by RobertCummins | Jan 4, 2016 | 01. Made in His Image
Made In His Image – Colossians 1:15-23
Colossians 1:15-23 NAS
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach – if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister (and coach).
When the ball is hiked in a football game, the viewer’s eyes are trained on the quarterback. The ultimate compliment to a QB and a play caller is when the defense is fooled. While everyone is focused on one area, yardage is being gained on another part of the field, and by someone unexpected. Many of us may be fooled as well as we think of God’s work in the earth today. The unit God has on the field is His Church and …
when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together
Unfortunately those watching the western division of The Saints versus the Demons do not see the Church gaining any ground. It would seem the Church only knows a few plays and the opponent knows them all, stopping most of them for a loss. How can this be? Is there a problem with the offensive coordinator? Is there a problem with the play? The theology of some even lead them to believe that God has ordained this quarter to be a loss. For the record, I don’t see any coach, especially ours, ordaining a loss, and there is certainly no problem with The Play or its Caller. Read our passage again, this time with your heart. (Note: You cannot speed-read and heart-listen at the same time.)
Everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in Him and finds its purpose in Him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment…He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—He is supreme in the end. From beginning to end He’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is He, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in Him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of His death, His blood that poured down from the cross. Colossians 1:15-20 MSG
George Barna has compiled some of the game stats for Team-Church in his book Revolution. The numbers strongly suggest the western church is stuck at the line of scrimmage, deep in their own territory. However Barna’s eye has not been fooled. He is also following the ball on a play that is gaining some yardage. It is being executed by an unexpected player on a part of the field not many are watching … Look at the sideline – something is going on there, behind the coaches.
Most of us do not see this play simply because our eye has been trained to think of “church” as a place or an event. Our conditioning has trained us to see Pastor as Coach and QB. While our eye may be following the institutional church, the ball is actually being carried by the Church, a vast and growing squad of aching souls who are standing up, getting off the pew and declaring, “I am not just a benchwarmer!”
From the Owner’s perspective, the ball has never really been dropped. The players, as they have always been, are scattered strategically on the field. Barna has taken note that many believers are not only getting up off the bench, they are finding their way into smaller groups where they can discover how God has equipped them and how they can make their essential contribution to The Play.
Along with Coach Paul, MwM aspires to encourage all men and women to discover their essential gifts and insert themselves into the line up of friends and family where only love can advance the ball and reverse the momentum of this battle.
Father, May we see the contest with your eyes. May we find our way into the skirmish where our God-given skill sets can be used to devestate the enemy. Thank You for Life. We look forward to the day when you truly run up the score. So be it.
by RobertCummins | Jan 11, 2015 | 01. Made in His Image
Colossians 1:15-23
We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.
You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God’s side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don’t walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message. Colossians 1:15-23
When the ball is hiked in a football game, the viewer’s eyes are trained on the quarterback. The ultimate compliment to a quarterback and play caller is when everyone, especially the defense, is fooled. While everyone is focused on one area, yardage is being gained on another part of the field by someone unexpected. Most everyone is fooled.
I believe many of us may be fooled as well as we think of God’s work in the earth today. The unit God has on the field is His Church and…..
when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
As many of the spectators of western Christianity are viewing the Church, they do not see many holes opening up in the line, not too many running backs breaking free for big gains, not many long pass completions. In fact it appears that there are really only a few plays and the opponent seems to know them all by heart. Most plays are stopped for a loss. How can this be!? Is there a problem with the Offensive Coordinator? Is there a problem with The Play? Some may be tempted to even think that, in God’s sovereignty, He has ordained this quarter to be a loss. For the record, I don’t see any coach, especially our’s, ordaining loss.
We know there is no problem with the Play Caller or The Play. I invite you to read our passage with your heart. Note: You cannot speed-read and heart-listen at the same time.
Everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in Him and finds its purpose in Him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment…He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—He is supreme in the end. From beginning to end He’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is He, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in Him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of His death, His blood that poured down from the cross.
