Come Up Higher Part 1 Kathryn Kuhlman

When the gates of the Spirit are swung open wide, when we come to the end of the trail of self, and we invite Him in, who is not only our Savior, but our Lord and Christ, and we turn over the government of our lives and the conduct of our understanding to Him, then a new life in spiritual freedom begins. A glorious life. It's the beginning of freedom for the first time. And for the first time, the concept of what real Christianity is bursts. over the horizon of our souls. I would ask every self -righteous person to stand with me by the grave which once held the body of Hume, who is my light and my salvation. For every miracle of every age is included in what happened there. We stand in the presence of a conquest over every dominion that affects human life. Every force in heaven and earth, forces natural and physical, material and mental, temporal and eternal, were all under the dominion of the power that brought again the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. From that moment, a new order of life, had been inaugurated. Jesus Christ was the first begotten out of the dead. For having died into sin once, he dieth no more. Even his resurrection body was totally different from the body of his humiliation and his shame. He had entered a sphere which was... superior to the material limitations of the flesh. A new order of life was instituted, the like of which had never been known either in heaven or in earth. But let me remind you that it was to be shared by all who should be planted in the likeness of his glorious resurrection. Whenever we speak of the miracle of the resurrection, we forget it was a miracle that included you and included me. We forget that. A new order of life was instituted. Heaven and earth had never before. known the existence of this new life. Again, let me remind you of something that's vitally important to each of us. His resurrection was to be shared by all of us who should be planted in the likeness of His. glorious resurrection. We speak of it as his resurrection. It was not only his resurrection. It was not only limited to him, the son of the living God. That resurrection included you. It included me. That risen Jesus is the very heart of the gospel. The resurrection is the crux of the whole situation. But remember that the resurrection was something more than a physical fact. Let the angels sing their hallelujahs and let the redeemed of earth join in the anthems of praise to his glory. For that resurrection means my spiritual identification with him who died and rose again for me. For if he died and rose again for me, it must remain that I was with him in what he did. It means that you were included too. That you were there. Let that truth burn itself into your soul. Never forget it. For when once you behold it, you will stop your struggling. Oh, if I could get questions to just stop their struggling. It isn't a struggle. You can't attain these things through struggling or your own self -effort. He's the one who did it. When once you behold what I'm trying to say to you, if once the Holy Spirit gives you this glorious revelation, you'll stop your struggling, your agonizing. you wish to attain has already been attained. The thing for which you are grasping is now in your possession. The thing for which you hope you can possess, it's not beyond your reach or your possession. It is finished. That's what Jesus tried to get us to understand when he cried those words after dismissing his own spirit on the cross. It is finished. Your struggling is finished. My struggling is finished. The whole thing has been bought and paid for. The work was made perfect and complete. You cannot add to perfection. When a thing is perfect, it's perfect. It is incorrect to say that something is more perfect or that you can add to perfection. You cannot. The work that Jesus did was perfect. The work was made perfect and complete. For you cannot add to perfection. No matter were you to live a thousand lives and every day of every life were filled with the struggle to attain, it would be impossible for you to do so. It is when we learn to reckon is when you find out how to count yourselves. that the light from the heels of God will stream through your being and banish every doubt and take away every fear. Know ye not that when he died, we died? When he was buried, we were buried. When he rose again, we rose with him. When he ascended, we ascended. and we're dwelling today with him in heavenly places. When he returns, we also shall be manifested with him in glory. This marvelous identification with Jesus induces the believer with a dynamic and a power which makes the atomic bomb seem very small. in comparison. We are identified with Him. Identified with Him when He died on the cross. Identified with Him in that moment of resurrection. Identified with Him when He ascended and went back to glory. identified with him when he comes back to rule and reign upon the earth. All power is given unto him anyway, not only in earth but in heaven above. When they nailed Jesus to the cross, the penalty of your guilt was paid right there and then. All on earth that a sinner has to do is to reach out and accept for himself, personally, that which was bought and paid for by Jesus on the cross. No man can redeem himself. I don't care how righteous you may feel you are or how good a life