The Life of Christ in the Body

God wants to fulfill His plan through the Church. He came to dwell in you. You have become the temple of God on earth. The Church is not a building, it is made up of believers who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God Himself.

Some years ago, after seeing over a hundred people speak in tongues which is suppose to be the evidence of being filled with Spirit, I wondered why God ever filled them. To most of them who were filled with the Spirit, it became a dead-end. The attitude they portrayed was like the attitude of most "Spirit-filled" believers before them, "I have now reached the height of spirituality, I have graduated from the highest spiritual university there is, the university of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They didn't realize that they had just graduated from kindergarten. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is more than an "experience", it is a life to be LIVED!

THE HOLY SPIRIT HAS A VERY DISTINCT PURPOSE

In Colossians 1:26-29, we read: "the mystery which has been hidden form the ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you the hope of glory. Him we preach warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.

Romans 16:25-26 says: Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now is made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith-"

The seed of this gospel that has been sown through the years has not been thoroughly recognized or understood even though we possess it.

Many people are saved and glad they are, but they do not understand what took place. This is a hindrance to the overcoming life. You can be saved and be ignorant to the understanding of that salvation. That ignorance is a blockade to the revelation of who the Word (Jesus) is and living in that revelation.

In this age, it is the work of the Holy Spirit to take the people take people that will serve Him and bring them into the stream of the Spirit of God that will allow them to travel on a relational journey with the Godhead, so the resurrection power of Jesus Christ flows from them to extend His kingdom.

Isn't it pathetic to live like spiritual babies when God has provided for us to be spiritual giants?

We have become bound within the limitations of our denominational doctrines and imprisoned within the shell of our traditional concepts until we are locked into a pattern of thought and life, thinking we have reached a fullness of stature in Him. When in reality all we are full of is denominational pride and arrogance!

In all stages of maturity, God teaches us by His Holy Spirit. Ignorance and neglect of His provisions will destroy us. The Holy Spirit is always drawing and pressing us in to partake of Christ's life. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, a hunger is born that drives us to partake of His nature.

To work with God, we must have our fortifications built on solid ground. A great percentage of the average church members live in a state of neutral. The twelfth chapter of Hebrews describes them perfectly. They have hanging hands, feeble knees and roots of bitterness.

The life that has been hidden in the believer behind the walls of ecclesiastical religion has got to come into a new life where there is resurrection life flowing to meet the needs of humanity.

The Body of Christ needs to stand up and move forward in resurrection power. It needs to allow the Spirit to project it until the whole world is catching a new vision of what it means to be a follower of Christ and not a religionist.

THERE HAS TO BE AN AWAKENING

How do we unlearn some of the convictions that denominational preachers placed upon us through natural teaching?

Preachers have to learn not to preach their convictions, but to preach the word under the unction of the Holy Spirit. It is only the anointing that will cause the chains to break and the prison doors to open. It is only the hand of the Omnipotent One, by His Spirit that has the key to set the captives free.

There are more imprisoned people outside of jail then there are on the inside. People imprisoned by concepts, philosophies, ideologies and denominational traditions that they believe are the gospel.

Feeble knees as a result of spiritual arthritis, have kept people sitting on the sidelines in the arena of faith. Why? Because of dead preachers preaching dead sermons lacking resurrection life flowing from them to quicken the hearers. This has caused people to loose the sense and thrill of the flow and the reality of the Christ life and they are left with a shell of religion and not the vibrancy of a life on the inside therefore, it cannot flow from them.

The hanging hands of Hebrews twelve is a clear description of spiritual fatigue. Christians are involved in too many things that are Adamic in nature under the name of Christianity. The bands of waste motion need to be broken until this people will be full of the revelation of a new life in Christ. If we allow the resurrection of the life of Jesus within us it will burst the powers of darkness that are holding us.

GOD WANTS TO BREAKTHROUGH IN YOUR LIFE

God is wanting to breakthrough in your life because as Christians you must walk above the waters of the circumstances of this world. You need to make the circumstances of your life into great opportunities. Between the prayer and the answer, God is making faithful saints.

You may say, "you don't know what I am going through." I know that there are many bleeding hearts and there are circumstances that are really breaking you. I know some of you have smiling faces, but down on the inside you have circumstances that seem unbearable. God uses circumstances to reveal Himself to the world that He is Lord and Master.

To many people in the average church are in neutral because of self-centered and egotistic leaders who have not shown them how to implement the gospel in the anointing of the anointed One Jesus Christ. People in churches are trying to implement the gospel through the carnal flesh realm and they are fatigued.

