Living by laws of life or death

Part two

Paul's dialogue to the Romans:

“Do you not know, brethren—for I am speaking to men who are acquainted with the Law that legal claims have power over a person only for as long as he is alive? For [instance] a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is loosed and discharged from the law concerning her husband. Accordingly, she will be held an adulteress if she unites herself to another man while her husband lives. But if her husband dies, the marriage law no longer is binding on her [she is free from that law]; and if she unites herself to another man, she is not an adulteress. Like wise, my brethren, you have undergone death as to the Law through the crucified body of Christ, so that now you may belong to another, who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. When we were living in the flesh (mere physical lives), the sinful passions that were awakened and aroused up by [what] the Law [makes sin] were constantly operating in our natural powers (in our bodily organs, in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh), so that we bore fruit for death.

However, we are discharged from the Law and have terminated all intercourse with it, having died to what once restrained and held us captive. So now we serve not under [obedience to] the old code of written regulations, but [under obedience to the promptings] of the Spirit in newness of life]. What then do we conclude? Is the Law identical with sin? Certainly not! Nevertheless, if it had not been for the Law, I should not have recognized sin or have known its meaning. [For instance] I would not have known about covetousness [would have had no consciousness of sin or sense of guilt] if the Law had not [repeatedly] said, you shall not covet and have an evil desire [for one thing and another]. However, sin finding opportunity in the commandment [to express itself] got a hold on me and aroused and stimulated all kinds of forbidden desires (lust, covetousness). For without the Law sin is dead [the sense of it is inactive and a lifeless thing]. Once I was alive, but quite apart from and unconscious of the Law.

But when the commandment came, sin lived again and I died (was sentenced by the Law to death). And the very legal ordinance which was designed and intended to bring life actually proved [to mean to me] and brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity and getting a hold on me [by taking its incentive] from the commandment, beguiled and entrapped and cheated me, and using it [as a weapon], killed me. The Law therefore and [each] commandment is holy and good. Did that which is good then prove fatal [bringing death] to me? Certainly not! It was sin, working death in me by using this good thing [as a weapon], in order that through the commandment sin might be shown up clearly to be sin, that the extreme malignity and immeasurable sinfulness of sin might plainly appear, know that the Law is spiritual; but I am a creature of the flesh [carnal, unspiritual], having been sold into slavery under [the control of] sin. For I do not understand my own actions [I am baffled and bewildered]. I do not practice or accomplish what I wish, but I do the very thing that I loathe [which my moral instinct condemns].

Now if I do [habitually] what is contrary to my desire, [that means that] I acknowledge and agree that the Law is good (morally excellent) and that I take sides with it. However, it is no longer I who do the deed but the sin [principle] which is at home in me and has possession of me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot For I fail to practice the good deeds I desire to do, but the evil deeds that I do not desire to do are what I am [ever] doing. Now if I do what I do not desire to do, it is no longer I doing it [it is not myself that acts], but the sin [principle] which dwells within me [fixed and operating in my soul].

So I find it to be a law ( a rule of action of my being)that when I want to do what is right and good, evil is ever present with me and I am subject to its instant demands. For I endorse and delight in the Law of God in my inmost self [with my new nature. But I discern in my bodily members [in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh] a different law (rule of action)at war against the law of my mind ( my reason ) and making me a prisoner to the law of sin that dwells in my bodily organs [ in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh]. O unhappy and pitiable and wretched man that I am! Who will release and deliver me from the shackles of this body of death? O thank God He will through Jesus Christ the Anointed one) our Lord! So then indeed I, of myself with the mind and heart, serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of and perform it. I have the intention and urge to do what is right, but no power to carry it out.

Paul very passionately describes this inner struggle he was having in trying to obey God’s laws, only because, he was trying to do it in his own strength. He comes to the conclusion that it was not he himself wanting to be disobedient but that he was being controlled by an inner entity or principle that had a hold of him and he could not break free from its clutches. Most preaching and teachings within the so called Christian community condemn the person of intentionally wanting to be disobedient and all they need is a mind change to turn around or repent, go to church and do this or that and God will accept them. This can’t be any farther from the truth. It’s like going into the cancer ward at a hospital and telling a cancer patient to get their butt out of bed and stop whining and moaning about their sickness. The Devils deception that he perpetrated on Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was a supernatural enchantment that crippled and enslaved them to a supernatural bondage in their inner selves where they could only be delivered by the Righteous Spirit of Christ. Before they were enchanted by Satan, God would fellowship with them by weaving His spirit as a wind through their bodies which kept them transparent and unencumbered with any type of shame and guilt.

Paul’s wretchedness that he describes is translated in the Greek Concordance as going through a trial and a thought process of scrutinizing one’s behavior with a judgmental attitude of wrong and right thinking. Scripture tells us if our heart condemns us, God is greater then our heart and knows all things. I was taught to believe in a born again church that I attended that, if I was condemning myself, God would be stricter and more condemning then I was on myself. Our fight that the bible tells us we are suppose to fight in the spiritual world by faith, is a constant attack on our minds by the devil of us thinking “God loves me and He loves me not.” If we understand that God knows all things and he knows us better then we know ourselves, it has to be our ignorance of the word of God that makes us live in denial and cover our thought life with a fig leaf mentality, as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden when God showed up to have fellowship with them, after they were deceived by Satan and tried to hide what they did from God.

When we cover our self with our self righteous fig leaf thinking, it stops God from weaving His Spirit as a breathe or wind that scripture describes of how we are to welcome the Holy Ghost to comfort and instruct us in our maturing and how to overcome our tendencies of hiding from God in denial. Paul states at the end of his reasoning that, I of my self with the mind and heart, serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of and perform it. I have the intention and urge to do what is right, but no power to carry it out.

In 11 Cor. 1:9-10 Paul says, “He felt within himself that he had received the [very] sentence of death, but that was to keep him from trusting in and depending on himself instead of on God who raises the dead. [For it is He] Who rescued and saved him from such a perilous death, and He will still rescue and save him because he had set his hope and joyful confident expectation on Him and that He will again deliver him [from danger and destruction and draw him to Himself].”

He also states in 1Cor. 2:9-16 that, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, or no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ!

We must guard our hearts where the issues of life are formed. Even though the Holy Ghost lives in the heart of a born again believer, they can be a slave to unrighteous thoughts that even though it is God’s plan for us to operate in the Spirit of God’s love most Christians operate in a spirit of fear and insecurity. Fear can have such a firm hold on a born again believer that they can operate with a murdering spirit in them because they are so self occupied that their needs are the only thing they seek after. As this murdering spirit and personal entity begins to operate on them it is then interacted on to their family relationships and the people they associate with in their personal lives. This is the spirit of strife that the bible talks about that there is every evil abomination operating in it.

God knew that mankind would be impregnated with this entity and He knew how man was to overcome this tendency. Scripture tells us that God made the Devil good however; He also covered all the contingencies if he was to go bad and contaminate God’s creation as he did in the Garden of Eden. Man became contaminated with a guilty conscience and was born with it. He is always looking over his shoulder because he was born being self conscience, not God conscience. Our canal flesh which includes our five senses is a slave of (what can I get out of life for myself.) This is the evil entity that I defined in my life until Jesus came into my life and the example that Paul stated that had him in bondage to by feeling like a wretched man. Unless God’s children recognize the difference between reasoning and interpreting scripture through their natural minds verses the mind of Christ which is alive and empowers us to sense the Holy Ghost’s passions and the intensions of His heart, our awareness of walking in the Spirit and functioning as kingdom kings and priests unto our God will never take place.

There must be with in us a motivation and hunger for excellence in walking in holiness and honesty with a humble spirit of searching for a higher wisdom then our own. When God’s people have no vision of what God has in store for those who diligently seek Him, they settle for a mediocre life of religious observances that have no eternal value as to them being a child of God and they fall short of experiencing God as a loving Father to them. It is time that the body of Christ begins to walk in obedience to what Paul the Apostle states in Romans 12:1-3. “ I appeal to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in the view of all the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies presenting all your members and faculties as a living sacrifice, holy ( devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable ( rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, this age fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs. But be transformed ( changed) by the ( entire) renewing of your mind by its new attitudes so that you may prove ( for yourselves what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, those things that are good and acceptable in his sight for you.”

The interpretation of the mercies of God in the Greek Concordance is defined as, a person having pity over some ones grief or emotional pain in their lives. There has to be a living emotional relationship with the Holy Ghost that makes us know we can receive comfort and understanding from Him no matter what ever crevices of life we get caught up in and no matter how awful we feel about our selves.

There is a discernment gift given to us by the Holy Ghost where we can distinguish the difference between being obedient to laws that have no life verses a relationship with the one who created life. There can be no decisive dedication of any thing if you no not have a living view of the mercies of God which is His total passion of loving us in spite of ourselves. A person who operates in this fellow feeling of God’s passion for them to be whole or His view starts with this born again miracle where God introduces himself to us at the cross and we continue to hunger and thirst after this supernatural connection to God by spending the rest of our lives searching for our purpose and how we are to totally operate in God’s kingdom. It is only us having our heart and mind operating with the Holy Ghost’s passion to love on us, which in turn gives us a hunger to follow Christ by the motivation that He gives us as a son or daughter of God. That’s why Paul the Apostle in Eph. 4:30 tells us, “don’t grieve the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you were sealed unto the day of redemption.”

When the righteousness of God is preached, it is then that the transformation begins to take place with in the body of Christ. John in the book of Revelations ends His dialogue to seven different churches with the statement “those who have an ear let then hear what the Holy Ghost is saying to the church.” We who are born again all have spiritual ears to hear the Holy Ghost however, when is the body of Christ going to come out of their stupor and spiritual lethargy and rightly interpret the word of God as the Holy Ghost is trying to teach it. Scripture tells us that the truth will set us free. Denominational truth and doctrines only divide and separate God’s family into different camps with no united front. This has been going on forever and Christ’s body has been penned up, exploited and separated from their Commander and Chief. They are still living in shame with a loathing for themselves with no confidence and self esteem and they are unable to look boldly into the face of God and have a feeling of being totally accepted by Him.

Paul tells us, to have our shame go away; our minds have to be renewed. Heb. 4:12-13 states, “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart and nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and lay bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” It is only by us having a disciplined life style of daily reading the word of God, which allows the Holy Ghost to uncover any hidden agendas with in our fleshly nature trying to control our lives. He does this by His chastisement and Godly wisdom which changes us to be conformed to God’s image. Chastisements are not spankings as most churches our teaching it. It is the Spirit of God that gives vision and surrounds us as a hedge of protection with God’s rod and staff as a Father lovingly guarding His children.

In Psalms 23:4 King David tells us, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil (from God or man) for you are with me; your rod (to protect) and your staff to guild), and they comfort me.” This shadow of death that David talked about is the atmosphere and influence that we all live in day and night until we come to the end of life on this planet. We must come to the end of ourselves and understand that there are no short cuts to spiritual maturity in God but only a trust and us wanting a helping hand from the God who made us with a love for us that never ends.

All of our church going, and sitting under anointed and un-anointed teachings with our clapping, tears, jumping and dancing. All of our testifying and believing in visions and dreams and all of our longings for fulfillment will have no value if, we with in our own self are not going through a living and emotional experience of being made over from with in by the Holy Ghost’s persuasions to live life God’s way, which is totally contrary to human thought and education. That is why Paul said we have to prove to ourselves that the leading we are following are God’s thoughts and not our own. This is the make over that creates a spirit of independence and boldness of learning to live by love laws of life verses dead letter laws of obligated works of death. As long as the body of Christ lives by a spirit of obligated yearnings for fulfillment, they will never be able to have the freedom to say to God and man,

“I know I can make a willful decision to say no to God or man because the God I know gives me free choices to love or not love.”

Romans 5:6-8 tells us, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” We must be taught how to take on Jesus life in order to be saved from ourselves.

Christ stepped out of heaven and impregnated Himself into Jesus who became the God man doing the signs and wonders that His Father wanted Him to do in His physical life on the earth. He took on the fragile inferior nature of mankind willingly and gave up His Godly position not through any obligated (I must do this attitude). He went to the cross and suffered all the fears of life as we do and depended on His Fathers grace to get the job done. This is the example that He shows us as a vision of what He wants us to do through the same power God His Father gave Him to run His race.

The bible tells us that, Abraham is called the father of faith and in Romans 4:20-21 it is stated that, “he staggered not at the promises of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. Therefore it was attributed to him or (a sign or symbol was put on him by God) of him being righteous in God’s sight.” This caused God to look at him as blameless, free from evil and set apart as one of God’s own to do His bidding.

Paul the Apostle states in 11Tim.1:12 “I know whom I have believed in and have been persuaded that God is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” We also have to be going through this constant persuading because the flesh (our human nature) has a will of its own and wants to do its own thing. Our battle takes place in our mind and we must learn how to recognize these darts of the Devil that he flings at us to reason in unrighteous thought patterns, which in turn gives us a fleshly delight and enslaves us from doing the Holy Ghosts bidding. God is not interested in lip service, but He wants a total commitment of our entire being. Unless we are being molded and participating in this persuasion process, we will never come to believe that God’s thoughts and ways are better then ours. The devil takes no prisoners and unless God’s people get serious and understand their potential and who they are, their participation as Christians goes on as usual as stated in 11Tim. 3:5. “They have a form of Godliness but deny the power there of.”

In Gen, 3:1 it says, “The serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field that the Lord had made.” The word for subtil in the Hebrew is aruwm: meaning, Satan is using sound judgment, in presenting duplications in trying to imitate a Godly awareness in our lives. In reality we end up seeing a mirage in our perceptions and are led to pursue a train of thought with actions that have nothing to do with knowing how to function in God’s kingdom laws of love. You notice that this word in the bible subtil is spelled in the Webster Dictionary as subtle. Scripture tells us that at one time we were inferior people because we did not know what God had in store for those who diligently seek Him. Therefore, we come up with the prefix of this word sub, which represents an inferior condition which we are only to be living in til Christ Jesus comes into our heart and we become born anew, and His sons and daughters. This vision and seed of who we are must be planted very deeply with in our heart and soul because of the cunning of the Devil. There is a tremendous cloud of spiritual apathy or lack of serious concern with in the body of Christ to recognize what they were ushered into the day they entered God’s kingdom. If you are a born again believer and have the Holy Ghost living in you, God is continually faithful in spite of all our ignorance of His ways and is relentless as a jealous lover perusing all of His children so that, none fall between the crevices of life and stay as crippled people not knowing His keeping power of love.

They had become enchanted by Satan, the same as Adam and Eve when they both became aware of their nakedness and felt shame and hid from God. When we live like this, we make our born again experience of none effect. A stupor is defined as an extreme spiritual and intellectual dullness. When this stupor continues, the righteous word of God through the Holy Ghost is not able to penetrate into our heart where the issues of kingdom life are formed. This condition has kept the body of Christ spiritually impotent and sidelined in making the empowered difference that is needed in the chaotic world scene of today. Our struggle to walk in obedience to God’s commands is not about fighting against flesh and blood (human beings) but against spiritual wickedness in high places of authority wanting control over us.

Romans 8:1, “Now therefore, there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Scripture tells us where the Devil condemns, the Lord chastises and we must be able to distinguish between the two. The Greek word for condemn is katakrima: meaning, to believe that you have received an adverse sentence by being judged for a crime and you have an intense feeling of God having something against you and you are going to be punished. Paul in Romans 5:8-11 tells these people who felt condemned how God feels about His children. “God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for us. Therefore, since we are now justified ( acquitted, made righteous, and brought into right relationship with God) by Christ’s blood, how much more certain is it that we shall be saved by Him from the feeling of a lack of self worth and the anger of God. If while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, it is much more [certain] now that since we have been reconciled, that we shall be saved (daily delivered from sin’s dominion) through His [resurrection] life. Not only so, but we also rejoice and exultingly glory in God [in His love and perfection] through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received and enjoy [our] reconciliation.”

In Jeremiah 9:24. God tells Jeremiah the Prophet to tell the people. “ But let him who rejoices, rejoice in this: that he understands and knows Me [personally and practically, directly discerning and recognizing My character, that I am the Lord, Who practices loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord.” Our judgment for crimes no longer exists because, Jesus paid our penalty at the cross and our sins have been forgiven and forgotten. We need to be taught and reaffirmed how our character has been changed and need to understand that we are not sinners but Saints in progress in the family. This represents two entirely different mind sets and spiritual walk of understanding. The majority of the preaching in the born again community is that God’s born again family are still sinners. Because of this, that is why most of the born again community struggles with self shame and loathing for themselves and never could imagine God the Father is looking at them the same way He looks at Christ Jesus the God man as blameless, free from evil and set apart and qualified to do God’s works in the earth.

Now I have been told by many that, this understanding that we are saints and not sinners is a stumbling block and a false teaching which keeps God’s people from taking responsibility for their lives before God. Now for you that still function under this bondage of believing that you are still a sinner, I will explain the difference between being a sinner verses a saint.

You know that He appeared in visible form and became Man to take away [upon Himself] sins, and in Him there is no sin forever. No one who abides in Him [who lives and remains in communion with and in obedience to Him—deliberately, knowingly, and habitually] commits (practices) sin. No one who [habitually] sins has either seen or known Him [recognized, perceived, or understood Him, or has had an experiential acquaintance with Him]. Boys (lads), let no one deceive and lead you astray. He who practices righteousness [who is upright, conforming to the divine will in purpose, thought, and action, living a consistently conscientious life] is righteous, even as He is righteous. [But] he who commits sin [who practices evildoing] is of the devil [takes his character from the evil one], for the devil has sinned (violated the divine law) from the beginning.

