Godly Warrior is the warfare of a child

Part one

For this article we refer to the interpretation of a child being, somebody considered to be either produced or strongly influenced by a particular environment, period of time or an historical figure. Just as we have heard people say, “I am a child of the sixties or so on.” We are all children living in an environment that is constantly trying to control and imprison us from our freedoms of expression and ability to prosper and fulfill our God ordained destiny. It is either in our financial independence or relationships with others however, primarily it is our struggling of learning how to receive and give love.

In Mark 10:13-16 we have the account of where the children wanted to approach Jesus, but the disciples felt that they were being a bother and tried to stop them. When Jesus saw this he became annoyed and was grieved. He then said, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive, accept and welcome the kingdom of God as a child shall not enter the kingdom at all. He then took the children up into His arms and fervently invoked a blessing by placing his hands on them.”

We are living in a dispensation of time, where it would be suicidal to try and stay as a child and try to deal with the cares of life with our natural senses. We are living in a day when greed, disloyalty, betrayal, uncertainty of future events, people crying out to have a say so for their particular persuasions to be heard, perversion obscenity with acts on the air waves, and peoples heart failing them because of fears dominating their lives. So my question was when I read this part of scripture, what was Jesus talking about when He said this?

With in our basic human nature there is a child, the real us. God made us that way and it is this child that He gave His life for on the cross. It is my contention that, the child with in all of us has been ignored, taken for granted and literally abused in some form or fashion for as long as man has been on this plant. Even though I was raised in a God fearing family who loved God, I did not know Jesus on a personal basis. I was not raised in the admonition of the Lord as I could have been if my parents knew the Lord personally. After I received Christ at the age of twenty five, I had the opportunity to lead my parents and brothers all to the Lord over the next six years. That is not talking about many of my aunts and uncles. This is not a complaint on my part, but I state this for the main reason of making us recognize how important it is to be grounded in Christ at the earliest possible time in one’s life. When we get saved in our latter years, we become the product of our environment and pick up the worlds ways of living that create great scars and cripple ness in the heart of the child with in us all.

I have come to realize over the years with in my self and with all of the many people that I meet that, there is a crippled child with in all of us and some much more crippled then I. This at times saddens and frustrates me in trying to help with some word of wisdom and it makes me feel helpless to heal the real child with in each one of us.

What really saddens me the most is, I have seen in many situations with in church assemblies that, there are those who have the same lack of awareness as Jesus disciples did of the way Jesus looked at and understood that, it must be a healthy child with in each one of us who has the ability to participate in God’s kingdom and all that it represents.

Since Jesus came to die on the cross for the child, it is the child inside that must be discipled because, in the child is the warrior spirit that God uses to convict and convince the people in our arenas of life of the great love He has for mankind. A crippled child has a difficult time entering God’s kingdom because, they have become self conscience to their pain and have a mistaken mistrust and do not want to suffer any more abuse in their lives. Most of them have no awareness of this condition existing with in them.

In many born again assemblies, leadership who are caring for God’s children should not look at them as being rebels living in sinful pleasure and condemn them as being intentional sinners, rather they should look at them as crippled children who have a need for a spiritual doctor and have a fellow feeling for their crippled state. This false concept is not new; it has been going on since Jesus left the earth. It is no wonder that Paul the Apostle in his letter to the Romans, starts out in Romans 8:1 and had to remind the people by sayng to them, “Now therefore, there is no condemnation, no adjudging guilty of wrong for those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” When people walk after the flesh, this does not mean that, they as born again believers are to be condemned because of their flesh walk. A born again believer who has Jesus living in their hearts, because of their crippled or immature state, has no other choice and is unable to walk in the spirit and participate as God’s child with joy and purpose in the family business.

When one sits under a ministry of behavior teaching and the Lord’s love is not being raised up with out any conditions attached to it, the child becomes more crippled. Any time there is an atmosphere that hinders God’s grace (His unmerited favor) which is what heals us in all areas and it is not having its own way; God’s sheep are being led to be slaughtered. When law in any form is being taught through obligation and fear tactics, the people perish. In my office I have a sail boat that my daughter gave me many years ago that states on the sail, “The grace of God will never lead you where the grace of God will not keep you.” Unless the body of Christ really understands and begins to define with God’s grace at work in their lives, they will be God’s kids living as crippled people and never function in their inherent righteous state in God’s eyes.

Paul goes on to say in Romans 8:2-4 “For the law of the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus (the law of our new being) has freed me from the law of me focusing on my sin consciences ness which causes death.”

This meaning, being sick and tired of hearing about something over and over and having to deal with it.