YOU NEED TO SEE WHAT GOD DESIRES TO HAPPEN IN YOUR LIFE

You need to see yourself as the Word of God says you are. The person who lives in the power of the resurrection of Jesus is raised to a plane of life which is outside the possibilities of natural man. You need to release the treasure you have in earthen vessels. To many believers are ruled by their circumstances, ruled by age, ruled by fear, ruled by constitutions and traditions. But beloved, when you begin to move into His life, you will discover a life to be lived that is beyond the natural life you were born with. Believers need to discover their identification in Christ. Don't get your conduct mixed up with your identification, Identify who you are in Christ and your conduct will line up with your identification.

WHO ARE YOU IN CHRIST

I want you to understand what happened when you were born again. The Bible is progressive revelation. It is unfolded has we grow. There are several levels of growth in a person's life and the first level is being born again.

When you become a Christian, there are time elements in your life. God will not let you stay too long in one place. His desire is to move you to new heights spiritually. He tells us in Hebrews that everything that can be shaken will be shaken until you have a kingdom within you that cannot be shaken. He is going to shake all of our theology and every kind of religious concept we have (this is very hurtful to denominations). You will find that a lot of our religious concepts are man's ideas conforming to denominational beliefs rather than the Word of God. God wants to loose us from the imprisonment's of the philosophies of man's opinions.

When you were born into this world, you had a nature that had nothing of God in it. When Adam came into this world, he had fellowship with God. God breathed upon him and he became a living soul. He had a relationship with God. God lived in his spirit and he had a relationship with God. But he never had been tested by any sin. When Satan tempted him he made a choice to give into the temptation and his relationship with God was cutoff.

Because of Adam's sin all men are born without the nature of God in Him. When God plants His new life inside of us, which he has done by the new birth, it has to grow and we have to allow it to take over and rule our lives. But many Christians like to keep the new birth just enough to maintain salvation, but still live their own life. The average pattern of Christianity today tries to feed the carnal man more than the spiritual man. You need to feed the spiritual man until He changes you and moves you into His purposes. When the old life no longer has dominion, then you will rise and the world will see the resurrected Christ outworking His works through you.

Yes the Holy Spirit came to convict the world of sin, yes He came to empower the believer to be witnesses unto Jesus, but there is another reason that has been largely neglected by believers. The Holy Spirit came to unveil and reveal CHRIST in us so that we might worship Him from a life of obedience.

The neglect of this truth is the reason for lack of motivation in ministry, deadness within churches, deadness in ministers and lack of motivation in people. People really don't know Christ. Oh, the may know about Him but they really don't know Him.

TWO KINDS OF SEED

The introduction of the seed itself. Notice in Genesis 3:15, there are two kinds of seed; "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you will bruise His heel."

Here we have the introduction of the two kinds of seed.

In the beginning we know that Adam had a relationship with God. It is important to get a right setting in this pattern. Adam and Eve were not clothed, they were covered with light. They did not have any knowledge of wrong, as of yet sin was not known to them. Satan tempted Eve that they could be as God if they partook of the forbidden tree, the Tree the Knowledge. There were two trees, the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. You can follow this Tree of Life from Genesis to Revelation.

These two trees were placed into the garden of Eden.

Adam was without sin. Adam had a spirit that was open and alive unto God and so did Eve. Their spirit knew no sin. They were unclothed, but they were covered with light. Satan enters into this perfect relationship to tempt man, wanting the worship of man and desiring to usurp the place of Christ and the eternal purpose of God.

He tempted Eve; he reasoned with her that they would be as God. "God is trying to keep something from you. God is not kind." He was causing Eve to make a choice to obey God or go with her own desires. We are the sum total of our choices. The choices that you made in life has brought you to where you are to day both in the spiritual and the natural. Eve listened to Satan's lies and believed Him instead of God. Her spirit became dark and she now began to live in the soulish realm. The soulish realm of her thinking ability (her mind, not her brain), will and emotions now became the god within her life. She began to be motivated by the appetites of her fleshly desires as she allowed her natural senses to control her.

Prior to the fall the spirit of man controlled him. After the fall the soulish realm controlled man. When man is born again, he then has the ability through the Spirit of God to allow his born again spirit to control him. Sad to say that most Christians never get out from under the soul's control.

When Eve fell, her clothing of light disappeared. Immediately there was a breach of communication between Adam and Eve. Adam had not sinned yet, but Eve had and they could not communicate on the same level any longer. Eve, who was fallen had sold out her nature to Satan. She became dead to God and now had the death nature. A death nature means that there was a separation from the life of God, it is a life without God in it. You can have biological life without God life. You can move in a world of society that is built upon a death nature (which is where many Christians move). Eve, realizing her situation tempted Adam. Adam was not deceived, but he partook because of the breach that was now between himself and Eve. After partaking the same thing happened to him as had happened to Eve. Then they tried to hide.

