John 1:17 (Amplified) says, "For while the Law was given through Moses, Grace (unearned, undeserved favor) and Spiritual Blessing, and Truth came through Jesus Christ."
We've discussed this Spiritual Blessing to a degree, but not to it's full potential. All Blessings came from and were given by and through the Spirit realm, because God is a Spirit, according to John 4:23 (Amplified) which says, "God is a Spirit (a Spiritual Being) and those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth (reality)." Those who aren't born-again and haven't become a new creation, can only experience this kind of Spiritual move in their flesh.
We've been in meetings where we "feel" the Holy Spirit or "see" things that the Holy Spirit is doing. We sometimes even "hear" prophecies the Lord speaks to us, but these things don't come close to the Spiritual Blessing that came through Jesus. This Spiritual Blessing comes when we receive Jesus and are saved in our heart. This Spiritual Blessing abides within our spirit and the Life of the Spirit is now infused with our own spirit.
The Church has struggled for centuries, searching for ways to "walk with the Lord," but we've mostly fashioned these ways from the outside or by the flesh. We try to have meetings that will minister to the flesh and bring feelings that prompt people to believe.
It's great to have feelings and the manifest, tangible Presence of the Holy Spirit, but this isn't what brings the walk with the Lord that satisfies the heart. The flesh develops a tolerance for feelings and will require more and more of them to satisfy it's cravings. This has resulted in many of today's problems. Taking drugs to "feel good," gives way to taking more drugs to maintain this feeling. This is the flesh and carnal man dominating the spirit of man. The flesh is in full control.
People go from meeting to meeting, in order to feel, see, and hear a Move of God, but after returning home, they can't seem to hold onto what they had at the last meeting. They begin the same search that drove them in the first place. They need to satisfy the feelings of the flesh, but it can never be satisfied and will demand more and more, in order to hold onto the high it remembers. Proverbs 18:14 (Amplified) says, "The strong spirit of a man sustains him in a bodily pain or trouble, but a weak or broken spirit who can raise up or bear?"
Our strength is in Him and He is a Spirit. The strength, relationship, conversation, peace, Life, Blessing, healing, Revelation, Wisdom and much more, are the Spiritual Blessing that came through Jesus Christ. In Romans 12:1-2 (Amplified) Paul writes, "I appeal to you therefore brethren, and beg of you in view of all the mercies of god, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies, presenting all your members and faculties as a living sacrifice, holy, devoted, consecrated, and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent, service) and spiritual worship." In John 4:23 (Amplified) Jesus said, "God is a Spirit (a Spiritual Being) and those who worship Him, must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth (reality)."
The only means of dedicating our bodies as "a living sacrifice" to God and making it "reality and Truth," is in and by our spirit in strength over our flesh. When your spirit is stronger than your flesh, it's a living sacrifice and is living through the Life of the Father within it. Paul writes about something that we've nearly lost hope for in our own walk with God and about pursuing Him is Spirit more than flesh, in Galatians 2:20 (Amplified) saying, "I have been crucified with Christ (in Him I have shared His crucifixion); it is no longer I who live, but Christ, the Messiah lives in me, and the Life I now live in the body I live by faith in, (by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in), the Son of God, Who Loved me and gave Himself up for me."
Many think this is "radical Christianity," but Paul believed it was life in the full. He immersed himself in God's Word, until it dominated his flesh, in full dedication to the spirit man within. Today's culture and society has decided this isn't necessary, in order to be a child of God. This is true, but it's difficult to dedicated your body as a living sacrifice to God, when that body is still living by it's own senses and not the spirit. Every human (whether Christian or non-Christian) has feelings and emotions. We were made that way by our Creator, so it's not wrong that we have feelings. It's wrong when feelings have us.
Paul instructs us to, "Present our body as a living sacrifice," in Romans 12:2 (Amplified) saying, "Do not be conformed to this world (this age), fashioned after and adapted to it's external, superficial customs, but be transformed, changed by the entire renewal of your mind, by it's new ideals and it's new attitude, so that you may prove for yourselves what is the Good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is Good and acceptable and perfect in His sight for you." This is for each individual to do and it available to "whosoever will," but most don't find it "necessary" to do, in order to be saved.
Jesus said in John 4:24 (Amplified), "God is a Spirit (a Spiritual Being), and those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth (reality)." I like the word "reality," being placed into the fuller meaning of the word, "Truth." Many think the reality of God and the Spiritual Blessing have been conformed to this world and age. Most don't know differently, because of lack of teaching and training. Many still wish to hold onto the traditions of the world, instead of the Word of God. We can see ourselves in the congregation Paul spoke to in Romans 10:2-3 (Amplified), where he said, "I bear them witness that they have a certain zeal and enthusiasm for God, but it is not enlightened and according to correct and to vital knowledge." Verse 3 says, "For being ignorant of the righteousness that God ascribes, which makes one acceptable to Him in word, deed, thought, and seeking to establish a righteousness, a means of salvation of their own, they did not obey or submit themselves to God's righteousness."
The above scripture describes the flesh overruling the spirit and this isn't how we "present our bodies a living sacrifice to God," but is how the body presents itself by it's own terms and traditions. We don't dominate the flesh from the outside, but put it under authority by our new life in the spirit. Proverbs 16:32 (Amplified) says, "He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his own spirit, than he who takes a city."
When we receive the Spiritual Blessing that came through Jesus, we can through Him, His Word and the Holy Spirit in our new spirit, put our spirit back in control of the flesh and live by our faith in Him and bring this body as a living sacrifice before Him. When we try doing this from the outside and effort of our will, we place ourselves back under what the Law couldn't do. The Law was Spiritual, but man was flesh and flesh could never keep the Spiritual Word of God by itself. Through Jesus, we have a new creation spirit that is living by God's Spirit. We can receive the Word (which is Spirit) and be led by the Spirit, so that "Greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world."
It might seem harder to learn the ways of the spirit, than to accept the way of the world. Many view it as a "work we must do," but for those who allow the Holy Spirit to teach them, it becomes liberty without a world of condemnation from the flesh. I don't want to just "go to Heaven when I die," but I want Heaven to live and move and be seen by world, even in this body. I want to be a living sacrifice and a glorious temple of the Holy Spirit.
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