If we are functioning as a young man or woman and are off the milk of the word and are now able to eat meat, there is a condition that defines this stage. We are becoming skilled in this doctrine of righteousness. It says that our senses and mental faculties are trained by practice to discern between what is good and noble verses what is evil and against either God or man's laws. To function in the concept of righteousness, we have to have the main ingredient, which gives us the powers of young men and women in the Lord.

The word of God has to be richly stored in our heart and we need to be meditating on it day and night by living in the presence of the Lord seeking a higher wisdom them we possess.

Having discernment is the spiritual awareness given to us by the Holy Ghost that energizes our being and we talk about it with great joy and with a firmness of belief. It's on your mind and you can identify with the Holy Ghost talking to you at all times. It's a dimension called walking in the Spirit.

1 John 2:14 says, "you young men because you are strong and the word of God abides in you, you are now able to overcome the wicked one." Lets look at this word abides and see exactly what it means. First of all what it does not mean; is having a data bank of scripture in your head that you whip out on every opportunity you get to show how knowledgeable you are in the word of God. The word abides in the Greek is meno: It means to stay in a relationship of expectancy or a prospect of a hope to come. It also means to tarry and continue to endure or to long for. When one tarries they wait. In the Hebrew abides is chakah: It means to hold a firm position and to be moved upon sharply or deeply, as with emotion or pain. It also means to penetrate as if seeing and understanding a mystery.

When we wait or stay in a relationship of expectancy for God to open our eyes to new mysteries of His ways, there will be created in us a great passion, emotion and pain as we are changed into His likeness. In turn, we will be renewed like the eagle and be able to run and not be weary in our growing pains. We will walk and not faint. As you can see here with only our logic, knowing the word of God is meaningless if, the relationship of not having a living emotional oneness with God and allowing Him to make us into a God-man like our brother Jesus as He walked the planet. If this is not happening in your life, don't live in denial and a false concept of your walk with the Lord.

If you know anything about the eagle, every so often he goes into hibernation, sheds his feathers and beak, and gets new ones like a young eagle, which makes him soar higher over the earth. This is the example God gave Isaiah the prophet in this Old Testament. God intention is for us to constantly be renewed as His Children. This process and relationship must be going on with the Holy Spirit if we are to experience what Hebrews 5:13-14 is talking about when it says, "We will be able to conform to God in purpose, thought and action."

As we become skilled in the doctrine of righteousness, we will know that God loves us with out conditions. When we were sinners, He died for us and we did nothing to deserve His sacrifice. We need to continue to grow in this understanding or we will stay on the milk of the word and continue to live as babies. This concept of righteousness and to become skilled at it is nothing more then letting God love us through a living relationship with the Holy Ghost daily. Man in his basic nature has no concept of what love is.

Mans basic nature of love is Hollywood stories. When true love comes on the scene; there are no strings attached to it. It is by our interacting in this love relationship with God and allowing Him to open the spiritual ears we received when we made Jesus our Savior; that will transform us like the eagle.

This Christian relationship of us becoming a new creature in Christ started with a supernatural experience when Jesus in the person of the Holy Ghost came into our lives. We will continually change into His likeness but only if; we are participate in the on going miracle that took place the day we met Christ for the first time.

The sin principle is like an atmosphere all around us that influences our thinking and is subliminal in nature. It affects the mind without our conscious awareness.

It is only as we give the Holy Ghost permission to interact with our thought life that can make us aware where the devil is at work trying to make us miss the mark of God's high calling on our life. This is not a game of playing church or a bunch of rules that we are told to follow but a serious business of growing up in Christ and walking in authority of our son ship.

Our robe of righteousness that we received when we became born again is a garment that scripture tells us is the very presence and nature of Jesus Christ Himself. Scripture defines this as we slipping into a garment. To the natural mind this makes no sense and it should tell us that we must walk in a spiritual dimension that can not be understood with our natural mind or seen with the physical eye.

The Apostle Paul states this in Romans 8:2-10 "For the law of the Spirit of life [which is] in Christ Jesus [the law of our new being has freed me from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the Law could not do, [its power] being weakened by the flesh the entire nature of man without the Holy Spirit. Sending His own Son in the guise of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, [God] condemned sin in the flesh [ subdued, overcame, deprived it of its power over all who accept that sacrifice], So that the righteous and just requirement of the Law might be fully met in us who live and move not in the ways of the flesh but in the ways of the Spirit [our lives governed not by the standards and according to the dictates of the flesh, but controlled by the Holy Spirit].

