Christ in You, the Hope of Glory

By Lavinia A. Walker

Catch God's vision for His universal Church! See in the Bible God's vision and provision for His people to be filled with the mighty power of His Holy Spirit!

For a fresh perspective from our earthly human position into our spiritual potential, join the author on a delightful journey into realms of perhaps unexperienced possibilities. You'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Sep 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887387024

Lavinia A. Walker

From childhood, the author sought to understand life. Finally, she met Jesus Christ as her personal Savior and Lord. Early in her Christian experience, she graduated from Newark (New Jersey) Bible School and Union College after ten years at night school. For over thirty years, she worked in commercial photojournalism while growing in her understanding of the Bible. She has been recognized as one who knows how to rightly divide the Word of truth and teach it to others. She keeps busy writing and teaching. Her greatest joy is in knowing and sharing the love and truth of Jesus Christ.

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CHRIST IN YOU,

THE HOPE OF GLORY

BY LAVINIA A. WALKER

Christ in You, the Hope of Glory

Trilogy Christian Publishers A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Trinity Broadcasting Network

2442 Michelle Drive Tustin, CA 92780

Copyright © 2023 by Lavinia A. Walker

Scripture quotations marked AMP are taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org. Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without written permission from the author. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA.

Rights Department, 2442 Michelle Drive, Tustin, CA 92780.

Trilogy Christian Publishing/TBN and colophon are trademarks of Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Cover design by: Gabriella Pinto

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Trilogy Christian Publishing.

Trilogy Disclaimer: The views and content expressed in this book are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect the views and doctrine of Trilogy Christian Publishing or the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 979-8-88738-701-7

E-ISBN: 979-8-88738-702-4

This book is dedicated to the triune God,

who, as Christ in us, is our hope of glory.

Acknowledgments

I thank the many people who have encouraged me, prayed for me and assisted in the production of this manuscript. They are many and deeply appreciated. My deep gratitude goes to God for His special messenger, the late Sally Coftis, who brought me the message of God’s salvation through Jesus Christ, God’s Word incarnate; she encouraged me to respect God’s written Word, the Bible, and upheld me in prayer.

There are many who encouraged me over the years. I would like to thank Head Deaconess Nanette Walker of the Newark, New Jersey House of God Church for many hours of technical advice and support, as well as Pastor/Elder Saundra L. Brackett for her moral support and encouragement. My dear friend, General Elder Dr. Cynthia Owens K. Brown of the Camden, New Jersey House of God Church, has been a great encouragement to me also. My longtime friends, Anne LoFranco Channon and Dr. Trudi B. Leech, have many times had an encouraging word as we prayed together.

Most recently, my dear friends Alba Abbate, Cyan Perdue & Gabriella Pinto stand out for their exceptional patience and technical assistance. Alba Abbate, Dorothy Rodela & Gabriella Pinto were instrumental in encouraging me to get my initial manuscript saved and printed, enabling Gabriella to forward it electronically to the publisher. I’m also indebted to Gabriella Pinto for her exceptional watercolor artwork for the front cover as well as her faithful and detailed continuous assistance during the editing process. Alba subsequently assisted me in reformatting the manuscript and adding other standard components to meet the publisher’s guidelines for final submission. I would also like to thank Jane Totorello for her professional hair and her make-up styling and Alba Abbate for wardrobe and back cover photo. I thank them all for their exceptional patience, technical help and encouragement through difficult challenges.

Preface

Because of the broad scope of Christ in You, the Hope of Glory (Colossians 1:27), this book barely touches many of the various aspects of Christ’s indwelling, skipping as a stone across the water. Within overall progressive views of some of the basic experiences of the Christian life, care has been taken to present definitions and explanations of terms to clarify concepts and experiences that may be confusing, little understood, or misunderstood.

The Biblical truths examined here under the guidance of the Holy Spirit have urged me on in my quest toward understanding and knowing God in the person of Jesus Christ. Though head knowledge alone without love may result in one’s becoming puffed-up (1 Corinthians 8:1)—or arrogant—the study of God’s Word to those who are thirsty to know Him proves to be the refreshing water. Many doctrinal strands of truth have been braided together, multicolored luminous strands interwoven to show their interrelationship. Each strand, as it is folded over against other truths, may be seen in a new light, with new hues and tones more evident from having been examined individually, then together. As the colors of the rainbow are returned to transparency after being separately displayed by a prism of water in the air, may the truths that we examine here become integrated into a transparency of light and bring clear understanding.

