John 1:16-17 (Amplified) says, "For out of His fullness (abundance), we have all received, all had a share and were all supplied with, one Grace after another and Spiritual Blessing upon Spiritual Blessing and even favor upon favor and Gift heaped upon Gift. For while the Law was given through Moses, Grace (unearned, undeserved favor) and Spiritual Blessing and Truth, came through Jesus Christ."
Truth is the greatest of all things, in the life of a believer. Jesus said in John 8:31-32, 36 (Amplified), "If you abide in My Word (hold fast to My teachings and live in accordance with them), you are truly My disciples. And you will know the Truth and the Truth will set you free."
Notice, Jesus tells us, "If we abide in His Word, which is Truth, you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free." Jesus continues in Verse 36 saying, "So if the Son liberates you (makes you free men), then you are really and unquestionably free."
When we received Jesus as our Savior and Lord, our freedom was a "done deal." There is no bondage that can overcome the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. So, why are so many in today's Church, still in bondage to so many things? The first part of the above scripture, is the key to freedom, where Jesus said, "If you abide (live) in My Word (hold fast to My teachings and live according to them)..."
The teachings of Jesus didn't stop at the end of the four Gospels. The four Gospels were actually Old Testament books and didn't become reality to us, until Jesus rose from the dead, ascended to the Father and sent the Holy Spirit. Since that time, Paul and others wrote other books of the Bible and these were the Words of Jesus.
Paul write in Galatians 1:11-12 (Amplified), "For I want you to know brethren, that the Gospel which was proclaimed and made known to me is not a man's gospel (a human invention, according to or patterned after any human standard). For indeed I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through a direct Revelation given by Jesus Christ (the Messiah)."
When we read Paul's Gospel, we're doing what Jesus said, and are "holding fast to His teachings and living in accordance with them." Jesus said that, when we do this, "Then we will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free."
Many things that Paul wrote in his Epistles, have been determined by carnal minds, to be "man's gospel and human invention." Anything man couldn't understand by his own understanding, was simply dismissed as being "not relevant for us today." We, then, haven't known the Truth, but a truth. The Truth will bring us into liberty in Christ Jesus, according to Romans 10:9 (Amplified) which says, "Because if you acknowledge and confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and in your heart believe, trust in, adhere to, and rely on the Truth that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."
Many have expressed faith in the Truth that God has raised Jesus from the dead and they've been saved. But, Truth goes beyond the Truth that Jesus was raised from the dead. This Truth has led you to become born-again, but now we're to abide in Him, in His teachings and this Truth will set us free. Weren't we set free, when we were born-again? Yes! But, do you know how to walk in this freedom, without knowing how to live in accordance to His teachings?
Understanding the Truth that has made you free, is the key to living in freedom and liberty. When we don't understand what a things is for, we nearly always abuse it. When we don't understand our liberty in Christ, we either abuse this liberty or allow someone else to dictate our liberty for us and this inherently translates into man's wisdom and bondage. Natural, carnal minded man can only understand truth according to this natural world and knowledge. If one can't explain it by natural means, then he dismisses it as "not being relevant for us today."
The first thing about understanding, is realizing that we're dealing in a Spiritual Truth and not a natural things. In order to understand Spiritual Truth, we must have a renewed mind. The natural man can't understand what education hasn't taught him. This is why Paul writes in Galatians 1:11-12 (Amplified), "For I want you to know brethren, that the Gospel which was proclaimed and made known by me, is not a man's gospel (a human invention, according or patterned after any human standards). For indeed I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it; but it came to me through a direct Revelation given by Jesus Christ (the Messiah)."
Jesus knows more about this new birth and this new creation people, than anyone and we must understand what Paul is saying about the Spiritual application of the Gospel. We're interpreted Grace by our own intellect and devised some pretty far-out things. We continue trying to bring the Spiritual aspects of the Gospel, into our natural understanding and by doing this, we've nearly removed God's ability to move in our natural world.
Not everyone will accept the Year of Understanding, just like those who didn't receive the things Jesus taught in His ministry. Some will cling to old traditions and religious teachings. Everything we've learned throughout the years, hasn't been wrong. Many things that we've been taught came from Revelation, but then men changed them according to natural understandings and lost sight of the Truth.
When God speaks about understanding, He's not referring simply to our knowing how to read. He's speaking about our perceiving in our spirit, the full Truth of His Word. Jesus told us in John 6:63 (Amplified), "It is the Spirit Who gives Life (He is the Life-Giver); the flesh conveys no benefit whatever (there is no profit in it). The Words (Truths) that I have been speaking to you are SPIRIT AND LIFE."
How many of us have ever considered words to be Spirit and not just a means of communicating? It's true that words are part of communication, but we must also understand what Jesus was saying in the above scripture. Jesus told us in John 4:24 (Amplified), "God is a Spirit (a Spirit Being), and those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and Truth (reality)." Since God is Spirit and His Word is Spirit and we are Spirit (made in His Image and Likeness), we must put value on understanding His Word.
When Paul writes about the Revelation he received from Jesus, he is speaking to three different kinds of people. He's speaking to the natural man, those who are unsaved. He is speaking to those who are saved and haven't renewed their minds (are carnal minded people). And, Paul's speaking those those who have renewed their minds by understanding Spiritual things.
Paul writes in Romans 8:7,9 (Amplified), "That is because the mind of the flesh, with its carnal thought and purposes, is hostile to God for it does not submit itself to God's Law, indeed it cannot." He writes to those who are born-again in Verse 9 saying, "But you are not living the life of the flesh, you are living the Life of the Spirit, if the Holy Spirit of God really dwells within you, directs and controls you. But if anyone does not possess the Holy Spirit of Christ, he is none of His, he does not belong to Christ, is not truly a child of God."
In 1Corinthians 3:1-3 (Amplified), Paul writes to the Church in Corinth, saying, "However Brethren, I could not talk to you as to spiritual men, but as to non-spiritual men of the flesh; in whom the carnal nature predominates, as to mere infants in the New Life in Christ (unable to talk yet). I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not yet strong enough to be ready for it; but even yet you are not strong enough to be ready for it. For you are still unspiritual (having the nature of the flesh, under the control of the ordinary impulses). For as long as there are envying, and jealousy and wranglings and factions among you, are you not unspiritual and of the flesh (behaving yourselves after a human standard and like mere unsaved men)?"
Paul called those who were wrangling and envying among themselves, "mere unsaved men." Paul said that this type of behavior comes from the lack of understanding spiritual things. The carnal mind is an enemy of God and it refuses to accept anything it can't understand in the natural, carnal, worldly explanations. Remember, we have been born-again, not be a natural seed, but One that is Spirit. 1Peter 1:23 (Amplified) says, "You have been regenerated (born-again), not from a mortal origin (seed, sperm), but from One that is Immortal, by the Ever Living and Lasting Word of God."
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