George Barna has compiled some of the game stats for Team-Church in His book Revolution. They strongly suggest that the western church is stuck at the line of scrimmage deep in enemy territory. However Barna’s eye has not been fooled. He is also following the ball on a play that is gaining yardage. It is being executed by an unexpected player on a part of the field not many are watching. Look at the sideline. Something is going on there behind the coaches.
Most of us do not see this play simply because our eye has been trained to think of “church” as a place or an event. While our eye may only be following the activity of the institutional church, the ball is actually being carried by the Church, a vast and growing squad of aching souls who are standing up, getting off the pew bench and declaring, “I am not just a benchwarmer!”
You see, the ball has never really been dropped. The players, as they have always been, are scattered strategically on the field, inside institutional churches and outside them. However many are discovering within the contexts of smaller gatherings, the nature of their skills and how to make their essential contribution to The Play.
In the Middle With Mystery (this blog) aspires to encourage all men and women to discover their essential gifts and insert themselves into the line up of friends and family where love can advance the ball and the momentum of this game can be reversed.
Father, May we see with your eyes the field of contest before us. May we find our way into the skirmish where our God-given skill sets can be used to put the enemy on his heels. Thank You for Life. You will surely find your way (through us) into the end-zone. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Jan 10, 2015 | 01. Made in His Image
2 Corinthians 3:12-18
For many years I envisioned the primary tool in accomplishing the Great Commission as evangelism. Of course we know to succeed outreach has to be bracketed by intercession and follow-up but verbally sharing the gospel was to me the dynamic responsible for any growth the kingdom of God had or would ever enjoy. Today’s passage is an excellent one to help explain why I no longer see evangelism (in this traditional sense) as the only dynamic of the Great Commission. I will never forsake the telling of the old old story but today I see another essential ingredient of kingdom expansion. That is; living brightly…..
….our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
Have you ever wondered how the Church grew so rapidly in the first 3 hundred years? By our standards they were very under-equipped. Their pastors did not come weekly with a sermon prepared from the Bible and various commentaries. For one, the Church was 350 years away from having a Bible and another; their pastors were not hired professionals. They were simply those in the body who had been recognized as their gifts for nurturing and equipping became visible within the community of saints. They had no printing presses for books or tracts. They had no means of mass communication or transportation. They had no real estate of buildings. So then, what accounts for the explosion of Christianity? The Church had a supreme advantage over us; simplicity. They did not have much beyond each other, trouble and, most importantly, the Holy Spirit, who was teaching them to live out of the new Life that was now theirs through a brand new covenant with God.
This new covenant enabled both Jew and Gentile to draw near to God as their Father. God was no longer a distant and angry deity who had, long ago, etched His 10 Commandments into stone tablets. No. God had now taken up His stylus and had begun writing His story on human hearts which were no longer hard like stone. And, He gave a new covenant to them exceedingly greater than the Law of Moses. God had now torn the veil in the temple in two, offering those entrusting themselves to Christ, face to face access to the Living God. In the midst of scarcity and hostility, there was simplicity, where all they really had was Christ living inside and among them. The consequence? Something incredible began to happen….
….. when God is personally present – a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation (the Law of Moses) is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.
The Great Commission was being well fulfilled by people who probably had no clue what it was. They were just living out their lives alongside others who wondered about the changes they were witnessing among their friends, neighbors and relatives. The first disciples had laid hold of an essential dynamic of the Great Commission; living brightly – becoming the light of the world – reference points of eternity in a temporal decaying world.
They had no need of holding crusades. They were the crusade! The Holy Spirit was expressing Himself through the Body of Christ (not just the Church staff) in a variety of powerful ways. They had another tremendous advantage. Church attendance had not yet been invented. These primitive and simple people were spared from the snare of that debilitating concept. They had become the Church and their lives were individually and corporately radiating credibility for the Carpenter who had conquered death and His kingdom which He claimed had come. In the heat of persecution, in the company of each other, they were being….
….transfigured much like the Messiah, their lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters their lives and they became like him.
