When the Lord first spoke to me about the Church's identity crisis, I wasn't sure what He was telling me and thought, "They know they're saved and born-again." The Lord answered, "But, they don't know who they were born again to be." God reminded me of John 10:10 (KJV), where Jesus says, "I came that you might have Life, and have it in abundance." He went on saying, "When they received Me as their Lord and Savior, they were born again and My Life and the Life of My Father gave them Life in the Spirit. They became a new creation that never existed in creation. My Life gave them Life and they were alive again, in and by My Own Life."
God said, "They now have Life, but they don't know how to live this Life I've given them." I pondered this and realized that a child is born into this world and has life, but someone needs to teach them how to live this life. Just having life isn't living, but existing. They need someone to teach them how to live this marvelous life. A baby doesn't know enough to care for him/herself, so when they're hungry or need to be burped or have their diapers changed, someone must do it for them.
Babies in the Church have been born-again and are Blessed with Life, but they have no idea how to live their new life in Christ Jesus. We look to others who we think know how to live and we learn from them. If our teachers don't know how to live, then we will learn to live the same life they do. The Life that Jesus brought to us, can't be taught or learned from those who don't understand it. We've been given the Holy Spirit and God's Word, to reveal to us, who we are in this new creation.
Ephesians 4:10-15 (Amplified) says, "He Who descended is the very same as He Who has also ascended high above all the Heavens, that He (His Presence) might fill all things (the whole universe), from the lowest to the highest. And His Gifts were varied. He Himself appointed and gave men to us, some to be apostles (special messengers), some prophets (Inspired preachers and expounders), some Evangelists (preachers of the Gospel), traveling missionaries, some pastors (shepherds of His flock), and teachers. His Intention was the perfecting and the full-equipping of the the saints (His consecrated people), that they should do the work of ministering toward building up Christ's Body (the Church), That it might develop until we all attain oneness in the faith and in the comprehension of the full and accurate comprehension of the Son of God, that we might arrive at a really mature manhood (the completeness of personality), which is nothing less than the standard height of Christ's Own Perfection (the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ and the completeness found in Him). So then we may no longer be children, tossed like ships to and fro between chance gusts of teaching and wavering with every changing wind of doctrine, the prey of the cunning and cleverness of unscrupulous men, gamblers engaged in every shifting form of trickery in inventing errors to mislead."
This doesn't mean that everyone who's in the ministry, is unscrupulous or uses cunning trickery. Some who've come before us, in the time the doctrine of Christianity was first taught, were deceived by others. The Church mostly knows what we've learned from others. If their teachings and beliefs were wrong, then we will live and then go onto to teach others wrong things. If we don't know how to live this Life that Jesus came to give us, then we can't teach others how to do so.
Parents don't only bring physical life to their children, but they teach their children how to live, by way of example and teaching. Many kids who came from dysfunctional families, go on to become dysfunctional parents, because they only know how they were raised and were taught. It's not right, but it's true. The Life Jesus came to give us, is taught and learned the same way. Some are raised into different ways of living this Life than others, but it's still the Life that Jesus came to give us through His death and Resurrection. God gave us the five-fold ministry, so they could show us how to live this Life of God. This is a new way of Life, that's different from the life we knew before and has different aspects of how to live it.
The Church has adapted this new Life, to fit in with the life we were already familiar with, causing it to be reduced to fit our current lifestyle. This was how the Law was established. God condensed Spiritual laws, to fit the life the people currently knew. The people carried out Spiritual functions of God, by their own carnal efforts. If they obeyed and completed the tasks appointed them by their own volition, then they would qualify for the Spiritual Blessings attached to God's Word and the Law.
God's Church doesn't walk under the Law. We've been given God's Own Life in our spirit and are no longer carnal, but born of the Spirit of God in His Image and Likeness. Most believers don't know who we've really become in Jesus. We condense our new Life and follow human religious, carnal laws and customs we've learned from former teachers. Some of the things we learned were right, while others were wrong. We're still learning from these things, even now.
We only know what we were taught, unless the Holy Spirit gives us Revelation knowledge. This sounds wrong, because it's contrary to what we were taught. In these Last days before Jesus returns, Revelation knowledge has caused division in many different congregations, because it's contrary to the carnal mind and the what we were taught. Most aren't being taught the full Truth about the Life we now live by the Spirit of God.
Many have been taught that not all of us can read and understand God's Word, so they stop reading it for themselves and wait for someone else to explain it to them. Most all of us can proficiently read and understand the words, but not all of us listen to the Holy Spirit to reveal the Spiritual significance of the Words. Jesus said in John 6:63 (Amplified) says, "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."
If these Words are Spirit, then the only way of understanding their true meaning, is by the Spirit. We learn how to live the Life Jesus came to give us, by reading and understanding His Word. The carnal natural man can read these Spiritual Words and still not understand them. God's Word and His Spirit are the only way we can learn to live the Life of God we've received in the new creation family, of which we are part of.
God's Word says we've been made to be the Righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, but it's more than the carnal mind can accept as Truth. We continue struggling with the Spirit and Truth of God's Word. The carnal natural minds of man can't trust the Truth that we're righteous in Jesus' Righteousness, because it must be Spiritually discerned. The Truth that Jesus brought Life to our new creation spirit man/woman, is the most exciting thing our new born person has ever heard. 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."
Our natural man was raised in the world and has no understanding of Spiritual things. Jesus said in John 6:63 (Amplified), "The flesh conveys no benefit whatever, there is no profit in it." It's hard to understand this Spiritual Truth, because of how we were raised and taught in this carnal realm. We weren't taught how to know or understand the realm of the Spirit, in which we've become part of, in Jesus.
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