The reason the Son of God was made manifest (visible) was to undo (destroy, loosen, and dissolve) the works the devil [has done]. No one born (begotten) of God [deliberately, knowingly, and habitually] practices sin, for God’s nature abides in him [His principle of life, the divine sperm, remains permanently within him]; and he cannot practice sinning because he is born (begotten) of God. By this it is made clear who take their nature from God and are His children and who take their nature from the devil and are his children: no one who does not practice righteousness [who does not conform to God’s will in purpose, thought, and action] is of God; neither is anyone who does not love his brother (his fellow believer in Christ).”

When we become assured that we are God’s children and know God the Father’s keeping love, it keeps us cleansed from our shame and guilt and (purifies) our thinking process just as we are already pure, chaste, undefiled and guiltless in God’s sight. As I have stated, God the Father looks at us the same as His first born again son (Jesus) who is pure and chaste in His sight. When we have this hope resting on us it gives us the power to let go and let God love us into wholeness. Sin is the personality and character of the devil. Sin in the Greek is defined as a principle that acts like a plague in our being that causes us to miss the mark, not share in a prize and we miss our allotted share of God’s inheritance as His children.

Sin is defined in most Christian circles as behavior antics and flat out rebellion with a judgmental attitude of disgust. We know that the Devil can not participate in any type of kingdom living because of his pride and rebellion against God, and Jesus didn’t die for His rebellion but for mankind and when we accepted Christ, we died with Him and the living entity of sin which is the Devil’s nature in us died also. When the born again believer sits under teaching that we are still sinners, this sin entity increases and our shame and guilt ridden old nature thrives and we live in a double mindedness that, God loves me and He loves me not. This has been going on since Jesus went back to heaven and the body of Christ has been living in bondage ever since.

You notice here that John was writing and warning young Christians who he called boys or lads who were beginning to understand these new laws of life and he was trying to wean them off of this sin conscience thinking and to not be miss lead. They needed to know that, they had entered into a new covenant relationship with God and they were righteous in His sight. If they didn’t walk in this understanding they would go back into a mind set of sin consciences.

Jesus tells us why He was going to send the Holy Ghost to the earth after He went back to heaven. In John 8:8-10 He says, “When the Holy Ghost comes He will reprove the world of sin, righteousness, and of judgment. The reproving of sin, because they believed me not and of righteousness, because I go to my Father and ye see me no more and of judgment, because the prince of this world (The Devil) is judged.” The Holy Ghost reproves the non saved of their sin nature and calls to them to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. After one is born again he stands as a mediator as an advocate and represents our righteousness to God the Father. His judgment is towards the Devil and him alone. Religion in all of its many forms judges by the outward appearance of things, but God judges the deep thoughts and intents of the heart. The Holy Ghost’s aim and character is to make the born again believer recognize the difference between thinking with a sin conscience thought life of reprovement and judgment which is the law of death verses our righteousness of total acceptance and a work in progress by the Holy Ghost with out our own effort of trying to be good. It is the unction of the Holy Ghost who even gives the born again believer the hunger and capability to grow up to understand God’s way of thinking. The world is judged because they are sinners. However, the born again righteous have a mediator in Heaven where Jesus is at the right hand of God pointing out to Him those that are His children. He is there with His new immortal body making intersession for us. The Devil has been already judged and there is no forgiveness for him. We need to rightly interpret what these scriptures mean.

Paul tells us in Phil. 2:13 “It is not in our own strength for it is God who is all the while effectually at work in you energizing and creating in you the power and desire both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.” Since Jesus is the mediator between God and us and He stands at the right hand of God as our advocate. He defends us when we come back under an attack by any spirit of condemnation that accuses us of our shortcomings and areas where we have weakness in our lives where we are still a slave to the devils devices. When we have novices in the pulpits of the world teaching this sin concept judgment on God’s children which is only reserved for the devil and the unsaved that are still under the devil’s control, the spirit of pride in the one’s doing the teachings flows through the people that are having this mingled seed sown into their hearts. However, the awareness of our Sainthood makes us realize that we are no longer illegitimate children because, we know the difference between our former father the Devil with his tactics of slavery and being compelled to measure up with threats and compulsive rules of acceptance verses our new loving Father and His coaxing and patient love since we have been brought into the family of God once and for all.

A perfect example of a born again believer trying to find his identity and going through his growing pains and being set free from the laws of death is that of the prodigal son in Jesus example in the New Testament. The Prodigal parable that Jesus used was to show the thinking and feelings we all experience in our wandering to find the love we all need for our security and wholeness. The story is really about two sons.

