\/em><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In determining the posture and pursuit of your heart and mind you are not trying to make something come true. Rather you are striving to bring total reality to light in your earthly experience. You do not make these things true by your action, but you do make them evident by the choices of how you perceive reality. Your mindset does not establish the heavenly truths as reality, but it does bring you into the enjoyment of them.<\/p>\n<p>The power to change my earthly experience lies, not in me, but in the heavenly realities themselves. It is my thinking and resulting choices that allow me to leverage the heavenly realities over against my earthly realities \u2026 with the result that my actual earthly experiences change.<\/p>\n<p>This is the possibility and promise of people given a share in the resurrection life of Jesus!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIf then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colossians","post-preview"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgYGxX-i0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1116"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1577,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions\/1577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}