John 1:16-17 (Amplified) says, "For out of His fullness (abundance), all have 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."
Many in the Church have dismissed the Revelation that the Holy Spirit has brought, because of a lack of understanding or the misuse of the Truth by others. Anyone who is truly born-again, would never knowingly dismiss the direction and leading of the Holy Spirit. In order to have the Church deny these Revelations, satan needed to first, cloud their understanding.
We've somehow believed that just reading the Word or hearing preaching is enough, because if God wants something done, then He will just do it. My friend Tommy Williams wrote this in his Partner Letter, saying, "It was never impossible for God to bring forth His Son, born of a virgin, but He had to have a virgin willing to accept and obey Him." This is a great Truth, from the man of God. What God is doing and what He intends to do, will get done, but it's up to you to be the one of those who will be willing and obedient to His will.
Much of the Church has walked more in the carnal realm, than in the Spirit. We haven't done this because we don't love God and don't want to please Him, but because we haven't understood the Spiritual aspect of God's Word. Romans 8:7 (Amplified) says, "That is, because the mind of the flesh, with its carnal thoughts and purposes, is hostile to God; for it does not submit itself to God's Law, indeed it cannot."
Notice that Paul says, "it cannot." The mind of the flesh, in its own trained way of thinking, cannot submit to God. The importance of renewing our mind is one of the great understandings the Holy Spirit will reveal to God's people, in this coming year. Many of us have thought that renewing our minds, means we try to stop thinking sinful thoughts. Even though this is true, it's not just refusing evil thoughts, but it's replacing them with God's thoughts and Words.
Training your minds by the Holy Spirit, is more than refusing bad thoughts, but is hearing His Voice. Even your carnal mind had to be trained in what it thought, when you came into this world. You had to be trained to speak, walk, think, understand words, do math, eat and even dress. None of these simple things that guide our lives, were there when we were born. The ability to conceive them was there, but we had to train our minds to obey our will.
Because we didn't understand the importance of doing this with the mind of the Spirit, we simply lapsed into a religious attitude in our walk with the Father. We were born of the Spirit, but still walked in the understanding we'd been trained in. Without discipline, your mind will never change it's dictates on its own. It must be trained to do so, according to Romans 8:1-2 (Amplified) which says, "Therefore, there is no condemnation (no adjudging guilty of wrong), for those who are in Christ Jesus, who live and walk not after the dictates of the flesh, but after the dictate of the Spirit. For the Law of the Spirit of Life which is in Christ Jesus (the Law of our new being), has freed me from the Law of Sin and of Death."
Notice, the above scripture doesn't say that we're not under the Law of the Spirit of Life, but that the mind that isn't trained by the Law of the Spirit of Life will still dictate to you, the condemnation in which it was trained. We must renew our minds and get understanding. Many fellow believers, still walk by the dictates of the flesh or their old unrenewed minds. It's difficult for them to even believe that they're righteous before God and justified in Christ Jesus. They are righteous in Him, but their old, unrenewed minds won't let them walk and enjoy the Law of the Spirit of Life, because it's hostile and doesn't submit itself to God. Paul said it "cannot submit itself to God."
Without being renewed by the understanding of righteousness, your minds can only dictate what it's been trained to think, which will keep you under thoughts of condemnation, even though God has made you free. The Year of Understanding is nothing new, nor is it some weird Revelation that goes against God. It is rather, that the Spirit will open the eyes of our understanding to what has been there all along.
Paul writes to us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in 1Corinthians 12:2 (Amplified) saying, "Do not be conformed to this world (this age), fashioned after and adapted to its external (superficial) customs, but be transformed (changed), by the entire renewal of your mind, by its new ideals and its new attitude, so that you can prove for yourselves what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing that is good and acceptable and perfect in His sight for you."
God has never had anything in His mind, except that which is good and acceptable and perfect for you, but until you've renewed and trained your mind by His Word and Spirit, you will be unable to prove for yourself what He really has in His heart for you. We struggle in our own minds about what God's will is, because we have no understanding (even about the above scripture). This is one of the greatest hindrances to the Church today. We have no understanding of what God's will really is.
It is God's will to heal today? Is it His will for us to speak in tongues, walk in prosperity and believe we're righteous in Christ Jesus? Or, is it God's will for us to have no understanding about this? Paul said that we can "prove for ourselves what is His will, by renewing our minds and training them to think and dictate the things of the Spirit of Life which is in Christ Jesus, the dictates of the Spirit." We've never yet understood what Paul calls, "The Law of our new being (the new creation)."
Proverbs 4:7 (Amplified) says, "The beginning of Wisdom is get Wisdom, skillful and Godly Wisdom. For skillful and Godly Wisdom is the principal things. And with all you have gotten, get understanding (discernment, comprehension, and interpretation)." Have you ever tried teaching someone a new thing, but they couldn't get it right? You might say, "They hear what I'm saying, but they don't seem to comprehend what I'm telling them," right? Jesus said nearly the same thing in Mark 4, when giving "The Parable of the Sower," He said, "Having ears they don't hear, and having eyes, they don't see." They heard what Jesus was saying, but they didn't comprehend what He was telling them.
Love you,
Jim
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