The Committed Life

1 John 1:4 tells us that God wants our joy to be full. The word joy in the Greek is chara; meaning, a calm delight and a confidence that God has not forgotten us in our trials of life and nothing can pluck us out of His hand and holding power. That’s even if we think we have blown it and missed His purpose in our lives. The true joy of the Holy Ghost gives us confidence to look beyond the outward appearance of the physical difficulties of life and keeps us focused on God’s delivering power to do exceedingly and abundantly more then we can think or ask. It is my experience that the times that we are living in have become more stressful and the spirit of fear of loss and failure is running ramped on the earth.

Scripture predicted this to take place in these last days before Jesus returns to the earth. Without us experiencing the joy of the Lord; there can be no calm in the storms of life. Life is like a hurricane with its swirling winds however, God wants His children to live in its eye and have a calm and restful awareness that nothing can pluck us out of His hand. It boggles my mind at time when I meet and see born again believers who love God and are trying to live their Christian lives by following rules and doctrines to obtain this joy however; they are living in some form of religious concepts that are denying them from experiencing the true joy of the Lord. Now with God’s joy comes peace.

Jesus said in John 14:26-27. “But the Comforter Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, Standby, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name in My place, to represent Me and act on My behalf, He will teach you all things. And He will make you to recall and remind you by; bring to your remembrance everything I have told you. Peace I leave with you; my own peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.”

The word peace in the Greek is erene: meaning to join to and becoming one with and this produces true prosperity and a quit rest with in. Peace is actually a verb meaning an action word of doing and saying and fellowshipping with a person morning, noon or night who we can talk to and being influenced to become just like Him. There is a night and day difference between living by rules of obedience to dead letters that have no life in them and having a living experience with the God who created the universe.

I can’t believe that over these many years there have been some people who have told me “Who do you think you are that God would talk to you and tell how he thinks.” I personally believe that; the majority of God’s kids are living far below their Father’s expectation for their lives. At times I recognize the enormous task that is taking place in God’s kingdom of Him trying to restore His family and have them start to operate in harmony to do His bidding. All you and I can do is stay faithful and true to be a witness in the arena of life that God has put us in. Our Righteousness in Christ is the only key and foundation that must be in place in our life which can produce kingdom people operating in the power of the Holy Ghost.

In 1 Cor. 2:9-16 Paul reminds us of how to stay in our righteous garment of sainthood. When he says this, “For what person perceives understands what passes through a man’s thoughts except the man’s own spirit within him? No one also (comes to know and comprehend) the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have not received the spirit that belongs to the world, but the Holy Spirit Who is from God, which is given to us that we might realize and comprehend and appreciate the of divine favor and blessing so freely and lavishly bestowed on us by God.

And we are setting these truths forth in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Holy Spirit, combining and interpreting spiritual truths with spiritual language [to those who possess the Holy Spirit. But the natural, non-spiritual man does not accept or welcome or admit into his heart the gifts and teachings and revelations of the Spirit of God, for they are meaningless and nonsense to him; and he is incapable of knowing them [of progressively recognizing, understanding, and becoming better acquainted with them] because they are spiritually discerned and estimated and appreciated.

But the spiritual man tries all things [he examines, investigates, inquires into, questions, and discerns all things], yet is himself to be put on trial and judged by no one he can read the meaning of everything, but no one can properly discern or appraise or get an insight into him. For who has known or understood the mind (the counsels and purposes) of the Lord so as to guide and instruct Him and give Him knowledge? But we have the mind of Christ and do hold the thoughts (feelings and purposes) of His heart.”

People who do not know their authority in Christ; never come to apprehend this type of fellowship with the Holy Ghost and they end up as the three million Israelites wandering in their wilderness walk of life who never entered in to the fullness of the promise land contract with God their Father. They made heaven their home but never walk in the fullness of the Spirit of God.

This principle of spiritually thinking righteously happens for people who are seeking after a higher wisdom then your own. Reading and meditating on the word of God for the born again Christian must become a way of life. When God’s children are ignorant of God’s word; the Holy Ghost has nothing to refer to in our minds storage bank when the devil shows up to motivate our emotions through his fear tactics. Jesus came under attack by Satan and was tempted to surrender His will and emotions to Satan’s influence.