For those who are according to the flesh and are controlled by its unholy desires set their minds on and pursue those things which gratify the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit and are controlled by the desires of the Spirit set their minds on and seek those things which gratify the [Holy] Spirit. Now the mind of the flesh [which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit] is death [death that comprises all the miseries arising from sin, both here and hereafter]. But the mind of the [Holy] Spirit is life and [soul] peace [both now and forever. 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.

So then those who are living the life of the flesh catering to the appetites and impulses of their carnal nature cannot please or satisfy God, or be acceptable to Him. But you are not living the life of the flesh; you are living the life of the Spirit, if the Holy Spirit of God really lives within you and is directing and controlling you. But if anyone does not possess the [Holy] Spirit of Christ, he is none of His he does not belong to Christ, is not truly a child of God. But if Christ lives in you, then although your natural body is dead by reason of sin and guilt, the spirit is alive because of the righteousness that He imputes to you"

When we became born again; God attributed His very own nature to us as He did for Jesus who was His first born son. Think and pause for a moment so the Holy Ghost can witness to you this fact in case you never heard it before; or do not have the understanding of what I have said down deep with in your subconscious mind. This is the core and bases of what our Christian faith is built on and it must be a firm foundation of understanding if; we are want to reach our potential in God's scheme of things.

Our flesh and our spirit are controlled by two different entities. People who do not have the Holy Ghost can only live in their flesh. They make their decisions and plans for their lives according to their own thinking. They can not have their steps being ordered by the Lord because the life of God with all of His characteristics does not live in them. If a person is truly born again from above and has had this supernatural miracle; they are the only ones who are capable of walking in the spirit. The spirit world is very real and it is the Holy Ghost that teaches us how to navigate in God's kingdom of the spirit world.

When the sin principle is active in their life; they have a very difficult time surrendering to the Holy Ghost's reasoning in their thought life even though they are God's children. They simply have never understood and been taught who they are in Christ. There is a mentality with in the born again assemblies of constantly pointing out all of the wrongs in our lives and we stay in a constant mentality of repairing ourselves. When we do this; we walk in the flesh and not in our righteous spirit.

In 1 John 2:27 he tells us. "But as for you, the anointing the sacred appointment, the unction which you received from Him abides [permanently] in you; so then you have no need that anyone should instruct you. But just as His anointing teaches you concerning everything and is true and is no falsehood, so you must live and be rooted in Him, just as His anointing is teaching you to do."

There are some of you who are reading this that might be asking; "does that mean that I don't have to submit to any authority and just do what ever I want." No that is not what I am saying. I have found in my walk with the Lord that; when I am persuaded and able to identify God's voice through the Holy Ghost; He uses God's word as a mirror to judge all things that I encounter in my life. This type of relationship must be active and constantly going on even in our sleeping moments with Him using dreams in the night time hours.

We are to submit to God's voice first and then not be afraid of all the people and things God brings into our arena of life to help us learn how to discern the difference between men's reasoning verses the Holy Ghost's reasoning. The flesh is such a powerful entity that it has a will of its own and it hates submitting to the will of God.

We have people in the pulpits of the world today that are very gifted and charismatic people. We have spectacular choir groups and dressed up stages where millions of dollars have been spent in scenery to lure people into the churches to help finance their causes. As Delilah beguiled Samson in the Old Testament so the entity of the sin principle wants to beguile God's children from their appointed tasks in the Lord. When one is beguiled; they are mislead or deceived. Let's not be naive; the devil can make this a pleasurable experience and he loves to go to church.

In I Sam. 16:7 God told Samuel the prophet "But the Lord said to Samuel, Look not on Saul the king's outward appearance and at the height of his stature, for I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." As a born again child of God; He has equipped His children to discern the subtleties of the enemy and no longer be naive and take our salvation for granted and we understand that; we are in a fight for our self and humanity.
 
Paul the Apostle says this in Col. 2:6-10. "Since you have received Christ, [even] Jesus the Lord, so walk and regulate your lives and conduct yourselves in union with and conformity to Him. Have your roots of your being firmly and deeply planted in Him, fixed and founded in Him, being continually built up in Him, becoming increasingly more confirmed and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and abounding and overflowing in it with thanksgiving.

See to it that no one carries you off as spoil or makes you yourselves captive by his so-called philosophy and intellectualism and vain deceit (idle fancies and plain nonsense), following human tradition (men's ideas of the material rather than the spiritual world), just crude notions following the rudimentary and elemental teachings of the universe and disregarding [the teachings of] Christ the Messiah.

