This article was born out of me recently attending a born again church meeting and talking to some wonderful Christians who love the Lord, but were functioning in an atmosphere of religious teachings that was keeping them bound up. I have in all of my newsletters a main theme that has been implied and I have talked about it in many ways. It is us living in the Righteous Spirit of the Holy Spirit and really understanding our kingdom rights when we became born again believers. When we become born again, it is then that the warring between the Spirit and the flesh begins. In the almost forty years of fighting, my own battles in warfare against my own flesh and the hours upon hours of meditating and studying the scriptures and my fellowship with the Lord and with others Christians. Even though at times I didn‘t want to see this condition, I see a constant mingling of God’s Righteous Spirit and our soulish spirit at odds against each other.

In Romans 12:1- Paul with great passion and pleadings told the Christians, “to make a decision by the mercies of God, to present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is their reasonable service. Do not conform to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so you can prove what is good, acceptable and what the perfect will of God is.”

We see here that Paul speaking under the influence of the Holy Spirit with great emotion trying to warn these Christians that, this was going to be a life and death struggle for them to attain greatness as God’s children. The definition of flesh from scripture means, what is external or human nature not submitted to the leading of the Holy Spirit. In most circles of Christian gathering, this concept of flesh is defined as the manifestation of behavioral sin. Sins like lying, fornication, adultery, not attending church, nor paying tithes, etc. This is why the body of Christ is weak and ineffective in their endeavors to live in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Sin, which is a cancer of the soul, stops us from prospering as God’s children. These sinful behaviors manifests them self but only after we function in unrighteous thinking.

111John 1:2 says, “As our soul prospers, we will prosper in all areas.” Our soul consists of our intellect, will and emotions. In order to deal with sin in its many forms, we have to live in the Righteous Spirit of the Holy Spirit. We do this by experiencing Gods unmerited favor, which is His grace of total acceptance. This is what drives out the darkness of sin in our lives. We have to allow the Holy Spirit to heal our heart where the issues of life are formed to deliver us from the outward behavior of sin.

Wherever there is preaching that a person who is born again can backslide and go to hell or that a Christians can lose the anointing they received when they became born again, this is nothing but flesh teachings, which destabilizes the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. The consequence of this is the believers in the congregation focus their attention on the leadership’s ability to pray and teach them through legal principles that only diseases their souls in unhealthy concepts.

In turn, this keeps them as slaves to do the bidding of the congregational norms of activities and worship. This keeps them babies living undisciplined lives and not seeking God on their own. It is the grace and mercy of God that keeps these types of body’s functioning. Thank God, He loves us in spite of ourselves.

In Romans 12:1-2 it says, “We need to present our body as a living sacrifice through the mercies of God.” The word mercy in the Greek is oiktirmos: meaning, pity, compassion or empathy. The only way to experience empathy is the identification of oneself with another and the resulting capacity to feel or experience sensations, emotions, or thoughts similar to the other person. Scripture tells us that there is only one mediator between God and man and His name is Jesus Christ.

Unless out thoughts and emotions are being influenced by the Holy Spirit and feeling His empathy for us, we are functioning under the influence of fleshly emotional manipulation masquerading as the influence of grace.

This is a religious spirit at work and is easily camouflaged if the people in the congregation are not seeking God in true worship in their daily living. This scripture goes on to tell us that, we are not to conform to the concepts of the world but to have our minds renewed daily. Where did we come to believe that the world concepts of the love of God haven’t been distorted in word and action inside the church building? What is church supposed to be a safe haven where we can leave the discerning spirit that God gave us at home?

Our spirit can only be discerning if, during the week we are diligently meditating on God’s word day and night and exercising our right to bolding come to the throne room to receive His grace and mercy when we need it. Scripture tells us that the word day means, when there is an atmosphere of the peace of God as we are having fellowship with the Lord. Night means, where there are demonic forces at work with great confusion.

