Now Faith Is, Chapter 11
John made an interesting statement in 1 Jn. 5:11-15,
"And this is the
record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his
Son. He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God
has not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the
name of the Son of God; that you may know that you have eternal life, and that
you may believe on the name of the Son of God. And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if
we ask any thing according to his will, he hears us: And if we know that
he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we
desired of him."
My question to you today is
this. Do you believe that you can ask the Lord for anything that is in
accordance with His will and He will give it to you? If you really believe this
is true then all you have to do is find out what His will is and ask Him! You
may say, "Well, are you telling me that I can ask God for anything that is
His will for me to have and He will give it to me?" NO! I didn't say that,
the great Apostle John who used to live with Jesus said that.
Do you need for God to do
something for you today? Then, get into His Word and find out what His will for
you is and then ask Him for it. How did you get saved? Didn't someone tell you
about Jesus or did you read the Bible and believe what you heard or read and
when you believed it you ask Jesus to come into your heart? How do you know beyond any shadow of a doubt that you
are saved? Isn't it because you have faith in what you read in the Bible?
Let me ask you this question. Do
you have to see something before you believe that it is real? You have never
seen gravity and yet you have experience the results of gravity when you jump
off of something. You never have seen the wind that we are experiencing this
week but it will knock you down if you don't watch your step. You believe in a
lot of things that you cannot see. Then why is it so hard for you to believe
what God has told you? You believe that it is impossible for Him to lie and yet
you find it hard to believe what His word has to say to you about healing,
prosperity, faith, the fact that all things are possible for you if you believe,
and that you now have eternal life?
The answer is simple!
Unbelief!!! You give mental assent to the word of God but then make excuses why
it doesn't work for you because you can't see, touch, feel or taste it. You run
these thoughts through your carnal mind which is opposed to the things of God
and it makes all kind of excuses for you distorting what you believe by telling
you that these things were either for those living in the past or will be
available to you in the future when Christ returns but never available to you
now when you need them. Paul said in Rom. 8:4-9,
"That the righteousness of
the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh;
but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally
minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and
peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not
subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that
are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be
that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he is none of his."
I was taught, like a lot of
you, when I was growing up in church that the Holy Spirit did not dwell in us
and they really had trouble explaining what Paul had to say about the Spirit in
the book of Romans. I was taught that we didn't need the Baptism of the Holy
Spirit because we now have the written Bible and all we need to do is to study
it and do exactly what it tells us to do and we would be approved of God. Yet,
Paul's writings are filled with teaching about the indwelling Spirit of God.
The reason that so many
people have a problem with the Spirit of God dwelling within them is because
they have not learned to walk by faith and to trust God. It is easier for them
to place their faith in their own ability to understand the will of their
Father and not have to be led by the Spirit of God whom they cannot see. Jesus
had something to say about this to Nicodemus in John 3:5-8,
"I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of
God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to
flesh, but the Spirit
gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying,
‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot
tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of
the Spirit."
He also told the woman at
the well in John 4:21-24,
"Woman, believe me, the hour
cometh, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship
the Father. You worship you know not
what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall
worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship
him. God is Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in
spirit and in truth."
It is impossible for the carnal
or fleshly mind to follow the Spirit because the carnal mind wants to live
according to the Law. Do's and Don'ts for the Christian. I used to teach a book
written by Leroy Brownlow called "Ten Do's and Don't For the
Christian". My Dad used to argue with me that the Old Law has been done
away with but that we now have a new Law, The Law of Christ. And you know
something, He was right to a point.
Paul said in Rom. 8:1-4,
"There is therefore now no
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. For
the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of
sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak
through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law
might be fulfilled in us, who
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
The difference between the
Law and the Law of the Spirit is explained by Paul in 2 Cor. 3:17 where he said,
"The Lord is the Spirit, and where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."
Because we live in this body
of flesh with it's dependency upon it's five senses, it is hard for us to
accept the fact that we are spirit and we have a soul, which is our mind, will
and emotions, and that we live right now in a body of flesh. This body of flesh
occupies a lot of our time having to deal with it because it has needs and
desires that have to be fulfilled in order for it to live and function. So if
we get wrapped up in it's demands it becomes very hard to realize that we
really are spirit and will live forever but not in this body of flesh.
