For centuries, the Church has walked in the wisdom of men, rather than the Wisdom of God. We've been taught God's Word, by carnal knowledge and understanding. Jesus Promised in John 10:10, that we would "Have Life to the full, til it overflows." We've lived this God kind of Life as "mere men and women," like Paul described.
Paul writes to the Church in Romans 6:10-15 (Amplified), "For by the death He died, He died to sin, ending His relationship to it once for all; and the Life that He Lives, He is living to God in unbroken fellowship with Him. Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relationship to it broken, but alive to God, living in unbroken fellowship with Him in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore rule as king in your mortal (short-lived, perishable) bodies, to make you yield to its cravings and be subject to its lusts and evil passions. Do not continue offering or yielding your bodily members and faculties to sin as instruments (tools) of wickedness. But offer and yield yourselves to God as though you have been raised from the dead to perpetual Life, and your bodily members and faculties to God, presenting them as members of righteousness. For sin shall not any longer exert dominion over you, since now you are not under Law as slaves, but under Grace as subjects of God's favor and mercy. What then are we to conclude? Shall we sin because we live not under Law, but under God's mercy and favor? Certainly not."
Grace doesn't give us license to live any way we want. Grace has removed us from the works of the flesh, so we can live the new Life of God. The Life Jesus gave to us when we were born-again, is God's Own Life and is mightier than the flesh, when we know how to live it. In 2Corinthians 12:9-10 (Amplified) Paul writes about the Revelation he received from Jesus, saying, "But He said to me, My Grace, My favor and loving kindness and mercy is enough for you, sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully: for My strength and Power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in your weakness. Therefore I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that the Strength and Power of Christ (the Messiah) may rest, yes, may pitch a tent over and dwell upon me. So for the sake of Christ, I am well-pleased and take pleasure in my infirmities, insults, hardships, persecutions, perplexities and distresses; for when I am weak in human strength, then am I truly strong, able and powerful in Divine Strength."
The Life Jesus came to give us, isn't dependent on our ability to live it, but is there to raise us above what we cannot do in the flesh. In 2Corinthians 13;4-5(Amplified), Paul continues writing about the Life we've received in Jesus, saying, "For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He goes on Living by the Power of God. And though we too are weak in Him as He was humanly weak, yet in dealing with you we shall show ourselves alive and strong in fellowship with Him, by the Power of God. Examine and test and evaluate yourselves to see whether you are holding to your faith and showing the proper fruits of it. Test and prove yourselves (not Christ). Do you not yourselves realize and know thoroughly by an ever increasing experience that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you are counterfeits, disapproved on trial and rejected?"
We've believed that in order to walk the new Life Christ has given us, we must hold onto the traditions we were brought up in. The only way of controlling the flesh (senses), is by God's Word and His Spirit. When we try controlling it by rules, rituals and regulations, we're doing what those under the old covenant Law did. These things can't control the flesh or make us righteous. Righteousness can only be obtained by faith in Jesus' Righteousness and by giving the flesh over to the Life in the Spirit.
We try making our flesh do what we ask it to do, which ends in failure, because our strength comes from the spirit and the spirit draws it's strength from God's Word and the Holy Spirit. When we come upon problems, we try solving it on our own. Paul said, "Therefore I glory in my infirmities (weakness), for when I am weak in human ability, the Strength of God is made available to me."
If we could do it on our own, then we wouldn't need God's Word or His Spirit. We wouldn't need to depend on the Father at all. We've accepted the portions of God's Word we agree with and disregarded the Super-natural parts that are beyond human ability. Walking in the Super-natural things of God, requires faith beyond the senses and requires our becoming dependent on God for answers and deliverance. When our own strength fails, we say, "It must not be God's will" or "It must be God's will." Paul says in the above scripture, that we must "Examine and test and evaluate your own selves to see whether you are holding to the faith and showing the proper fruits of it; test and prove yourselves (not Christ)."
Instead of excusing ourselves when things don't work out, by simply saying, "It must be God's will," we need to examine ourselves and our lack of faith to deliver us from trials and failures. Most of the failures come, because we never developed our faith in God's Word to receive deliverance.
There's no disgrace in finding that our faith isn't fully developed in certain portions of God's Word. We've received denominational traditions we were brought up in, instead of receiving the Truth in God's Word that says, "Having done all to stand." We were taught that deliverance "isn't God's will for us." We've tested God and His honor, instead of testing ourselves and our honor. We've learned countless excuses as to why "God's Word isn't always true."
We've been taught that "These things have passed away" or were "Only for the early Church and the Apostles." Paul instructs us to "test and examine and evaluate ourselves and our faith, instead of testing God and His Truth." We've accepted man's ideas of God's Word, instead of what the Holy Spirit tells us about God's Word.
We must get back into the Word and listen to what the Holy Spirit reveals to us, when reading it. We must not simply accept what others say is the "Truth of God's Word," without going to God for ourselves. Many good people who love God, have taught from their own beliefs and from the teachings of those before them, instead of learning the Truth of God's Word from the Holy Spirit.
We read about twelve spies who went into the Promised Land in Numbers 13-14. Ten of those spies said, "The land is full of milk and honey, just like God said, but there are giants in the Land and we are not strong enough to take it." Two spies named Joshua and Caleb said, "We believe the report of the Lord and we can take the land." Two million people believed the report of the ten spies, instead of God's Word and spent forty more years in the desert.
We must find out what God's Word says for ourselves. That doesn't mean we leave our church, but we must have our own walk with Jesus and believe His Word.
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