Seeing Grace

Dear James,

I am from Singapore and have been listening to your messages since August 2010
which you articulate week after week has given me a greater understanding on the
finished work of Christ and the Perfect Rest from Him.

I knew Jesus in my late teens, knew He died for me and my sins forgiven, received
Him, was filled with so much love for Him in the initial years but got caught up with
many teachings that I have to be Holy and be Perfect as my Heavenly Father is.
The Old Testament then to me was always showing me a fiery and angry God who
consumed His people whenever they disobeyed. It was too scary for me. My mum
then was also an idol worshipper and coming from a traditional Chinese family I also
faced a lot of family opposition. I grew in my job through the rank and file and soon
my career just became the major priority of my life and became a workaholic with
very long hours of deadline. However the beginning years with Jesus were sweet
wine and His life and presence was so strong as I saw His sustaining strength in
every area. I saw my prayers answered and I just had this intimacy with Him which
gradually became like the dry bones mentioned in Ezekiel. I guess the Lord saw that
despite how I feel towards Him, I knew He was the answer to all my needs and I
would continue to call on Him whenever I need help.

I went to church every Sunday routinely and continued for many, many years. In Sep
2000, a friend introduced me to attend New Creation Church where Ps Joseph Prince
was the Senior Pastor. I was pleasantly surprised when you mentioned Ps Joseph
Prince in your March 2009 messages. Ps Joseph Prince preached from the flow, no
written notes, when we worship, we were not reciting from printed notes and it was
simply awesome as He unveiled the loveliness of Jesus and that the angry God that I
saw was no longer angry because all the anger and judgment was at the Cross. I had
so much to relearn about my sin forgiven, praying in the Holy Spirit, worship, and my
righteousness in Christ Jesus. I kept hearing and listening to the message of Grace
and the Finished Work of Jesus and Jesus awesome goodness and beauty unveiled.

However, I still could not understand the old man, new man, flesh and Spirit and the
fight that we keep having with self. I know I am under grace and not under law but still
frustrated and hungry, I started to check on sermons from other Pastors for answers.
I found Gateway Church, listened to Ps Robert Morris and then to Ps Clark Whitten
from Gateway website. His message on “Why God does not live in a Dirty House” set
my heart on fire. I knew my body was the temple of the Holy Spirit but the awareness
of my union with Him was not a conscious awareness. I started to search for Ps Clark
messages to learn more and hit on Grace Orlando’s website in August 2010 and found
your teachings. I was awed with the 2008 message that we live in a parallel universe,
salvation is a Place, the Mansion to live in is now and not after I leave this body, the
invisible vs. the visible realm, awed with the union that we have with Christ, awed
with the power of sin that was quarantined in this body which is dead and the new
creation, awed to know that my God only judges the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.
(Romans 2:16). The Lord knew that these were messages that I needed to hear
because many of us understands Grace but only touched the tip of the iceberg of
Jesus awesome love, goodness and imparted righteousness but we still do not
understand the power of sin that is in this body, the new creation, the light that is
already in us. What man calls change on the outside is the manifestation of the light
inside, I had new revelation of Jesus light that shone out at Mount Transformation
which made His garments so white that no launderer on earth could make it

whiter..(Mark 9:3, Matt 17:2)…Jesus my light on the inside and clothed with His
righteousness had a new meaning and simply warmed my heart.

My mind was blown away when you expounded on the many sayings of Jesus, the
hidden mystery no longer a mystery now. Everything that Jesus said written in red
makes sense and I understand we were not married to law but married to the flesh
and held by it and the flesh stirred because of the law…..if we live in the Spirit, we
sin not…… the revelation of what Jesus did for me at the cross, the flaming (Blazing
Righteousness) sword that guarded the way to the Tree of Life (Gen 3:24) was the
sword that pieced through my inner man showed me why I still could not rest fully
despite hearing the message of Rest until I see the Union that I have with Him, one
with Him, connected to Him, the Tree of Life. As He is so I am. Connected to the
Vine, Connected to the Head…living through the Life of another living in me. When
I become impatient, it is not me and His light in me will continue to shine through
and as He is so I am. I am not changed gradually day by day but I in union with the
Spirit of Life, manifest Him more and more and His light in me gets brighter and
brighter.(your illustration of the 3 lamps was awesome). Now I ponder the visible
which reveals the invisible, renew my mind, see my new heart, my new mind, my new
soul. I am excited with life and enter His Rest every day.