And as they hid themselves in the Garden, we have the story in the scriptures where God came down upon the earth and walked in the Garden in the cool of the day. He called, "Adam where are you?" He began man's redemption. This has been the call of God down through the ages, he has been seeking man who has a fallen nature. Adam, the federal head, passed on to every succeeding generation a nature with the absence of God. And God has been seeking Adam, or the fallen man, ever since. So Adam had the nature where God does not dwell. He was dead in trespasses and sin as is all humans at the time of their birth.

There has to be a redemption. Man cannot inherit the kingdom of God with a death nature. You were born with rebellion in your spirit. We were born with a nature that evolved from Adam's day, until it has progressively entered into greater darkness.

This is the state of mankind born with a nature without God. This is the seed that God spoke to Satan of as "his seed." Everything about our nature is darkness. That is why there is trouble in the world, because man's nature is alienated from God. The beauty of redemption is that this body is to be the vehicle of the very life of the Son of God on earth. The nature you were born with is not the nature of the born again spirit. If you are born again you have a exchanged nature. Your body has to house this exchanged nature, the very life of the Son of God. Your body is suppose to be the outlet for the expression of God upon the earth. Once you know these things, you can realize why the enemy keeps trying to blur true Christianity with religion (the man made counterfeit to christianity).

THE IN-DEPTH MEANING OF BEING BORN AGAIN

1 Peter 1:23-25; "having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the Word of God, which lives and abides forever, because all flesh is grass and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers and its flower falls away, but the Word of the Lord endures forever. Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you.

How are we born again? By the incorruptible seed.

We find a parable beginning at Luke 8:5; "A sower went out to sow his seed..."

Luke 8:11-15 states: "...The seed is the Word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for awhile and in time of testing fall away. Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit of maturity. But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bare fruit with patience."

The seed is perfect; it is the soil that gives the problem. What is the soil? Our hearts, our receptivity to the seed. If our receptivity is influenced by man's philosophies, denominational beliefs and tradition the soil of our hearts is not going to be receptive to the seed.

We must understand that Christianity is not a doctrine, it is not a belief, although doctrine and belief are exercised in it. Christianity is an exchanged life. You are born with a death nature and Jesus came to give you a new nature. 2 Corinthians 5:16-17, Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, all things have become new.

Also we find in, Galatians 3:19: What purpose then does the law serve? it was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator.

"Till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made." We have established that the seed of the old life is through Adam which we are born with. Now Jesus came to bring a new life by planting the seed of a new nature.

We are born dead in trespasses of sin, because of Adam's sin. We find in the book of Romans that by the sin of one, all men have entered into sin... and by the obedience of one, all who believe are made alive unto God. Our state after being born into this world is death because we are separated from the God life. You only have the God life by the new birth through the planting of the incorruptible seed into your spirit.

When Jesus was born a new personage came upon the scene. A king was born of a new kind of kingdom that did not exist in the world; it was in the realm of the Spirit. A kingdom was going to be gathered by the preaching of the gospel of a new life that would change men and give them a new nature.

This life that was in Jesus was a life that knew no sin. It was the life of the Father in the Son. It was a life to be humanized in the body of Jesus to meet temptations to show us how to meet temptations. We find that Herod was jealous and he sought to kill the baby Jesus. Satan tried to kill Jesus by Herod because he knew if this life ever grew up to fulfillment, he would be defeated. Satan knew that unless this life was destroyed, it would take over the jurisdiction of his life, take away his power, destroy him and place him into the bottomless pit.

The life of the father was on earth in Jesus, the Son of God. He was clothed in human flesh in order to bring immortality to light in us.

The world has no hope outside of Jesus Christ. Man is totally lost before he is ever born because of the nature he possesses. Jesus had eternal life within Him. Eternal life does not mean future life, but it is a quality of life, life without end. He had within Him a quality of life that was of the Father that knew no limitations.

When Jesus was born He had the life of the father in him. The power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus came when He was baptized in the river Jordan. Jesus did not perform His miracles by His deity; the miracles were performed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Why? So miracles could happen through the disciples, the apostles, the Church and through all believers. So that by the power of the Holy Spirit, great exploits could be done.

Conversion is really the entrance of a new life. We are saved by grace through faith and when this miracle takes place and the incorruptible seed is planted into our spirit, a whole new nature is planted. The moment that it is planted we are no longer under denominational law. We are under the new law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus who has made us free from the law of sin and death.