you may be living. No man can redeem himself. It's not your goodness. Sin was atoned for when they nailed Jesus to the cross. The penalty of your guilt was paid for right then and there. It was completed, perfected, consummated, finished. and you cannot add to that could my tears forever flow could my zeal no resp know these for sin cannot atone thou must save and thou alone In my hand, no price I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. When they placed him in the grave, you were placed there. When he came out in triumph from the tomb, you came out also. You died when he died. In the moment the last atom was made a quickening spirit, then every redeemed sinner rose with him. That's the reason he could cry. Because he lives, I too shall live. He was my resurrection. I am identified with him when he arose from the dead. And this identification of man with his Lord is only realized, however, when it is personally appropriated. It's a personal thing. You personally must... Appropriate that identification and accept your inheritance in Christ Jesus. I cannot do it for you. Another cannot do it for you. It's a personal thing. It's a personal transaction. You must personally appropriate it. Oh, the Holy Spirit would somehow illuminate our understanding so that we would stop. playing with the toys in our little theological interpretations and entered to this abundant life. Sometimes I get the feeling that we're just playing at this thing. Just playing with it. A synthetic life. Just toying with something that is so majestic that can only be understood in the spirit because it's something that's spiritual. If only the Holy Spirit would somehow open our understanding. Out of the grave of Jesus springs our eternal life. The self -same power that brought again the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead quickens the spirit of the receptive believer into everlasting and eternal life. Listen to his words as recorded in the fifth chapter of John. Verily. verily i say unto you he that heareth my word and believeth him that sent me hath eternal life and cometh not into judgment but hath passed out of death into life in other words he has already passed from death across to life now. He does not have to wait until death comes to the physical. He does not have to wait until the heart stops beating. He has already passed from death across to life. Should we not realize that the miracle of conversion includes in the one act the salvation and the redemption of the whole man? Sometimes I think that we fail to see everything that's included in that moment of salvation, of conversion. We speak of it so lightly. We say, have you been born again? But, beloved, we must realize the miracle of conversion for it includes the redemption of the whole man if because of our blindness and our unbelief we cannot comprehend this we cannot blame our lord who never returned to his father unto the glory from which he came and which he laid aside until his work was consummated and made perfectly complete he never went back to glory he never left this earth until he was sure the whole thing had been completed there can be no doubt in your mind in my mind whether or not the whole plan had been consummated and made perfectly complete. You know, so many are willing to talk about the likeness of his death, but comparatively few enter into identification with Jesus in the glory and the power of his resurrection. Oh, read it there in the sixth chapter of Romans. For if we have become united with him by the likeness of his death, we shall be also by the likeness of his resurrection. Our hearts throb when we realize that the Christ who rose from the dead was the same Christ who was buried and yet how different was he. He was now released from those confining limitations of natural law. One moment we find him along the road going to Emmaus, walking beneath the light of the Passover moon. But the next moment, he's in Jerusalem, appearing suddenly in the midst of the disciples who were congregated there behind the locked doors. He appeared before them. They'd listened to his voice. One of them, at any rate, reached out his hand and touched the place that the cool nails had entered. Then, in an instant, he was gone. Time or space seemed nothing to him after. He had risen from the dead. There was no limitations. No conditions. of the mortal life. What a glorious picture. The person who lives in the power of the resurrection of Jesus is also raised to a plane of life which is outside the boundaries of natural law and outside the boundaries of the natural man. He begins to live under a divine law. He becomes possessed with a divine nature. He begins to manifest the beauties of a divine character. The standards by which his life are governed are all divine. Our trouble is that we hang on and hang on and continue to hang on to the flesh. Oh, but beloved, while we do so, we're closing the door because of our unbelief on those glorious spiritual possibilities that are ours and can be ours through Christ Jesus. That's why Jesus said, take no thought for the morrow. Don't worry about your food. Don't become overly anxious about your clothing. Your father fully recognizes the need of your bodies in this respect. You ought not to be living on a plane so low that you are being affected by material things. Don't be robbed of your spiritual inheritance.