Read Online PUSH: Persevere Until Success Happens Through Prayer by Cindy Trimm - Free Book Online

Something momentous was happening in both the heavens and the earth. A new entity was being brought forth from the spiritual realm into the temporal realm—a literal earth-shattering event.
    As Mary travailed to birth the “Word made flesh” (John 1) into the earth, now Jesus travailed as He brought forth what would become His Body in the earth—the Church. For three hours the earth was dark before the Lord commended His Spirit to God. Afterward, His side was pierced
“so that the scripture would be fulfilled…‘They will look on the One they have pierced’”
(John 19:36-37 NIV). And as there is both blood and water involved in the birth of a child, there was both blood and water that came forth from Jesus, birthing the Church:
“One of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out”
(John 19:34). Jesus birthed the Church there on the cross. The Bride of Christ was taken from His side even as Eve was taken from the rib of Adam.
    Christ brought the Church forth from His own being—He created it in His likeness to function as He functioned in the earth. As He was the Word made flesh when He walked among us two thousand years ago, so is the Church God’s Word made flesh in the world today. At the same time, as a husband and wife are
“one flesh—no longer two bodies but one”
(Matthew 19:4 MSG), so are Christ and the Church now one body. In comparing the relationship of Christ and the Church to that of a marriage, Paul explained it in this way to the Ephesians:
    Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything He does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a favor— since they’re already “one” in marriage.
    No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That’s how Christ treats us, the church, since we are part of His body. And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become “one flesh”
(Ephesians 5:26-31 MSG).
    Jesus prayed to His Father in heaven,
“The same glory You gave Me, I gave them, so they’ll be as unified and together as We are—I in them and You in Me. Then they’ll be mature in this oneness, and give the godless world evidence that You’ve sent Me and loved them in the same way You’ve loved Me”
(John 17:22-23 MSG). We, who are born of God, are one with Christ. We have come forth from His body to be His Body—we are
“the assembly of God’s firstborn children”
(Hebrews 12:23 NLT).
    Near, so very near to God, Nearer I cannot be; For in the person of His Son I am as near as He. So dear, so very dear to God, More dear I cannot be; The love wherewith He loves the Son— Such is His love to me.
—C ATESBY P AGET
    We, “the Church of the firstborn,” are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. We are made in His image to reflect His glory (1 Corinthians 11:7). As the Body of Christ, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit, the
Spirit of Life
, the genesis of all. Christ breathed that Spirit into the Church giving it life just as God breathed life into the first man He formed from the dust of the ground so that he
“became a living being”
(Genesis 2:7 AMP). Paul wrote to the Romans,
“A new power is in operation.”
He explained that the
“Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death”
(Romans 8:2 MSG).
    The Church in the earth, birthed forth from the agony and passion of Christ, is His living will and testament; it is His Word alive in the world today. We are a living testimony to the power of God. We are called to overcome the world, to
“overcome evil with good”
(Romans 12:21). Jesus told His disciples that whoever was born of Him—whoever trusted and believed on