There is so much of the old nature displayed in churches where people are very involved in doing something (Sunday school teacher, dept. leader, choir member, committee member, board member, and yes, even preachers) that is understood to be working for God. In actual fact is is nothing less than religious bondage. It may salve our conscience, but it will not save our soul. Regardless of how we dress it up, put on a black tie, part its silver hair in the middle or put on a new suit, it doesn't make one bit if difference--it's still the old nature. We can dress it up in religion; we can take all the knowledge that can be gained by the human mind at bible schools, we can quote scripture by the mile, we can verbalize how much we love Jesus, but actions and attitudes let people know that it is the old carnal nature dressed up in religiosity. There are many people who know about Him, but it is not what you know, it is who you have. It is who you received, that implantation of the Christ life in the person of the Holy Spirit.

If you are born again you are a possessor of His nature, and you are the richest person in the world. You have what death cannot destroy. You have what money cannot bye.

The life within you is the very treasure of the Father, it it the life of His Son. It is the seed called the Word of God, Jesus. That seed is absolutely perfect. Everything that God desires for man is in that seed. God prepared it through the Life that Jesus lived. you already have a overcoming life. It is already in you, but it needs to break your carnal nature so it can be manifested.

It is the life that has already been before you and mastered the enemy, glorified by the Father and given to the Holy Spirit to sow the seed of the gospel into the hearts of men and women all over the world. That is why we can preach the gospel.

God's desire is for His seed to grow in you to the point that it will be worked out through your life of obedience. Satan wants you filled with his seed, animosity, hate, doubt, fear, etc..

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What kind of life are you demonstrating?

What is this world built on? It's built upon the fallen nature of man, the seed of the fallen Adam. It is built upon the nature of death. The world is in the grips of death itself. Anything to do with death means decay and it never includes restoration, so every condition is going to get worse. We began as a christian nation, but there is not much left that is christian anymore. Things are going to get more deplorable because this world will not let the gospel be sown into hearts willingly.

Sad to say that much of the world's system is now in the church causing the church not to be much better of than the world.

But the world or the worldly church does not know the power of the resurrected Christ. There is one thing about the gospel of Christ; it can never be stopped, because there is no death in it. It may be hindered for a season, but it will never be silenced.

The gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes according to Romans 1:16.

He that has the Son has life, he that has not the Son has not life. The entire gospel, the entire purpose of God and everything in the Bible to bring man into a relationship with God is dealing with one thing, and that is the resurrection life of Jesus being implanted in us. The entrance of that life saves us. The growth of that t life in us and outworking through us is what makes us active in His kingdom.

What is the purpose of Satan? John 10:10 says: "The thief does not come except to steal, kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."

It is the devil's business to get you involved in circumstances so that you will not let this Christ life progress. Satan wants you to be under the influence of the carnal nature so you will not pursue the enlarging of Christ's life within you. Satan wants you disobedient to the Word. He wants a regressive pattern in your Christian life. He knows that he cannot destroy the life within you, he can only bring you to a place that you allow it to be stagnate and unprofitable to those around you.

When I am talking about eternal life I am referring to the resurrection life of Christ within you.

You can believe all you want and never be saved. Belief has to appropriate something. That appropriation is by grace through faith. Grace happened first. Grace is God's mercy that came to you and implanted in your spirit life and you were born again. At the moment you were born again faith was implanted in your life. You were not born with faith, but you were born with the ability to believe and the moment you believed and accepted Christ as your savior faith came. Believing can move a person to the place where grace can come into action so faith can be planted. Now that you are saved, you maintain that salvation by faith. God is the author of faith. God does not give faith to believe something that is not inline with His Word.

That is why you have become a new creation with a new nature. The life that you have in Christ Jesus met the devil, defeated him and then planted the victory. You have a seed that has everything in it that God is and it will defeat every work of the enemy. You have the victory already within you, you just need to feed the life of Christ in you so it ca outwork itself through you. You are the vehicle through which God wills to manifests Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit to a lost humanity.

This Christ life that is in Christians is indestructible, it cannot sin. But you, your human spirit, still has the power and ability to sin.

All Christians begin in the Spirit but to many try to mature in the flesh. It cannot be done! Your spiritual man has to be fed on spiritual things. You cannot feed your spiritual man on the carnal things of the world that is against God and His purpose.

There are all kinds of things in the world that want to invade you and choke His life. When we are first saved, it seems that we are up to the third heaven and the grass is greener and the heavens are bluer. The whole world looks different. You go to bed with a smile and you wake up with one--you can hardly contain the reality. Your spirit was under of the soulish realm. Now the spirit is put back on the throne and into the relationship and kingship it deserves. But Satan comes to try to take that life away. How? By the lack of communion, by the lack of prayer, by the lack of the Word, by the lack of fellowship with the Body of Christ, by disobedience to the truth. Disobedience to the Word will prevent that life within from growing causing you to be anemic. This will cause the Christ life to diminish and the carnal life to grow.