David sought Him as the deer pants for the water brooks (Psalm 42:1). Paul prayed for believers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him (Ephesians 1:17, KJV); increasing in the knowledge of God (Colossians 1:10, KJV) and:

That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Colossians 2:2–3 (KJV)

It is in this worshipful desire to know Him that we look into His Word with reverence and joy.

This writing was undertaken in the belief that many in the Church of Jesus Christ will profit from a reexamination of the experience of the Pentecostal baptism with speaking in other tongues. When seen in relation to the whole Christian experience, it will be shown to be Biblically based, logical and vital to today. Because God endues power in the baptism in the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49), the enemy has attacked the Church with misunderstanding and confusion concerning this experience. It has also caused division within the Body of Christ—not the experience, but the enemy’s work of confusion and misunderstanding. This writing is presented with the prayer that the Holy Spirit of God will use the truths of His Word to bring light, understanding and greater unity within the Body of Christ.

An attempt has been made to show the place that Pentecostal baptism has in relation to the many aspects of Christ in the born-again believer. It is not the intent of this writing to overemphasize the Pentecostal experience, but to show its essential, central importance to the work of Christ within us. A certain amount of emphasis has been necessary because the Biblical teaching regarding the baptism in the Holy Spirit has been, in some instances, totally ignored and in others, denied as being for today or twisted in an effort to make Scripture fit previously conceived ideas. Sometimes, the teaching is misunderstood as automatically occurring at the time of the born-again experience of salvation, or automatically with water baptism, or regarded as acceptable and complete without speaking in an unknown tongue, or considered to be demonic, or thought to be an experience of inordinate emotions, or as having ceased with the early Church.

Because of widespread misunderstanding, it is necessary to reexamine various concepts that might seem to be understood and to carefully bring to light aspects of truth, such as the interrelationship and oneness of the Persons of the Trinity. It is beyond my hope to address every lie and devious twisting of the truth the enemy has brought before the people of God regarding the Pentecostal fullness, but I pray the truths presented will help to disarm and defeat the enemy in his endeavor to divide, confuse and rob the Church of God’s power.

Two main concerns have dominated my thinking throughout this writing: first, that all truths presented may be Biblically sound, and second, that these truths be presented as clearly as possible so as to be easily understood. Great care has been taken to communicate ideas and concepts, taking little for granted in order to lay a good foundation. Although the perspective is necessarily my own, I believe every concept presented will stand the test of corroboration by the Bible. In earnestly desiring to communicate God’s truth, this intent has been uppermost—to dissolve misunderstandings and so encourage those who previously have not availed themselves of God’s enduement of power, as well as those who have spoken initially and perhaps briefly in tongues; to stir in them a spiritual hunger for all that God has for His Body, the Church, and to help her, the Bride of Christ, to come together as one in understanding and experience.

Definitions

Three parts of each human being: spirit, soul, and body.

Three parts of personhood in the soul: mind, emotions, and will.

Three parts of personhood in the spirit: mind, emotions, and will.

Note: In addition to an infrequent word or phrase added in italics by the translators for clarification, I have put some words and phrases in italics for emphasis. Also, within some quoted verses, I have added occasional words in brackets [ ] for explanation and clarification. I have chosen to capitalize the first letter of Godly and Biblical.

Chapter 1: Humanity’s Natural Condition

Defined: Spirit, Soul, Body, Worm, and Flesh

It is God’s desire that we know who we are and what He intends for us. He has planned for us to communicate with Him and with others, to know stable, creative, meaningful relationships in an atmosphere of harmony, peace and joy. He has provided for us to know inner peace, as well as peace in our relationships with others and with Him. It is God’s very nature to communicate with us, even as He desires worship and communication from us in spirit and in truth (John 4:23). As we come before Him to learn from His Word with help from His natural creation, He speaks to us in love—not to condemn us, but to make possible the fulfillment of the desires He has placed within each human being.

