SPIRITUALLY SEDUCED

Part Two

Our main text goes on to say, “we will profit in our understanding of doctrine, by being reproved and corrected, in the doctrine of righteousness.” The main goal of the Holy Spirit is to correct and reprove us in understanding the doctrine of righteousness and nothing else. This must be our entire focus, so we can rightly interpret scripture.

We will now define from scripture what this doctrine of righteous is and how the Holy Spirit works with us so, we can operate in His Righteous Spirit.

In Matt.6:33 Jesus states, “We are to be actively seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all our needs will be supplied for us.” It says here to seek after His righteousness not our own righteousness. In our continuing exploration of maturing in Christ, this is the next step after salvation that we must focus on for our spiritual growth. Adam by making fig leaves to cover his shame stopped God from weaving His Spirit through him. His fig leaf mentality was his way of cleaning up his act in perusing the Christian life. Satan had deceived him in his mind, and he became seduced and enslaved by an entity that took control of his thinking. This is a death sentence to a born again believer and not to be taken lightly.

Paul the Apostle in his letter to the Corinthians in 1Cor 15:34 tells them “to awake to righteousness because some of them had a drunken stupor over their minds and they did not have a true knowledge of God. When this happened they lived with a spirit of shame.” Just as Adam when he stopped God from weaving His Spirit in him. When this happened, he became aware of His nakedness and felt shame. When we live like this, we make our born again experience of none effect.

When the body of Christ allows the Devil to put a stupor over their minds, they become deceived and the word of God can not be interpreted as He intended. Unless we have a vision of righteousness, it will be impossible to seek after Him with power and passion. Anything other then God’s righteousness means, we have backslid from receiving God’s grace and favor. Unless our root of understanding is built on us knowing our permanent relationship with God, we can end up having a hunger to know God better, but be building our spiritual life on doctrines of self-righteous endeavors. I have described these doctrines as a fig leaf mentality.

Paul the Apostle in Romans 8-9:35-39-1, states, “Who can ever separate us from Christ’s love? Will it be tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep lead to the slaughter. However, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him that loves us. For I have been persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor heights, nor depths, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ. I am telling you the truth. I cannot lie because the Holy Spirit is ! Influencing ! me.”

You will notice hear that Paul goes on in much detail to describe his walk in the Spirit. He describes all the perils he was going through and the battle he was fighting in his mind including the personal encounters he was having with people in his life. The word tribulation in the Greek is thlipsis: meaning, pressure, anguish, to be worn out or be wounded. Another way of putting it, Paul felt at times that, he was in jeopardy.

The first pangs of jeopardy start in our minds when we think that,

This can be a necessity of life or a person we depend on for security. Let me make myself perfectly clear on this matter, all Christians are fighting this battle if they are born again. Some Christians I encounter will not admit to these struggles because, they believe that this is the consequences of them living in sin.

This is where we live in denial and do not allow the Holy Spirit to view the intentions and purposes of our hearts because; we have no awareness and knowledge of scripture and understand what our position is in Jesus Christ. This only happens because; we have never been taught how to “grow up in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is what the Apostle Peter states in 11Peter 3:18 on how we are to mature in Christ.

This verse goes on to say that, we have the ability to be more than a conqueror through Him who loves us. We will conqueror only by a certain condition being met. We need to live in the bathing Spirit of the Holy Spirits love relationship. We constantly hear from pulpits across America, we are more than a conqueror in Christ, which is meant to encourage us. However, we never seem to know what the cost is to be a conqueror.

When our love relationship is broken between us and the Holy Spirit through believing conditional love themes and not staying aware of God seeing us as being pure in His sight, our conquering days come to an end. When this happens we have no power to obtain any of God’s promises because, we stop functioning in God’s Righteous Spirit, which we received the day we became born again believers.

! No Righteous Spirit, no power to obtain the promises!

It’s no wonder why we have so many in the body of Christ being good little doers by trying so hard to be good Christians but, getting so weary in living their so called Christian life that they have been taught.