A DIMINISHING LIFE CREATES DIVISION

What is happening in denominations today? The Life of Christ is diminishing or gone in a lot of cases! Why is this? Because they started in life and then regressed. They went into denominational theology until they produced a mind manifestation of what they think God says instead of feeding the Life of Christ within. The Bible was never meant to create doctrines. The Bible was given to bring life. It is a life-giving Word. Denominations interpret the Bible in light of what they believe instead of letting the scriptures formulate what they believe.

When Martin Luther reintroduced justification by faith, other truths began to unravel - water baptism, healing, deliverance, and the second coming. These truths came on the wind of the Holy Spirit and are dogmas of Scripture. Denominations created doctrines on these dogmas and cemented them in stone therefore, could not receive any further revelation on that truth. For example: The second coming is a dogma of scripture, the timing of His coming (pre, mid, or post) is a doctrine that man has developed on that dogma.

Each truth has its own following, but where one group moved on in Christ, another did not. They did not move with progressive revelation. Each one was sincere, but they did not move as the Spirit was unveiling truth and restoring that which was lost. The whole denominational world is being shaken and will continue to be shaken until the Body of Christ has preeminence over denominations. That is what God intended and He is bringing it together.

Now what if you sin? The Bible says if you sin you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Let's say that you are tempted and you give into that temptation. The moment that you give in you know you have sinned, there is only one thing to do - repent. Go to Him, don't run away from Him. Don't excuse yourself, don't blame someone else. Repent immediately, if not Satan will try to steal that life on the inside; he'll try the moment we fail to be restored by repentance. If you run to Jesus in repentance, He will plead your cause because He is your advocate.

If you continue in sin without repenting, you are in danger. If you stay in willful sin you will loose out with God completely over a period of time. You will find that the life of Christ is diminishing within your life because sin breaks communication.

God is in the restoration business. God wants to bring the revelation of Jesus to the highest level than ever has been experienced by mortal man. As Christ is unveiled within you, there is going to be an expansion on the inside of your spiritual man and you are going to feel that growth.

God's purpose after you have been saved is for the seed of His life that has been planted into your spirit to reach its maximum growth. Ephesians 3:17-19 says: "May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide , make His permanent home) in your inner man (spirit)! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love. That you may have the power to be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God's devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it]; [that you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!

There is no limit to God's provision for people who live in relationship with Him.The life of Christ within is the life of God, and that life has everything in it that God is.

You can have denominational life without God life. This is what has happened in the denominational world and often people don't know the difference. You may be in a denomination that you feel is doing the best they can. But if you become filled with the fullness of God, you will realize that God is trying to destroy many of the things that denominations are doing. Anything that is man centered and man created from programs to preaching God wants to destroy. Anything that is done in the assembly (even if in the Name of God) that does not fulfill the purpose of God, He wants destroyed. God doesn't dwell in institutions (denominations) created by man. He dwells within lives. You are the inhabited ones.

Even though we have His life implanted at the new birth, if we don't know the purpose of that life after salvation we will never enter to the fullness of God and victory. God has never planned any defeats for you and you will never be defeated if you are filled with the fullness of God.

There are arenas in your life. The first is the arena of salvation. We are to enjoy the blessing of being saved, but we shouldn't stop there. Sad to say many Christians do. That is why before to long they run out of steam and their christianity is a bore.

When you first got saved it was exciting, you were always ready to help somebody. Now your the last one to assemble and the first one to leave. You begin to harbor animosities because someone didn't talk to you or somebody didn't treat you right. You get offended easy and a little touchy on the inside. Do you know what is the matter? The life within you is diminishing.

The next step is you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and your on the top shelf again. Now you have entered into the arena of the Holy Spirit. You feel you have graduated from spiritual university. You begin to pursue the gifts of the Holy Spirit. You pursue the gifts more than the gift giver and eventually you come into a sever circumstance and life begins to diminish again. You realize that the infilling of the Holy Spirit is not graduation from spiritual university but, graduation from spiritual kindergarten. You become satisfied where you are spiritually and mark it, His life begins to diminish because the carnal nature is being catered to.

Along with the arena of salvation and the infilling of the Holy Spirit is the arena of taking up the cross and dying to the old nature.

Now this is where we battle. This old flesh is pert dear. We try to maintain it at any price. All because we fail to understand what God is doing. Somebody speaks unkindly or cuts you with a word and you want to strike back. Or you want to run away and hide to nurse your wound until it becomes animosity.

As the cross is laid on us, we have a lot of dying to do. The cross is laid to bring the old nature to surrender because God has a new life that you are going to live. Galatians 2:20, "...it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me..."