God intends for us to be as free as butterflies in spirit and more so, but His way is not the way that human wisdom has been leading us. Throughout history, humans have stubbornly and vainly struggled to metamorphose themselves into the destiny they sense should be theirs. They have refused God’s statement of their helplessness and cut themselves off from His help.

The Bible says: The foolishness of God is wiser than men (1 Corinthians 1:25, KJV). God alone knows our nature and our struggle. He knows our human pride, which does not want to acknowledge total defeat in the labyrinth of human devices. Rather than dispute with God about the nature of humanity, it is infinitely more profitable to consider that He, being our Creator, very likely knows something about us that even we ourselves do not—not only of the depths to which we can sink, but also of the heights to which we might rise.

Even those who view the better accomplishments of humanity with a certain satisfaction and therefore seek to draw understanding and hope from the noblest and the best, still fall far short of the glory God has prepared for us. God alone knows our human nature, its limitations and extremes of capability. We see ourselves further along than we are and closer to what we can become than God sees us. His message to us is to accept His knowledge and understanding of what and where we are, and He will raise us higher than we ever thought possible. He wants to change us from creatures without hope into creatures filled with new life—more than we can possibly imagine.

God does not see us as struggling caterpillars, but as helpless earthworms—earthbound, without even the potential to become butterflies. No earthworm can metamorphose into a butterfly; neither can any earthworm change into a caterpillar in order to metamorphose into a butterfly. There is no genetic potential in the earthworm to become anything but an earthworm. There is no spiritual potential in human beings to transform themselves into the spiritual butterflies God and we desire us to be. But God makes this transformation possible in the human spirit by a new birth.

The Bible teaches us that death entered the human spirit and the human body and as a result, the person (mind, emotions and will) or soul is lost. The soul is our outer person, which arises from life in our physical body. We can know self-awareness in our soul and process data from our physical senses in order to have an awareness of the external world; we educate our soul; we learn social behavior in our soul. Our soul finds outward expression through our behavior, but is deeply influenced by our spirit. Our spirit is our inward person, or innermost being, which can hear the still, small voice of God with intuition and conscience and faith. Our spirit was created to know God and relate as a husband to the soul in each of us. Our spirit is our true nature and our deepest identity, the seat of our motivations, goals, hopes and longings.

It is in our spirit that God must begin His miracle of recovery, because only our spirit has been designed to receive Him. The Bible makes a definite distinction between the spirit and the soul:

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12 (KJV)

The Bible teaches us that both the body and the spirit are God’s

(1 Corinthians 6:19–20). The body is to house the spirit: the spirit is to be one with God.

When the spirit and body are in bondage to death, the soul is lost, motivated by a depraved spirit and living in a body enslaved by sin. All that God created was good including the physical body, but when the spirit died (became separated from God) and death entered the body as well, the body became a stronghold of depravity which is called the flesh or fallen natural man. Apostle Paul speaks of our fleshly mind as well as our sense-based attitudes and emotions:

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft [including drug abuse], hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5:19–21 (KJV)

This is a partial list of the works of the flesh, which is in bondage to sin and death.

Everyone who is subject to death can be sure they are also subject to sin. Base thoughts and attitudes motivate us to a variety of conniving, manipulative behavior, with bitterness, unforgiveness, meanness, revenge, etc. We find deep darkness within ourselves in spite of our best efforts. Though we have varying degrees of success in controlling ourselves, we cannot cut out the power of death within us and transform ourselves into anything resembling Godliness. We are plagued by guilt, remorse, depression, inner loneliness, fear, hopelessness, futility, frustration, etc. The soul, instead of receiving life-giving direction from the spirit, struggles with depravity and despair. It is extremely difficult for us (our soul) to use our God-given talents and resist the deep inner darkness in our spirit before we are touched by God’s transforming power.

There is no possibility that earthworm nature can resolve or determine to decrease and actually become a butterfly. There is no butterfly promise inherent in its worm nature, strive as it might. There is no knowledge, grasp of truth, or wisdom that can strengthen or improve the earthworm toward becoming a butterfly—ever. There is no gain of fortune with which the earthworm might buy the power or authority to become a butterfly. It is beyond price. There is no power of arms that can capture it, for it may be received only as a gift.