Paul goes on to say that, he was going through a process of being persuaded. The word persuaded in the Greek is peitho: meaning, to be convinced by argument of what is true or false. This in turn produces peace because, strife comes to an end and the spirit of our enemy is destroyed. He is only destroyed because we make a new friend who we can trust. It is vital that you identify with this same pattern of thinking and warfare, so you can allow the Holy Spirit to conform you to God’s ways of thinking. If you cannot identify the Holy Spirits leadings, what chance do you have of being a conqueror?

Jesus states in Matt.5:6 “those who have a hunger and thirst after righteousness will be filled” When we hunger and thirst after something, there is a passion and this becomes the first priority in our lives. How much passion do you have in your life to know the King of the universe?

Paul goes on to define the enemies tactics that were bombarding his mind daily. He states them as powers or principalities, the fear of death or of living life, the fear of past memories, daily encounters of life and a fear of the unknown future and then he puts intensity to all this, when he uses terms like the height or depth of emotional trauma that we can incur. He even goes to the extent of clarity them when, he tries to put a face to Satan our adversary when he calls him an angel or creature. This represents all of Satan’s tactics to get us from focusing on our total accepts by God, who is our Father.

In 11Cor.11:13-16 Paul the Apostle makes a case against false teachers and apostles who were counterfeiters and claimed to be preaching righteousness concepts to the people but were false. He says, “It’s no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. So it’s not surprising if his servants also masquerade as ministers of righteousness, however their end will correspond with their deeds.”

Now please hear me, I am not trying to be unkind, but we have some of this type of teachings going on in born again pulpits today. We are not saying that these born again people will be reaping hell and damnation, because they are operating in this false concept of righteousness. However, what they do reap and the people that they are teaching, is a lack of deliverance from the flesh and sinful habits that hinder Christian growth.

Christians who live in this lifestyle have a hard time resting in the Lord’s finished work at the cross. We are to rest in Jesus finished work at the cross-alone. Paul describes these demonic entities as principalities and powers. In Ephesians 6:12 when he says, “We are not wrestling or contending with flesh and blood or physical opponents. But against a task master, a power who is a master spirit, who is the world ruler of this present darkness and against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly or supernatural sphere.”

You cannot fight spirits like this with out the anointing we received from Christ the day we were saved. We are talking about another dimension where we need to have a spiritual perception. This spiritual battle begins in our mind and this intense conflict causes us to get weary and begin to ponder ideas of doubting God’s love for us.

The devil wants us to doubt our eternal security in our relationship with God. The same doubt he put in Eve’s mind in the Garden of Eden. This process of perception that we must have to walk in the Spirit is called us functioning in discernment. In Hebrews Paul gives a rebuke to these people when he says in chapter five, 12-14 “As old as you are in the Lord you should have been able to teach others this doctrine of righteousness, but because you have not pursued your Christian maturity you are still babes drinking milk. Everyone who is a baby and drinking milk is unskilled in understanding this doctrine of righteousness because of his baby mentality. However, if your going to be strong and robust and come to maturity, it will only come as you participate in this Spiritual warfare that will make you able to understand with a deeper ability and you will be able to eat meat and potatoes doctrine which will make you able to discern between good and evil.”

If we are going to mature, we must be participating in this warfare to increase our wisdom and use this gift of discernment we have working with in us. This word discernment in the Greek is diakrisis: meaning, the power to judge and separate thoroughly by contending with voices of thought on the issues of life. Now this is an innate characteristic of Christ, given to us the day we became born again believers. We were not born with this, the day we came out of our mother’s womb physically. It is as we function with the mind of Christ that we received at our spiritual birth that will empower us to rightly divide the word of God, so that we can walk in freedom.

This is the area where we are spiritually seduced because, we allow the Devil to put that stupor over our spiritual minds and this makes us become rusting and lethargic in our passion to hunger after God. It’s always, T.V. dinners, a quick fix, a quick prayer and I have other priorities and we wonder why we cannot hear the Holy Spirits voice. In turn, our minds are constantly being bombarded by negative thoughts of loss in one area or another.

We had better come to understand that the Devil lives and has a great hunger to destroy everything of God’s creation, so that God’s rule will never be attained on this planet. We have no middle ground in the spiritual world. Either you are for God, against Him or you have become scattered. The non-saved are against Him because of their lack of understanding, and the saved become scattered because they have no root in themselves. So now we begin to understand that, it is the devil main goal to get us to doubt God’s love, which He freely wants to extend to us at all times.

