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."
In John 3:5-6 (Amplified) Jesus says,"I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, unless a man is born of water and even the Spirit, he cannot ever enter the Kingdom of God. What is born from the flesh is flesh (of the physical is physical); and what is born of the Spirit is spirit."
One must be born of the physical, in order to become physical and must be born of the Spirit, in order to become spirit. We've had a difficult time accepting the Truth that we are Spirit beings, in God's Own Image. Many Christians put off the spirit part, for when they get to Heaven. We've had a difficult time distinguishing the difference between becoming a spirit and actually being a spirit. We continue seeing ourselves as more flesh than spirit. You don't have a spirit. YOU ARE A SPIRIT. Your spirit is what and is, in God's Image. Your body isn't made in His Image. 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)."
God's Word tells us that Jesus came in the likeness of men (in the flesh), but His Spirit was in the Image of God, to the place where Jesus said, "It is the Father in Me Who does the work." If it was true that our flesh is in God's Image, then how would God look? Would He be brown, black, yellow, red or white? Would He a man or a woman, short or tall, fat or thin? Your flesh isn't in His Image, but your spirit is. We try making our body in His Image and fail by our own efforts. Your spirit is to control your flesh and not the other way around.
We've all probably what Paul wrote in 2Corinthians 5:16 (Amplified), but haven't understood it. Thus, he writes, "Consequently, from now on we estimate and regard no one from a purely human point of view (in terms of natural standards of value). No, even though we once did estimate Christ from a human viewpoint and as a Man, yet now we have such knowledge of Him that we know Him no longer in terms of the flesh. Therefore, if any person is ingrafted in Christ (the Messiah), he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old previous moral and spiritual condition has passed away. Behold! the fresh and new has come."
Paul says that we know Jesus in such a way, that "we no longer know Him after His flesh." This is unthinkable to many of us, because we still see Jesus as the Man from Bethlehem and Mary's Son. Jesus has put aside His mortal Body and is now clothed in His Heavenly Body, in the very Kingdom of God. He has a Body, but it's unlike the one that died and was buried. It's now Glorified and no longer subject to death. His Own Spirit is now the Life Source of His Glorified Body.
This is how we will be, when we leave this earth. We will have a body, but it will no longer be subject to the physical, but the spirit. You are a spirit! You won't "become a spirit," but you NOW ARE A SPIRIT. The reason it's so important we're in God's Word on a daily basis, is because God now deals with us as Spirit family. He doesn't correct and discipline our body, but our spirit.
God doesn't train your body, but your spirit. When your spirit yields to Him and receives correction, then it will train your body to walk not in the fleshly appetites of the world. Jesus said 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."
We've tried speaking life, to a dead flesh, hoping it will respond to Spiritual things. Jesus said that, "The flesh conveys no benefit whatever, there is no profit in it." The flesh was crucified and died with Jesus on the cross, it is dead. Your spirit was made alive on the other side of the cross, at Jesus' resurrection. God now deals with Spiritual people on a Spiritual scale.
The struggle with our flesh is overcome by the Life of our new creation spirit, as children of God. When the spirit is made strong by God's Word (which is Spirit and Life), the flesh will line-up with your spirit. If we don't understand and read the Truth about who we really are, then our flesh will dominate us and continue in it's old ways. Even though it's dead unto God, it will continue it's old ways out of habit and take your spirit with it.
Your body is only clothing for your spirit. Its the vehicle that takes your spirit from place to place. You drive the vehicle, the vehicle doesn't drive you. We don't stay on this earth without a body. That's how we function here on earth. When we leave this earth, then our body stops functioning. Our spirit is now the only life your body has, in order to operate in this earth. It's important to God, only as a means of delivering Him to world. We can't lay hands on the sick, preach the Gospel, cast out demons, or feed the poor and hungry, without a body. God needs your body to be strong and well, so that we can be ambassadors of His Kingdom, to the world.
We're Spiritual children of God and we're to allow His Word (which is Spirit and Life), to feed our spirit with the strength of His Word and the Power of His Might, so we can do His work. If God made you sick or disabled in your body, then He would be hindering Himself from doing what He left us here to do. Paul said, "We're no longer to be seen anymore after the flesh and by the natural man only, but by the spirit."
Jesus gives "The Parable of the Sower, in Mark 4, telling us that God's Word is Seed. 1Peter 2:2 (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." So, we know that God's Word, which is the Seed Jesus spoke about, is ever living and lasting. The King James Version calls it, "The incorruptible Seed." God's Word is Seed and our spirits are the soil for the Seed to produce in. It's important that we don' see ourselves after the flesh any longer, like Paul said in 2Corinthians 5:16-17.
So long as we see ourselves after the flesh our hearts aren't tilled to receive this Seed (Word) and bring forth the harvest, into the Spirit Kingdom. Jesus says in Mark 4:14-15 (Amplified), "The sower sows the Word. 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."
