For too many years, the Church has only seen ourselves after the world's viewpoint, instead of what God's Word says about us. We've accepted and adopted the teachings that were handed down to us, which came from man's ideas and carnal thinking. Thankfully, the Truth about salvation and being born-again, have been preserved, but the full knowledge of who we became at the new birth, has been suppressed. We've cleaned up our lives and try our best to live pure lives for God, but we still don't know who God's made us to be on this earth.
Paul writes to the Church in Corinth in 2Corinthians 5:16-17 (Amplified), saying, "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."
We've been taught and have worked hard to be acceptable to God. We try being good enough for the Father to accept us in our weakened and mortal state of being. Our failures and weaknesses are magnified by others and by the memories we have of our lives prior to being born-again. The remembrance of our old lives and condemnation that brings, still lives larger in our minds than the Truth of what Jesus did for us on Calvary's cross. Others in the Church still point out who were once were, instead of who Jesus made us to be.
Too few of us have ever really seen ourselves after the Truth of being new creations in Christ. The new creation person isn't some repaired, worked over, repainted thing (like an old house), but is created a new creature. The First Adam didn't have a past life and didn't need repairs. He was a new creation that never existed before. When we were born-again in Christ Jesus, we didn't just get forgiven, but were created new beings that never before existed. God said that, "Your sins and iniquities I remember no more." He didn't forget our sins, but He complete removed them and sees us with no past lives. We're a completely different creature in His eyes.
We've mostly believed that these things will change when we get to Heaven. The Truth is that everything changed the moment you received Jesus as your Lord and Savior. You became a new creation child of the Most High God. The First Adam was a Super-natural being, made in God's Own Image and Likeness, from his first breath.
We've thought that the early Church and those who wrote The New Testament, were the only persons who walked in the Super-natural things of God. The Truth is that they were the ones Jesus trained in the Super-natural, in order to teach us what He taught them and to carry on His earthly ministry. Every teacher is trained to teach others how to continue in what Jesus taught and did.
Satan has done his best, in order to destroy God's children. God's Church has suffered death, prison, and torture for over two-thousand years. We've identified more with what the enemy has done to destroy us, instead of God's Plan to exalt us. We've lost sight of who we're supposed to be in God's eyes and have accepted the world's view of our identity. Paul's life was composed of teaching the Church our true identity in Christ. We've focused on Paul's struggles and suffering to teach us, instead of the Revelation he received directly from Jesus about who we are in Christ.
The Apostles from the early Church endured what they did, in order to spread the Truth of the Gospel and so we could walk in what they taught. Jesus spent 31/2 years training His followers to carry on His ministry, after His ascending to the Father. Every born-again believer is supposed to walk in these things. You might not be called to be an Apostle like Matthew, John and Mark were, but you're just as much a child of God as they were. Jesus taught the Apostle to teach others, so that the teaching of the Gospel would continue until Jesus returns for His Church. The same ministry that Jesus needed to teach His disciples, is still required today, in order to set the captives free. The same devil who held people with sickness and bondage in Jesus' time, is the same devil we deal with today. The Same Holy Spirit Who led Jesus, is the Same Holy Spirit we must rely on today, to fulfill the job done like Jesus instructed and commissioned us to do.
We were all taught math in school, but not all of us became math teachers. We all needed to learn math, so we could function in daily life. You might not be called into a part of the five-fold ministry as a teacher, but you're to be trained to set free all those who are bound around you. You should be as proficient at casting out devil that Paul, Peter and Jesus were. Just prior to His Ascension, Jesus spoke about the new creation family of God in Mark 16:17-18 (Amplified), saying, "And these attesting signs will accompany those who believe; in My Name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new languages. They will pick up serpents and even if they drink anything deadly, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick and they will get well." This is what the disciples were to teach others, so that if the people believed their teachings, then they would carry on those teachings.
Believers are doing what we've been taught, but we apparently haven't been taught like the Apostles. We've been taught from denominational teachings and traditions. If our denomination doesn't believe the things Jesus commissioned, then we didn't learn them. We haven't been taught by the Word and the Holy Spirit, but by the ways of others.
If you're born-again, then YOU ARE A BELIEVER! Today's students are being taught a new math called Common Core math. The basics are the same, but the process is different. Many of us are older and don't understand this new math. We compute the same math problem and come up with the correct answer, but we get there in a totally different way. The early Church learned by Jesus' example and didn't need to rely on what others said.
Today's Church is supposed to walk by God's Word and the Holy Spirit. The Super-natural things of God are supposed to be normal to those who are born-again of a Super-natural God. This is who we really are in Him. It's not that these things are "passed away," but that we haven't been taught them.
Two plus two equals four, even if someone doesn't believe it. If someone doesn't believe what the early Church taught, then that doesn't make the teachings of the early Church any less Truth. We've listened to those who don't know who they were and taught us to doubt our identity as new creations in Christ Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment