2Cor.5:17(Amp) says, "Therefore, if any person is ingrafted in Christ Jesus (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 received God's very Own Life into our spirit, when we were born-again of the Spirit. Jesus tells us in John10:10(Amp), "I have come that you may have and enjoy Life to the full (in abundance, till it overflows)." Jesus was speaking of the new creation birth of the child of God, after He was raised from the dead on our behalf. Our bodies weren't born-again, our spirits were. Our bodies are still trained in the world and thinks and functions like the world.
Paul writes about the need to renew our minds, because it strengthens our spirit so it can control the thinking and impulses of the flesh. If we get saved and still think like the world, then we're in a constant moral conflict with God's Word. Thus Paul writes in Rom.8:7(Amp), "That is because the mind of the flesh, with it's carnal thoughts and purposes, is hostile to God; for it does not submit itself to God's Laws; indeed it cannot."
In order to renew our minds by God's Word, we must submit to what He says about us, instead of what others and religious teachings might have taught us. If God says that we are righteous, then we need to train our minds by His Word and accept His Truth, instead of what the carnal minds and the world says about us. God's Plan was to give us the Gift of Righteousness, through the Sacrifice of Jesus. Righteousness is a Gift, according to Rom.5:17(Amp), which says, "For if because of one man's trespass (lapse, offense), death reigned through that one (Adam), much more surely will those who receive God's overflowing Grace (unmerited favor) and the free Gift of Righteousness, putting them into right standing with Himself, reign as kings in life through the One Man Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One)."
In order to receive this free Gift of Righteousness, we must renew our minds with the Word, so we can think about ourselves, like God thinks about us. Our flesh and carnal minds will fight against this Truth, so might some friends or brothers and sisters in Christ, but we must stand our ground, because we have the right to either accept this Gift or refuse to believe in what Jesus has done for us. If God says that through our receiving Jesus, "we are righteous", then who are we to tell God that "Jesus wasn't enough and we need something more?"
It takes faith in God's Word and spending time in it, to believe and receive what God has done for us in Jesus and to discover who we've now become in the new creation. Only God's Word and the Holy Spirit can reveal this Truth to us. We might hear it from the lips of men or women preaching the Gospel, but it's still up to us whether we believe or reject this Truth. It takes faith in God's Word, in order to receive what Jesus has truly done for us, by His Sacrifice.
The flesh and carnal mind wants to believe that all these Promises are True, only after we die and go to Heaven. If righteousness is only available after we die, and that we're not righteous or in right standing with God now, then what makes us believe that an unrighteous person will suddenly become righteous after he/she dies? If only the righteous can come before Him and we're not found to be righteous through Jesus, then the new creation God declared through Jesus, was a failure.
Our flesh, with the carnal mind and the enemy, will try to condemn us about the life we lived before being born-again. The enemy will try to prevent us from accepting God's Gift, but when we strengthen our spirit by God's Word and put faith in His Word, then our flesh will have to submit to our stronger spirit. Our flesh will not be righteous, until it's replaced by the new glorified body and it will always need to be controlled by the spirit. Our senses or carnal minds can be trained to obey our spirit, by the Word,
Heb.5:14(Amp) says, "But solid food (weaned from milk) is for full grown men, for those whose senses and mental faculties are trained by practice to distinguish and discriminate between what is morally good and noble and what is evil and contrary either to Divine or human law." Abortion is acceptable, by human law. Minds and faculties trained by God's Word, know it's the murdering of innocent, unborn children. Full grown men and women in the spirit, know that just because it's accepted as man's law, doesn't mean it is God's law. We are called to distinguish these things, by the Spirit and the Word. Man's laws aren't always in right standing with the Truth of God. James1:18(Amp) says, "But it was of His Own free will that He gave us birth as sons by His Word of Truth, so that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures, a sample of what He created to be consecrated to Himself."
James4:6-7(Amp) says, "But He gives us more and more Grace, Power of the Holy Spirit, to meet this evil tendency and all others full [read this full chapter to see what this evil tendency is]. That is why He says, God sets Himself against the proud and haughty, but gives Grace continually to the lowly (those who are humble enough to receive it). So be subject to God. Resist the devil, stand firm again him, and he will flee from you."
How do we submit ourselves to God and how do we become humble? By believing what God says about us, instead of what our carnal mind and satan says about us. Pride would stop us from believing what God says is True and will keep us under the devil's control and will keep us operating only by our flesh. The devil will only flee from those who know what God says about us, when we stand in the Power of His Righteousness.
Jesus was the most humble Man. He told us that He was meek and lowly of heart, but He knew and stood on Who He was. He said that, "The Father and I are One," without being prideful. He was in total submission to the Father, but never denied Who and What He was. This is humility and submission by the Truth of God's Word. It goes completely against the flesh, with it's carnal mind, but it is Spirit and Truth. If God says this about us, then we must believe His Word is Truth, no matter what others might say about us.
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