Paul goes on to say, “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, (meaning man with his human nature without the Holy Spirit living in them.) God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for our sin, subdued, overcame and deprived it of its power over all who accept Jesus as their Savior. In turn, the righteous and just requirements of the Law can now be fully met in us who live no longer in the flesh, (having a mental conscience warfare in our minds of trying to measure up to God’s Laws,) but now, we are to be controlled by the Holy Spirit speaking to us with our new nature.

Paul the Apostle in his letter to the Galatian church, in chapter 4:1-7 states, “ as long as the inheritor ( heir ) stays as a child and under age, he does not differ from being a slave, although he is the master of the estate. Therefore, he is under guardians and administrators or trustees until the date determined by his father. So we as born again believers also when we were minors were kept like slaves under rules of rituals and were subject to the elementary teachings of a system of external observances and regulated rules. However, when the proper time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman and born subject to these same rules that we were born and obligated to follow.

When one is a bond servant it means, (an object such as a rope, band, or chain that binds them by a living spirit and they have no rights to think and decide their future but are being obligated through force and the outcome is destruction. In Paul’s dialogue, he wants us to recognize the difference between us being a new creature in Christ verses forever trying to obey God’s commandments and struggling to clean up our own act.

God gave us the Ten Commandments so that we would know that we were sinning and breaking them. However, we need to grow out of this understanding by us being raised and having a vision of what God says we are after salvation and what power we have to be His ambassadors in the earth. In many churches that I have visited and the majority of the Christian programming that are on TV, those that are in leadership and proclaiming the gospel have an awareness that the body of Christ is in a weak feeble state as to their maturity in Christ. Many will not address the issues and so business goes on as usual. Some are addressing the problem and are trying a quick fix or working even harder to invent some alternative and putting a band aid to cover up their inadequacies.

There are a few and they are scattered that recognize that, it is only teaching what our righteous position in Jesus Christ really represents, that are making any head way in producing warriors for the kingdom. In spite of all this noise and emotional confusion, God is patiently at work turning our ignorance and apathy around because of his faithfulness not ours, and He waits at our hearts door and asks for our permission for Him to come in and have true fellowship with him.

We need to all realize that this spirit of deception is the warfare that David described in Psalms 23: when he said, “Ya though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.” Anything being taught and being digested into the heart of the believer that is contrary to our righteous position that we hold in God’s sight, brings crippled ness and death to the Warrior Spirit with in us. Once we become born again and the Spirit of God lives in us, we need to continue daily to have born again experiences with the Holy Spirit that matures and heals the crippled child with in all of us. This is not done with an attitude of constantly rededicating our self over and over and never becoming diaper trained. It is us growing in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ that will enable us to go out in our arenas of life and do the works of Jesus. It is evident to me since I walk in this arena daily that, the born again church has no idea of their call and their arena of life is a pew in a church building week after week.

Over the years, I have ministered with in the Christian structure of a church building, but mostly outside of the church structure. It is really sad that not all but many of the born again believers have been brain washed by tradition and have been told that, because they belong to some denomination, they hold a special favor in God’s eyes. Church assembling which is supposed to be a training nursery for babies to grow up to do the work of Jesus in the market places of life has become a financial business in many areas and a holding pen of keeping God’s Saints in an infantile mentality of pray for me, teach me, keep me safe and intercede for me to God. This takes place because, they are constantly being reminded, what an inferior condition they are in by telling them, stop doing this and start doing that and you will eventually be like God and mature.

However, there are scores of scarred, hurting emotional bruised believers today sitting in churches every Sunday that are living as prisoners with in them selves and have to be ministered to by mature Saints that really know the love of Daddy God in their own lives. Denominational teachings in any form keep God’s kids as cripples all of their lives. Scripture tells us that, “what we hear and meditate on is what we become.”

Let me give you a simple example that will explain the difference between staying a baby in your diaper and becoming a strong warrior in the Lord.

We have something called in the Christian vocabulary, the acts of omission and commission. The word omission means, something that has been deliberately or accidentally left out or not being explained and done. It is an attitude being portrayed of being incomplete. It represents the same deception in Gen. Chapter 2 when Eve had a séance with Satan in the Garden of Eden and she told Satan that, God said, “she and Adam could eat from every tree in the Garden, but of they ate from the Tree of Good and Evil they would surly die.” Satan then made her doubt by saying “did God really say that.” This is the same deception Satan uses today when he makes the believer think that, he is not totally righteous and complete after he becomes saved and became born again from above.

