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."
Salvation is a continuing Revelation. When we were born-again, we became sons and daughters of the Almighty God and became heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus. The inheritance we received from Him, isn't withheld until we get to Heaven, but is ours from the moment we were saved. We lack knowledge of God's Word and His Promise, so we haven't understood the Revelation of what salvation has brought to us. 1Peter1:23(Amp) says, "You have been regenerated (born-again), not from a mortal origin (seed, sperm), but from One that is Immortal by the Ever Living and Lasting Word of God." Peter goes on in 1Pet.2:2(Amp), saying, "Like newborn babies you should crave (thirst for, earnestly desire), the pure, unadulterated Spiritual milk of the Word, that by it you may be nurtured and grow up unto completed salvation."'
Growing in faith to faith Revelation means we're growing from babies to mature sons and daughters of God and into completed salvation. We must renew our minds by God's Word, in order to learn who we are now in Christ, to maintain Spiritual strength and keep the flesh in-line with the Word from within. We will remain Babes in Christ, until we have Revelation about who and what we are in this new birth. Babies don't know who they are and Babes in Christ don't know Who our Heavenly Father truly is or what He has for us. As we grow in Revelation and mature, we begin to know the One Who has given us Life and what we have received from Him, in this new creation family.
Many in today's Church don't know who we've already become or what we've received as heirs of God and joint heirs of Jesus. As we grow and mature by His Word, we discover our true identity and as we fellowship with Him, we discover Who our Heavenly Father truly is. Fellowship with Him is based on Righteousness and relationship. When we have the Revelation of our being more than "old sinners saved by Grace" and are new creations, then we won't be sin conscious and will freely fellowship with the Father.
An unrenewed mind only knows the things of our past, when we were dead in sin and trespass. Condemnation and guilt will prevent our having unbroken fellowship and seeing the True Nature or God, if we don't renew our minds by God's Word. Rom.12:2(Amp) provides the knowledge of how we do away with the old way of thinking and how to begin unbroken fellowship with the Lord. Thus, it says, "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 attitude and ideals, so that you may prove for yourself what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing that is good and acceptable and perfect in His sight for you."
This comes by having personal Revelation and fellowship with God. The first order of Redemption is to restore relationship. God had to first bring mankind into a legal standing as His children and partakers of His Very Nature, so that we can be His genuine heirs and joint heirs with Jesus. Then God needed to restore mankind's fellowship with Him. This could only be done when Righteousness was restored to mankind. There can be no fellowship with God, unless men/women can stand in His Presence, without the consciousness of guilt of sin or inferiority.
There could be no question as to the legal standing of mankind, in God's family. The sin problem needed to be settled on legal grounds, so God would have a perfect right to impart His Own Nature to mankind, making us new creations. Mankind's sin nature had to be driven out, so the Nature of God could come into us. Mankind must become the actual children of God, just like Jesus was in His earthly walk. James1:18(Amp) tells us, "And 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 unto Himself."
The above scripture tells us that we are born of God's will and His Word. It is all of God. We must renew our minds to this Truth and enter into fellowship with Him, so we can know who we are now in Christ and what our inheritance really is. The customs and external (superficial) things the world taught us, will not reveal the Truth of God's Word to us.
The inheritance we have as God's sons and daughters, is based on our being born of His Word and Spirit. It's already ours, even in this world. We must renew our minds to His way of thinking and doing, so this Truth can be manifested in our lives today. God has bequeathed our inheritance for and to us, on this earth today. We must pursue the ongoing Revelation of our salvation with a renewed mind and Revelation from fellowshiping with Him, in order to rise above what our carnal minds have told us about our Father's identity.
Most of what we know about our Heavenly Father comes from carnal minded people, including religious teachers. Paul writes in Gal.1:11-12(Amp), "For I want you to know brethren, that the Gospel which was proclaimed and made known by me is not a man's gospel (a human invention) according to or patterned after any human standard. For indeed I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through a direct Revelation given by Jesus Christ,"
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