God’s intention was for man to put his life in Jesus hands and no longer help God out to save themselves. When we help Him out this thinking causes us to condemn ourselves when we miss it and scripture tells us that, if our heart condemns us, God is greater then our heart. At one time, I was deceived to believe that if I was condemning myself and since God was greater, He would inflict a worse judgment on me then I was inflicting on myself. This concept is what makes the Christians soul really sick and God is the direct opposite of this kind of thinking. His love and grace personality covers a multitude of sin thinking and acting. That does not mean that we have a free license to do anything we want with out His approval. This living sin entity that we have been talking about has to be put to death in us by a miraculous intervention of the Holy Ghost and if you are in Christ; there is now no condemnation for us by God ever.

If we intend to truly walk and know that we are justified in God’s sight; we must abandon ourselves to God’s mercy and grace and let the Holy Ghost love on us and constantly remind us of this through His Righteous Spirit. By living like this;, we allow the Holy Spirit the right to create in us a hunger and a want to walk in obedience, because of the pure pleasure of us knowing that we are already complete in Him. Our natural mind can not comprehend what I have just said and for some of you reading this it may be coming into conflict with things that you have been taught for many years. Be patient and read on.

Scripture tells us that unless we become born again people by accepting Jesus sacrifice on the cross, we are condemned to an eternity in hell. When we asked Jesus to come into our lives, we were adopted into God’s family and we received eternal life with Him period! Jesus does not need our help with special rules or us having to look for ways to stay pure to be accepted by Him. He has no rules of acceptance. Since we are a work in progress and not complete in our behavior, we need an attitude that allows God to save us from ourselves.

I get the feeling from the many numbers of people that I have met over these forty some years that; they have never been trained to look into the perfect law of liberty which is the word of God with the keen insights and interpretation of the word through the Holy Ghost’s interpretation. Christianity is not a way of life or a religion but life itself in Christ. If Jesus had not been born again with God’s Spirit in Him; He would have been a mere man and if He was wise He would have said; “in His flesh there was no good thing.” Therefore, we must be able to personally identify with Him and be unafraid to have fellowship with Him as a true friend if we want to believe that He has a fellow feeling with our struggles of life.

Heb. 4:14-16 tells us, “ Inasmuch then as we have a great High Priest Who has [already] ascended and passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession [of faith in Him]. For we do not have a High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning. Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God’s unmerited favor to us sinners, that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it].”

This part of yet without sinning has not been rightly interpreted with in the body of Christ and because if this; we can not relate to Jesus as being one who can be trusted because; we think that He is different then we are and has some higher power then we do. It is His life at work in us as we allow the Holy Ghost to work miracles through us that qualifies us to say that we are the same as Jesus our older brother. Jesus was tempted and tried as us all and yet not sin. Even though we are born again; we don’t believe that we can be like Him because we believe that; we are still sinning and also being taught that; we can backslide and go to hell after becoming a born again child of God.

To think that we are not sinning in most circles of the born again church would make us be looked at as us being blasphemous and not correctly interpreting scripture. We are back to what I said earlier that being that; most Christian have a sinner mentality as leaning towards their own interpretation of scripture verses them thinking in righteousness with a saint’s mentality. This sinner mentality only stays alive with in us when we live by rules and laws of working to measure up and fly right. Jesus sacrifice delivered us from that type of thinking however, the sinner mentality is being heavily taught in the born again churches of today and keeping that mentality flourishing in the Christian life. As a born again believer the Holy Ghost has replaced that why of thinking of us constantly being aware that we are breaking laws with “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” It is only by us experiencing daily the love that God has for us; that will cause us to flow in this loving principle.

Now the word for saint in the Greek is hagios: meaning, pure, innocent and set apart to do the works of Jesus. This definition is difficult for most Christians to accept because they are dealing with their failures and short comings and being taught to focus on trying harder to seek God so they can be accepted by Him. The Catholic Church is teaching that if you have done some extraordinary good works on earth then they will canonize you after you are dead and you will be called a saint. This is a doctrine of this particular denomination and it is totally demonic in nature.

If they are teaching this stuff; they do not have a clue as to who they really are in Christ and that is if they are truly born again believers in the first place. Remember; only born again believers are Saints in God’s eyes and looked at by Him as blameless and innocent. You can not distinguish God‘s thoughts verses your own thoughts with out being born again and perceive your privilege to be able to hear from God and participate in His call on your life.

It is not disrespectful to allow ourselves to see Jesus as a mere man but under the influence of Christ who lived in Him which made him a Son of God and Him knowing that; He had to contend with the same fears, agitating passions and moral conflicts as we all do. For many of the born again church; this concept has not been enforced because; there is no intensity with liberty which gives us the freedom we need to explore the mind of the Holy Ghost and debate if necessary with Him because; most of the church lives with a lack of appreciation for themselves and they do not feel free to question God like a kid going to His father for advice.

