Romans 8:27 “And He who searches the hearts of men knows what is in the mind of the [Holy] Spirit [what His intent is], because the Spirit intercedes and pleads [before God] in behalf of the saints according to and in harmony with God’s will.” Once we are in God’s kingdom and God becomes our Father, He knows who His children are. He is ever mindful of our every thought, needs and wants and it is the Holy Ghost who now lives with in us that petitions God the Father to meet our every need but only according to His will and purposes. Scripture tells us that God’s ways are not our ways. However since we have the mind of Christ we can now interact with God and He intensely wants to share His thinking with us. David the King, who was a man after God’s own heart, says this in Psalms 139:1-4 “O Lord, You have searched me (thoroughly) and have known me. You know my down sittings and my uprising: you understand my thoughts from a far off. You sift and search my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue (still unuttered), but, lo, O Lord, You know it all together.” Paul the Apostles states this in Hebrews 4:13. “There is not a creature that exists that is concealed from God’s sight, but all things are open and exposed, naked and defenseless to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” For God to have His perfect way in this relationship with us, we must become transparent and not give into any doubts that He loves and accepts us with out any reservations.

Romans 8:28 “We are assured and know that [ God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose.” When we doubt and are not assured of this verse being true, one can not be anchored in a firm foundation. We must have an assurance that we are partnered with God because some of the trials we encounter can make you wonder, is God really on my side? This is where we need to understand and be reminded by the Holy Ghost that we are the righteousness of Christ and God looks at us as blameless, free from evil and separated unto God for His purposes and He has us in the palm of His hand always.

In 1 John 4:13-19 John the apostle states, “We know that we live in Him and He lives in us, because he has given us His Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Who ever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and they live in God. And we have known and believe the love that God has to us. God is love; and He that lives in love lives in God and God in him. As our love becomes perfected, this will give us boldness in the Day of Judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts our fear: because fear has torment. He that lives in fear is not made perfect in love. We love Him because, He first loved us. How many ways can you say this. The continually theme through out the bible is focused on Jesus, our Savior, the one who delivers us out of the spirit of darkness and death into His marvelous light of love and abundant life.

Jesus is where all life starts and now we must participate in the God who is love, not a God who practices love.

We do not have to be perfect in love to be accepted by God. God’s love is what’s perfect and we need to allow God to flow His perfect righteous love Spirit through us daily. This verse tells us that fear is something we have to deal with even after we are saved. We can choose to try to deal with it according to our fleshly ways with the many substitutes that people use or we can surrender to the perfect love of God. I have come to believe over the many encounters I have had with born again and unsaved people these last forty years that, people who do not know that, this God of love is always ready to reveal and love them into an exciting life because they have been supernaturally deceived by the Devil. They can only be delivered by knowing and accepting the true word of God. The word of God that is written in the bible is only ink on a page and a dead letter. However, when it is read or spoken under the anointing of the Holy Ghost and is planted into the mind and heart of the hearer it has innate or inherent power in it self because

God’s love is described in 1Cor. 13 as “enduring long and is patient and kind; it is never envious nor boils over with jealousy, it does not brag on it self, nor does it display itself haughtily. It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. (God’s love at work in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]. It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]. Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end].” Our experiencing this love from God is what changes us to love others like he loves. We seem to forget or it is not being taught enough that, we are a person that has to learn to love and respect ourselves first to love others as God loves. I would suggest that you take this definition of God’s love that he has for you and meditate on it for a few days and allow the Holy Ghost to reveal to you if, you are really experiencing this kind of love.

Romans 8:29 “for those whom He foreknew [of whom He was aware and loved beforehand], He also destined from the beginning [foreordaining them] to be molded into the image of His Son [and share inwardly His likeness], that He might become the firstborn among many brethren.” In Jeremiah 1:5 it states that God said to Jeremiah the Prophet. “Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you and before you came forth from the womb I sanctified you and I ordained you a prophet unto the nations.”

God is not a respecter of persons and God’s intention is that, all flesh is to be known by Him and have a specific calling on their lives and God wants to empower them to run their race and complete it as he intended. God’s idea of sanctification wants to protect His creation from being violated by the Devil’s diabolic perverted ways to kill everything that He created for good. God hates evil which represents what the Devil is trying to do, but not His creation. Consider the travesty of what I am about to say about abortion itself and partial birth abortions. The act of pulling a baby out of the womb partially and putting a tube into the base of the neck and sucking out its brain so it can be pulled out of the womb. If God knew Jeremiah when He was in the belly then there is life there. Satan is already intimidated and trying to steal, kill and destroy even before we come out of our mother’s womb.

