Hi.
I spent no small amount of time here yesterday, and with thanks printed out several of your segments. While I find all your work most intriguing, I feel lost with respect to traditional anchors, I'd suppose you'd call them, like, for example, have you come out of traditional Christendom; when you speak of sin, is it in the same vein as the "Thou Shalt Nots" of the Mosaic Law as summed up in the command to love your neighbor as yourself. To be transparent, what I'd like simply is to meet you face to face and make eye contact with you. That in practicality will have to remain, for the time being,
PASTOR SHEILA: Yes, I have come out of traditional, but non-denominational, Christendom. When I speak of sin, I am speaking about the inherited sin nature which all human beings are born with, and/or the thoughts which arise out of that sin nature (Matt. 5:21,28).
"Thou shalt not" has no power to restrain or destroy the sin nature, or the thoughts arising out of her, but reveals our inability to do so (Rom. 7:9; Rom. 7:14-25). Only Christ Jesus can defeat the root cause of all of humanity's trouble: the carnal mind.
Our hope is that Christ shall be formed in us (Gal. 4:19,
(1 Tim. 2:5), and marry the ascended Lord Jesus Christ, the only one strong enough to restore us to immortality through the destruction of our sin nature.
I hope I have answered your questions. May the Lord, Jesus, bless you mightily, and strengthen you in the spirit of your mind, and may you come to a knowledge of Him that surpasses anything that you, in your present understanding of HIM ,could have ever hoped for. May the Spirit of Truth cleave unto you, and never leave you, but increase daily.
Thank you for your interest in the work here.
In Christ,
Sheila R. Vitale
Dearest Pastor Sheila,
Thanks for your prompt response.
I am familiar with the power of the presence of the holy spirit to give me victory over what my emotions would motivate (make me feel as though I "had to") me to do. It was a "strange and wonderful" lesson--this learning of how my feelings can counterfeit authentic revelation and lie to me about reality--all wrapped up in my idealistic (idolatrous) notions of marriage running head-on into a clash of passionate intensity magnified by believer-versus-nonbeliever issues.
PASTOR SHEILA: This is a true and mature experience.
Anyway . . . . . according to Paul, my spirit is one with the Lord's and I'm wondering if that has something to do with what you describe as "Christ being formed in us," "MARRYING THE ASCENDED LORD JESUS CHRIST, THAT UNION BEING CALLED 'Christ Jesus.'" Please help me understand how you come to this unusual combination of phrases and what it provides that current translations do not.
PASTOR SHEILA: The union of the Holy Spirit with our human spirit prepares us to have Christ formed in us. This is the "cutting" of Jesus' life that I spoke about in my response to your other email that i have answered today. He is the sperm of God and not a full grown spiritual man.
The potential for Christ to be formed in us is imparted in the form of this seed, the Holy Spirit, which must be nourished and must grow in wisdom and experience. The maturing seed, while still mortal called the Mind of Christ, eventually ascends into immortality and becomes Christ Jesus. The Lord Jesus who is in the eternal world, marries Christ Jesus, and the Name of this holy double portion is "the Fortified Christ Jesus." The Mind of Christ is not a whole man, but a Mind.
Christ Jesus is a whole man, our new man, and this new man eventually marries our personality.
Jesus = mortal man [son of man]
Christ = Jesus' supernatural mind
Christ Jesus = Jesus' new man
Lord Jesus Christ = Christ Jesus married to the mortal man (personality)Jesus, and liberated from the physical body.
Rom 8:11
11 But if the Spirit of him [the spirit of the Father, not the Holy Spirit] that raised up Jesus [Jesus the man born of a human woman] from the dead, dwell in you, he that raised up [the mind] from the dead [in the man, Jesus], shall also quicken your mortal bodies [mortal spiritual body= carnal mind] by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. (KJV)
This verse is not talking about the Holy Spirit. It is talking about the Spirit of Christ, which is in Christ Jesus. Our mortal body, or carnal mind, is quickened, or renewed in the "spirit" of our mind. Our human spirit is renewed through union with the Holy Spirit and then the Spirit of Christ.
I appreciate your blessing, embrace it and offer it back to you - beyond your already wondrous enjoyment of it.
Looking forward to hearing from you in His time.
In Christ,
Pastor Sheila