In Zechariah 4:1-6, we have a story of an encounter that Zechariah the Prophet had with an angel of the Lord. It says that the angel woke him up in the middle of the night and asked him what kind of a dream he was encountering in his sleep. He said, “He saw a lamp stand of all gold filled with oil on the top and seven pipes and two olive trees.” The angel asked him. “What do you believe this means?” He said, "I don’t know." The angel said, “this endless supply of oil that you see is the word of the Lord saying, not by your might and power, but by My Spirit"! (Of whom the oil is a symbol.) The Holy Spirit represents the oil that we are talking about here. It is not my purpose to be unkind and point fingers. The Lord in His patience and love gave me time to realize the futility in my own life of me doing my own thing because of my zeal to walk in obedience to His perfect will.

All the towers of Babel going up; all the meetings and cavalcade of stars walking across the stages at our meetings and all the patting on the backs of our great ministries, gifts and numbering how many were saved last week and all the emotional screaming, sweating and the manipulation of giving to get God’s favor. Talented piano and organ players and tear jerking music is not the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Only as we bow our heart and bend our knee, and experience His mercy, which allows Him to search our heart can break this type of bondage. Only as we recognize the Holy Spirits voice and His characteristics can our souls proper.

From what I have observed in to many areas, the Church is on self-destruct. If we are going to really be a part of kingdom living, we cannot shout, pray, or dance the word into our hearts. Temporary emotional fixes have no power to overcome demonic influences at work in our lives. It’s the anointing of the Holy Spirit in His actions that should govern our emotions.

We each as individuals have to begin to have a vibrant personal commitment to Christ in our own daily walk with the Holy Spirit. Growth starts with our own seeking and working out our own salvation with a reverential fear of the Lord. It’s not what takes place only at our church services, but what we do during the week in the market places of life. Is our worship and energies as vibrant daily, as it is in the church building? Remember Jesus does not live in a building made with hands. He lives in our hearts and we are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Now the only way to have our minds renewed is us allowing God’s righteous Spirit to flow through us and expose those things that stop us from receiving God’s favor. In the fifth chapter of Galatians, I will paraphrase, Paul the Apostle says this, “Stand fast in your liberty that Christ has given you and do not get entangled with the yoke of bondage. The life of Christ cannot have its full play if you think you can be justified by denominational rules of right and wrong. When you function by regulated rules, you stop living in faith, which is built on a love relationship between you and the Lord. When you govern you life by rules and regulations, you backslide from receiving God’s grace. You are to live the Christian life by interacting with God’s Righteous Spirit.

If you continue to walk in your freedom in Christ, you will do well. Be careful that no one hinders you so that you do not obey the truth as the Holy Spirit teaches it to you. Just a little false doctrine can hinder your whole foundation of truth, and God cannot build His character in you on sinking sand. Therefore, Brethren God has called you to liberty. However, do not think that you have a healthy relationship with God by living in fleshly concepts of right and wrong. We need to focus on loving and serving one another. For we fulfill the law only when we love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh has its own will to intently fight against the Spirit and the Spirit to fight against the flesh. So if you function in the Spirit, you are no longer guilty of feeling responsible of breaking man made laws.”

You will notice here that a person can backslide, but not as some churches are preaching that, we backslide and go to hell. This is nothing more then a doctrine of the Devil. When this is taught in any form, it weakens the stability of the Christian church and they doubt there eternal connection to the Lord. When we are hindered from flowing in God’s grace, we open ourselves up for the Devil to kill, steal and destroy all areas of our lives. In some circles over the years, I have been accused of giving people the license to sin. This can be no further then the truth.

In the book of Romans Paul the Apostle says, “Where more sin abounds God gives more of His grace to off set these tendencies.” The people he was writing to wrote him back and said. “We had better take advantage of our liberty then and sin more.” Paul’s answer was, God forbid that you lean toward you own understanding of what I have said.” We have died to sin the day we were saved. When we received Christ we died with Him on the cross, we also arose with Him, and we became a new being. By us sharing His death and resurrection, we can now have an unbroken relationship with Him. Therefore, learn how to offer yourselves and flow in God’s righteous Spirit and sin will no longer exert dominion over you, since you are to live in God’s grace not under rules and regulations. Who ever you yield yourself to; to them you will become a slave. So be wise, submit to God’s righteousness, and have abundant life. Since you understand that you have been set free from sin and have become the slaves of God, you can live in your present condition feeling blameless, free from evil and set apart as one of God’s own.”