This deception when listened to puts a doubt in a believer and makes him think that, he is not complete in Jesus Christ’s act alone at the cross. In turn, he focuses on his incompleteness and this makes him live in shame the same as Adam and Eve had by making fig leafs to cover their nakedness. All religion represents a fig leaf mentality and makes a believer hide in the dark when God comes along to have fellowship with him. It makes a believer feel unworthy and the boldness to represent Christ in the earth is surrendered to,

In Eph. 5:26-27 it states, “ Jesus sanctified the church and cleansed it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church not having any spot or wrinkle or any such thing; only that, it should be holy and without blemish.” Jesus is the word of life that lives with in us. When one is sanctified, they are freed from a sin conscience mentality that keeps a person in bondage to commit unrighteous acts. The born again believer needs to be constantly edified and reminded that Jesus purified them with His own blood at the cross and they have become a new creation in Christ.

Their shame based nature was buried with Christ and when He arose from the dead, they arose with Him and were delivered from their old nature and became a new creation the same as He did. The only thing left for us to receive is our new immortal body that will live for ever with him.

11 Peter 3:13-14 tells us what our attitude should be. “We are to be looking for a new heaven and a new earth according to a promise by God in which His people shall function in his righteousness. This is His promise which tells us that, we are free from sin and a sin conscience mentality which keeps us at peace with God. So since this is our attitude, we will be able to be looking forward to his return to the earth. Us knowing our righteous position in Christ will keep us eager and we will be found by him with an attitude in us of not having any spots and unwrinkled. In turn, we will have a serene confidence, free from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts.” When a believer has wrinkles, he has false interpretations of scripture and he sees himself spotted with being unworthy and still as sinner rather then a saint in their walk with the Lord.

Now we stated out having this condition of looking at ourselves with spots and wrinkles when we first become born again however, we are to be weaned off this shame based attitude of ourselves. Because most Christians are not being weaned off this self abasement, they are having a terrible time and are in bondage to agitating fears and moral conflicts which show up in their behavior because, fear is in control of their lives rather then a healthy nurturing spirit of God‘s love flowing through them. As long as this condition persists, they never get to the acts of commission. It is the same condition as the Israelites who wandered in the wilderness for forty years and never got into the promises land and participating in their inheritance given to them by God.

The word commission means, a group of people appointed with or directed to carry out a duty or a military task as an appointed military officer to act as an agent for another. This type of person does not sound like a person who has no identity in their relationship in God‘s family. The body of Christ as a whole has the same mentality of the prodigal son described in Luke 15:11-32. The prodigal son was a young lad trying to find his identity and having a conflict between his father trying to raise him in the admonition of the Lord verses him being influenced by the environment of his life. His trials of life through his growing pains made him begin to internalize his life’s predicaments in his pig pen of life. He started to come to his senses and started to remind himself of all that his father told him. You must have the word of God deep rooted in you heart to be reminded.

His fathers! (Loving words), brought him back to the roots or seeds that his father planted in him when he was at home, safe and secure. As he meditated on this, he wrestled with great guilt because he felt unworthy to come back as his son and heir. He thought I will go back and ask him to make me a servant. In this process of thinking, he made a decision to come out from his condition of denial, un-trust and deal with the immaturity that still kept him in bondage to his childish thinking and behavior.

As he returned it says his father saw him from a far off and had compassion on him and hugged him around the neck and kissed him. He then told his father that he did not feel worthy to be his son because; he had sinned against heaven and in his sight. However, his father didn’t pay attention to his shame based condition in his own eyes and he put a ring on his finger and gave him a new robe and shoes for his feet. When we function in a sin conscience mentality of shame in our lives, it causes a disconnect in our relationship with the Holy Spirit and our spiritual ears become blocked.

Let’s discuss the meaning of these words underlined. The ring he put on his finger represents a covenant of an eternal bound relationship that cannot be broken no matter what ever transpires between a father and son. The camaraderie might have been broken but the blood relationship could never be terminated.

This word robe in the Greek is stole: meaning a long robe that represents dignity. It also represents a supernatural strength and a power that enables and keeps us free from worldly entanglements. It’s our righteousness position in Christ that we should be living in which empowers us.

The word shoe is hupodeo: meaning bound to or in submission and hidden. Scripture says we are to be hidden in Christ or our security must be in Christ. At times as the Holy Spirit gives me the revelation of His thoughts, it makes me very thankful for God’s patience and mercy as He is absolutely unrelenting in pursuing every one of His wandering sheep that are being caught up in the thickets and crevices of life. Like a shepherd watching His sheep and as a parent watching their children as they learn to crawl and walk in their physical lives. All of us in the body of Christ have a prodigal ness inside us and we have to stay in a child like trust in God our Father‘s care. This is where our power to stay as over comer resides.

