Chapter Three

 

One of the problems we have today in the Church is that we are constantly being preached and drilled into our heads that we are children of God. We accept this and confess that we are children of God. How many times have you said, "I am a child of God?" As a result we see ourselves as children who have to be told how to conduct ourselves in this life. We see ourselves as immature and not having any authority that comes with maturity and so our prayers reflect the attitude that has been developed by years of sitting under teachers that refer to us as children. How many prayers do we say or do we hear asking God to do things for us that He has given us the authority to do?

 

We pray for Him to cause Uncle Fred to stop smoking and to do whatever it takes to stop Aunt Millie from drinking. This is nothing more than spiritual witchcraft! Trying to have God make others do what we want them to do. How many parents do you know that try to Lord over their children and never allow them to grow up and take responsibility for their own lives. How many parents never allow their children to make some decisions for themselves but are always telling them what they must do? As a result, they never are taught to mature and learn to use wisdom in their many decisions.

 

As long as we continue to see ourselves as Children of God we will never learn to be over comers and we will never change the world around us. Paul said in Heb. 5:10-14; 6:1-3,

 

"(Jesus) Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec.    Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing you are dull of hearing.    For when for the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For   every one that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.    But strong meat belongs to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this will we do, if God permits."

 

I was told by my teachers, when I was a child, that we must try to be like Christ as much as possible but that we could never be perfect like Him in this world and that when He comes back we will be change in a moment and become like Him then. Because they had difficulty in accomplishing this, our teachers made excuses to avoid what Jesus said. He told us to judge not (Matt. 7:1), to be perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect! (Matt. 5:48), and He told us in Matt. 6:40, "The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master." 

 

And John told us in 1 John 3:2-3,

 

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.    And every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure."

 

When I was 6 or 7 years old I remember being taught a lot about the sermon on the mount and the Beatitudes and even had to memorize some of them for which I am eternally grateful but I was also told that I could not be perfect until Jesus returns. My thinking, even at this early age, was then why did Jesus tell me to do something that was impossible for me to do? There were so many scriptures that my teachers could not explain to me. I was taught that 1 Jn. 3:2-3 meant that we would be made like Jesus when He comes again and until then we must try to be like Jesus but we would never be able to be like Him until then. To me, this was God telling me to do something that was impossible for me to do.

 

Actually, if I try to be like Jesus and obey all the instructions He gave me in the sermon on the mount by my own power and will, it will be impossible for me to accomplish. However, God was well aware of this when He instructed Jesus to say this to us and in order to accomplish what Jesus told us to do He said in Jn. 14:16-20,

 

"I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; that is the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but you know him; for he (Jesus) dwells with you, and shall be in you. 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. At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. He that has my commandments (beatitudes), 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 (reveal) myself to him." 

 

Brethren, this is the Good News or the Gospel! The good news is that Jesus paid the price of our salvation from sin in full and not ours only but the world also. John said in 1 Jn. 2:1-2,

 

"And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:    And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world."

 

Because in the past so many of our teachers tried to understand the Bible using only their intellect to understand things that are written in spiritual terminology and could not rightfully understand the real meaning of what they were reading and as a result taught us their own man made doctrines. We, however, have no excuse because in this age we are living in, the Lord is revealing Himself to those who are seeking truth and have learned to listen to what the Spirit of Truth is saying.

 

Let me share with you what John was saying in 1 John 3:2-3,

 

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.    And every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure."

 

The first thing I want to point out to you is that John said that we are sons of God now! Not children any longer but we have matured to be sons no longer tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. Not some time in the future but NOW! He also said that when Jesus comes we will be like Him. He did not say that we would be made like Him when He comes but that we will be like Him when He comes. He is coming after a mature Bride, not one that is a child but one that He can show off to all creation as a proper mate for Him. In Rev. 21:2, John said,

 

"And I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." 

 

Notice also that he said that we are to purify ourselves and be pure even as He is pure. The beautiful thing about this is that we are not in this endeavor of purifying ourselves alone. Paul said in Phil. 2:12-13,

 

"Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

 

  eWewwwwwwww             We have the same Spirit dwelling in us that Jesus had when He was here and that is the Spirit of Truth which works in us to inspire us to have the desire and the ability to do the will of our Father. The Lord said this in Jer. 31:31-34 and Heb. 8:10-12,

 

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." 