In Luke 15:11-32 Both sons lived at home with their father until the younger son decided that he wanted to leave the nest and strike out on his own. Since his father loved both boys without conditions. The younger boy asked his father for his inheritance and because his father loved him, he gave him and his older brother their share at the same time. Our heavenly Father gives us our inheritance from Him the day we become born again. All we had to do to get it was ask Jesus to come into our hearts and save us. So since these boys already had their inheritance, we are talking about born again people here. The older boy stayed at home where the younger boy struck out on his own to find his identity and meaning of life. Therefore, the boy came out from the physical watchful eye and counsel of his father’s voice and it says he wandered into a foreign land that he was not accustomed to. This world that we live in is a foreign land and the bible says this is not our permanent home. We are kingdom people and we are to live in heavenly places with Christ Jesus now which is the spiritual world of the kingdom of God.

If you’re saved, you’re in the kingdom of God and it is the laws of life that shows you how to operate in your inheritance. The younger son in this process of searching for his own identity got involved with other people with different ideas then he had heard at home. After a period or season of time, there was a famine in the land. Famine meaning there became a lack of fulfillment in this boy’s life. Because of his poor decision-making, he squandered his inheritance given to him from his loving father and ended up in a pigpen or field eating the food of the pigs because of the addicted life style that he found himself in.

This took place because; he created a self-imposed imprisonment within himself of living in denial and he forgot who he was. In verse 15-16 it says he joined himself to a citizen of that country and the citizen sent him into his field to feed swine and he would fain or was (reluctantly willing) to fill his belly with the husks that the swine eat and no man was willing to help him. A pig will eat anything and does not discriminate what he eats. If we are going to mature, we had better begin to care about what comes in our ear and eye gate so we don’t plant seeds in our thought lives that produce us frustrating the grace of God in our lives.

Let’s define some of these terms so we can interpret it correctly. Let’s look at this as a condition of our souls meaning, our thoughts and reasoning power that controls our feelings. This word for fain in the Greek is epistamai: meaning to put your mind upon and be aquatinted with new ideas. The word for belly is koilia: meaning, heart or womb or what the bible defines, where the issues of life come from and are formed. The word for husks; is heras: meaning, in a dilemma of choosing between two different alternatives. This is a process that, we all go through as we become free to choose this day whom we will serve, the laws of death or life in Christ. This is a painful process at times because it is delivering and changing us into the independent growth stage of our being as we begin to believe the press reports of the Holy Ghost each day. As this takes place in us, it brings us great hope and joy as we change and begin to see and understand the spiritual world we were born into.

There is no word in the bible, Greek or otherwise to define this term prodigal. This term prodigal is what the writers of the bible came up with, as a definition to use to define this parable and you will only find the word in the margins of the bible. This word prodigal doesn’t only mean that he squandered his money it makes us err and fall short of God’s perfect will and we squander our inheritance that He gave us when we were saved. This is what happens when we have not been discipled to understand God’s laws of the kingdom. We know that Jesus gave examples in parables and we, as Christians need to use the spiritual ears and the mind of Christ that God gave us so we can rightly interpret the scriptures of what He meant here. This son was going through the normal process of learning how to define what his loving father was telling him and trying to use his own reasoning on how to start thinking for himself. He was feeding on wordily concepts and these concepts were coming into conflict of what his father had told him. In turn, he was torn between two different alternatives. The bible says that by us going through this process, we will be fighting the good fight of faith. If we’re supposed to fight, then that means we’re going to have conflict. We need to stop judging this process from an outward appearance of right or wrong and realize that it’s all part of us learning how to grow up.

It doesn’t depend on how much church you attend or how much bible you read or how much prayer in seeking God. We are still going to misunderstand God at times, be stretched and at times perplexed. This was God’s intention from the beginning. Somewhere in the process of preaching we lost the vision and purposes of God, as if we are living in some vacuum of none or wrong feelings. It’s always the feel goods and all we hear is someday we will receive if we continue to believe. It becomes an endless circle of playing in the playpens of life and some how hanging on until Jesus comes back. We have to stop using Novocain on our feelings and start getting real with ourselves and others.

It’s not only OK’ to hurt but it is necessary.

