Jennifer Kennedy Dean
Founder and Executive Director of The
Praying Life Foundation
Where is my blood manufactured? It is manufactured in my bone marrow. My bone marrow is continually manufacturing
blood cells. When they are fully formed,
they migrate into my bloodstream through a system of veins. As one red blood cell is used up, the body
sloughs it off and it is immediately replaced by a new, fresh blood cell.
My bone marrow will only manufacture my
life. Every single blood cell my marrow
creates has my DNA structure in it. My
bone marrow will not manufacture any life but Jennifer-life.
When you were born on planet earth,
your spirit marrow was manufacturing Adam-life.
Your spirit-marrow cannot manufacture any other kind of life. No matter how many good deeds you do, no
matter how regularly you attend church nor how many verses of Scripture you
memorize, your spirit-marrow can only manufacture Adam-life, the “not life.”
In the material realm, if I want my
bone marrow to manufacture something other than Jennifer-life, I would have to
die and then be born again. In the
physical realm, it is not possible. But
in the spiritual realm, that is exactly what happened. “For we know that our old self was crucified
with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no
longer be slaves to sin” (Romans 6:6).
“For you have to be born again, not of perishable seed, but of
imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1:23).
When I die to my Adam-nature and am
born again of the Spirit, I no longer have Adam-life; I have Jesus-life. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no
longer live, but Christ lives in me. The
life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and
gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
Even though I am born again of the
Spirit and my spirit-marrow no longer manufactures Adam-life, I still have
residual Adam-life flowing in my spiritual veins. It has not all been sloughed off yet. Little by little, from one degree of glory to
the next, I am being changed; old things are passing away, new things are
taking their place (2 Corinthians 5:17).
This left over Adam-life is called my
“flesh.” My flesh is any point at which
I am not allowing the Life to flow. God
is determined to flush all the flesh out of me.
Flesh cannot be improved. Flesh
cannot be corrected or made holy. Flesh
must be crucified.
God’s goal is that the power of the resurrection will be
manifested in your life. Here’s the
secret: It takes a crucifixion to
experience a resurrection. Because of His great love for you, the Father
is building experiences into your life that will cause your flesh to be
exposed. This is so the flesh can be
surrendered to crucifixion.
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For years, knowing who I was in
Christ never worked for me, until…until it occurred to me: The secret is not who I am in
Christ. The key to it all is who
Christ is in me! He is my Righteousness…in me. He is the Beloved…in me. He is the Victor…in me. It’s not about who I am; it’s about
who He is. “Therefore
I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power
may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). |