Many Christians have been filled with the Holy Spirit but have failed to deal with the old nature. Therefore, when the newness of the baptism wears off the old nature takes over and christianity becomes a drag.

To be fully and totally used of God requires a full and total surrender of your life to the Holy Spirit. but once you have totally surrendered, you don't feel you've surrendered anything because what He gives you is the next step. You enter into the patter of being used of God and the pattern of overcoming; This is the fourth arena.

Now you might have more battles in this arena than in any of the others. But the Holy Spirit will work greater in you life, the revelation of Christ will be greater, the reality of Christianity will be greater, the motivation will be greater, the zeal will be greater, the purpose will be greater, the joy will be greater, the victory will be greater and the peace will be greater. You will be spoiled for everything that the world has to offer. You won't have to say, I can't do this"; you won't want to do it.

You would rather die than do anything to bring reproach on Christ and miss the blessing of God. You begin to really live. But it is a process. So many people live on the fringes and never get into the fullness of the reality of salvation.

Spiritual success is being able to meet human need. This is what God wants. Jesus gave the Gospel to us to give to others. But in order to present the full gospel we need to have the fullness of God working through us. This is why sitting at the feet of Jesus to learn from Him and then obey Him is so necessary. Then you can even face death and smile because the life within you knows no death.

If the life within you is developed, it has one purpose; it gravitates to those who are in need of the gospel. Life swallows up death.

This life within your body does not start with the mind, the soul nor the emotions; nor does it start with the five senses through we get our normal education. Jesus is a revelation. In our secular education, we start from the outside and work inward. The knowledge starts from the inside and works outward. The Holy Spirit reveals truth to your born again spirit as you study the Word of God. This truth is then filtered to your soulish nature so your mind can grasp it. In this way your spirit is dominate with the mind being subject to it. Once the mind accepts the truth it then is filtered to the body to be manifested in what we speak and what we do.

Your mind also will grasp information from the natural, physical realm. It is so easy to try and build the kingdom of God by the carnal information that has been gained from the natural world and human knowledge. Sense knowledge is vital and it comes through the ability of our human reasoning faculties. But that will not reveal Christ in your spirit. This is why the Holy Spirit is the revealer of the Word. You may be reading it with the natural mind, but it has to go past your mind and become a life flow into your spirit.

When revelation truth hits your spirit, it is just like a light comes on. The more that the Word and the revelation of Christ is revealed within, the more that light grows and the more it communicates to your understanding, to your mind.

Often you will know something in your spirit, but you don't understand it in your mind. Now knowing it is one thing, but understanding it is another. Sometimes we have to know a long time before we can understand. Often the understanding will not come except over a process of time as it begins to unfold in order for you to express it.

If you have the Life of Christ within, you will never be satisfied with the spiritual status quo. This life inside of you cannot be boxed in or held down. It becomes more expressive and more creative. This life is always ahead of your circumstances. A Christian who knows this fact can never be defeated. You can take anything and turn it into victory, you don't ever have to be defeated by the past, present or future because the life within is the life of Christ.

THE MATURING OF THE INCORRUPTIBLE SEED

A maturing believer is one that allows the implanted seed to grow and expand within him and is being led of the Spirit.

Paul, in 1 Cor. 3:1 talks about three kinds of Christians, babes, carnal and spiritual. Babes demand a great deal of attention, they must be cared for and loved inspite of what they do. As a babe we do many things we shouldn't do when we become mature. As babes in Christ you need the sincere milk of the Word. But you cannot stay with milk, you must move begin to take meat.

As a babe you are a servant and you will stay a servant until you have knowledge of sonship. You are a son even though you are a babe but, you don't know who you are. When you have knowledge of sonship you walk differently, act differently, and live differently. You have a different authority because you know you belong to God's royal family and you understand what that means.

As you continue to mature you enter into the state of fathers. Only fathers can give life and you mature until you can give life. This is why He brings us into maturity, so He can use us to the greatest extent of His purposes. Ignorance and neglect of His provisions will destroy us spiritually. The enemy knows he cannot destroy the life within you, but he can retard or impede the spiritual development of that life.

I am human enough to want everyone to like me, but I am smart enough to know that not everyone will. We have natures that are different from each other. Sometimes our nature is abrasive to someone else. God knows how to let individuals cross our path and touch our sore spots. He allows this in order to refine our old nature and surface it to expose it to the Word of God and the stream of His life. Everything that is on our old nature that is rooted deep into the fibers of our being, our thinking, our conduct, our actions and reactions will surface through circumstances that will come into our lives.

To be used of God, you must be able to face any circumstance and live in victory through that circumstance. Maturity is digging deep into your nature and allowing the life stream of God to swallow everything that surfaces so you can demonstrate the nature of the life within you.