The Apostle Paul had a lot to
say about those who want to live under Law in the book of Galatians and
Ephesians. He said in Gal. 2:15-16,
"We who are Jews by birth and
not ‘Gentile sinners’ know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So
we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law,
because by observing the
law no one will be justified."
Paul also said in 2 Cor.
3:6,
"Who also has made us able ministers of the
new testament; not of the letter, but of the
spirit: for the letter kills, but the spirit gives
life."
The letter of the law kills
because of this body of flesh and it's desires and that is why flesh and blood
cannot inherit The Kingdom of God. Paul said in 1 Cor. 15:50,
"Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit
incorruption."
The point I am trying to make is that you
need to relax and trust your faith in Jesus Christ and what He has done for you
to be your righteousness and stop trying to save your carnal mind. Instead
allow the mind of your spirit to be renewed by practicing the principals that
Jesus gave us on the sermon of the mount. Stop judging people, start forgiving
them, start seeking The Kingdom of God which is within your spirit, start
loving all people, start giving to others of your time and talents, and start
loving your neighbor. These things are the essences of The Kingdom of God. You
can experience what heaven will be like in this life if you will practice these
things. They are not laws, rather, they are ways of living the life that Jesus
came to give to us. Paul made a very powerful statement in 1 Cor. 2:16 when he said,
"For who has known the
mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."
You might say, "Well,
Dave, How do we have the mind of Christ?" "Do you mean that I can
know what the Lord knows?"
In order to answer that I
will have to quote to you what the scriptures have to say about this. Jesus
said in John 14:15-17,
"If you love me, keep
my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another
Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth;
whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but
you know him; for he dwells with you, (or lives with you) and shall be in
you."
Who was Jesus talking about
when He said that the Spirit of truth was dwelling with them? I think that you
will agree with me that He was talking about Himself! Jesus is referred to by
John as, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the
Word was God!" Jn. 1:1 Again, Jesus said in John 14:18-21,
"I will not leave you
comfortless: I will come
to you. Yet in a little while, and the world will see me no more;
but you will see me: because I live, you shall live also. In that day you shall know that
I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. He that has my
commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me shall be loved
of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest (or reveal) myself to him."
Notice that Jesus said that
He would come to us and dwell within us. He can do that because He is the
Spirit of truth and He and our Father are one. Now, I want to make a very
profound statement to you. On the day of Pentecost Jesus came back to this earth
in the form of the Holy Spirit to dwell in the Church. He has been here for the
past 2000 years dwelling in His called out ones and He will continue to dwell
in us through out the ages to come.
Paul confirmed this when he
said in Col. 1:25-28
"Whereof I am made a minister, according to
the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill the word of
God; Even
the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made
manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this
mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of
glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and
teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in
Christ Jesus!"
This mystery of God which was given to
Paul so he could make it known among Christ can dwell
within each of us. God offered up himself and His incorruptible life on the
cross through His Son Jesus, who was the second Adam, and as a result of His
representing all of us, provided a way that we could be born again in God's
sight and be reconciled back to God. We were estranged from God by the first
Adam and it took the blood of God, or the life of God, to reconcile us back to
Him. Paul talked about this in his writings, especially the book of Romans,
chapters 1-8.
The result of all of this is that now the
Christ can dwell in each of us inspiring us and revealing to us the will of His
Father who has been reconciled to us and now dwells in each of us who believes.
He even gives us the faith to believe so that we can be reconciled.
When you accepted Jesus into your heart by
confessing that you believe that He is the Son of God and that He died on your
behalf, (Rom. 10:8-10) something happened to your spirit as the Spirit of the
Lord united with it and bared witness that you are a son of God. Paul said in
Rom. 8:10-11 and 8:14-17,
"And if Christ be in you,
the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of
righteousness. But if
the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he
that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in
you. For as many as
are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you
have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received
the Spirit of adoption, hereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself bears witness
with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then
heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ;...!"
Brethren, the real you is
just like our Father who has given birth to you. The real you is spirit just
like your Father who gave life to you and as such is eternal. I know that all
of what I have been sharing with you may be hard for you to understand but just
ask our Father to explain it to you.