Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Lesson 26 THE YEAR OF UNDERSTANDING - Original Intent

     Genesis 1:26-27 (Amplified) reads, "God said, Let Us (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) make mankind in Our Image (after Our Likeness), and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame beasts, and over all the earth, and everything that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in the Image and Likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them."
     God's Original Intent was to have a family, whom He would call His children and His offspring.  Adam and Eve were to have the Wisdom of God, the faith of God and the authority God had given them, over all the earth and everything in it.  The God-Head was to be man's teacher and was to show man all things that their Father God had made for them.
     Genesis 2:7 (Amplified) says, "Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the Breath or Spirit of Life, and man became a living being."  Man was a spirit being, just like God is, and was made in God's Image and Likeness.  Adam only knew his Father and followed His instructions.  It was only after God formed man from the dust of the ground, that Adam even thought about trespassing against God. 
     Through Jesus,  we've been created and made back into God's Image and Likeness again.  We've also been transfigured into what Adam was in the beginning.  Adam's spirit was perfect, clean and holy before God.  We've been made new and born-again, according to 2Corinthians 5:17 (Amplified), which says, "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."
     We mostly see ourselves still as flesh and blood beings, who have God's Spirit living inside us.  God sees us as being like Adam was, before he was made flesh and blood.  We see ourselves after Adam's transgression.  God sees us like He saw Adam, prior to his transgression.  Through Jesus, God has restored us back to His Original Intent.  Jesus paid the Price of Adam's transgression, so God sees us as free from sin and whole again.
     This has been the downfall for what we now know as Christianity.  We've become fearful and hide from God, like Adam was after he sinned and was separated from God.  We've been brought back to like Adam was, before sinning.  It's hard for us to imagine our being pure and holy in God's Presence, after being the persons we were before receiving Jesus and were created new creatures altogether.  The old moral and spiritual condition still holds us captive. 
     We've lived from the outside-in, instead of the inside-out for so long and judge ourselves after Adam, instead of Jesus Christ.  So long as we see ourselves after the First Adam, instead of the Last Adam Jesus, we will continue living under the condemnation of the flesh and senses.  This will hold us back from the things our Father really wants to do in our lives.  Romans 8:1-2 (Amplified) says, "Therefore, there is now 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 dictates 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."
     Many of us continue to walk in the dictates of the flesh, instead of the dictates of the Spirit.  We remember more about who we were, instead of who Jesus has made us to be.  The flesh will always remind you of who you once were and dictate that to you, while the Spirit will dictate who you've been made to be in Jesus.  Paul writes about the dictates of the flesh in Romans 8:7 (Amplified), saying, "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."
     As long as your carnal nature can rule your spirit man, it will hold on and control you.  This is why Paul writes in Romans 12:1-2 (Amplified), "I appeal to you therefore brethren,  and beg 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. 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 the perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect in His sight for you."
     We can only see ourselves after God's Original Intent, by renewing our minds with the mind of Christ.  Most of us have been led more by the carnal mind or what Paul calls, "the dictates of the flesh," instead of the dictates of the Spirit.  We've been fearful we'll displease God, instead of believing what Jesus has actually done for us.  We've yet to discover the difference between carnal pride and Spiritual Truth.  You'll never know or understand God's Perfect will for you, until you truly believe the totality of what Jesus has done to return us back to God's Original Intent for mankind.
     Boasting about our God, instead of ourselves, puts things in a different light.  Jesus didn't think it boastful or prideful, when He said, "I and the Father are One."  He didn't think it was prideful to say that, "God was His Father."  We declare that, "God is our Father," but we seem afraid to declare that "We are His sons and daughters."  This is the carnal mind's refusing to release the flesh, to the Spirit.  God is not offended when we say we're His sons and daughters.  If He calls us His beloved, then how can we offend Him, when we declare our love to Him, as His children?
     When we understand this, then we can come boldly before His Throne of Grace.  The dictates of the flesh, will keep us in the outer courts.  Through Jesus, we can now enter into the Holy of Holies and worship in Spirit and Truth.  This is the boldness of Righteousness, that we obtained through Jesus.  You are now right with God and are upright before Him, because of Jesus.  Because of Jesus, we now have the right to come into God's Presence again.  We've been made one with Jesus, by the Holy Spirit and are in His Righteousness, not our own.  It's only by faith in God's Word, that we can enter by Grace again.  Jesus is the Door, and it's been opened into God's Own Presence to us again.
   

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