In the last letter we spoke of understanding the Spirit of Wisdom and knowledge of the power we possess in Christ Jesus in Eph 1:17.
For years, I prayed this prayer of Paul and had no idea what power Paul thinks all believers should have. The conclusion was that Colossians 1:11 teaches that this power is the power to have patience, longsuffering, and joyfulness—basically, to bear the fruit of the Spirit of Galatians 5:22. The word ‘power’ is dominion. This takes us back to the garden, where God gave them dominion over everything in the earth.
All people are a heaven and an earth. The mind should be heavenly which would positively affect the body. As our readers know by now the heart of man is the conscience and is in the mind. As a man thinks in his heart so is he. (Proverbs 3)
“Let thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven”
Our eventual aim is that we could do the things Jesus did in earth, however, this kind of power comes through discipline. This is why Jesus had “12 disciplines”. We must discipline ourselves to rule over emotions such as those things written in Gal. 5:19. Patience and longsuffering are the fruit of the Spirit we should naturally live by and not be ruled by fleshly lusts. We must have dominion over ourselves. The first words God spoke to Adam was to guard the garden. The garden is the heart. The heart is the mainspring, which can only be guarded by following Jesus. We guard the heart by meditating on the cross as we have communion.
Of course, all people want peace in the mind and this is why some use drugs to achieve this because no one taught them that Jesus saves. No one taught them that God’s plan for man is peace in the heart. They use various drugs and chemical concoctions such as antidepressants to achieve peace but become enslaved.
We know that the Pharaohs used opium, and we now know that Hitler was a drug addict as were many world leaders trying to appease inner daemons. This explains the things he did to the Jews. The use of drugs has destroyed many lives as people walk past the cross and live in darkness and deep despair. They look down at their problems instead of looking up to where the cross is always displayed above. Jesus was crucified but has risen. He is our Lord and knows exactly what we are going through. In the morning He is standing next to the cross saying: “Come to me all who are heavily laden and I will give you rest”. We lay down our lives and enter the rest!
Jesus saves but very few people use the cross or follow Jesus to be saved from their inner chaos.
Very few people are aware that God’s plan is peace. It is still the same way as it was with Joshua and Caleb, only two people ended up in the promised land out of millions of Israelites, so it is with us. Very few actually enter in.
The only way we can help others is by helping ourselves to rule over the inner deep in Christ.
We go through many tests and trials in our lives to overcome our sinful nature. All of the Bible is written about this struggle and then when we finally understand how it works, we are seated with Christ in Heavenly places! (Rev. 3) Now that we learned to overcome, we can rule with Christ over our inner chaos, in a heavenly-transformed mind! From here we can speak to the problem mountains and tell them to throw themselves into the sea. Nothing shall be impossible to them who believe! First, learn to die in Christ and then have all authority IN CHRIST. The point is that we must first have dominion over ourselves and then we can have dominion over earthly things.