The Greek definition of the word righteousness is dikaiosune: meaning, justified = (guiltless and blameless), innocent= (free from evil) and holy= (pure and set apart unto God.) It is unfortunate, but true, that we become preoccupied in our daily living. It takes discipline and persistency to develop a “God Consciousness Discernment” We sometimes are caught up in judging our Christian growth by how obedient we are to the laws of God. Example: (thou shall not do this, but though shall do that.)

In John14:23, Jesus says, “If a person really loves me, he will keep my commandments.”

God’s love can only be described as His “forgiving grace.” God is aware that while we are learning, maturing and growing spiritually, we will stumble and fall short and violate His perfect will for us. However, like the loving Father that He is, His grace intercedes and covers our faults. This in turn gives us the power to maintain and continue our loving relationship with Him.

I am not undermining our responsibility to walk in obedience, but emphasizing that, the course that leads to peace and harmony with God should not be interrupted by our shortcomings and our feelings of disappointment and guilt. We have all felt at times that we had to measure up. God’s ultimate goal in sharing the universe with humanity should not be delayed because man’s behavior is imperfect. God’s kind of love never holds anything against us. He is Love and His total acceptance of us never changes. We have to be constantly encouraged by Him moment by moment because, the Devil uses every means with in his arena of influence to get us to doubt our total acceptance by God at all times.

God gave us His love with out any conditions. In 11Corinthians 5:17 states, “we became a new creature in Jesus Christ the day we became saved.” We became a perfect man as God sees us because, we are in Jesus Christ and He sees us as flawless.

We must now learn how to receive and flow in Gods loving grace and power of forgiveness, so we can experience true peace and constantly see ourselves as He sees us. Unless we begin to cooperate with the Holy Spirit, man will never learn to live free of the torment of guilty feelings and of falling short. This has been the main deception with in the body of Christ from the begging of Christianity. This is the reason why we have not seen the power of the Holy Spirit moving with great signs and wonders.

Our faith has been built on, God loves me and He loves me not type of mentality.

This concept of preaching on our behavior with in the Christian community has become a fortress of doubt and confusion. We must come to understand that, we are blameless in God’s sight. This is what also keeps us free from evil. We stay free from evil because we have the Holy Spirit speaking to us in our mind of what to do when we are tempted to violate one of God’s laws of life by believing a lie or by thinking that we have failed and become unclean. Temptation will come, the issue is do we have the word of God written on the fleshly tables of our heart or mind to hold up a standard and defeat this evil thought process. We have to grow up with in ourselves to the point of not living in a constant battle of being in bondage to worrying about our different sinful habits. We must now go on and be empowered by the Holy Spirit and function on, what does God want me to do, so we can operate in our anointing and how do I help to change the world in my arena of life, to bring the Kingdom of God into being.

We must understand that it’s the Holy Spirits desire to show us our immature ways and point out those areas of our lives that have to change and for us to come under His control. Scripture tells us that Jesus says, “Come as you are and (I) will change you to do my will.” We must be willing if we are going to have our minds bathed by the Holy Spirit voice from the negative doubts of the enemy that we encounter daily. Paul reminds the Philippians in chapter 2:13 that, “not in our own strength, but God is constantly at work in our lives giving us the desire to do his will and then also giving us the power to do his will. When we do it, it brings us and Him delight and satisfaction.” If we are maturing, we will be experiencing this delight and great satisfaction in our walk in being obedient to God’s instructions, which will be encouraging us daily.

Righteousness also tells us that we are set apart unto God. This concept represents us walking in holiness. In Luke 1:74-75 it states, “It is God’s intentions to deliver us from all of our enemies and that we are to serve Him without having a mentality of fear. We have this because we walk in holiness and righteousness all the days of our lives.” We can only do this, as we receive our convictions from the Holy Spirit, by allowing Him to weave His Spirit in us.

In 11Cor. chapter 6 and 7, Paul the Apostles among many other letters he wrote to other Christian congregations’ states, “we are to come out from among unclean things and become separated unto the Lord so that God could receive us. If we would do this, we will enjoy a relationship with a loving father. If we really understand this and have a conviction from the Holy Spirit on this, we will know that we are clean from filthy fleshly vices.” Let’s understand that, we are not only talking about degrees of sexual immorality here.

