ARBOREAL PEACE!

   ‘Gibbon Monkey photo by Charles J. Sharp CC BY-SA 4.0.

Did you know that there are animals and critters that live their entire lives in the canopy of trees? They are called arboreal animals!  Each has special adaptations for tree-top-living.  Some, like the gibbon monkey, (See photo above), have extra-long arms that allow them to swing from tree to tree.  Others have ‘prehensile tails’, tails that are unusually long and are used for balance and to anchor them to trees. Some even use these tails to sleep in!  Others have long claws used to grip trees and branches, like the sloth, or membranes for gliding like flying squirrels!  Tree-top-living protects arboreal animals from predators that live on the forest floor.

I called this post ‘Arboreal Peace’ because these animals live, in a sense, ‘in the world, but not of the world’.  They live in the trees for protection.  Jesus prayed to His father for those who belong to Him, ‘I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.  My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.’  John 17:14-16.  It is very reassuring to understand that we live in the world, but are not of the world because we are already ‘raised up with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.’  Ephesians 2:6. Like arboreal animals, we live above the world in the ‘heavenly realms’.  This is our place of ‘protection from the evil one!  A place of victory, grace, honor and above all, peace!

We who are in Christ died with Him, were buried and resurrected with Him. 
‘Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.’  Romans 6:3-5.

As an article in thirdmill.com stated so well, ‘All those “in Christ” are in an intimate, solemn, binding, and eternal covenant with Christ (Heb. 13:20-21). They are eternally in union and identified with him. When Christ died, we died (Rom. 6:3). When he was buried, we were buried (Rom. 6:4). When he was raised up, we were raised up (Rom. 6:4-5; Eph. 2:5). When he was glorified, raised, and seated his invisible church was also (Rom. 8:30; Col. 3:1; Eph. 2:6). So, believers are co-crucified, co-buried and co-resurrected with Christ (Rom. 6:3-5); co-quickened, co-raised, co-seated in the heavenly places with Christ (Eph. 2:5-6); and co-buried, co-raised, co-quickened with him (Col. 2:12-13; 3:1). No wonder Paul seems to already be raptured and in ecstasy when he pens Romans 8:31-39! So great a salvation! (Heb. 2:3)! thirdmill.com.

‘Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.’  Colossians 3:1-3.

Set your mind on the fact that you are right now ‘seated with Christ in the heavenly realm’, and like the arboreal animals who live above the world, you will have a new sense of peace!

ARBOREAL PEACE BE WITH YOU!
TAKE TO THE TREES!