The Committed Life

Are you running your life’s race by faith or under a curse?

Part 1

To live a life style under God’s protection, we need to walk in a reverential fear of God and want to follow the Holy Spirit’s leadings in our every day decision making. Reverential fear does not mean you are afraid of being punished by God but that, you have a desire to walk in obedience to His commands and counsel because, you love the relationship you are having with him and want to receive more of His love and favor in your life. Unless we have intimacy with God and allow Him to become our close personal friend, there can be no race of purpose with strength to run our race in the spiritual world. Jesus tells us that, “without us allowing Him to work in our lives, we can do nothing.”

If you have ever prepared to run in a physical race or trained as an athlete in any area, you come to realize that, it takes some dedicated disciplined training, effort and total commitment with a vision in your mind to win the first place prize. Many years ago my first encounter with training came when I was in high school, I can remember wanting to play football and the hot August months of running, training and the weight lifting program that I had to deal with to accomplish my dreams. To run in any race you must have a true vision and belief that your effort and training will bring results. Scripture tells us that “where there is no Godly vision or true knowledge of God the people perish.”

Over these many years of seeking God and trying to understand His motives and objectives, I have found that, my worst enemy has been my self. In my endeavor to run a Godly race in the beginning I listened to a lot of teachers of the gospel that said, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” They had positions of authority and claimed to know God and I trusted their judgments and vision of what they believed to be the vision that God wanted for me. We are to never trust in any ones vision of who they say God is without grasping with our own spirit and checking things out with our relationship with the Holy Spirit. The biggest threat and deception for the body of Christ is when, they put their future in the hands of men who lean towards their own understanding of God, for the sake of being accepted and having a place to belong.

King David in Psalms tells God that, “he realized that, he was nothing but a beast in his ignorance of God’s ways when he came before Him.” One way of identifying if you are running God’s race rather then your own, you become aware of the fact that God’s ways and thoughts are so much higher and profound then yours that, it creates a hunger in you that grows and getting to know Him becomes, the main objective of your life.

We need to finally understand the difference between walking in the Spirit verses walking in the flesh.

Hebrews 11:6 tells us, “Without faith it is impossible to please God. For whoever wants to come near to God must believe that He is, and that, He is a Rewarder for them who diligently seek him.” God does not become displeased with us when we miss His leadings but, He grieves over us when we live in ignorance’s of the true meaning of faith. Without a true meaning, it keeps Him from revealing to us how He planned for us to run our race from the beginning. Unless we are being taught and learning what faith and how to operate in it works, we can spend our whole life wanting to know God better and miss the mark of His high calling on our lives and end up running our race in vain.

We need to finally understand the difference between walking in the Spirit verses walking in the flesh.

Romans 14:23 tells us, “Anything not functioning in faith is sin.” A person who is not born again can not function in faith because he or she does not have the Holy Spirit in them who is the one who empowers us to cooperate with the faith of Christ who lives with in us. The fruit of sinful behavior in our lives shows us that we need to function in a greater understanding of our relationship with the Lord and be delivered from a judgmental attitude that we have towards ourselves. It is only as we flow in Christ’s Righteous Spirit that delivers us from those thoughts which become habits that are contrary to God’s way of thinking. The definition of the word sin in the Greek is, erring, missing the mark, losing our allotment and not sharing in a prize. sharing in a prize. As long as the body of Christ continues to teach and deal with their outward behavior or the sick fruit in their lives produced by their misinterpretation of God’s word, the core of the problem is never healed and we will have a crippled bunch of people that have a desire for God and never come to understand what their righteous position in Jesus Christ represents in their lives.

The church does a fine job of preaching the gospel of salvation. However, Romans 3:22 tells us that, we have to put on the faith of Christ Jesus. Putting on the faith of Jesus verses us having faith in Jesus is the difference between day and night. Of gives us the connotation of a relationship with a living being. Where In gives the connotation or represents mere knowledge of a person. We will now define the difference between living by faith or by foolishness and presumption.

Heb.12:1 states, “We should strip off and throw aside every hindrance or law attitude that makes us miss the mark, loss our allotment and not share in our prize. These law attitudes cleverly deceive us however; we must run our race with patient endurance and stead fast persistence only as the Holy Spirit shows us how to do this.” These law attitudes that have cleverly deceived us are hindrances that are a worrying weight of uncertainty of how much God really loves us and we live with an unsettledness and lack of peace.