Our laws must be built on scripture revelation and God’s true word if, there is going to be restoration in this world. If scripture tells us that God has the hairs on our head numbered, it was His intention that He ordained for all of humanity to come to the saving knowledge of knowing Jesus as the Son of God on a personal bases and be adopted into the family of God. After Jesus was put on the cross, as he went to His Father he states “It is finished.” The ball is in our court and there is no more that He can do for us other then grieve over us when we hurt and miss His best and as He is in a constant unrelenting pursuit in maturing His church to have a fellow feeling for each others infirmities as He does for us.

Romans 8:30 “and those whom He thus foreordained, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified (acquitted, made righteous, putting them into right standing with Himself). And those whom He justified, He also glorified [raising them to a heavenly dignity and condition or state of being].” I am convinced from scripture that, the majority of the born again church doesn’t recognize their heavenly dignity and condition or state of being. The Greek word for justified is dikaioo: meaning, innocent, free and righteous. Why is it so difficult to believe that when we made Jesus our Savior, God the Father looks at us the same as He looks at the first begotten Son of God Jesus the Christ? There can only be one answer that being, it is not being taught with unconditional love and acceptance. There is more teaching on exposing so called sins in born again people’s lives and things that God hates then lifting up a standard of righteous vision of the true love of God. There is a commitment that is required from the born again believer of discipline and a hunger for a wisdom higher then their own. There is a total difference of day and night, when we live with a mentality of obligated slavery to laws rather then being empowered and persuaded by the loving presence of the Holy Ghost showing us the high position that God holds in His children.

Romans 8:31 “what then shall we say to [all] this? If God is for us, who [can be] against us? [Who can be our foe, if God is on our side?” Unless we come to understand our righteous position with deep conviction and know the high esteem God our Father holds us in, it will be impossible to really live by and believe what this verse says. I hope as you have been reading this article that, you have come to realize that, there is a organized progression of teaching and events that are well organized by the Holy Ghost that you can sense with a very real witness from with in yourself.

Romans 8:32 “He who did not withhold or spare [even] His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not also with Him freely and graciously give us all [other] things?” This verse has to be kept alive in us by the Holy Ghost daily just as we breathe oxygen every day. It is the devils central focus to refute, lie and do every thing possible to side track us from building our firm foundation on this statement. There is no such thing as ever being forsaken by God and that thought of us being forsaken by Him is a thought right from the pit of hell. This verse should be growing and becoming more real to us as we grow up in Christ. God help us to be alert and recognize that our Christian walk of life is us being in warfare for the souls of mankind.

Romans 8:33 “who shall bring any charge against God’s elect when it is God who justifies and puts us in right relation to Him self? Who shall come forward and accuse or impeach those whom God has chosen? Will God, Who acquits us?” It is by us reading the word of God and meditating on it, that persuades us that this verse is true. Scripture tells us that we first have to have a Godly vision of God’s purposes and leadings in the earth. It is this vision that motivates us with passion to get the Godly knowledge to achieve our objective. It is when we allow the Holy Ghost to show us the vision and then give us the knowledge, that we have understanding and we begin to operate in God’s laws of life. Unless we go through this process, we will stay as babes in Christ and never reach our potential. Us meditating on the word of God day and night as scripture tells us to do is what makes us recognizing the Holy Ghost‘s voice as He navigates us through the kingdom of God and His ways.

Proverbs 4:5-9 tells us “God taught me and said to me, Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments and live. Get skillful and Godly Wisdom, get understanding (discernment, comprehension, and interpretation); do not forget and do not turn back from the words of my mouth. Forsake not [Wisdom], and she will keep, defend, and protect you; love her, and she will guard you. The beginning of Wisdom is: get Wisdom (skillful and godly Wisdom)! [For skillful and godly Wisdom is the principal thing.] And with all you have gotten, understand (discernment, comprehension, and interpretation). Prize Wisdom highly and exalt her, and she will exalt and promote you; she will bring you to honor when you embrace her. She shall give to your head a wreath of gracefulness; a crown of beauty and glory she delivers to you. Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings, and the years of your life shall be many. I have taught you in the way of skillful and godly Wisdom [which is comprehensive insight into the ways and purposes of God.”

James 1:5 tells us “If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God who gives to every one abundantly and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding and it will be given him.” We must have a deep seated conviction that the God we are seeking after is a jealous lover of His children and He doesn’t have a condemning word for any of His kids. This is the key of us trusting in His holding power of love and which delivers us from the laws of death and condemnation.

Romans 8:34 “who is there to condemn [us], will Christ Jesus (the Messiah), Who died, or rather Who was raised from the dead, Who is at the right hand of God actually pleading as He intercedes for us?” Here we have the real issue of participation with God that we need to understand. Our focus before we become born again needs to focus on the cross and accept Jesus sacrifice which brings us to becoming alive in our inner spirit. Then we need to learn how to have a living relationship with the God of Glory who lives with in us and is represented by the Holy Ghost. There should be no problem with feeling condemned if, we who are born again are have a living relationship with the God of the universe every day listening to His direction and showing us how to live abundantly with the inheritance that He has given to us for our pleasure and security. If the relationship and love of God is being experienced to the degree that God intended, why are so many Christians still living with condemnation and a mentality of God loves me and He loves me not?

Romans 8:35 “who shall ever separate us from Christ’s love? Shall suffering and affliction and tribulation? Or calamity and distress, or persecution or hunger or destitution or peril or sword?” Paul defines here all of the obstacles that we have to encounter in our lives. Is there a possibility that the majority of the body of Christ doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact that they are going through seasons of adversity like this and are living in denial?

We need to come to the end of ourselves and recognize if God is really on our side, He will give us the strength we need to handle all kinds of adversity. Scripture tells us once we put our hand to the plow, don’t look back. The Devil has a system of recordings that he dumps in our ear continually to remind us of our faults and failures. We have already talked about how it is only by the word of God stored in our hearts that will contradict all these negative lies that he uses to depress and stop us from our God given potential.

In Psalms 23: 4-6 David the King who God judged as a man after His own heart said. “Yes, though I walk through the [deep, sunless] valley of the shadow of death, I will fear or dread no evil, for you are with me; your rod [to protect] and your staff [to guide], they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my [brimming] cup runs over. Surely or only goodness, mercy, and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life, and through the length of my days the house of the Lord [and His presence] shall be my dwelling place.”

Somebody once told me that we are either going into a valley or walking in a valley or coming out of one. I believe that this is true. It seems to me that it is when we are walking through the valley that you can hear God the best. We need to define and recognize what Solomon the King meant when he said in Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 “to every thing there is a season and a purpose that must be submitted to heavens control and final authority. A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pick what was planted; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to throw stones and a time to gather them; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to keep and a time to throw away; a time for tearing and a time for sewing; a time to speak and a time to be silent; a time to love and a time to hate; a time of war and a time of peace;

What reward is there for the person that is doing all this fatiguing work or going constantly through these seasons? I have seen the painful labor, concern and effort, which God has given to, the (sons of men) keeping him busy with all his duties or earthy chores. God has made everything beautiful in its time; He also has planted eternity in men’s heart and mind. A divinely implanted sense of purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun, but only God can satisfy, yet no man in his own understanding will be able to figure out what God had in mind from His first thought until His plans will be completed.”

If we were to spend the time and give examples of all these seasons, they would define all the things we encounter from the beginning of life until our death. Where he states under the sun, this represents the every day activities of normal life. This is the environment that we have been subjected to live in because, Adam gave up his protected hedge environment in the Garden of Eden.

When God made Adam He breathed a living, healthy and beautiful soul into him. With it came the seed of purpose that all men received when they were created. Whether your a born again believer or not, we all have this need to express purpose in our lives. Some people that I have encountered will not recognize this principle working in them. Others, who do not know the Lord, recognize that they have a need to function in a purpose and they have made up goals, with some measure of success. Even though, it has been in their own understanding of what they thought success was supposed to be in their own minds. There are also born again Christians that I have spoken with and even though they are saved, they have goals and purposes functioning in their lives that God never intended for them. This should not be so in the born again believer.

We who are born again believers have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of us and it is His desire to show us our purpose by His leadings. Somewhere along the line, we never understood or forgot that, there is a higher purpose and assigned duties for us who are God’s children. Too many have been caught up with this atmosphere of under the sun (meaning our daily earthly chores) with its timetables. Even though we live in these experiences, we must constantly be focusing on the fact that, there is a higher calling for us. We have to be going about our Heavenly Fathers business on the earth. It’s God’s plan to make us successful. Our success’s and exposures to endless possibilities must come from us understanding and be reminded daily that, we were called to be a ambassador and light for the Lord as we encounter opportunities to share the life of Christ with all the people we come into contact with daily.

Romans 8:36 “Even as it is written, For Thy sake we are put to death all the day long; we are regarded and counted as sheep for the slaughter.” David the King in psalms 44 has a discourse with the Lord where he was going through a warfare in his mind of doubting God’s words and holding power when he tells God that he had not forsaken God’s words and states in verse 15-26 that, “My confusion is continually before me, and my shame of my face, has covered me. This is because of the words of the taunter and reviler, by reason of the enemy and the revengeful. All though all these things have come upon us we have not forgotten you, neither have we been false to your covenant (which you made with our fathers.) Our hearts are not turned back, neither has our steps declined from your path, though you have distressingly broken us in the place of jackals and covered us with deep darkness, even with the shadow of death. If we had forgotten the name of our God or stretched out our hands to a strange god, would not God discover this, for He knows the secrets of the heart. No, but for Your sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Wake! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Arouse yourself, cast us not off forever! Why do you hide your face and forget our affliction and our oppression? For our lives are bowed down to the dust; our bodies cleave to the ground. Rise up! Come to our help, and deliver us for your mercy’s sake and because of your steadfast love! “

Before we go on let’s spend some time meditating and analyze these verses and see how they apply to our lives, if they apply at all. David becomes honest and transparent before God when he states that he is confused. He wasn’t living in denial and this was why he was a man after God’s own heart. If we are serious about living by God’s laws of life, we must function as David was functioning. There is no other way and we must make a quality decision if we are going to fight the good fight of faith. He states that he was dealing with shame and he was really struggling with it. The word for shame in the Hebrew is boseth: meaning confused and disappointed. The word for face is paneh: meaning many things but to simplify, it means a general attitude of what kind of respect we have for our selves and how we look at who we are in Christ and see ourselves as God sees us.

This is a continual battle and defines the shadow of death spirit that psalms 23 talks about when it says “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” This also takes into account the very make up of our being where all of our senses and emotions come in to play. It is a daily thinking process that we are bombarded with and that is why scripture tells us that if there are any good reports, we should think on those things. Our battle of us being God minded starts in our thinking processes.

Paul in Romans 12:1-2 tells us. “I APPEAL to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in 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] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you]. If we intend to grow into maturity and walk in the love of the Lord, we are even going to have to depend on the Holy Ghost to strength our resolve to hunger and thirst after God’s kingdom and flow in His Righteous Spirit.

Scripture tells us that Jesus said In John 10:10 that “The Devil comes to steal, kill and destroy but I have come so that you can have an abundant life.” The devil represents the taunter and the revengeful one that David was talking about. Even though David defines and says to God that the Devil was doing this, he indirectly held the opinion that God had put him in this situation and allowed him to be as he states “you have distressingly broken us in the place of jackals and covered us with deep darkness, even with the shadow of death.” Have you ever gone through a season of trial and thought, God went on vacation and there you were puzzled and wondering, why me God?

When I first became saved, I had no clue about trials. I was just so happy to be delivered from a sin conscience life style and behavior. I am sorry to say that even the church I attended for the first ten years of my Christian walk never spelled out to me what I had been born again into. I was never discipled to the point of sitting under some one who could take me through the scriptures and instruct me in my walk of Righteousness in Christ. We had a loving Pastor and loving people in the church however, our righteous position in Christ was never really taught and even though the Holy Ghost was at work trying to work with signs and wonders in our midst, most of the teaching was on our behavior and cleaning up our act. All I knew was that I got a over whelming hunger for the word of God and that has been my first love and the driving force in my life to obtain the vision that God has given to me for my life. For me it’s a twenty four seven walk with dreams and visions in the night time hours.

I found out very early in my Christian walk that as I read the word I had to learn to identify the voice of the Holy Ghost. I became a very trusting soul when I first became born again and not only did I just about live in church every time the doors were unlocked, I listened to every radio station and attended different seminars because of my hunger to understand the word. Now I said all this to make you aware of the Scripture that says. “You need no one teach you but the Holy Ghost will teach you all things.” Yes, teaching is one of the five foundation building ministry’s. However, God has given each one of His children the mind of Christ and we have to be spending time daily meditating and learning the Holy Ghost’s voice because only He can rightly interpret God’s word to our heart. When this relationship functions as it should, you will find that a conflict begins to arise in your heart and mind and you go through a learning process of independent thinking and you learn to filter everything you hear through the Holy Ghost’s leadings. This will cause you to learn how to suffer for Christ’s sake. Let’s remember that our salvation was between Jesus and ourselves. We must not allow any word of God that is not rightly divided to be planted into our heart and mind and come between us and our Savior. This verse that we are taking about says that we are not to be false to your covenant (which you made with our fathers.) The word for covenant in the Greek is diatheses: meaning a contract or divisory will. This word divisory means a supernatural process of the Holy Ghost defining our will verses God’s will. This must become a life style to the born again believer and all the church going and all the good or bad works of performances and trying to do good endeavors have nothing to do with empowering the born again believer to live the Christian life. All of our actions must be developed, empowered and acted on by the leading of the Holy Ghost.

Paul the Apostle warns us in Col. 2:8 and says. “BEWARE LEST ANY MAN SPOIL YOU THROUGH PHILOSOPHIES AND VAIN DECEITS, AFTER THE TRADITIONS OF MEN, AFTER THE RUDIMENTS OF THE WORLD, AND NOT AFTER CHRIST.” There is no place of a total surrendering to the Holy Ghost where we have traditional doctrines that are peculiar to different denominations. All these hanging doctrines with there teachings and roblel dress of any kind is a distraction and ungodly persuasion that hinders the believer from growing true and be empowered by the Holy Ghost to represent Christ to a sick and dying world.

The born again church must come to understand that it is God’s intension for His children since they have been adopted into the family, to be trained daily by the Holy Ghost through their relationship with Him and have Him explain what their covenant is and how to function in it. God doesn’t need any help in us thinking up some traditional churchy ideas to add to His plan. Our covenant with God is a living entity that must become more real then our physical lives so that we get comfortable operating in it. Our covenant is actual the very personality and life of Christ himself and there is not enough paper and ink to put God’s life into print. It is a matter of life and death to the body of Christ that they allow the Holy Ghost to give them an intense hunger for a higher wisdom then their own daily.

Over the forty some years that I have endeavored to hunger and thirst after God’s kingdom with His righteous Spirit at work in my life, it greatly grieves and disturbs me how ignorant the body of Christ is in understanding what their covenant relationship with God the Father really is. I can’t help stating the urgency of the time that we are living in and how the whole body of Christ has to arise and awake from a spiritual slumber. If there ever was a scripture that has to be acted on by the body of Christ, it is found in 11 Chronicles 7:14 which states. “ If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, pray, seek, crave, and require of necessity My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.”

As a born again believer, this must be our end result as we are being motivated by the Holy Ghost, who is teaching us what kind of covenant we have with God as we are operating in it. Real prayer as God intended is described in James 5:16 which states “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” By us knowing our righteous position in Christ it emboldens us to petition God for our needs and wants to be met. We must be convinced that even though we go through intense emotional and physical trials that at times overwhelms us, God never gives us more then we can handle and with the trial he delivers and strengths us in them all.

In Phil. 4:6-7 Paul tells us “Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God. And God’s peace [shall be yours, that tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace] which transcends all understanding shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

There are thousands of needs and wants that we bombard heaven with daily. I am assuming here that you do pray. However, I want to make you aware that the promise of what God wants to give us is His peace. I had spent thousands of hours in prayer over many years before I noticed that God was more interested in giving me peace before He met my need. Have you realized how the need that you have and the fear of not getting what you want disappears when God puts peace in your heart. I am not saying that God is not going to meet your need whether it’s a physical or emotional. I am trying to define how the kingdom of God operates in the believer and how we have to participate in our righteous position. Having this understanding is what leads us into understanding our next verse.

Romans 8:37 “yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors and gain a surpassing victory through Him who loved us.” It is the peace of God that makes us conquer and experience His love. Paul the Apostle in Romans 14:17 said. “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, joy and peace, in the Holy Ghost.” When we talk about meat and drink, we mean us putting our temporal needs and wants first. There can be no surpassing victory unless we are experiencing the love of God and it is motivating our maturity.

Romans 8:38-8:39 “for I am persuaded beyond doubt and (am sure) that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things impending and threatening nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Being perfected in God’s love persuades us to not doubt and it also defines for us what all these entities are that are opposing and contending with us. This persuasion that Paul is talking about is not about God dealing with sinful behavior. It represents us reasoning with our human will and we must allow the Holy Ghost to constantly wean us off the believing that God loves me and at times He loves me not. Paul goes through a great effort to describe all the things that hinders us in our pursuit of our Christian walk with God. All these perils are demonically inspired and represent the shadow of death that Psalms 23 talks about as we have already stated. The law of life and the kingdom of God represents righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Ghost. The laws of death represent what Peter says in 11 Peter 3:14. “Be eager to be found by JESUS at His coming without spot or blemish and at peace in serene confidence, free from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts.”

In Eph. 5:25-27 Paul says. “ Jesus so loved the church that He gave His life for it that He might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water by the word so that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”

This washing of water by the word is actually what it means. As born again believers we must be deeppppppp rooted in the word and be meditating on it at all times. This is what keeps us with an inner peace and knowing our security in Christ.

When we know and operate in Christ’s righteousness; joy and peace in the Holy Ghost, it is then that we are empowered and able to be delivered from living in fear, agitating passions and moral conflicts. Our righteousness as I have stated many times represents God looking at us as blameless, free from evil and set apart unto the Lord as His children in whom He is well pleased. This means He sees us already with out spot or blemish and Jesus can come back at any time. There are not many in the body of Christ who really believe this because, they are constantly being reminded of their faults and failures and the majority of the born again church is still referring to themselves as sinners who were saved by grace but haven’t recognize that they are also holy and seen by God as He sees Jesus, His first born again son.

The spirit of fear is what motivates and tempts us to give into agitating passions and moral conflicts in our life. There is a powerful spirit at work in these last days of the Devil trying to give the born again believer a agitating rush to bolt from their allegiance to Jesus and the commitment we made to Him when we became born again. Fear is running rampant and it is very rare that I hear any good reports listening to the news with all the chaos that is being exploited in the world today. Once our peace and security is disrupted, the devil has a field day in our mind and it makes us want to be a wild stallion jumping fences rather then being in step pulling God’s Royal Carriage.

Romans 9:1 “I am speaking the truth in Christ. I am not lying; my conscience enlightened and prompted) by the Holy Ghost, bearing witness with me.” We have come full circle. This is a positive assurance by Paul that everything he said in Romans chapter eight was being influenced by the Holy Ghost. We must also be living with a sure conviction that everything we reason about is bearing witness with the Holy Ghost and that it is Him who is leading us. It is my hope that as you have been reading this, the Holy Ghost is enlightening you as to what you need to know for your own life. Consider this. The greatest thing we need to guard against is us being influenced through our five physical senses which are absolutely un-forgiving in wanting to control our decision making. If we were in heaven already would our goals be any different then they are now? If we really believe that the kingdom of God and all of His characteristics are already in us and that we sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus now. There must be tenacity in the born again believer focusing their total hunger and thirsting after doing the works of Jesus in their market places of life.

I have in my forty some years of searching and finding my purpose in Christ been approached maybe three times by people that have crossed my path asking me if I know the Lord. My purpose in life has been defined by the encounters I have had with people that God has allowed to cross my path where I have had the opportunity to share a word of wisdom with them because, they were weary of their Christian walk or unsaved. Is it possible that the majority of the body of Christ is so ashamed and ignorant of who they are that they are caught up in a survival mode mentality and they don’t know how or have never been discipled in to knowing what a child of the living God was called to do? I know in my own life at times I wish I could divide myself into many pieces and provoke my brothers and sisters in Christ to awake from their drugged up spiritual stupors of focusing on priorities of, I have to make a living and secure myself because of the many responsibilities and obligation I have. The body of Christ represents a bunch of bruised children who are unlearned and God in His mercy and total love must put leaders in positions of authority that will feed God’s sheep rather than fleece them. It is only the true anointed word of God that will be able to set free believers from a boring gospel with surface antics that has a semblance of excitement but never ministers to the crippled child with in all of us. If it wasn’t for the mercy, faithfulness and grace of the Lord which overcomes the judgments His church is putting on themselves of distorted doctrines coming out of leadership today, we His people wouldn’t have a chance of reaching our potential.

I’ll share a few encounters I have had over the years with people who have crossed my path in my arena of life. I worked in a private school for ten years training adjusters from different insurance companies how to write estimates on property damage due to storm or fire damage. These classes were two and three weeks long. People from all over the country and some from over seas sat in my class. They tell Christians teaching in public schools that they can not share their beliefs to their students. If ever the church of Christ needed to get some back bone and proclaim the gospel it is now. In ten years of teaching I met only two born again believers who were bold enough to share the gospel of Christ in my classes. There were times when you would think that we were having bible classes along with what education they were paying for.

I always had to live with the fear that I would loose my job because of my witness for Christ. I never knew how the Holy Ghost would lead and open up different discussions whether on a one to one basis or the whole class during the day’s activities. There never was a class that I didn’t have the opportunity to share the gospel and lead some one to Christ on some occasions. In one class we had a discussion and I polled the whole class on what their foundation was in their believing system. There were twenty in the class and I almost laughed at the answers because of my shock as to what I heard. Thank God I caught my self and grief took over for my laughter. One person said that an ameba was what he believed in. Another said creation and trees and flowers. Another said there was no God. Another said they kind of made up there belief as the situation dictated. We live in America and to have people believing in these kinds of foundations is a disgrace and it seems to me that God better send missionaries to America to preach the gospel.  However, one said with great boldness that their faith was in Jesus Christ.

Another class that stands out in my mind was one where we got into a discussion on Ghosts. This was a three week class and I noticed that there was a young man sitting in the front row who was very removed and quite and as it was my way to have a personal relationship in making people comfortable and accepted, he made it very difficult to be reached The Lord impressed me that he had some bruised and disturbing encounters in life and I tried to be friendly with him. I later learned from him as we became friends that he had spent three terms in Vietnam and he had seen and experienced some awful atrocities there.

I was teaching on this particular day how to estimate damage to doors, stairs and windows. The night before on T.V. they had a documentary on the Winchester rifle and its creator. Some of the class had been watching it in their hotel room. The documentary described how after the inventor of the rifle died, his wife being paranoid and living in a great mansion would have carpenters building stairs to no place and putting doors every where so the spirits of the people that were killed by her husband gun could find rest in her house. One of the students asked me if I believed in Ghosts. I believe they would do things like this because they were searching for truth and enjoyed my excursions in relating to my hope in Christ. My answer provoked a discussion that I totally lost control of and after an hour discussion I had to call for a break time because the class was totally caught up in the discussion and had me backed up against the blackboard.

My answer was I believed in evil spirits and the discussion was on. I believe there is a great hunger to learn about the spiritual world and we who are born again and God’s ambassadors must have and be in season whether it is accepted or not to share our hope in Christ to a lost and dying world. I began to share the gospel of how we walk in the shadow of death and explain the devils devices and it was obvious that what I was saying was relating to some inner bondage in the people in the class and their inhibitions were coming out. One of the students in the front of the class scared me because he was asking me if I thought that he could be demon possessed. All though he was not his paranoia was alarming. I had shared with them an opportunity I had to pray for a person who was demon possessed. Many were having a hard time believing that this could happen to a person.

Well this conversation continued for well over an hour and became quite loud which made me call for a break. I was sorely being pressed by the students about demon possession when this fellow who had told me of his three terms in Nam stood up and quieted the mood and stated. “Why don’t you believe this man?” He then proceeded to share his upbringing as a pastor’s kid and how his father who was a country preacher had the gift of delivering people from demon possession. He shared that as a child in his father’s church he would sit there during nights of revival where he would watch his father casting out demons from these people talking strangely and throwing up all kinds of things. As I stepped out for a cup of coffee the conversation was still going on however, this young man was sharing his belief in Christ where because of his bruising hurts over the years he had lost his faith in Christ. As I was having coffee in the lounge a student who was on break from another class in the school came over to me and stated that the conversation was so loud that the other class was listening to the conversation and he said, what gives you the boldness to talking about Jesus as you do in public. And another conversation started in the lounge with this fellow who was a born again Christian and my brother in the Lord.

When the whole body of Christ begins to be motivated by the Holy Ghost and walks in obedience to His leadings the very comfortableness of operating in the gifts that we were given by God and interacting them with people who cross our paths, becomes the ambrosia (the living life of Christ) and the outcome and the way God puts people together who really don’t know each other very well, becomes networked in the Spirit. It is these encounters in co-operation with the Holy Ghost that feeds and strengthens our spiritual man with in us and causes us to live the abundant life as God intended.