2Corinthians 5:17 (Amplified) says, "Therefore, if any person is (ingrafted) in Christ Jesus (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old (previous moral and spiritual condition) has passed. Behold, the fresh and new has come."
It requires spending time in God's Word with the Holy Spirit, in order to see ourselves the way God sees us. This isn't something we will learn from the world's religions or from things of the past. Today is the day of salvation! We've been living on the history of the Church age and man-made ideas of what and who the Lord's Church truly is. God's ideas about the new creation are entirely different than what we were always taught.
God has been reestablishing His relationship with His family, ever since Adam's fall in the Garden. He had to do this on a legal basis and a scriptural basis, according to the order of God's Word. God couldn't take shortcuts that would undermine the authority of His Word, because doing to would make His Word null and void. "God's Word is exalted even above His Name," according to Psalm 138:2 (Amplified) which says, "I will worship toward Your Holy temple and praise Your Name for Your loving kindness and Your truth and faithfulness; for You have exalted above all else Your Name and Your Word and You have magnified Your Word above all Your Name."
As Christians, we've never really had the fullness of this revealed to us in the truth of God's Word. We've explained away a good portion of His word, as though it had passed away and was no longer of importance in our lives. Jesus said that, "I only do what I hear the Father say." This tells us we should do only what God's Word and will tell us to do. Jesus said in John 3:34 (Amplified), "For since He Whom God has sent speaks the Words of God (proclaims God's Own message). God does not give Him His Spirit sparingly or by measure, but boundless is the gift God makes of His Spirit!"
God and His Word are One and we cannot do anything with power, outside of His Word. When we see the healings and miracles that Jesus did (or anyone else did in the Word), these things were the result of God watching over His Word to perform it. Jeremiah 1:12 (Amplified) says, "Then said the Lord to me, You have seen well, for I am alert and active, watching over My Word to perform it." Mark 16:20 (Amplified) says, "And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord kept working with them and confirming the message by the attesting signs and miracles that closely accompanied (it). Amen (so be it)."
When we preach the message of salvation, God confirms His Word by the "signs following" and people get saved. When we preach about healing, God also confirms His Word by healing people. When we preach deliverance, God will confirm His Word and deliver people. He only confirms His Word.
God is not responsible to confirm my words, if they are not His Words. If we preach that these things have passed away, then what is left for Him to confirm? We've allowed the world and religions to determine what we preach and there is very little of God's Word in this preaching, for Him to confirm. How can God possibly confirm messages about His "putting cancer on someone?" He sent His Word to heal and to deliver us from destruction, according to Psalm 107:20 (Amplified) which says, "He sends forth His Word and heals them and rescues them from the pit and destruction."
It's hard to know how we got so far away from speaking His Word, but it did not come from the Holy Spirit. The Church speaks the world's language, instead of God's language. We've put more faith in God's "putting sickness on us," rather than His healing us. Satan has been successful in having the Church focused more on the trials the Apostles endured to bring us God's Word, more than being focused on the Word they fought to establish.
Any time you begin speaking forth the truth of God's Word, you will find satan coming immediately to steal that Word, according to Mark 4:15(Amplified) where Jesus said, "The ones along the path are those who have the Word sown (in their hearts), but when they hear, satan comes at once and (by force) takes away the Message which is sown in them." We sometimes act like God is double-minded in what He does. He will never say one thing, and do another. His Word is true.
We have become double-minded, not Him. We sometimes think that because we're born-again, that everything occurring in our lives is God's will. It's difficult to think we can believe such a foolish notion. The world and satan fought Jesus at every turn. God's will for Jesus was to look at God to deliver Him and to continue doing what Jesus came to do. If any man had cause to doubt what he was doing, because of troubles occurring in His life, then it would be Jesus.
Paul was met by trouble everywhere he went, because he preached the revelation the Lord sent him to preach. The Lord, though, delivered Paul from out of the troubles and confirmed his message by the signs following. Religion and the world, have focused on the trials Paul endured, instead of the message he preached. I've encountered many trials and attacks of the enemy, simply for recounting the message God has given me to preach.
We've witnessed a falling away of the Message about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, in these last days. It's not that God no longer does this, but that we no longer preach it. He only confirms His Word, by signs following. He doesn't confirm our words. If we preach only what the world says as truth, then God is not obligated to do anything to confirm that message. I believe the fact that anyone receives anything from God today, is simply accidental. Once in awhile, we have a faith accident and actually give God enough Word to confirm in our lives, but then we don't know how to duplicate it. The Church has become so divided on His Word, that we find it difficult to know what He's actually doing or what His will is. The Holy Spirit is revealing the Truth of God's Word to the Church, but the world, along with our unrenewed minds, are lock into years of conditioning and we cannot see the Truth of His Word.
Those of us who dare go against the system, are looked upon like Jesus was by the scribes and Pharisees, when He preached in the Synagogue. They were so locked into the way things were, they couldn't see the way it is. The preachers and teachers aren't the only ones at fault, because we all have a Bible, as well as access to the Author of it, in prayer. Every new creation being has access to the Throne of God's Grace to obtain grace and mercy and revelation at any time.
We've become accustomed to having someone else studying and praying and have disregarded our own responsibility to seek out God. As new creation people, we have the privilege of actually speaking to the Creator Himself, for His instructions. We can do like Jesus did in His earthly ministry and we can hear the Father on our own. I'm not saying that we can't learn from our preachers and teachers, but that we have an "unction from the Holy One to know all things." 1John 1:25 (Amplified) says, "But you have been anointed by (you hold a sacred appointment from, you have been given an unction from) the Holy One; and you know (the truth) or you know all things." Even though they were taught with good intentions, many things have not been God's truth, but as the world teaches. The Holy Spirit is still the Teacher of the new creation.
God is not our problem. He is our Answer. I'll say it again, God is not our problem, but He is our Answer. We've reached the place where we cannot discern whether something is from God or satan. We've been deceived and don't know if we are supposed to submit to God or resist the devil. James said that this double-mindedness would make us "unstable in everything we do or say." Thus, James 1:5-8 (Amplified) tells us, "If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God (Who gives) to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or fault finding, and it (wisdom) will be given him. Only it must be in faith that he asks with no wavering (no hesitation, no doubting) For the one who wavers (hesitates, doubts) is like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind. For truly, let not such a person imagine that he will receive anything (he asks for) from the Lord."
Notice that James didn't say "God would not give the wisdom, but that the double-minded man would not receive it!" He continues in Verse 8, "(For being as he is) a man of two minds (hesitating, dubious, irresolute) (he is) unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything (he thinks, feels, decides)."
When we simultaneously face religion and revelation, we can become double-minded very quickly, if we do not walk in faith and the Holy Spirit. When the people of Jesus' time, faced religion and revelation, they chose tradition and made God's Word of no effect in their lives. They had to chose between revelation and tradition, but their double-mindedness made them choose tradition.
Today's Church has established so many traditions that don't line up with God's Word. We can ask God for wisdom or we can remain in the traditions of the past. If we remain double-minded in our asking, then we will not receive the wisdom of revelation and God's Word will not be in any effect in our lives. For those wishing to walk in the Spirit, we must believe that God's Word is still true and man's opinions cannot change one iota of that Word. If ever God existed, then HE STILL IS and we all know that HE NEVER CHANGES.
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