If we have died and been set free from sin as this scripture tells us, why is there some much focus in the body of Christ on the teaching of sin? Scripture tells us that we are the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. The word righteousness in the Greek is defined as just stated in the above scripture.

It says we are blameless, free from evil and set apart as one of God’s own. When sin is in operation, it stops us from functioning in the inheritance God gave us when we became His child and were adopted into His family.

When our righteousness in God is not understood and taught with the Holy Spirits leadings, we become the Devil’s advocate and the church becomes crippled in its endeavor to satisfy their cravings in following the Lord.

Paul the Apostle on many occasions in his many letters to different churches recognized the possibility of the people leaning to their own understanding and not trying to stay grounded in their understanding of their righteous position in Christ. One of many examples in the bible is found in 1Cor.15:34 he states, “Awake from your drunken stupor and return to sober sense and your right minds and sin no more. For some of you have not the knowledge of God. You are utterly, willfully, and disgracefully ignorant, and continue to be so, lacking the sense of God’s presence and all true knowledge of Him. This is causing you to function with the shame based nature He delivered you from at the cross.”

He is talking here to born again believers. When we as Christians begin to doubt our permanent connection in our relationship and are told in any shape or form that God only loves us on our behavior. It is then that we stop God from keeping His hedge up around us and walk out from His protection. God never, never, never forsakes us no matter how many crevices of life we become caught up in. As soon as we get a thought in our minds that, we have to do more of one thing or another to keep God’s attention focused on our behalf, we step out of our righteous position and doubt our circumstances.

11Cor.10:5 Paul tells us that, “We are to refute all arguments and theories and reasoning’s and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the true knowledge of God; and we are to lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ.” The real problem is, when we as God’s kids do not recognize the difference between the Spirit and the flesh, how are we to capture the thought and go back to the day we received Christ and became born again. For us all of our new life in Christ started at the cross. I am convinced that Christians have not been taught their true position in Christ.

All this does is grieve the Holy Spirit and stops Him from being our advocate and the Comforter that He wants to be. In the Greek, the word advocate is Paracletos: meaning, intercessor, consoler and comforter. The Holy Spirit is this person. Once we have the Holy Spirit in our lives, we have a permanent and lasting relationship that no matter where we go or what we do, it is unbreakable. When we preach anything contrary to righteousness, what it does is make us feel that there is something unclean or wrong with us. 

In 11Peter 3:14 Peter tells us, “ at Jesus return to this earth, He wants to find us without spot and wrinkle and at peace with a serene confidence and free from fears, agitating passions and moral conflicts.” When we received Christ we became spotless and with out wrinkle. It’s the teaching or preaching of doing works of the flesh that wrinkles our interpretation of God’s love and it causes us to become ashamed of ourselves. This only increases our fears, which in turn brings agitating passions and moral conflicts. When we function in these fleshly teachings, we allow these seeds of ignorance of God’s true word to be planted into our hearts and our peace is never settled as to our permanent and eternal security in our relationship in God’s family. This produces double mindedness and we fall back from receiving the grace of God that we need to live the Christian life. This is what a religious spirit at work in different congregations will do.

There is a subtlety to this that is mind staggering. How a spirit like this can be at work among born again believers and go on and not be noticed. There is much to say here. It is the semblance of the blind leading the blind because, people that have a love and passion for God and are being influence by doctrines of Devils. When this happens, the Devil has set up a seat of sovereignty within the body due to the leadership allowing it to happen. You say how could this happen? John the Apostle on the island of Patmos says this to the church in Pergamun in Rev.2:12, “I know where you live, a place where Satan sits enthroned. Yet you are clinging to and holding fast My name and you do not deny My faith.”