We need to finally understand the difference between walking in the Spirit verses walking in the flesh.

In Galatians 5:19-21 Paul defines these fruits or behavior that operates in our lives that are caused by these hindrances or law attitudes. They are “immorality, impurity, indecency, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger ill temper, selfishness, divisions, party spirits, and 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.” He did not say we lose our salvation; but we are unable to function in our inheritance. Our inheritance was given to us by God the day we became born again and came into God’s family as His children. To know we are born again believers and that we could be participating in any one of these fruits has got to be scary and make us want to cry out to God for help. When we do not live by faith, these fruits in our lives depending on which one of them has control over us can dominate us. Scripture tells us that, if we break one of these laws we are guilty of breaking them all. So we have to allow the Holy Spirit to heal the root condition that causes our actions to manifest in sinful behavior therefore, we will go to Gal 3:10-14 where the Apostle Paul states.

“All people who live their lives on expecting to be righteous and to receive God’s favor by trying to obey God’s law or the law of ritualism, is being foolish because, when they live like this they are living under a curse.”

Deut. 27:26 states, “Any one who fails to keep God’s law and breaks just one is living under a curse.” Now it is evident that no man can be justified and declared righteous and brought into right standing with God by obeying His laws; for the scriptures says, for the man to be in right standing with ( Jesus the righteous one ) he shall live by and out of Jesus faith. Man’s righteousness in God’s sight is totally dependent on Jesus finished act of dying on the cross alone and our every day living relationship with Him in His righteous act. However, when we try to obey the law, we are not resting and living by His faith, it has nothing to do with His faith, for scripture tells us that, he who tries to obey the law in his own strength or so called faith is living by own philosophy. This type of philosophy is man studying human behavior, his ethics, morals or character with his own understanding apart from the Holy Spirit’s intervention and with God’s attributes operating in his thought life.

Jesus freed us from this type of sin conscience mentality causing our outward behavior or fruits to be controlled by fear and us living under a curse with feelings of guilt and condemnation.

This took place because, Jesus became that curse for us and by His act the curse was nailed to the very tree where He gave up His life for our freedom. It is evident to me that the majority of born again believers in the body of Christ do not fully understand the freedom they have to boldly come into God’s presence. They have no freedom because; they are still living with a shame based nature and not understanding their righteous position in Jesus Christ.
the curse was nailed to the very tree where He gave up His life for our freedom. It is evident to me that the majority of born again believers in the body of Christ do not fully understand the freedom they have to boldly come into God’s presence. They have no freedom because; they are still living with a shame based nature and not understanding their righteous position in Jesus Christ.

Us trying to obey the law was never designed or intended to care about the offender. When God gave Moses the law, it was never given for us to have the power to keep it in the first place.

Without spiritual discernment of what I have just stated, there can be no freedom within our selves and us knowing how totally accepted we are by God and the fact that, we do not have to measure up in any area of our life. The law was only given by God because, it made us become aware that, we were breaking God’s law and we needed a higher power then our own to have the strength to walk in obedience in keeping His laws. Jesus act on the cross and us admitting to Him that we were guilty of breaking His law and receiving Him as our Savior, now makes us a new creature in Christ and gives us the ability to walk in His courts with praise and thanksgiving, without shame and condemnation.

Unless we begin to preach and teach with conviction how we are to cooperate with Jesus righteous act in our lives, we will be born again believers living under a curse and never know our kingship relationship in God’s scheme of things.

In Romans, Paul the apostle with great logic and plain language explains the warfare he was going through in his endeavor to break this curse in his own life and live by the faith of Christ. In chapter seven he talks about this inner struggle and describes his dilemma by saying, “If I had not known the law of God I would have had no consciousness of breaking it and I would have felt no guilt. But sin had the opportunity to flourish because of me reasoning in wrong and right concepts. I lived in freedom until I recognized I was doing wrong and breaking God’s commandments. By me knowing God’s commandments, it was suppose to bring life to me, but it really caused death to begin to operate in my life. Therefore the Ten Commandments are just and holy. However, did that which was supposed to be good for me bring death to me? Certainly not. It was sin working death in me by using this good thing as a weapon that by me knowing the Ten Commandments sin might be clearly shown to me that I was breaking God’s law. The law is spiritual but I am a creature of the flesh and I have been sold into slavery under the control of sin. I am having a serious problem because I don’t understand my own actions. I can not accomplish what I wish, but I do the very thing that I loathe (I pass judgment on my self.)