I always tried to make my self approachable with my children to debate with me so they could spread their wings and learn how to fly; which made them test their resolve which gave them the freedom of self expression. When the body of Christ looks at themselves as sinners and not Saints, it causes them to feel ashamed of themselves and it robs them of the boldness to approach the sanctuary of our Heavenly Father’s courts and ask for the petition of our heart and expect our prayers to be answered.

This is what happens when the word of God is not stored up in your memory bank and planted deep into your subconscious mind and the Holy Ghost has nothing to tap from because; you don’t have a life style of presenting yourself to God and having your mind renewed with His word at all times. You have to be having a continual and intimate fellowship with Holy Ghost and it has to become a supernatural revelation to recognize God‘s voice at anytime either day or night and even in your sleeping hours with dreams and visions. We must allow God to awaken and stretch our being so that we can entertain the spirit and presence of God. I have only touched on what righteous is in this article as we are describing it from scripture. There is no end to describing Righteousness because; Jesus the man with (Christ in Him; which made Him the Son of God) and, there is no beginning or end to Him.

We will now go on to what Peter said that being, God does not want us to live in “fear, agitating passions and moral conflicts.” Now where God’s Righteous Spirit of love is motivating joy and peace, the devils spirit of fear is motivating agitating passion and moral conflicts. A person who is seeking for wisdom that is higher then their own would ask “what are agitating passions and moral conflicts because; I don’t want to walk in any of that?” The only way Jesus could deal with His temptations to not live in these entrapments by the devil was by being reminded by His Heavenly Father to not think less of himself; then who His Heavenly Father said He was.

He did this by speaking the word of God to His circumstances. This is what made Him flow in His Righteous Spirit with joy and peace. We must be following His example because that is the only way we can over come our fear which brings with it agitating passions and moral conflicts. We are also God’s children and God our Father will do the same for us as He did for His first begotten Son (Jesus.)

When we say agitating passions; we are talking about the devil’s whole intent is to operate in the environment of the physical and he influences our physical senses. When we become agitated; we loose our peace and security in Christ and become anxious, nervous, or disturbed. Since God made mankind in His image; He built into our being passion which is a intense emotion that gives us the sensitivity to hear, see, smell, or understand; which goes along with the ability to think logically in regards to seeking the basis of all knowledge who is God through the Holy Ghost. This goes along with us having the capacity of experiencing strong emotional feelings. That is why Paul the Apostle tells us to seek God with all our heart, soul and strength.

Our God seeking has to be a total abandonment of the leaning of our whole personality on Jesus Christ. This statement must be broadcasted on all air waves and put on all signs and proclaimed with intensity as never before. Being a child of God should be making us recognize the urgency in the times that we are living and focus with intensity on the leading of the Holy Ghost and going about our Father’s business using the gifts and talents that He has deposited in us when He made us in our mothers womb.

Don’t ever let the devil tell you that you are an insignificant person going no where. God made you for this day to fill in a gap of His presence in your arena of life with His power to succeed. The devil’s whole intent is to attack us through our mind and emotions. It is the mind of Christ that we received the day we became born again which gives us the capacity to understand the true knowledge of God’s ways and keeps our emotions functioning with His wisdom. If His mind becomes stifled and interrupted, our fleshly appetite takes over to do the devil’s bidding for our need for purpose and fulfillment to be met our way.

The devil wants to be first place in our lives and is trying to deceive us because; he wants to be our master. God made man and put in Him including His creation evidence of His Being and the devil has blinded the spiritual eyes of mankind and they do not realize that; the true love that they need is in Christ and not in fleshly endeavors that the devil has put as a road block to stop mankind from their eternal salvation and security in Jesus Christ. If you buy an Amana refrigerator from a store and it goes bad; I would suggest you take it back to its original creator for repair. The same goes for us and we should be seeking the Lord at all times God’s creation and creatures are being polluted by God’s people that were made in His image and only He can restore what the devil has done to something He said was “good” when He created it. We are living in chaotic times and we all need to awake from a stupor that the devil has been trying to put over the minds of God’s people which is stopping His children from being the salt and light to the world that God created.

