If we choose to hold a grudge, not forgiving the person, our adamic nature is strengthened in revenge and bitterness. This is spiritual death. God will not have fellowship with this attitude even though we have confessed Christ as our Savior.

If instead we choose to go to God and lay hold on the grace that has been given, praying until we can forgive the individual, we are fed in the spirit realm with the body and blood of Christ. The body and blood of Jesus Christ are our eternal life and our resurrection from the dead.

There is Virtue in the body and blood of Christ that is powerful enough to overcome the deepest, most powerful urge to seek revenge. By His body and blood we can overcome the spiritual death that is seeking to overpower us.

The Word of God written in our mind and heart is the new covenant. The body and blood of Jesus Christ are the new covenant.

It is as the body and blood are applied to our mind and heart that the eternal moral law of God is written in our mind and heart. This is Christ in us, the hope of glory.

Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh. The Word of God is in His body and blood. When we eat His flesh and drink His blood we eat and drink the Word of God, the eternal moral law of God. This is the new covenant.

If we are faithful in eating His flesh and drinking His blood each day until we are living by Him as He lives by the Father, then, when He appears, we shall be caught up to meet Him in the air. Those who live by feeding on the slain Lamb will be caught up to the Lamb when He appears.

This is how the Lord Jesus Christ becomes our life. This is what it means to have Christ formed in us. When Christ is being formed in us the eternal moral law of God is being formed in us. This is the goal of the Christian plan of salvation, and we must work it out with fear and trembling.

Peter exclaimed that the righteous are saved with difficulty. Peter meant that the transformation from the adamic nature to the Nature of Jesus Christ requires much patience as we are brought through the fires sent to burn out of us the carnal nature.

And really, to a certain extent, the process of salvation from sin is as difficult as we make it. If we resist God at every turn, grumbling and complaining every time the Lord deals with us, we prolong the process needlessly. If instead we patiently endure the sufferings of the cross, realizing that as God slays our adamic nature He is removing from us that which always will bring sorrow at the end, we find we can cheerfully bear our cross year after year until the Lord determines the work has been completed.

There is an end! Jesus is the Author and the Finisher of our salvation.

To be continued.