Father, grant us the grace to repent of our misplaced priorities and dependencies. Grant that we would return to the simple message of Christ alone – our sufficiency in all of life and the hope of glory. Help us to see that we ourselves are the essential and intended good news – those stories that You are daily publishing that the world would read and believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that in believing, all might have life in His name. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Jan 9, 2015 | 01. Made in His Image
God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Ephesians 2:4-10
Paul said this nearly two thousand years ago. Do you think those ages Paul has referenced will come after God has executed a rapture maneuver, extracting the Church out of the hot-zone of warfare on this earth? Or, is there a chance we could actually be living in those ages that Paul said were to come?
The answers to these questions have far reaching implications. One scenario presents the problem of having been left behind. The other involves just being left out. The Jenkins/LaHaye Left Behind series presents an eschatology where the rapture is The event preceding a time of great tribulation where the saints are snatched up out of this world. The rapture essentially becomes the get-out-of-trib-free ticket. Everyone else is left behind.
Another eschatology might be referred to as a kingdom-now theology where the Church does not see itself overrun by evil. On the contrary, it envisions that her destiny is to shine brightly and to overcome, especially where evil has abounded. The overcoming Church knows that it has historically shined the brightest when the heat has been turned up the most. They base their anticipation on Jesus’ words, “In Me, the kingdom has come.” and, “My kingdom is within you.” This group remembers God’s original mandate for man to subdue the earth and rule over it. They believe the kingdom will emerge as God answers the prayer that Jesus taught them to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This tribe has hearts like Joshua and Caleb that reason; “The giants in the land may be big but they are no match for the Lord God Almighty who has given us this land to possess.” This tribe is not fearful of being left behind, it just doesn’t want to be left out of whatever battles are ahead.
As a new believer I anticipated that Christ’s return was imminent. I truly was surprised each year when the rapture had not occurred. Over the decades I have lost confidence that the timing of the rapture or the events surrounding it are that critical. Whether it is mid, post or pre; all I have been told to do is be prepared now. I don’t believe that prepping in fear for shortages of food or ammo are at all what Jesus was getting at either. I believe he was talking about our hearts. I believe our hearts will be best served by giving the Word of God the benefit of the doubt. Please listen to this paraphrase of Jesus’ prayer taken from John 17 ….
Father, it’s time. Display the bright splendor of your Son. I have given them this very same glorious splendor that you gave Me. I’m not asking that you take My children out of the world. In the same way that you gave Me a mission in the world, I gave them a mission; It is simply to display My life in them. While I will no longer be visible to the world; they will. Since I am in them and you are in Me, they can be one heart and mind with Us. This is so the world might believe. This will give the godless world evidence that you’ve sent Me and that You have loved them in the same way you’ve loved Me. I am in them. Guard this life within them which You conferred as a gift through Me. Father, I want those you gave Me to experience My completed joy and I also want them to be with Me, right where I am, so they can see My glory, the splendor you gave Me, having loved Me long before there ever was a world. As You put Me in charge of everything, I have given real and eternal life to all in My charge. And this is the real and eternal life: That they know You, The one and only true God, and Myself, whom You sent.
I just cannot reconcile the victorious army, a purified Bride, or the overcoming Church of scripture with a rapture which seems to say; the Holy Spirit can only work through new resurrected bodies. A rapture implies to me that the Holy Spirit just could not subdue the flesh and that Jesus cannot exercise His rulership as Lord in a fallen world through a fallen Church. In other words, the condition of fallen men has trumped the Spirit and the kingdom of God. I must ask, “Has our failing experience as the Church shaped our theology where victory is precluded by virtue of the Church’s own distorted image of itself? Perhaps our experience would be victorious if we were to build our theology from scripture instead of our experience.
What if we were to discover afresh who we actually are in Christ and that our mission is as simple as displaying His life in us? What if we are to discover afresh that we are not essentially fallen beings rather we are new creations in Christ, citizens of an eternal kingdom who are even now seated with Him upon HIs throne? What if He opened His Word afresh to us and it burned so upon our hearts that we knew that in Christ, today is the day of salvation; that today is the appointed time for His Bride to make Herself ready and to display the splendor of His glory to the world?