 

 

 

 

The very truth of these scriptures should convince us that we have been given authority on this earth and we can, as the body of Christ, take authority over what this world system is trying to do to us. We no longer have to just sit back and take it on the chin because it is time for the Church of the Living God to stand up and be heard.

 

I read about a woman named Pam, who knows the pain of considering abortion.

 

More than 24 years ago, she and her husband Bob were serving as missionaries to the Philippines and praying for a fifth child.  Pam contracted amoebic dysentery, an infection of the intestine caused by a parasite found in contaminated food or drink. She went into a coma and was treated with strong antibiotics before they discovered she was pregnant.

 

Doctors urged her to abort the baby for her own safety and told her that the medicines had caused irreversible damage to her baby.  She refused the abortion and cited her Christian faith as the reason for her hope that her son would be born without the devastating disabilities the physicians predicted.  Pam said the doctors didn't think of it as a life, they thought of it as a mass of fetal tissue. 

 

While pregnant, Pam nearly lost their baby four times but refused to consider abortion.  She recalled making a pledge to God with her husband:  If you will give us a son, we’ll name him Timothy and we’ll make him a preacher.  Pam ultimately spent the last two months of her pregnancy in bed and eventually gave birth to a healthy baby boy August 14, 1987.  Pam’s youngest son is indeed a preacher.  He preaches in prisons, makes hospital visits, and serves with his father’s ministry in the Philippines. 

 

He also plays football.  Pam’s son is Tim Tebow.  The University of Florida’s star quarterback became the first sophomore in history to win college football’s highest award, the Heisman Trophy.  His current role as quarterback of the Denver Broncos has provided an incredible platform for him to share his faith in the Lord. 

 

If a young man who's mother was told to abort him by her doctors can stir up not

only the sports world but make headlines in every media by standing up and proclaiming his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ just think what we can do if we will just stand up and proclaim to this world by faith that we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. Rom. 8:37

 

Whether the Denver Broncos win any more games this year or not the world has been awaken to what faith will do if you just learn to believe that what you say has authority. Tim is not alone in the sports world. Just watch the next time when some football player is hurt seriously and notice how many players surround him and pray for him.

 

John said in 1 Jn. 4:4-6,

 

"You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood."

 

The point I am trying to make to you today is that the time has come that we need to realize who we are and begin to act like it. We have been taught all our lives that we are children and the image that we have of ourselves is that of a child but Paul said in Rom. 8:29-30,

 

"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.    Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified."

 

John said in 1 Jn. 3:1,

 

"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knows us not, because it knew him not." 

 

Paul also said in Rom. 8:18-19,

 

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God."

 

We are sons of the most high God and by faith we reign with Him on this earth. Paul said in Eph. 2:6,

 

"God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus." 

 

The carnal mind cannot accept the reality of these scriptures because it has to be revealed to you by His Spirit. In God's eyes we have been raised up with Christ and seated at His right hand of authority. Remember that this is the God that calls things that be not as though they were (Rom. 4:17). The Spirit world has no time but is one eternal NOW! Paul said in Col. 3:1-3,

 

"If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, (or be revealed) then you also shall appear (or be revealed) with him in glory."

 

This is a strange statement! Paul what do you mean that I am dead? I still breath, eat, sleep and wake up each day! Do you see now how the carnal mind  determines everything by the five senses? In God's eyes, we died with Jesus because He was our representative and we were in Him so when He died we died also and when He was resurrected we were resurrected with Him and when He returned to the Father we returned to the Father and was seated with Him at the right hand of the Father.

 

Your carnal mind can only understand literal things and to it this doesn't make sense. In order to understand this and to see this we must accept it by faith because we believe God's word that this is what happened and will one day be manifest in reality. So until this comes to past we must walk by faith just like Abraham did.

 

The Spirit revealed this to Paul and this is why he said in Gal. 2:20,

 

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."