Any thing that hinders us from understanding how God’s looks at us as being pure in His sight, is a distraction and a hindrance to our spiritual growth.

11Peter 3:11 states, “When we walk in righteousness, which is a holy consecrated way, our conversation and Godly character shows up.” As we begin to walk and understand our position and see ourselves as God sees us. Our conversations and the words that come out of our mouth begin to control our experiences of life. We begin to experience an independent authority that grows with in us. Not with a prideful arrogant superiority or I have arrived attitude, but there is a surety as if, being in command. You begin to believe the press reports given to you by the Holy Spirit in your daily conversations. Nothing happens by chance, you begin to see a divine plan at work coaxing you to trust that still small voice with in you, which constantly gets louder and louder because, your spiritual ears are being trained.

Now some consequences go along with this set apart onto God life style. For some of you who are reading this, you will be able to relate. For others I talk about this so that, you will not become amazed at what the battle becomes, if you have never walked in righteousness.

Paul the Apostle states in Heb.10:21-25 “We have a high priest over the House of God. Let us draw near with a true heart and a full assurance of faith in Him as we have our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with the pure water of the word. In addition, let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works. Do not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some do, but exhort and encourage one another as we see the day approaching.”

Col.3:1 among other places in the scriptures tells us that, the High Priest Paul is talking about in this verse is Jesus Christ, who is alive and sitting at the right hand of God making intercession for us to mature and fulfill our calling on the earth. We see here from these verses that, our vision and commitment must be operating between the Lord, and us and it’s only then that our relationship between each other can have any meaning. Unless our heart is being sprinkled with the pure water or the clear truth of God’s word from an evil persuasion of the devils influencing tactics, all of our assembling is in vain. If we are not going through the process of having our hearts being sprinkled with the pure truth of God‘s word, there will be no provoking each other unto love and good works.

I have heard more statements from born again establishments and none born again establishments putting their emphases on church assembling, then dealing with the real question and asking. What is the condition of your spirit, soul and body? This is why it is so vital that we as born again believers search and meditate on the scriptures daily so that we have a clear understanding of what is on God’s heart. If you are a scripture reader and searching for more of God, you should know from scripture and from past history that God’s people have always been vulnerable to go back to their own fig leaf mentalities and try to do God’s works in their own strength.

You cannot read scripture, meditate with the Holy Spirit daily, and not know what I am talking about. Let me remind you that the Devil’s main goal is to lie and distort the truth.

An ignorant Christian is a weak and ineffective Christian.

If you put the emphasis and lead people who are hungry for God focusing on church assembling, tithing, building bigger sanctuaries, more churches and how much sin do you have operating in your life, then you have missed God’s plan of being eternally secure in our relationship with Him. In my daily travels in sharing the gospel and giving a word of Holy Spirit inspired wisdom, the main question I am asked is, what church are you attending with the majority of these being born again believers asking. Unless people ask you, who is this Jesus that you know and how can I get to know Him better, there foundation will be being built on a false hope of denominational thinking.

How many God ordained encounters are you having in your daily travels where God is having you read peoples mail and you are giving them a word of encouragement? I have a real concern when I have had only a handful of encounters over these last twenty years of people coming up to me and asking me if, I know Jesus as my personal Savior. This idea of being set apart unto God is not something that a person in his own strength can do. I am afraid that church assembling has become a business of, as long as you attend church and support our agenda, God will honor you. However, you must follow our denominational rules if you want to belong and be accepted by God. Let me make myself clear on this matter.

This is nothing more then abuse and manipulation.

I have found that the spirit of man that God put in us at birth will never reach it’s potential and the desire that God put in us for greatness unless, we totally abandon ourselves to His leadings and His alone. If we as born again believers will seek God, this inner characteristic with in us will rise up and a new hope of value and worth will spring board us into the fullness and satisfaction of our purpose in Christ.

Church assembling was not meant as an obligation and for us to get fire insurance to stay out of hell.

We desperately need Holy Spirit assemblies but this first starts at home in our prayer closets with in ourselves. When I write these articles, I feel like the town crier. We are living in desperate times and are desperately being prodded by God to fulfill our destiny and be a part of the culmination of this present age.