Yes, these were born again believers being burdened down and not walking in an independent freedom of the love of God flowing freely in their lives. This is what happens when conditional love themes are being preached. I have found through experience and a running relationship with the Holy Spirit that, the gospel is very simple and is plainly stated how God wants to interact with His people. The problem lies when the born again believer gets brainwashed with doctrines of Devils in church settings and are influenced by demonic thoughts. The Holy Spirit then has to take us back to when we first were deceived and erase the false doctrine and plant healthy seeds of His truth in our hearts. This is the warfare of spirit vs. flesh.

I am convinced, that when the body of Christ begins to see what the Apostles doctrine of our Righteousness in Christ from scripture represents and we begin to preach it with vigor and with the anointing of the Holy Spirit on it, it will usher in the return of Jesus to this plant for His people. Our articles and theme on our web site if you haven’t noticed is to point the church back to its righteous position in Jesus Christ. Scripture tells us that, God wants to raise His people into a kingdom, which is a race of royalty as Kings and Priests. Unless we understand this concept of sin and what it really is we will stay babies all of our Christian life.

Let’s discuss from scripture this confusing subject of sin. In 1John 1:5-10, 2:1-5 John tells us, “The message of the gospel is that, God is light and there is no darkness in Him in anyway. Therefore, if we say that we are having fellowship with Him and are walking in darkness, we are lying to our selves and are not living in the truth of the gospel. Now if we are truly living in His light we will have true fellowship with one another because, the act of Jesus shedding His blood on the cross continually cleanses our thoughts or conscience of feeling guilty. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and we are not functioning in the truth of the gospel. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say we have no sin, we make Him out to be a liar and His word is not in us. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and for the whole world. The way we can discern that we are growing in the grace and knowledge of God daily is, we know that we are observing His precepts and commandments. If we say, we really know Him, are having real fellowship with Him, and fail to keep His teachings the truth is not functioning in us. Now if we have a hunger and a passion to seek after His Righteousness it is then that, we can allow God to flow His loving nature in us and reach full maturity. This is how we become deep rooted in Him and come to know and recognize Him working in our lives.”

The word sin in the Greek is harmatano: meaning, erring, missing the mark, losing our allotment and not sharing in a prize. There are many references in the bible on the fruits of sin. We will refer to what Paul the Apostle says about it, as he talks to the Galatians people in chapter 5:19-21 “now the works or fruits of the flesh that become obvious are, immorality, impurity, indecency, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, ill temper, selfishness, divisions, party spirits, sects with peculiar opinions, (meaning heresies) envy, drunkenness, carousing and the like. I warn you beforehand, just as I did previously, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

The definitions of these can be defined much further because; they constantly rear their ugly heads in all circumstances in our thought life and actions and they are intertwined in our makeup. I believe we all are participating in some form of these in some manner. Some of us are consciously aware of doing some of this, but many of us are participating in these life styles unawares. Sin in its many forms is a stronghold that the Devil has woven into our lives.

It has been preached and taught in too many areas of so-called Christian settings, that if you have these things operating in your life, you cannot go to heaven and live with God for eternity. This interpretation is so far from the truth that at times as I hear and see this belief being taught and operating in Christians lives, it just makes me mad.

This is nothing more then false interpretation of scripture. It says we will not inherit the kingdom not backslide and go to hell. The day we made Jesus our Savior we began to inherit the kingdom in our relationship with the executor of the estate, who is the Holy Spirit our Attorney. I have found it so much easier to reach non-saved people, who have no preconceived ideas, and they will receive the Lord into their hearts and grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord because, they do not have to be retrained from their religious ideas. Now the fruits of sin are defined as Paul the Apostle states. However, these sins keep us in bondage when we do not flow in the Spirit of God’s righteousness.