The body of Christ must sober up and come out of captivity of being ignorant of God’s reasoning and hear what the Holy Ghost is saying to His church. Temporary emotional fixes have no power to overcome demonic influences in our lives. The Holy Spirit’s anointing should be governing our emotions. Only this is what delivers us from the flesh controlled business of preaching a gospel of self. Without the Holy Spirit being able to plant healthy spiritual seeds into our hearts and mind; we can not grow up and become young men and women in the Lord. There is a process that we all go through of being influenced by Satan and we if we are going to become mature and understand how to fight the good fight of faith; we must handle life as Jesus did when He walked the earth.

Therefore, we must understand that Jesus was a mere man with Christ living in Him which made Him! God’s first born again son! And He had to learn how to cast His earthly temptations and trials of life as we do by the leaning of His whole personality on God His Father in Christ. Let’s talk for a bit about how the devil tempted Jesus to give into agitating passions. This example is found in Matt. 4:1-11 where we have the story of Jesus being led into the wilderness by the Holy Ghost. We are now living in our wilderness walk as Jesus did when He walked the earth. Our wilderness walk must be led by the Holy Ghost and a born again child of God had better believe and recognize this if, they intend to be successful in their kingdom walk.

Psalms 23 tells us “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.” While on this planet we are all walking under the shadow of fear and death as Jesus did. For us to fear no evil; we must be functioning in a Promised Land Mentality (that is living by every word that comes out of the Holy Ghost’s mouth) which makes us understand how God’s kingdom operates in our lives. Jesus was tempted by Satan in three areas and you will see that His response was always from an inspiration from the word of God not his personal opinion and Him leaning towards His own understanding.

I will comment between verses in parentheses. The story goes. “Then Jesus was led (guided) by the [Holy] Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted (tested and tried) by the devil. (We are living in our dispensation of time which is our wilderness walk and we are going to be tried daily by the Devil and we must resist him but this can only be done by the wisdom of the Holy Ghost with in us.) And He went without food for forty days and forty nights, and later He was hungry. (In the Old Testament we have another person who had a relationship with God and wanted to fulfill his calling and constantly sought his fathers presence all of his life.)

In Exodus 34:27-28 it tells us that Moses was with God on Mt Sinai getting the Ten Commandments and it says. “The Lord said unto Moses. Write these words: for after a tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” And Moses was there for forty days and forty nights and he didn‘t eat or drink water and he wrote on stone tables the words of the covenant which were the Ten Commandments.”

This word tenor in the Hebrew is peh: meaning in the mouth as a blowing wind that totally envelopes the entire being of a person. This represents the yearnings of the Holy Ghost who wants to so totally bond with us so when we do go through our testings and trials as Jesus did our initial response is thus saith the Lord when the Devil shows up to gives us a fleshly emotional dart of fear. Scripture tells us that God wants to write His laws of life on the fleshy tables of our hearts as a rushing wind which is in contrast to Moses writing God’s laws on cold lifeless stone tablets. I could write another fifty pages alone on just this one principle however for now let’s go on.

“And the tempter came and said to Jesus, if you are God’s Son; command these stones to be made loaves of bread. But He replied, it has been written, man shall not live and be upheld and sustained by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” (The Devils first temptation wasn’t about Jesus hunger but about the fact that; he tried to put doubt into Jesus mind as to who He was, which questioned His Son ship and security in God His Father. We see here a testing that is also common to all of us in the devil trying to make us believe that God our Heavenly Father loves us enough to feed and clothe us in our daily needs and us learning to trust His provision and not lean towards our own understanding as to what’s going on in our lives.

The devils ploy here is to keep us focused on our needs and wants rather than focusing on our relationship and trust in a Father God showing us how to use the inheritance He already gave us and where most Christian are asking for something they already have. The second temptation started with the Devil again challenging His authority as to being God‘s son.

“The devil then took Him into the holy city and placed Him on a turret (pinnacle, gable) of the temple sanctuary. And he said to Him, If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, He will give His angels charge over you, and they will bear you up on their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Jesus said to him, On the other hand, it is written also, you shall not tempt, test thoroughly, or try exceedingly the Lord your God.”

(The Devil’s tactics have not changed. This idea of a holy city in the physical sense is Jerusalem where during the one thousand year reign Jesus will come to govern the earth with us being His ministering servants to the people of the earth. In the spiritual sense it is the place where God wants to sit in our hearts where He becomes the final authority that gives us (Rest) while we let Him rule.

The devil’s intent is to confuse our thinking and give us a fleshly thrill from time to time by giving us a prideful dart to tempt us to build our own concept of kingdom living but not according to scripture. This is what the majority of the denominations have fallen for and what they have done is tempted God by telling Him they have a better way to build His house then He does. This is indeed tragic and extreme bondage to the children of God.
Continued in Part 3.