There is no friend earthworm to whom, if an earthworm poured out its frustrations and longings, it could successfully appeal to secure the transformation which would permit the earthworm to become a new creature. The very counsel and guidance from such compassion are limited by a nature which in itself does not possess the promise, or the power, to change its own nature, much less the power to re-create another.

Advice from a friend earthworm or professional earthworm must be to adjust to its worm self, to accept its limitations realistically, to be content with the active life which is open to its worm self, to enjoy the potential of its earthworm nature, cheerfully to adjust to being a fine worm among worms, striving for a better world of worms, each generation more comfortable, well-disciplined in the sublimation or subordination of every butterfly-like desire. What passes for good adjustment and mental health by the standards of natural and human wisdom, the Bible says, leaves us strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12, KJV).

It is not God’s desire to browbeat us with a description of our wretchedness, but to reveal His will to save us from all that we need saving from and to demonstrate His ability in the actual performing of our salvation. He is not content that we acquiesce to the fact of His power, but that we experience His life-changing love and power in our innermost being. He is not satisfied with worship from the soul (our natural human mind, emotions and will, apart from our spirit) or from the body, involving specific postures of prayer, rituals, chants or programs. God is concerned with the spirit, the inner being deep within our soul. God is a Spirit and it is only through our spirit that we may know Him. Though God compares our spirit to an earthworm, He speaks in love: A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you (Ezekiel 36:26, KJV).

God’s references to the human spirit as a worm do not describe Adam’s spirit, as He originally created Adam in the image and likeness of Himself (Genesis 1:26–27). Webster’s dictionary has included this meaning of the word worm: a human being who is an object of contempt, loathing or pity, a wretch. Historically the word worm comes to us through the Old English wyrm and the Old High German wurm, both of which meant serpent as well as worm. Significantly, God does not equate worm with man as he was created but specifically contrasts the two. Through King David’s prophetic description of crucifixion in Psalm 22:6 (KJV), Jesus cries out: I am a worm, and no man.

Both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible contain references to man as a worm. The writer of the Book of Job asks thoughtfully: How then can man be justified with God? …the stars are not pure in his sight. How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm? (Job 25:4–6, KJV). Through Prophet Isaiah, God speaks encouragingly, yet refers to Jacob as a worm: Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel (Isaiah 41:14, KJV). Later God speaks prophetically against transgressors when…

All flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.

Isaiah 66:23–24 (KJV)

It was this last verse to which Jesus referred when He gave the solemn warning in chapter 9 of the Gospel of Mark. Jesus said it is better to cut off an offending hand or foot or pluck out an eye than to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:47–48, KJV).

Jesus said: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly (John 10:10, KJV). Why then, does He warn us that in hell, the worm of man does not die? Why does He call man a worm? In looking into what God is communicating to us through this picture of humanity, we are led quite literally from darkness to light, to a fresh appreciation of the mystery of God’s infinite knowledge, wisdom and gentle love as revealed in Jesus Christ.

Chapter 2: Spiritual Death/Need

for Salvation

Our salvation is accomplished on the basis of God’s visit to Earth in the person of Jesus Christ, and on Jesus’ complete identification with humanity, even to the extent of His accepting humanity’s burden as His own. Humanity’s burden is sin, and it follows an immutable spiritual law and results in death. The soul that sinneth, it shall die (Ezekiel 18:20, KJV), God’s prophet wrote in the Old Testament, and Apostle Paul wrote in the New Testament: The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23, KJV). God, who knows all hearts, declares: There is none righteous, no, not one (Romans 3:10, KJV), For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23, KJV).

God explains that because of sin (the law of sin resulting in death), death passed upon all men (Romans 5:12, KJV), that is, to all mankind or humanity. Humanity has in ignorance, produced many explanations for death ranging from the mythological to the biological and pseudo-spiritual, but God reveals to us that death is a form of bondage from which He desires to set us free.