The soil must be prepared to receive the Seed. No one plants seed along the path, where people have continuously walked. The path's soil is hard-packed and seed will not take root in hard-packed soil. The first thing a farmer does in the spring, is prepare the soil. He turns it over, in order to kill any weeds and then he discs it to smooth out any hard places. Then the farmer harrows it to make it smooth and plants the seeds. After the seed is sown, he will cultivate between the rows, to discourage any weeds from growing and killing his harvest. After the crops have matured, he will go in and harvest the crop.
Many have tried sowing seed on the path, where people have walked for centuries. Most of them have never had a crop sprout up, because the path is hard-packed soil. The Seed (God's Word) has been sown on the path that religion has walked and trampled hard. In order to bring forth a harvest, we must first allow the Holy Spirit to prepare our heart to receive the Seed. Jesus told us that, "You can't put new wine in an old wine skin, because it will break the old wine skin and spill the new wine, so that both are lost." For anyone who has made homemade wine, you know that it builds a gas that must be allowed to expand. Many put a balloon over the top, to allow it to breath and the gas to expand. Then, it will settle down into the container without breaking it, but it must have room to expand first. If you make new wine or allow your spirit to receive the Word (Seed) or if you don't prepare your heart and stay by the path of hard-packed soil, then you'll lose the new wine and break the wine skin.
We can't walk the same path and stifle the Seed by putting it on hard-packed soil, because the enemy will take the Seed from you by force and you'll lose it all. We must keep our hearts pliable to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to til the soil of our hearts. Many have heard the Word or received the Seed in our hearts. We received it gladly at first, but then we stayed by the path or hard-packed soil of tradition and now we don't accept the Truth of God's Word. Many have been talked out of what the Seed would've produced years ago, because we didn't til the soil. Tradition took over the garden and now only weeds of man's ideas grow there.
2Timothy 2:5-6 (Amplified) says, "If anyone enters competitive games, he is not crowned unless he competes lawfully (fairly, according to the rules laid down). It is the hard working farmer who labors to produce, who must be the first partaker of the fruits."
No one can receive the crown from a marathon race, unless he/she stays on the lawful course. One can't cut across the field and place first, but must stay on the track. We can't make the Word work like it's supposed to, unless we do it the prescribed way. The farmer who works to keep his crops secure, won't only raise a good crop, but will be the first to partake of and enjoy the fruits of his labor. If we do it God's way, then we won't only receive the crown, but we'll also enjoy the fruit the Seed produces in our lives. Just because tradition says, "It won't work," doesn't mean the Seed has become corrupt. We must continue sowing and caring for the Seed, in order to walk in the fruit of it, like God's Word says.
Some have tried eating and enjoying fruit, from a crop they didn't plant. America's hardworking family farms are being phased out and we're becoming dependent o the grocery store, for our food. Without the farmer, we'll go hungry. In today's Church, we see people who run from one place to another, partaking of what other farmers have sown and reaped, instead of sowing for ourselves. We go from meeting to meeting, seeking men and women of God and the harvest of their labors. The hungry are still out there and most of them are still on the path, with it's hard-packed soil. This soil is hard-packed from the many feet and years of an unproductive tradition.
You're the only one who can determine your heart and know whether the Seed will grow there. You can turn a deaf ear or blind eye, deciding you don't need the Seed of God's Word. You can remain dependent on some other "farmer" to supply fruit for you or you can prepare your heart to hear and allow the Seed to produce in your life. The Year of Understanding has come to all who will allow their hearts to be pliable and receptive to the Seed of God's Word. Just because the Seed is sown or broadcast, doesn't mean it will produce where it has no place to take root.
Jesus described four different types of soil or people's hearts in His Parable. Only one kind of soil produced and even then it was limited. Some heard the Word and got excited about it, but then after awhile, they went back to the pathway they had always walked, which choked out the harvest. I've heard some say, "You mean we have to go back to watching what we say?" I answer, "You should never have stopped watching what you say."
They ask, "You mean I have to go back to praying in tongues?" Why would you ever stop praying in tongues? We forget what the rules of the competition are and what we're to play by. We start taking shortcuts to get a harvest, but no farmer ever receives a harvest, unless he plants seed. When was the last time you spent time in God's Word, learning and growing? Or, are you satisfied with where you are? Speaking God's Word forth from only memory won't feed your own spirit, anymore than the memory of a steak will feed your body. This is why Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:11, "Give us this day, our daily bread." We need to feed on God's Word daily.
The manna God sent those in the Wilderness, was only good for one day at a time. Each day, the people had to seek God for provision and food. God wasn't trying those in the Wilderness, they were trying and limiting Him. They tried competing by their rules, instead of just complying with the rules laid down. This is an individual walk with the Master. It's not based on how everyone else is doing, but how you are doing. Others might be satisfied with someone else's fruit, but I want to grow my own fruit and be able to feed the hungry from God's abundance.
No comments:
Post a Comment