Only as our roots grow deep in God and our thought life is being washed daily by the truth of His word, will we have the power to have our souls healed from this type of behavior. What the church is doing is focusing on their lack and weaknesses rather then Gods completed work at the cross. We are forever ether being saved repeatedly or continually rededicating our lives to him.

When John talks about us saying we have no sin in our lives, what he is saying is, as the Holy Spirit shows us what He wants us to have in life, we are to humble ourselves and live with a reverential fear of the Lord. Reverential fear does not mean that if we screw up we are going to be condemned by the Lord. A person who is growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord and is not sitting under legalist teaching, submits to God with the reality in his life that, he has a desperate need to allow God to show him how he can receive more of His grace or unmerited favor.

Another reason is you are afraid that you might have committed a sin that cannot be forgiven. What we have here are people that do not know their position in Christ and they have no clue what kingdom living is all about. Christians, who live in the Righteous Spirit of the Holy Spirit, have great liberty in their lives to be real in their conversations with God and others. They do not have a sin conscious mentality focusing on their faults and weaknesses. John continues in these verses to tell us that if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, who is Jesus Christ the Righteous. Unless we stay in a hungering and seeking mode in our relationship with Him and allow His Spirit of Righteousness to flow through us, we cannot have our minds washed by the water of the word of God and look at ourselves as being with out spot and wrinkle.

When we become lax and put God in any other place other then first priority in our lives, it’s then that we backslide from experiencing God’s grace and our flesh takes over.

It is the Spirit of God having His way in our lives that breaks any bondage that may have us missing God’s inheritance as His children. Another thing that strengthens our resolve is partaking of the Lords supper. When we do this, we are reminded of the fact that it was only God’s pity and mercy, which made us righteous in His sight.

Once we were made righteous when we became born again, we are righteous. This is already a completed work.

Most Christians explain righteousness as knowing the difference between right and wrong. This is what the curse did to us in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve never thought in right and wrong concepts before they ate from the Tree of Good and Evil. They were naked and transparent, God would weave His Spirit as a roaring wind or breathe through their minds and bodies and they had great fellowship with the two of them having an instant awareness of God’s thoughts. It says when they ate their eyes were opened and they knew they were naked. That was the reason they put on fig leaf aprons. That was there religious way to atone for their disobedience. That’s why Jesus came to break the curse and man could again allow God to flow His righteous Spirit through our minds and bodies.

Unless we learn how to let the Righteous Spirit of God operate on our souls, we will continue to be born again people living in mediocrity. We are all bound for heaven but there will be those that will show up as cripples having nothing to offer thanks to God for Christ’s sacrifice.

Some churches are receiving communion for the wrong reasons. In the catholic circles, we have to confess our sins to a mediator who is a priest before we go to communion. If we do not, we commit a sacrilege sin that cannot be forgiven by God and we automatically go to hell. This is a doctrine of Devils in it self.

How can people backslide from anything if they were never taught sound scriptural concepts? These are fundamental doctrines and I do not believe the body of Christ has ever been taught and grounded in the word of God. We should be having the Lord’s Supper even in our homes among our family members. Not only will this heal our souls but also, I believe it will heal our physical bodies.

There is much more to say on this matter because, this is a running warfare of functioning with the mind of Christ that we received when Jesus came into our hearts verses us leaning to our own understanding. The battle of us keeping our inheritance from our Heavenly Father is a fight that starts in our minds.

With our minds being exercised and renewed daily, the world of the Spirit becomes more real to us each day. Only this will stop the Devil from stealing our inheritance from us. Once we became born again we received the ability to flow in God’s Righteous Spirit. We cannot do anything in our selves to get more of it and we cannot do any thing less to lose it. Jesus saved us because He loved us.

Salvation was a free gift given by God. The best love gift He had was sending His Son Jesus who became a human being and suffered an agonizing death on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, past, present and future. To have eternal life and know His friendship all you have to do is ask God to reveal Himself to you. I know to some of you reading this that, this might seem too easy, but if you are searching for something more in your life, call on the Lord and I guarantee you, He will answer you. God will be as real to you as you allow Him to be.