It has struck me that the left behind mind-set puts the Church on the defensive, managing our sin natures, anxiously awaiting the rapture so we can be done with this life and get on with the next. It is much easier for me to reconcile a kingdom-now theology with the the teaching of Jesus and the spirit of the New Testament. That the kingdom of God is a now affair fills our lives with responsibility and adventure and an opportunity to see the Word of God vindicated in and through the Church.
Father, may Your Words take precedence above any doctrines of defeatism that have infected the Good News. May we see that You have answered Your Son’s prayer; that we are now with You where You are – seated at the Father’s side. Help us to see that we have not been orphaned in a hostile land but that we are kingdom sons and citizens commissioned to display the life of Christ. Succeed in sanctifying us and simultaneously overthrowing the ideologies that have discounted our identity and muddled our destiny. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Jan 8, 2015 | 01. Made in His Image
Psalm 8
Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth, Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens! From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength because of Your adversaries, to make the enemy and the revengeful cease. When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; What is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God, and You crown him with glory and majesty! You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, All sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!
What do infants and revengeful adversaries have to do with each other? Really! An infant is small, innocent, without their own voice, vulnerable and dependent on the strength of others. The other is independent and bent on displaying their strength as they attempt to settle scores on their own terms. Yet, the psalmist reveals it is from the mouth of these inherently weak and innocent ones that strength will be established.
What is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him?
And we could also ask, “What do we mere humans have to do with God?” Humans are so limited and transient while God’s infinite majesty is best articulated by the cosmos. One appears as momentary, minute and irrelevant. The other eternal, all-knowing and all-powerful. Yet the psalmist tells us that, in spite of appearance and track record, we were fashioned to be only a little lower than God! Whatever our opinion may be of ourselves, we need to keep in mind that when we were created in the image of God, we were crowned with glory and majesty and we were commissioned to have dominion over this earth.
Because I have read and believe the scriptures I can imagine a day when not only will the Lord’s majesty be displayed above in the heavens but on earth as well in His Church. I can also imagine that this glorious day will be hastened as His children look at the heavens and see not only an impossible contrast but simply another element of creation with a kindred origin and destiny. Here are just a few scriptures that inform me that my dreams and hopes are in bounds.
No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this, never so much as imagined anything quite like what God has arranged for those who love him. (1 Cor 2:9)
It has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. and… All of us who look forward to his Coming stay ready, with the glistening purity of Jesus’ life as a model for our own. (1 Jn 3: 2,3)
God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. (Eph 3:20)
All the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross. (Col 1:20)
We are told by Isaiah of a day that is coming where “The whole earth will be brimming with knowing God-Alive, a living knowledge of God ocean-deep, ocean-wide.” I don’t believe this knowledge is going to just be plastered on billboards and bumper-stickers. I believe it is going to be the Word of God finding further expression through the Church. This knowledge won’t just be expressed in books and sermons. It will be Christ in us, the Word of God made flesh – being lived out in these lives we have been so apt to discount in terms of their worth and power.
I can also imagine this long awaited and foretold season being hastened as His children look to God’s Word and see not just an impossible mission that can only happen after a rapture due to the unconquerable conspiracy of the world, our flesh and the devil. No. We will increasingly look to God’s words and see that the kingdom of God has come and that, in Christ, this kingdom potential is resident within us, making us pregnant with possibilities that we must dare to dream and live out.
It will be an immeasurable help to the Kingdom when we finally agree with God regarding who we actually are. As sanctified as it may sound, to confess that we are just sinners saved by grace is a debilitating lie. It is just not so. Listen to Paul and tell me just who you really are.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Father, may we dare to dream Your dreams, embrace Your promises, think Your thoughts and in so doing, repent; overthrowing every lofty idea that has exalted itself above the full knowledge of God. Let the inevitable expansion of Your kingdom begin in our hearts. May Truth show itself infinitely superior to every half-truth ever sown. May our childlike and innocent hearts voice Your Truth and Wisdom, exposing the satanic plots and vanquishing Your adversary forevermore. May we reassert dominion over this earth which you placed beneath our feet. May we finally discover that, in Christ, the image is being restored. Holy Spirit, may you radically succeed in the deep and gentle works You aspire to. All to the glory and honor of Your majestic name. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Jan 7, 2015 | 01. Made in His Image
Colossians 3:1-17
Have you ever tried a diet that didn’t work? Who hasn’t? Have you ever tried a spiritual diet that didn’t work – some structured plan and commitment to read through the Bible in a year? Perhaps it was to use a particular devotional. Most of us have and with similar bad results as with those food diets. The power of the initial commitment fades and things return to familiar and often unprofitable patterns of thinking and behavior.
The Blue Book turned out to be a diet that worked for me and has worked for many others. It typically starts like this; it is handed to you by a friend who says, “Hey check this out.” It is often met with this kind of response; Outwardly there is the, “Oh a devotional. Devotionals are so special. Thank you!” Inwardly the response is closer to, “Ho Hum, another devotional. Hmmm.. It doesn’t even have a dust cover. I can’t even tell who wrote this thing. Why, It doesn’t even have a copy-write!” Yet, more often than not, the unpretentious little Blue Book draws the skeptic in passed his reservations; then the heart typically finds a track to run on.
I looked at the book for months before opening it. The last thing I wanted was any structure to my free-flowing communion with God. After I was drawn in, I found quickly that even though the book is structured it was anything but constrictive. I could offer a comprehensive travelogue but I would not want to rob you of discovery, because discovery is part of the Blue Book’s allure.
The personal experience people glean from their Blue Book adventure of learning to linger regularly at a banqueting table with the best of company and the richest of fare is why the Blue Book is in circulation. This book, which has never been advertised, is in the hands of well over 20,000 people. This phenomena is due to a growing community of saints who are hungry to personally know their God in more intimate ways. This is just a little tool the Holy Spirit regularly uses to quench the hunger of His precious children.
In a very real way, the Blue Book is all about His beloved precious children. So is our passage today in Colossians. The starting point for the spiritual life is having a correct identity – understanding not only who we were but especially who we are now. One of the devil’s greatest ploys is to convince a saint that they are victims of the Fall of Adam, that their core identity is governed by depravity. It is impossible for a child to enjoy any kind of abundant life when their pedigree and legitimacy are still in question. Paul knew this. Even though it is a great mystery, he is hammering home the higher truths that will affirm our identities as His Beloved……
Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life.
Pursue the things over which Christ presides…. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.
One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above
We have to ask ourselves, was Paul deluded, thinking he had found the fountain of youth? Or rather was Paul enlightened, having truly found the fount of eternal life? I believe Paul had perosnally tasted and seen that the Lord, He is good. I believe Paul’s advice is sound. While he was convinced of God’s sovereignty, it certainly did not lead Paul into passivity. On the contrary, Paul advocates a vigorous and intentional spiritual life ….
Look up! Be alert! Forget what lay behind! Reach forward to what lies ahead! Press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus! Keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God! Set your mind on the things above!
We have been caught up into a great mystery; We are hidden in Christ and He is our life. The rudimentary essence of our lives (regardless of our belief or our experiences) is Christ Jesus Himself. The deepest and truest thing about us is our identity in Christ. Paul knows the enemy’s tactics and he knows our propensity to look down into our old lives or behind us at our history of failure. It is no good to just know the facts of this doctrine of identity. He wants us to break free of our theoretical Christianity into that place of experience where propositional truths become our reality.
I am suggesting the Blue Book is a proven tool in assisting us in our looking up, in our forgetting, in our reaching forward, in our pressing on, in our seeking and in the setting of our minds.
Father, may this be a year where our hearts release a fragrant aroma to you as we more deeply discover the birthright of our divine identities, the imperishable glorious inheritance that is ours even now in Christ. Amen.