Many times why Christians are spiritually fatigued is because they are trying to do His work in their strength. They haven't learned the stream of His unction. There is nothing as blessed as the anointing. It lifts, it motivates, it stimulates, it heals, it digs, it covers, it delivers and sets the captive free.

Many Christians, especially preachers, when they do not have the real anointing, press into carnal ways to be motivated - they are "self anointed". What is self anointed? You get caught up in something to motivate yourself until you can really get your emotions reacting. You become very animated, but there is no God anointing in it; it is of the human spirit.

Many preachers do not have the anointing because they are involved in secondary things and never produce first things. The anointing is proportional to the amount that His life has expression in rightful purposes. He does not want your life spent on wasteful things. The spiritual man on the inside has to be constantly fed in order to rise above the circumstances that may come into your life to destroy you.

A leader has the responsibility to see that the church moves into the stream of the life of God. The church is not the building you assemble in, the church are the people themselves. The church does not need to be entertained or subjected to some Pentecostal road show. The church does not need carnal performances of talent displaying. The church needs the life of God demonstrated in their midst that will affect their spirits and cause the life within them to grow and flow and remain alive in God.

Being carnal describes the state of an individual, who although born again and alive unto God, is motivated by the old life. You are living in the soulish realm. You do things the way the world does thinking that the world pattern can be expressed through you in doing God's work. Sad to say, this is the plight of a vast majority of the church. There is a lot of meism and self promotion in carnality.

A spiritual man means you are born again, indwelt, and you are motivated by His life, not the old life. Being spiritually mature does not mean you have arrived, but you are being led by the Spirit into higher spiritual plateaus in God.

The kingdom of God is not an organization, it is as organism. The work of God and the life of God within us is not something that has to be manufactured or educated by some cemetery, I mean seminary. When that life reaches a certain limit inside of you, you will be active in the kingdom.

Motivation comes forth out of maturity in His life that is within.

Preacher, this may come as a surprise to you and your denomination. GOD DID NOT ESTABLISH THE PRESENT CHURCH SYSTEM THAT YOU OPERATE UNDER, MAN DID!

God's desire is that denominational walls fall so His Son can be the head and not your organization. He desires to pull all Christians together that are alive in His Son so that we will become one Body until we do not know what denominational flag anyone carries. Are you in Adam or are you in Christ? That is all that God sees. He does not care about the name on the building you worship in and that is shocking, isn't it. If Jesus were to come on earth in person He would bypass the Pentecostal, Charismatic, Full Gospel building etc., as fast as any other building and head on to meet the needs of lost humanity. And you thought you were kind of special.

This life within you has to mature, because God wants to use you. His life within you and expressed through you is the greatest power that can ever be expressed on the face of the earth. The stronger that life becomes within you, the stronger you become in your effectiveness of being used of God.

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GOD'S PLAN AND PURPOSE WORKED OUT IN YOU

In this exchanged life, the Christ life for the self life, there is a process going on. Every activity of the Holy Spirit is to provide you with power in order to defeat the enemy so that you can enter into more of the fullness of His provision, It is the will of the father for the Holy Spirit to work in us that Christ might be fully formed in us.

As you move into God, there will be some very traumatic experiences in your life. God does not want us to remain where we are. Read the first chapter of Ephesians again. Why? Because it is the blueprint of the New Testament Church.

There are three dimensions within your spirit that are discernible. One is intuition, another is communion and the third is conscience. Your spirit was a slave to your soulish realm until the Word that is sharper than any two-edged sword divided asunder soul and spirit. This happened when you were born-again. That is why joy comes, the spirit is no longer in submission to the soulish realm.

The world lives in the soulish realm. And you will find much of the church world, although at conversion were set free from soulish domination, has allowed the soul to again become dominate. Most Christian have allowed the soul to get back on the throne and control their spirit. They are controlled by the mind, will and emotions. To be overcoming Christians we MUST keep the spirit on the throne, for it is in the intuitive part of our spirit that God's Word is made alive.

There are many things happening within the building where the Church meets that do not belong in the body. These things may be good in and of itself but it does not belong in the Church. The World must know that the Church is not a building, but a body of people amongst whom Jesus is revealed. Anything that is done in the assembly of God's people, singing, preaching, teaching, etc. that is not out of a heart of obedience and love for God is of the self-life and it does nothing for the spiritual man. It cannot be the means of manifesting the resurrected Christ to a lost world.

What the enemy has been successful in doing is to blur everything until you don't know what is spiritual or what is carnal. The Church (Body of Christ) ends up feeding the carnal man which God desires to be destroyed (have no effect on the believer). The building you worship in is not the Church no mater what name tag is over the door. The Church is the candlestick (Body), but the light is Jesus. The Church is the Church because it has the life of Christ within. If you have the most elaborate edifice and call it the "First Church of Jesus Christ" it is still not The Church. When Paul wrote to the Church he wrote to the believers.

