You will stand if you take your place on the cross, and then at the right hand of God with the Lord Jesus. Otherwise your "Christianity" will be found to be nothing more than a dead religion, even though you talk in tongues, prophesy, and work miracles.

Jesus doesn't know us until we do what He says. He has told us through His Apostles to enter His death and His resurrection. He absolutely will accept nothing less. Ask Him and see if I am correct in this!

Now let's turn to the church in Smyrna. The comments made to the angel of the church in Smyrna reveal some aspects of our death and resurrection in Jesus Christ.

When we declare ourselves dead with Christ and risen with Christ, God takes us at our word. Our death releases us from the authority of the Law of Moses. Our death makes it possible for God to begin to judge us, for it is appointed to man once to die and after this the judgment.

Now that we are dead with Christ and risen with Christ the work of reconciling our personality to God begins. Our new born-again nature is hidden with Christ in God. This is a firstfruits of our personality. The remainder of our personality, the part on earth, must be reconciled to God.

We must be reconciled to God in the area of depending on God rather than the world for our security and survival.

We must be reconciled to God in the area of how we behave. To walk with God our behavior must be righteous and holy. God's Spirit is ready to enable us to conduct ourselves in this manner.

The last and by far the most difficult area of reconciliation is our self-will. We absolutely must be crucified with Christ so in all matters great and small we say, "Not my will but Yours be done."

We have established our position as dead with Christ and risen with Christ. Now we must follow the Holy Spirit as He removes the graveclothes of worldliness, lust, and rebellion and replaces them with trust in God, righteousness, holiness, and obedience. The Life of Christ that fills our born-again nature in the heavenlies must fight its way down into the remainder of our personality on the earth. If we pursue Christ to this extent the last enemy in our personality, physical death, will, at the appearance of the Lord, be driven from us so we are alive in Christ in spirit, soul, and body.

As we fight the good fight of faith we are brought through a wilderness of difficulties and afflictions. This is why the Lord Jesus addressed Himself to the church in Smyrna as follows:

To the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again. (Revelation 2:8—NIV)

The pathway becomes so grueling at times that we despair of life. We do not know when our testing will end, and not knowing makes it very difficult to continue.

To be continued.