For if I do what is contrary to my desires. I acknowledge that the law is good and I take sides with it. However it is no longer I who do these deeds but, the sin principle which is at home in me and I have become a slave to it. I have learned that there is nothing good in my own self. I have the urge and good intensions to do the right thing, but no power with in myself to get it done. Now if I do what I don’t want to do, it is not I doing the act, but the sin principle that has control and is operating in my mind, will and emotions. I delight and agree with the Law of God in my inner self with the new nature I have received when I became born again. But there is something not clear to me that is influencing me in the cravings of my will power and a different law at work and a warfare between what I want to do and me having no power to do it. This has made me a prisoner with in myself. This has caused me to feel insignificant and pathetic. I am despicable and I am ashamed of myself. I have become imprisoned with in myself. Who will delivery me from this imprisonment? O thank God! He will through Jesus Christ, the one who has the anointing to set me free. So then indeed with in my mind and heart I serve the Law of God, but in my flesh or immaturity the law of sin.
However it is no longer I who do these deeds but, the sin principle which is at home in me and I have become a slave to it. I have learned that there is nothing good in my own self. I have the urge and good intensions to do the right thing, but no power with in myself to get it done. Now if I do what I don’t want to do, it is not I doing the act, but the sin principle that has control and is operating in my mind, will and emotions. I delight and agree with the Law of God in my inner self with the new nature I have received when I became born again. But there is something not clear to me that is influencing me in the cravings of my will power and a different law at work and a warfare between what I want to do and me having no power to do it. This has made me a prisoner with in myself. This has caused me to feel insignificant and pathetic. I am despicable and I am ashamed of myself. I have become imprisoned with in myself. Who will delivery me from this imprisonment? O thank God! He will through Jesus Christ, the one who has the anointing to set me free. So then indeed with in my mind and heart I serve the Law of God, but in my flesh or immaturity the law of sin.

Paul states that, “through one mans act committed by Adam, the sin nature was engrafted into all of mankind.” We inherited a shame based nature just as Adam was ashamed when he disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden and felt ashamed of himself when he realized for the first time that he was naked and hid himself from the presence of God. We inherited his nature and were born a sinner and our soul condition said, “We can not obey.” As we received Adams curse which made us fall away from God, Jesus one act of righteousness led to our acquittal and put us in right standing with God permanently. This simple truth should have long ago been understood in the body of Christ. When we concentrate on trying to live up to the Ten Commandments our awareness of transgressing His law is expanded in our inner mind and the warfare in us becomes intense. Unless we know how to tap into God’s grace which has the supernatural power to set us free, we will never realize how totally secure and pure we are in God’s sight.

When we stay in this uncertainty, our shame based nature or the curse, flourishes.

Romans 6:1-5 tells us, “Let’s not interpret that because we are righteous and have God’s grace in our lives that this gives us permission to let it all hang out and go on sinning. We only think like this because we are ignorant of the fact that, all of us have been baptized into Christ Jesus and when He died on the cross and we came into agreement with Him and asked Him into our hearts, we were raised from the died with Jesus to a new life.” Thus the term, we have been born again from above and we are now a new man who no longer has the stigmatism of Adam the disobedient one with the curse. When we say stigmatism we mean, we have become a disgrace or have fallen from an unmerited position in receiving God’s favor. The word for baptism in the Greek is bapto: meaning, to whelm, to stain as with dye or to wash.

The word whelmed means, to be over powered or empowered. In the New Testament John the Baptist was so named because, he was a forerunner of Jesus coming to die on the cross for our sinful nature to deliver us from Adams curse. In Matthew 3:11 John states, “I indeed baptize you with water for now because, you have realized that you have sinned and broken one of the Ten Commandments and want to repent and follow God.

However, Jesus who comes after me is mightier then me and whose shoes I am not worthy or fit to take off or carry: He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” John recognized that he was only a forerunner and preparing the people for a born again experience by receiving Jesus as their Savior. When we are truly born again, not through head knowledge or ritualism obedience of outward water baptism, we have a supernatural encounter with the Holy Spirit and a miracle takes place and He comes to live in our being forever.

then me and whose shoes I am not worthy or fit to take off or carry: He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” John recognized that he was only a forerunner and preparing the people for a born again experience by receiving Jesus as their Savior. When we are truly born again, not through head knowledge or ritualism obedience of outward water baptism, we have a supernatural encounter with the Holy Spirit and a miracle takes place and He comes to live in our being forever.

