When we truly receive the Lord we are given a portion of oil, of the Life of Christ. In order to keep filled with oil we must take up our cross and follow the Lord, living daily by His resurrection Life. How many believers really live by the Life of the Lord?

The Lord through much tribulation will draw out a godly remnant in the days in which we are living.

We think we are correct in the conclusion we have drawn, that is, only a holy remnant of warrior-saints will rise to meet the Lord at His appearing. If there is a possibility we are correct, then every person who loves the Lord would do well to follow the example of the Apostle Paul and strive to attain the first resurrection from among the dead.

Had Paul at this time (A.D. 62, just before his first court appearance) already attained the "out-resurrection"?

In his own opinion he had not as yet arrived.

Verse 12 reveals to us that to attain the first resurrection is the same as to have been perfected. To arrive at perfection in Christ is to arrive at the out-resurrection.

What was Paul's attitude of spirit and mind while he was confined in the barracks, awaiting his first trial?

He was pressing toward a mark, he was pursuing a goal in Christ.

This indeed is remarkable. Toward what was he pressing?

What was he pursuing?

Paul at this time had been saved and filled with God's Spirit for many years. His missionary work had born much fruit. Now he was in prison with a reasonable expectation of martyrdom. Had he not gained all the aspects of redemption that are possible to achieve in the world?

Isn't it true that after we are saved, filled with God's Holy Spirit, and labor successfully in the work of the Kingdom, there no longer is a personal spiritual level toward which to press while we are in the world?

Aren't we supposed to wait patiently until the Lord Jesus comes and "carries us away to our eternal home in Heaven"?

We are supposed to wait patiently until the Lord Jesus comes in the power of His Kingdom and brings us into glory and honor. Meanwhile there is a mark, a goal that has been placed before us by the Lord Jesus. The mark, the goal, is the perfect and complete relationship to Christ to which we have been called.

Each saint who attains a complete relationship to Christ has already received the inner aspects of the first resurrection. The coming of the Lord Jesus will not bring the inner aspects of throne-life to the perfected saint. Rather, the coming of Christ will reveal to the creation, through the reviving and glorifying of the saint's mortal body, the Divine Life and relationship that was accomplished during the saint's life on the earth.

Paul was seeking to lay hold of that for which he had been laid hold of by Christ.

Has Christ indeed laid hold of you and of me that we may be brought into transformations, relationships, and positions of which we are largely unaware? That we glimpse dimly?

To what end are we being resurrected?

To be continued.