This term prodigal is what the writers of the bible came up with, as a definition to use to define this parable; you will only find the word in the margin. This word prodigal was never a word originally written into the word of God and it doesn’t only mean that he squandered his money as I have heard preached for years but, it also means that his roots were not very deep into him knowing his authority and the position that he held as being the Son of a wealthy father who’s estate he was going to rule over when he came of age.

There will always be a prodigal ness in each one of us that needs to submit and surrender to the Holy Spirits leading so that, we can grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Is it possible that there are many sitting in the pews of churches today going through the first grade of learning over and over and never maturing and recognizing who they are and the calling they have on there lives to fight the good fight of faith with God’s weapons of warfare?

In Hebrews 5:13-14 Paul the Apostle writes, “Every one who continues to feed on milk is obvious unskilled in the doctrine of righteousness. In turn, we cannot conform to God’s divine will in purpose, thought and action because we are mere infants, not able to talk yet. But solid food is for full-grown men and women whose senses and mental faculties are trained by practice to recognize the difference between what is morally good and noble and what is evil and contrary either to divine law or human law.”

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

It is only the true word of God being richly stored in our heart by us meditating on it day and night.

This word discern is the spiritual awareness given to us by the Holy Spirit that energizes our being and we talk about it with great joy and with a firmness in our belief. This means that, it’s on our mind and we can identify with the Holy Spirit talking to us. It’s a dimension called walking in the Spirit. 1 John 2:14 says, “you young men because you are strong and the word of God abides in you, you are now able to overcome the wicked one.” Lets look at this word abides and see exactly what it means.

First of all what it does not mean is having a data bank of scripture in your head that you whip out on every opportunity you get to show how knowledgeable you are in the word of God. This word abides in the Greek is meno: meaning, to stay in a relationship of expectancy or a prospect of a hope to come. It also means to tarry and continue to endure or to long for. This word tarry means to wait. In the Hebrew abides is chakah: meaning to adhere to or to be moved upon sharply or deeply, as with emotion or pain. It also means to penetrate as if seeing into and coming to nderstand a mystery.

Isaiah 40:31 reads like this using the Greek and Hebrew definitions we just defined. “When we wait or stay in a relationship of expectancy for God to open our eyes to new mysteries of His ways, there will be created in us a great passion with emotion and pain as we are changed into His likeness. In turn, we will be renewed like the eagle and be able to run and not be weary in our growing pains. We will walk and not faint.” As you can see here with only our logic, knowing the word of God is meaningless if, the relationship is not a living emotional oneness of God and us allowing Him to make us into a God-man like our brother Jesus as He walked the planet.

If you know anything about the eagle, every so often he goes into hibernation, sheds his feathers and beak, and gets new ones like a young eagle, which makes him soar higher over the earth. This is the example God gave Isaiah in scripture. God intention is for us to constantly be renewed as staying trusting children under God our Heavenly Fathers protective hedge. As this relationship is going on with the Holy Spirit, we will experience what Hebrews 5:13-14 talks about when it says, “We will be able to conform to God in purpose, thought and action.” This can only take place as we become skilled in the doctrine of righteousness by us knowing that God loves us with out conditions and we are pure in his sight. While we were sinners, He died for us and we did nothing to deserve His sacrifice. If we are not growing in this understanding that we have now become saints, we stay on the milk of the word and continue to live as babies and stay servants to our fleshly desires.

Unless we are growing into young men and woman and really walking in a healthy understanding of God’s love and know our true identity in Him, we are producing crippled children and the cycle continues to go on. It’s like a curse that continues to be passed down from one generation to another.

As we become independent young adults in our relationship with the Holy Spirit, our testimony will be what is stated in Isaiah chapter 50:4. “The Lord has given me the tongue of a disciple and of those who are taught, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. Every morning when I wake up God’s voice stirs in my spirit and I recognize that I am His disciple and He continues to give me insights into Himself and He teaches me His way of thinking.” Since our life of righteousness is being fed by the Holy Spirit, we need to be taking our daily spiritual bath and have our thought life be continually washed from being contaminated from the continual bombardment of conditional love themes from the world and I am sorry to say from the born again church in many areas.

When we flow in the righteousness of God’s Spirit, we live in the seven characteristics of the Holy Spirit which 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, 1. Wisdom, 2. Understanding, 3. Council, 4. Might, 5. Knowledge, 6. Reverence, 7. 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 Lord. 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” The meaning of this is,

We need to understand that, Jesus the man had to allow the power of God 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 and 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 define these seven characteristics of the Holy Spirit which is the inheritance that we received when we became born again into God's family.  Continued in part two.