When it comes to miracles in one‘s life, we must have this supernatural encounter to first see God’s kingdom and then we need to learn how to enter it or participate in it. This is the only way we can have a relationship of joy and peace with God. Since we all are eternity people, born again or not, God has given us a choice to participate in an environment of heaven or hell in this life and for eternity. Hell is nothing more than a broken relationship and a separation from our creator. The loneliness I have sensed in peoples life is staggering. Today we have religious observances in different denominations of babies being sprinkled with water to get eternal life. We have preaching that a person must accept Jesus and be submerged in water after committing to Christ to get eternal life. We also have teachings in Pentecostal circles that, unless we speak in tongues or in a language that our minds can not understand, we do not have the Holy Spirit. Speaking in another language under the anointing of the Holy Spirit is a gift of God like all His other gifts. This is where we give the Holy Spirit permission to speak through us and this is also none by faith using God’s attributes.

I received the gift nine months after I received Christ by learning that it was a gift of God. Unless we rightly interpret the meaning of the scriptures through the Holy Spirits directions, we live in foolishness and presumption and we can not run our race with the true knowledge of God. The real issue is, we hardly have any teaching of what it really means to be spiritually baptized in Jesus the day we became born again people and how to operate in His faith. We will now define how this washing and how we were empowered stained with a dye and had our sins washed away the day we made Jesus our Savior.

In the book of Rev. John the Apostle had a revelation to the seven Churches of that day. These seven churches represent all the spiritual activity that is going on in the born again churches of today. He starts out in chapter one in verse 4 of by saying to them. “May grace, God’s spiritual favor be granted to you from Him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven Spirits meaning the seven fold characteristics or attributes of the Holy Spirit in worship before God’s throne.” Only people who have the Holy Spirit can come before God’s throne and truly worship. The more we operate and know His characteristics, the more access we will have in getting God’s favor and attention.

Through out the New Testament the writers of the epistles meaning Paul and Peter primarily start off and end all the letters in their epistles with “ may God grant unto you a understanding and empowerment of His grace in your life.” It is God’s grace operating in our lives that, gives the body of Christ the capability to participate in the seven fold characteristics of the Holy Spirit.

Unless we know how to give the Holy Spirit sovereign power and access to our entire being with intensity and purpose, we are being deceived in having a true knowledge of God.

Being born again people, the Holy Spirit comes to live in our being and our empowerment to live the Christian life comes by us operating through His seven characteristics. These seven fold characteristics are found in Isaiah 11:1-5. It states, “Out if the linage of Jesse who was David the Kings father will be born Jesus who will have the spirit of the Lord resting on Him. The seven characteristics resting on Jesus were, A. Wisdom, B. Understanding, C. Council, D. Might, E. Knowledge, F. Reverence, G. Obedience. Because of this condition resting in Him this made Him have a quick understanding and His delight was in being reverent and He had an obedient fear of the God. Because of this type of thinking He did not judge things by their outward appearance or by the things that He heard. He judged things with a Righteousness Spirit operating with in Him when it came to sensing the hearts of the poor and the meek and the people who were oppressed as He walked this earth. He also rebuked the oppressing spirits by speaking God’s word and defeated them and He did this by wearing righteousness as the girdle of His loins and faithfulness was the girdle of His reins”

Jesus wearing righteousness means,

He allowed the Holy Spirit to chain Himself to Himself and this allowed Him to stay stream lined in the Spirit world and run His race as a greyhound runs a race because, He was being stripped and unhindered by any philosophy, or lawish weight that could so easily torment or curse Him.

We need to understand that, Jesus the man had to allow the power of Christ to operate in Him so He could walk in righteousness when he walked the earth. Too many Christians that I have met do not understand that, Christ gave up His position of safety and power in heaven to become a man like us. Therefore, He can now relate and have a fellow feeling with our trials and sufferings, so when we now call upon Him, He can empower us to live with the same victory He did in the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus followed the leadings of the Holy Spirit; He lived by an inner voice directing Him not by any outward manifestation of sight or sound. When we truly understand that we were baptized or totally submerged spiritually into God’s Spirit, it’s then that we will start to operate as He did in these seven characteristics that Jesus had resting on Him.

Let’s now define these seven characteristics of the Holy Spirit that we received from God the day we became born again believers. Continued in part two.