The physical body hurts when something is wrong. It tells us something has to be fixed. How about our soul when it hurts. Let’s start loving the real person inside us. When are we going to come to the reality that, we are all prodigals in some areas of our lives and need the tender patience and loving affection of God and people around us? I have heard more preaching on condemning the prodigal, rather then giving him credit for him trying to grow up and challenging himself to make a difference for good in this world system of man. When we condemn and judge the prodigal, we condemn and judge the body of Christ. You wonder why there are so many walking wounded in the body of Christ today. Let me make a very important point before we go on.

God is not in the problem solving business. He is in the heart healing business. This is a difference between night and day.

This parable goes on to say, while this young son was going through his ordeal and struggling with the lack in his life, he started to come to his senses and started to remind him self of all that his father told him. 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 and deal with the immaturity that still kept him bound 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 hear him and put a ring on his finger and gave him a new robe and shoes for his feet.

Let’s discuss the meaning of these words. This word for 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. It is the righteous white robe of Jesus Himself that He put on us when we became born again. The problem is. When we come under condemnation in any form we look under our white robe and see our shortcomings and hurts and bruises of the past.

The word for 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. 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. 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 lost sheep in their wanderings 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 to stay in a child like trust in God our Father‘s care. You will notice that the older son got his inheritance from his father at the same time the younger did. It’s obvious that he did nothing with it. He became complacent because, when the younger brother returned and saw how his father lavished his affection and threw this big party for him, he got angry, lashed out at his father and said, “You never threw any party for me and I have been obedient, stayed at home, and never left your side.” His father’s answer was. “You could have always interacted with me and experienced this joyful relationship I am having with your younger brother. Why haven’t you interacted with me and attempted like your brother to find your identity and the giftings and the purpose I planned for your life.”

Is it possible that there are many born again believers sitting in the pews of churches today going through a mediocre semblance of kingdom living and because, they do not understand how to get in touch with themselves and have a passionate relationship with God, they are living in a more acute sense of not knowing their identity then the throngs of Christians living out side the camp today? If you are finding it difficult at times understanding the will of God in your life and you feel that you’re hungry for more of His presence. If you find that, you are dealing with a lot of anger at situations not going your way, you are most blessed for God comes to help the ones that get in touch with their pain and begin to confess and cry out for help. Continued in part three.

Let’s now discuss our sainthood in Christ. The word for saint in the Greek is hagios: meaning, pure, blameless perfect and innocent. Jesus is called the King of Saints. Through out the New Testament Paul and Peter addressed the people they were writing to as saints in Christ. When Paul wrote to the Philippian people to pick just one epistle he states, “Salute every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren that are with me greet you. All the saints salute you, chiefly those of Caesar’s household.” Now I know that there are some of my Catholic brothers and sisters who believe that you have to be a dead Christian with special powers and you can then be canonized and become a saint. These special rules and doctrines of devils that have evolved over these hundred of years are a disgrace and only compound and distort God’s word to become. ! Idolatry worship!

By understanding our sainthood the love and self esteem we need in Christ comes to the surface in our lives. In turn, we stop judging ourselves with a sinner mentality. If we continue to judge our selves, there is a basic law of life that God set down in scripture that says, as we judge ourselves, we will judge others. As our sin conscience attitude infects the whole body of Christ so does are attitude of sainthood affect our relationships in the body of Christ. When we have a whole congregation where the true meaning of righteousness is not being taught, it can contaminate the whole group. When we pass on a sin conscience attitude, we end up to be forever learning, but never coming to the truth and functioning as God’s true sons and daughters. There is a total different reasoning when it comes to judging in our own reasoning verses discerning and making judgments in the Holy Ghost. I have heard repeatedly that we should not do any judging only God has the right to judge. I thought is this really true? I said, “God did you give me any capabilities to make judgments with the new mind you gave me the day I was saved.” As saints and having God’s righteous nature, I have found that there is a spirit of discernment given to us by God to judge righteously that most Christians never function in all of their lives. When we have no idea of the high esteem God holds us in, we never dream that we have any authority to make righteous judgment with the mind of Christ that we received the day we became born again.

Scripture tells us that we are to rule and reign with Christ on this plant. God has called us to be Kings and Priests in His service now and for eternity and we now sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. Jesus when He prayed to His Father in heaven said, “Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Since we have the mind of Christ, we are to judge all things. However, we can only judge correctly if we know our position in Christ and use Holy Ghost discernment. When we have a sin conscience mentality, this tells us that, we are still a baby in Christ and we cannot function as a mature Christian with the mind of Christ. This is what happens when you do not sit under mature teachers and expounders of the word of God where our righteous position in Christ is being taught.