The human race has been in bondage and in fear of death from the time that humans first exalted themselves against God for, To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey (Romans 6:16, KJV). Human nature is in bondage to the spirit our first ancestors obeyed—a spirit of rebellion and pride, the father of lies, the author of confusion, whose nature is to steal, to kill, and to destroy (John 10:10). Jesus called this depraved spirit, The god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4, KJV).

In yielding to him in any way, we serve him and confirm our servitude, both in our relationships with others and by the evidence in our own hearts. With disheartening regularity, we yield to Satan’s attributes within us, unable to change the distorted human nature which no longer manifests the perfect image of God. Satan has made little serpents of us all! In Genesis 3:14 (KJV), we read that because of Satan’s deceit, God told him: Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. In yielding to this spirit, we have become like him—little serpents or earthworms.

In order for an earthworm to find food, it must grope through the dirt of the earth and process it through its whole being in search of something that will support life. But the dead leaves and other decaying matter support only the life it knows. Dead food cannot transform an earthworm into a caterpillar.

We search in vain through Earth’s philosophies and cults for life-giving food, time and time again assaulting our soul and tormenting our spirit. Many of us cling to ideas and concepts which, like dead food, may temporarily seem to sustain life, but actually are full of death and lead to death. We accept the palatable in lieu of the delicious, the artificial for the real. We eat, but are never satisfied in spirit and truly alive. We accept an element of compromise with our deepest longings and, like the earthworm, exude a protective, callous film over whatever instinctive or intuitive truth we may have. We become worldly-wise and God-ignorant. It is significant that the earthworm has no eyes and no ears—so the human spirit in the state of spiritual death is blind and deaf to God.

Artists in many fields have been aware of great inner darkness. The Bible teaches us that mighty and noble deeds, intellectual endeavors, cultural, aesthetic and artistic expression and accomplishments may proceed through the human soul while the human spirit is yet separated from God and in bondage to death. Much of the world’s concept of greatness in measuring artistic expression is a consensus of how well the author/dancer/artist/composer/sculptor, etc., portrays some aspect of the human condition.

Poets of all media in every age pick through the dead food of the earth, seeking the divine food of eternal life. The natural tendency is to dig more and more furiously through the debris of earthly wisdom. But the worm-like tendency to stuff ourselves on dead food does not give life to our eternal spirit, nor does it meet the need of our soul. It results in compromise, resignation, and continual groping and blundering. How tragic to fall short of the glory God has prepared for us!

The spirit in each of us cries out for quality life-giving food that will transform it into resurrection power and save its soul. God calls us to resist the furious, futile search among the familiar dead food and abandon it in a leap of faith to the living food. Jesus said: I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever (John 6:51, KJV).

When God says: All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23, KJV), He is telling us that because we have known the effects of rebellion against His lordship in our lives, we cannot reach the glory He has for us by any human endeavor. Our hope must be in God’s initiative, His wisdom and mercy, and His provision. We need to learn that God will first meet us in our spirit, and afterward, our soul will be blessed. Mary, the mother of Jesus, spoke by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit the joyful words: My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour (Luke 1:46–47, KJV). Her soul magnifies the Lord (present tense) because her spirit "has rejoiced" (past tense) in God, and so it is for us all.

We are warned not to be misled and cheated through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ (Colossians 2:8, KJV). Truth was never more vital than in the words: For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe (1 Corinthians 1:21, KJV). We cannot, by the development of the soul or body, quicken the spirit within us. Humanism is the mad, empty song of the soul whose spirit is dead.

Without the intervention of God on behalf of humanity, it would be forever impossible for any of us to die to our worm nature. We would remain as we had fallen, transgressors against God whose worm shall not die (Isaiah 66:24; Mark 9:48). We would be bound forever by the limits of our worm deafness to God’s voice, blind to the brightness of His light, separated forever from all that He is and the love and leading that He longs for each of us to know with fullness of joy, peace that passes understanding and the promise of eternal life with Him in the new heavens and the new earth.

There is a tragic and heartbreaking sense in which the distorted view that this life is all there is, and when you’re dead, you’re dead is true. Without God, there is no victory over death and hell. There is no hope of a better life with freedom from pain and tears,