Before GCSSM (Global Celebration School of Supernatural Ministry) I used to think of being co-resurrected with Christ as an image of me on a cross next to Jesus, no different than the criminals he hung next to. That sounded about right. I was probably on the furthest cross from Jesus because I couldn’t have the honor of being on the cross next to him. I saw the Christian life as an endless season of struggles and doing what I knew was wrong but powerless to stop it (the Roman’s 7 Man was my best friend). I saw myself struggling to take up my cross and carry it behind Jesus. Religion was exhausting. I couldn’t seem to keep up or fit in with those that worshipped around me in very specific ways. Was I free? I thought John 10:10 was a beautiful ideal, but couldn’t understand why I didn’t see abundant life let alone power and breakthrough in or through me. Surely this was for everyone else and not me. That had to be it. Romans 7 felt like a breath of fresh air. What a relief to have grace to fall so terribly short and have it be ok to walk powerless and defeated. I couldn’t have been more wrong!

Before GCSSM, I started to suspect something was wrong in what I was taught and what I believed. But I couldn’t quite figure it out alone. One clue I found was in the entire chapter of Isaiah 60. Read it! Isaiah 60 paints a very different picture of the end time Bride. She isn’t downcast. She isn’t discouraged or trapped in a pattern of darkness and she certainly isn’t powerless. The Church is described as a lighthouse, a haven for the nations to find refuge. The Church is described as a Bride who is ready, not flustered, drawing many to her side because of her radiance. Just like a Bride in the natural spends much time preparing herself in exuberance for her bridegroom, so are we as intimate lovers of Jesus. We anticipate Him in joy and delight, not in rags with our shoulders slumped in shame, saying, ‘I’m here, I made it, I survived.’ No! The bride will increase in joy as she hears her groom approaching her chambers. She will leap and jump and dance and beam with joy. The Bride thrives!

The closest possible union with Jesus is what it’s all about. ‘Co’ in Greek means closest possible union. It means that I was resurrected in union with Messiah. We shared the same cross. ‘It is finished’ carries a whole new meaning now. I died in the closest possible union with Jesus so that I could be buried in the closest possible union, and be raised in the closest possible union with Him. I wasn’t on my own cross, may rows away from Jesus. I was on the same cross with him. Two hands per nail! I was there. He was there. It wasn’t only Him who died and rose again. The old me is gone and I’m free to live in wedded bliss with Jesus. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2:20).

It is finished. The works of the cross are finished. I don’t have to stumble around in Romans 7, when Romans 6 provides a free access point through marriage with Jesus to cross over to Romans 8, to victory, to breakthrough, to life! I get to skip jail and pass ‘Go’ haha! I died to sin which means my marriage covenant to the person of Sin has been abolished. How can a person who dies still be married? We died so that we could be born again and be married to another; married to Christ. It wasn’t just a pass to Heaven, it was a divorce from Sin so that no part of that former relationship has any say on my identity or my destiny. It wasn’t just an annulment of my old commitment, it was freedom to love in perfect intimacy, the bridegroom of Jesus Christ! This is good news, this is the global celebration of the gospel!