For in Him the whole fullness of Deity the Godhead continues to dwell in bodily form giving complete expression of the divine nature. And you are in Him, made full and having come to fullness of life in Christ you too are filled with the Godhead-Father, Son and Holy Spirit-and reach full spiritual stature]. And He is the Head of all rules and authority of every angelic principality and power."

It must come to pass if we are going to grow up and mature in God's kingdom and learn how to give expression to the Holy Ghost's leadings that; we must stop leaning to our own understanding. I have over the years with family and friends and people I meet every day endeavored to reason with them and make them aware that even though they say they love the Lord; they are not in love with the Lord. Now these are born again believers. My wife tells me at time that I am the eternal optimist. However I am at a loss as to some people that I meet as them not having a clue of how God's kingdom works and the sin principle that is operating in their life has caused a sever bondage of years of anguish and going around the same mountain of trials over and over and over and over.

It is the born again believer functioning in his or her call with passion and tenacity that defeats the sin principle. The sin principle will constantly try to rear its ugly head and try to make us feel ashamed and get us to the place of not liking our self. It causes us to be self centered and not Christ centered.

John the Apostle says this in 1 John 4:9-15. "The love of God was shown to us in that God sent His Son, the only begotten or unique [Son], into the world so that we might live through Him. It is not that we love God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the (atoning sacrifice) for our sins. Beloved, if God loved us so [very much], we also ought to love one another. No man has at any time [yet] seen God. But if we love one another, God (lives and remains) in us and His love (which is essentially His) is brought to its full maturity and is perfected in us! By this we come to understand that; He permanently lives in us and we are in Him because, He has given us of His Holy Spirit.

Also; we ourselves have seen; have deliberately and steadfastly contemplated and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world. Anyone who confesses acknowledges, that Jesus is the Son of God, God (lives, makes His home) in him and we make our home in God.

Our commitment must be deliberate and have a highly focused decision to seek God with every thing with in us if; we intend to have a continuous witness from with in that; we are God's children and not get insensitive to the Holy Ghost's leadings. There is no doctrine that says that; once we had our first encounter of acknowledging our need for Jesus to forgive our sin to break the curse of the sin principle off of our lives that; now we can go back to building a life of accolades and riches and have no need to mature in the spiritual world with God. It is to be our continuing life style of acknowledging our need to sit at the Lord's Table and nourish our selves from the Tree of Life.

The way we continually acknowledge God in our life is to follow Proverbs 3:6 which says, "To acknowledge God in all our ways, and if we would, He would direct our paths." Let's define this word acknowledge from the Hebrew Concordance.

The first definition is "familiar friend."
Jesus must be a familiar friend, be well known to us and we must have an intimate relationship with Him. We must think very highly of Him and apply ourselves to walk with Him.

The second definition is "advice."
We must seek His counsel on all of our decision-making, and His opinion on our line of conduct in our relationships with each other.
The third definition is "diligent."
We must not become lazy in our daily walk with Him. It must not become an obligation or chore, but a joyful and delightful experience with passion.

The fourth definition is "discovery."
There is created in us a revelation of a person showing us a way of reasoning that supersedes our own human thoughts. We in turn become totally fixed on a hunger for something we cannot find in our everyday experiences of life.

The fifth definition is "endure with." we must allow ourselves to become pliable, teachable, and submitted to changing our thoughts to GOD'S thoughts. As we experience His grace, (unmerited favor), this is what will empower us and allow this attitude to take place.
The sixth definition is "awareness"

There will become a conscious knowing and growing encounter with a person you cannot see with your physical eye. The spirit in us becomes assertive and active, and it begins to direct our lives. We begin to seek and hunger after this relationship with this person morning, noon and night.

This is what must take place if the sin principle is to longer have control and operating in our life. This is what allows God to let His loving presence cause us to focus on walking in the reverential fear of God and become addicted to his presence.

David the King said. "Goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life because I have made a free will choice to live in the presence of the Lord" Our freedom in God is to let go and let God weave His righteous spirit through us as He did for Adam and Eve before they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

I have found more and more everyday that God's yoke is easy because I am learning to let Him carry my load. He's stronger then I am and I am learning to trust and put my life in his hands. It is time for the body of Christ to rest from their laboring, get their eyes off of themselves and learn how to seek God's face and not as beggars worry about our physical needs and trying to stay afloat and not go under. I am learning to be thankful in all things and stay in a mode of continual worship because; HE IS FAITHFUL AND WHO EVER PUTS THEIR TRUST IN HIM WILL NEVER BE DISAPPOINTED.