The true doctrine of righteousness must be laid if we are to grow to our potential in Christ. This is the doctrine that, the true Apostles of old taught. In many Christian assemblies, we have so-called leaders in the body of Christ getting new converts saved and active so they won’t back slide and go to hell. This type of vision and teaching is not only dangers but also ridiculous because, it never totally anchors our permanent roots in Christ and does not teach the true vision of God’s way of maturing His Saints. When our true position in Christ is not recognized, we end up being God’s Saints living as cripples because, we never come to truly absorb the love of God into our lives. We know from scripture that when Jesus was being baptized at the Jordon River that God from heaven said, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” What is it in our Christian make up that makes us feel like we are not like Jesus who is our brother? Jesus Christ was only able to fulfill His calling on the earth because of the relationship He had with His heavenly Father that was totally transparent with complete honesty and a surrendering to His authority.

The word Christ means Messiah, the one who delivers and changes the people from their sinful nature. It’s only as we function in His Righteous Spirit that we received when we made Jesus our Savior that can give us the power to have this kind of love between God and one another. It was Jesus walk of righteousness with His father that causes us to live as Jesus did because, “Greater love as no man, then this, that he lay down his life for His friends.” When we have a sinner’s mentality, we only focus on our own needs and selfish endeavors. It’s no wonder that I run into so many born again believers who have been hurt and disillusioned in their walk with the Lord. They have had bad experiences with born again believers and living with a sense of guilt and shame and forever being knocked down, getting up, trying again and the show goes on. It is my awareness of God’s faithfulness and His love for me as a Father and His constant acceptance of me in spite of my self that keeps me seeking after him. It is me recognizing how much I don’t know about Him, which keeps me focused in my daily pursuit to know Him better. It’s my hope that you have an insatiable hunger for a higher wisdom then your own. This is the key to growing up as Jesus did when He walked the earth. I know that God is faithful in doing His part in trying to reveal Himself to His children in ways that many of us can’t truly understand. God is trying to teach us how to,

Separate who we are from our behavior and trying to save us from destructive acts which cause us to harm ourselves.

The only way this will be accomplished is by, us having a quite spirit with in us and an ear to hear God voice saying to us,

In James 5:16. It says, “Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed” It did not say confess your sins to one another. Staying in a sin conscience mentality, allows the spirit of pride to come into to play and a continuance to walk in a mediocre relationship in the spirit world between light and darkness. This causes a person to live in a twilight zone of shadows and mirages never knowing how to have their steps ordered by the Lord. They are for ever learning and never coming to the truth of their righteous condition and how to let the Holy Ghost deliver them from their shame. In the physical world a loving parent would not condemn their own child for its growing pains of learning how to be potty trained, eat, talk and how to walk. These growing pains are the same in our spiritual growth and are not sins but areas of weaknesses or faults that we need to deal with not by judgment but by love. God’s love and the love that we are learning to accept for ourselves and give to others is defined in 1Cor.13.

God’s love is long suffering, kind, not puffed up or unmannerly, does not insist on its own way, is not touchy, takes no account of evil done to one self, it doesn’t rejoice when injustices are taking place, it bears up under every negative circumstance and always thinks the best of everybody and it never comes to an end.

Is there anybody on this planet, who can love like this in their own strength? God’s chastising Spirit acts as a guarding angel over a person and is the Spirit wind of the Holy Ghost that surrounds and protects us from evil. It actually puts a hedge of protection around us and by us not understanding it; we pull it down or push it out of the way through our ignorance of not knowing the word of God. When we are not experiencing God our Father’s love, we frustrate His grace or favor which we do not have to earn. So we for survivor sake, put a religious posture on with its many forms or a worldly concept in place of our righteous spiritual life. Most Christians believe that it is God getting mad at us and inflicting spankings that take on different forms of fearful dangers and threat full circumstances that take place in our lives and the lives of others. It reminds me of the clauses they have in all the insurance policies I used to sell that states on the back page. “We are not responsible for certain damages or perils that are caused by the acts of God.” I have never heard so many voices and cries within the inner spirit of mankind looking for recognition and trying to put their lives together with man made philosophies and we are ending up with strife and total confusion and man trying to make God into their own image.

Hebrews 12: 6-9 tells us “For the Lord corrects and disciplines ( chastises) everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes. You must submit to and endure [correction] for discipline; God is dealing with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not [thus] train and correct and discipline? Now if you are exempt from correction and left without discipline in which all [of God’s children] share, then you are illegitimate offspring and not true sons [at all]. This chastising Spirit is actually the personality of the Holy Ghost and one can actually live in a continual awareness of this protection surrounding them.