I know my outward man is perishing but my inner man is renewed. I know I am in
Union with Him and His Life gives life to my mortal body. I see the realm I live in is the
truth, the reality that I live in the Spirit. I worship Him in the Spirit and in Truth I see
the invisible which is eternal and not the visible which is temporal, and why creation
groans for the revelation of the sons of God. All that is visible will pass away and
be dissolved but now we live in the invisible realm in Christ Jesus, we look for new
heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13). Absent in the
body present with the Lord. (2 Cor 5:8)…His Mansion is here…and I live in Him, He in
me.

I thank Jesus that my mum once an idol worshipper is saved, so is sister and her
children and I continue to believe that they too will see the awesome work of the
finished work that we not only have a Savior who loves us but we are truly out of this
world one with Him. “In this world but not of this world… holy and perfect” He keeps
us and makes His face shines on us, the good Shepherd that always knows His
sheep.

Thanks James for being a blessing to me and to the many who will get to hear this
awesome gospel of His death, burial and resurrection that gives us Perfect Rest.
Many of the revelation that you articulate week after week, I keep listening and each
time I hear, I hear something fresh. It is the Spirit revealing the great and mighty
things that we know not of. This is reality, the t…ruth. Jesus finished work is perfectly
perfect, completely complete. I died, was buried and now raised from the dead in
Christ, a new creation created after true righteousness and holiness. The Tree of
Death that Jesus nailed Himself is the Tree of Life. It just blows my mind.

Shalom and Love from my union with Jesus who is my Life.

PS: (Can’t wait for Ps Clark’ Whitten’s book, Pure Grace, can we order now?)

(Name Withheld By Request)

As believers in Jesus we cannot and will not ever get over the amazing reality that we have been made one with Christ! Bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh, His very body on earth and He our Head in heaven. As Paul wrote, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit!” United with Him as a branch on a vine, one.

Jesus prayed for this reality to come to pass as the day of His death was approaching, saying, “Father, as I am in you and you are in Me, as we are one, may they who believe on Me be placed in Me and I in them that they may also be one as we are one.” Jesus said that by virtue of the Holy Spirit coming inside of us that “the Father and the Son would make their abode within us.” John writes that “as He is so are we in this world.” As He is righteous, so are we righteous, with His righteousness as a gift. Truly an amazing reality. It is in essence “the truth that sets you free” once you see it.

Religious or legalistic people, both believers and unbelievers, have a hard time “seeing” this truth from the scripture because they are constantly remembering their sins. Under the law sins were to be remembered by design yearly, monthly and even daily, but under the New Covenant of grace sin is not remembered by God. As it is written, “In this New Covenant I will remember your sins no more and I will be merciful to all your iniquities.” In Christ we are no longer in our sins and no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit and in Him, our righteousness. In the New Covenant of grace God no longer counts our sins against us. He counts His righteousness for us. I must be one or the other. I cannot be both. It’s impossible to be established in grace and grow in an awareness of your union with Jesus if you are constantly seeing yourself in need of forgiveness and cleansing from your sins on a daily basis. I John 1:9 has got to be the most wrongly taught verse in all of scripture. But I’ll leave that discussion for another day.

Union with Christ is the true Sabbath rest. The Christian life is not about trying to get somewhere, rather it is all about awakening to what is now the reality in Christ. The believer is awakening to what is. We sit with Him in heavenly places. We rest with Him in heavenly places. His work is done. It is finished. We have been made one with Him and we can hardly take it all in.