Scripture tells us that, we are members one of another but separately. We are anointed by the same Holy Spirit, all with different gifts but all being led by the same Commander and Chief. The Apostles Paul wrote to the Corinthian church in 1Cor.11-13 “I heard a report from the house of Chloe that there are contentions, wrangling and factions among you. What I mean by this is, some of you say that, “Paul’s teachings are what I follow” and some say no, “I am following Apollo’s teachings and some of you say, “I am following Peter’s teaching” and some you say “I am following Christ.” Has Christ been divided into parts? Were you saved by being born again by believing that I Paul died on the cross for you?”

Where have we gone in two thousand years? We have as many denominations as we have bars on the corners and we are still building more churches and bigger churches. Now don’t get offended by what you are reading here. Isn’t this what Paul was talking about. Denominations in our thinking should be respected and we need to have a fellow feeling with the hard work being put into there endeavors by committed leaders. However, when it comes into conflict with God’s goals and purposes, by them building their own agendas of truth and personal visions, these become abominations and we need to recognize them for what they are. This is why it is so vital that we be set apart unto God and let the Holy Spirit be putting the final stamp of approval on our ayes and nays. We must stay alert, become independent in discerning ability, and then forgive those of us who in our ignorance sabotaged themselves and help us to believe a lie.

I personal believe by some of the feedback that I am getting that, there is a great hunger for God going on, but not enough time is being directed to the real needs of the body of Christ.

When we become separated unto the Lord, we are going to be noticed and be accused of being a troublemaker and going against a prescribed code of conduct that seems right to only religious people and those with a false agenda in their endeavor of following Christ. There is a difference between religion and Christianity. One follows mans endeavors of finding perfection and Christianity is a follower of Christ. Whom are you following?

The last verse of our main text states, it is only as we function in a righteous condition that, we can be furnished for all good works. In Proverbs 10:22-23 it states, “The lips of the righteous feed and guide many; but fools die for want of understanding. The blessing of the Lord makes a man truly rich and God adds no sorrow with it, neither do we have to toil to get more of it. ”

The word lip in the Hebrew is saphah: meaning, termination, binding agreement, to wear off and be naked. We see here that this process of us walking in righteousness has to be us speaking this assurance of our total security in Christ, out of our mouths. What we do is supernaturally through our spoken words, terminate or bring to an end this concept of, God loves me and He loves me not mentality.

We become naked and pure as God sees us because, we come into agreement with God’s assessment of our relationship with Him and wear off or are weaned off of our fig leaf mentality. Now hear me. We must believe that we are pure in God’s eyes before we can confess it out of our mouth, so we can get a Holy Spirit witness of it. This is how we receive by believing with our heart and confessing with our mouth. This is the same way we became born again.

So now, we have come full circle. This righteous walk in the Holy spirit has to be incorporated into our being so that, our every thought and the words coming out of our mouths, continue to confirm to us our eternal security in Jesus Christ. This verse tells us that we are fools if we do not live in God’s plan of righteousness. A fool meaning, one who is lacking in understanding.

The word blessing is Brakah: meanings, to prosperity, have success and to flourish. The word sorrow is etseb: meaning, to worry or to fabricate an idol. We see here that God‘s idea is, for us to prosper in all areas. The word sorrow represents the idea of laboring or putting out a great effort to walk a life of “I am going to be obedient if it kills me.” I have talked to many people that continually think about confessing their sins to the extent that, they are more conscience of their faults and failures then, having the joy of having the Lord telling them, how much high esteem He holds them in. In turn, as you can see from the definition of sorrow, the Devil has fabricated an idol in their minds.

In Gal. 5:19-20 Paul the Apostles tells these people that, “the works of the flesh includes idolatry, which is a form of witchcraft, including strife and heresies among other things. When we fail to understand and don’t walk in a Righteous Spirit we fall back and live in the works of the flesh. This is a form of idol worship. This idol is a worship of self. How much more seduced can one be when you realize the consequences of our ignorance of the word of God and how we are to live in it.

It says in Romans 14:17 that, “The kingdom of God is righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.” Without righteousness, there is no joy and peace governing our emotions and of us understanding how deeply rooted and secure we are in our relationship with Jesus Christ.