– James Barron

Our union with Christ is an amazing reality, and the way in which God made it happen is also amazing. Paul writes that it was a secret not revealed to the sons of men how God would bring man into union with Himself until Christ came. Jesus said He would open His mouth and reveal things hidden since the foundation of the world. Paul called this secret “the mystery of Christ” in his letters to the saints. This is what we now know thanks to the revelation that was given to the apostles by Jesus and by the Spirit: God gathered all things into Christ so that He could destroy all things through the death of Christ on the cross and begin everything new again through the resurrection of Christ! That is why Paul tells us that we were crucified with Christ, buried with Him and raised from the dead, a new creation, in Him! Every person who ever lived or who ever will live was placed in Christ in the mind of God. In a great mystery, the origin of all men, Christ Himself, the Word, died for all men. As Paul writes, if One died for all then all are dead. The Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world so that all the world could be included in that death. On that dark day men saw with natural eyes a man on a cross, but God saw the judgment of the world! Jesus said as He approached the day of His death on the tree, “Now is the judgment of the world! Now is the prince of this world cast out!”

So our union with Christ predates our union with Christ? Sort of. God saw us as one with Christ before we believed in Christ so that He could judge us for all our sins, past, present and future, when Jesus died. He predestined all people to be adopted by Him, not because of their own goodness, but by being placed in the Son! All have been predestined through the Son to be the sons and daughters of God. Everyone! God is not willing that a single person perish, but that all should come to see and believe on the Son. The necessary requirement is that they only believe. We are not made righteous by a law of works, but by a law of faith, Paul writes! There is a law to obey, but it is the law of faith! Paul was sent to call the nations to the “obedience of faith” as he proclaimed the mystery of Christ to all people.

We are saved by pure grace, through faith! (Can’t wait for Clark’s book, “Pure Grace,” to be out there!) Jesus became sin for me that I might become the righteousness of God in Him. What a mystery! God saw me on the cross being judged for everything! Now when a person hears the good news of God’s complete forgiveness and believes on Jesus, the Spirit is then given to that person so that the believer is actually made one with Christ by a new creation. The new creation is awesome! New heart! New everything! In Christ, behold all things are now new! We wait only for the redemption of our body as our mind is being renewed every day to what now is in Christ.

What happens if someone does not believe? Then Christ died for that person in vain, the scripture teaches. The unbeliever will die in his sins and face the final judgment for all their sins because they did not pass through judgment for their sins on the cross in Christ and therefore could not be adopted by God. Jesus wept over Jerusalem saying, “I would have gathered you like a mother hen gathers her little chicks and protects them, but you would not.” He would, but they would not. God is love and true love is willing to be vulnerable. True love must allow another to choose to receive that love or not. He came to His own and many of His own did not receive Him. But to those who receive Him, to those are given the right to be called the sons and daughters of God!

Great is the mystery of our godliness! God gathered everything inside of Christ that He might destroy everything in judgment through the death of Christ on the cross so that He could begin a new creation that is without sin by the resurrection of Christ! For Daniel writes that when Messiah comes He will “make an end of sin, finish the transgression, reconcile all iniquity and bring in an everlasting righteousness!” Actual union with the Messiah is now the reality for the believer! As Paul joyously wrote, “It is of God that you are in Christ Jesus!” One!

– James Barron

I used to wonder why God had two thieves on either side of Jesus when He died on the cross. I wondered why the Father did not have just Jesus on that hill that day with no distractions from others around Him being crucified. One day I was reading the gospel of John at that part where John describes the crucifixion and John writes that the two thieves “were crucified with Him.” Immediately the Spirit brought to my mind the verse in Galatians where Paul writes that “we were crucified with Him.” Then I saw it. The two thieves “were crucified with Him” as a picture of what God was doing in the invisible to the entire human race. It was a picture of Christ dying for all men, even the unbelievers, for one believed and entered into actual union with Christ at His resurrection and lives forever, while the other did not believe and died in His sin, separated from God, even though Jesus died for him too. On one side of Jesus was the thief who believed and on the other side of Jesus was the thief that did not believe, but both “were crucified with Him” at the same moment in order to teach us that the Father gave the Son for the whole world!

We are all thieves. We have all robbed God of His glory by going our own way and the iniquity of us all was laid on Jesus! As John writes, “He died not for our sins only (the believer), but also for the sins of the whole world (the unbeliever too)!” For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish but have eternal life! His love knows no limits and neither does His finished work on the cross! As Jesus said, “If I be lifted up (on the cross) between heaven and earth, I will draw ALL men to Me!”

– James Barron