The devil's business has been to keep the Church in the realm of the carnal and He has had a high degree of success. People, you have to die to self and denominational elitism and come alive unto God! If you do not die to self or get rid of denominational traditions the revelation of Jesus will not progress to a higher level in your life than what you already have.

If the carnal, self life is dead, the more Jesus will be revealed to you and the more He will speak to you. Do you realize that pastors and leaders ruin nearly everything God tries to accomplish because of carnality. If man would be totally surrendered to God, God would pour out His Spirit and through His grace do a work in our day that is unlimited. God is preparing individuals within the organized denominations to receive what He wants to do before Jesus comes to catch away the true Church, this is causing spiritual dissatisfaction within their ranks. That is one reason denominations are losing ground and fighting to hold on to the people they have through manipulation and fear mongering.

Matthew 17; 2; And His appearance underwent a change in their presence; and His face shone clear and bright like the sun, and His clothing became as white as light.

Jesus was transfigured before them and His face did shine as the sun and His raiment was white. This transformation was caused by the life that was in Jesus as a result of communion with His Father, became so powerful that the physical body could not conceal the glory of that life that was in Him.

It broke through so bright, the majesty and the glory of His presence was so great, that it was white coming through His garments.

The majesty of this same life that was in Jesus is in the life that is in you. When we are born again, it is just not that our name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, but we have an indwelling of the life of the Father through the miracle of the new birth. God is going to take people that will move far enough into Him and reveal His Son through them until every action of their life will be a portrait of Jesus.

Jesus' whole ministry was an expression of eternal life in action to meet human need. The supernatural life of Christ within needs to be expressed through activity meeting man's inward cry.

The adverse circumstances of humanity is an opportunity for the Christ life within you to be manifested and flow through you meeting the needs of humanity.

The case of Lazarus being raise from the dead is an example of the Life of Christ meeting the needs of humanity. Jesus often stayed at the home of Lazarus and his sisters. They were very close to Him. But when Jesus heard the news of the man's death he did not go immediately. He did not go immediately because He was going to reveal something to the world, something more of who He was. He was going to unfold something more of His nature, His characteristics and His purpose.

Jesus waited until Lazarus was dead and then He came. Mary and Martha were very disturbed. Jesus said to Martha, "your brother will rise again."

Martha answered, "Yes, I know he is going to rise again in the resurrection of the last day."

Here Jesus is using a circumstance to meet a need. Jesus speaks to Martha saying, "I am the resurrection and the life, and he who believes in me, though he were dead, shall live again. We see Jesus challenging not only physical death, but He is challenging life itself. "I am the resurrection and the life." A multitude of truth is wrapped up in those words. But they went on with their mourning. Jesus was about to demonstrate more of who He was and that would provoke the religion of that day to come against Him. Why, because man-made religion is of the carnal nature which is territory of the devil. The devil will use carnal people in carnal religion to come against the life of Christ so as to keep religion active.

Jesus moved into the area and came to Lazarus, tomb. He said, "Take away the stone." Or, in other words, remove the obstacle to this work. Then the first negative came forth. (John 11:39), "...Lord, by this time he stinks, because he has been dead four days." Any time you come to a supernatural work of God, you will have to climb over the negative religious people. Anytime you move with God, you are going to be criticized by religious people who do not understand the workings of God via the Christ life. Your denominational friends won't understand you, but you have to move when the Spirit moves. Do you know why Jesus waited so long before acting? So no one could go around and say that Lazarus was not dead. Religion always tries to find some reason to explain away the supernatural.

Jesus is demonstrating life, the authority of the life that is within Him. The same life that is within the born again believer. Jesus used Lazarus to be the vehicle through which He could manifest Himself to the people around and to all who would read His Word.

"But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you." (Romans 8:11).

Regardless of your circumstances, if you will let that life increase you will never be defeated. Jesus is still alive through whatever circumstance you may be going through.

After we are saved, God desires that we move upward to higher spiritual plateaus. He does not do this by taking us out of our problems, He reveals more of Himself through our problems. He wants the life within you to master the problems until you can walk above them.

You must realize it is impossible for you to make it in your own strength. You can say, "I can't make it, it's impossible. And that is right, you can't live the ten commandments. You can't live the Sermon on the Mount. You can't live the sayings of Jesus because your old nature was not made to live them. But He came to give you a new nature, a new life. you begin to rise above and all other things are submerged under the life of Christ and brought into surrender. This takes the whip and the bleeding out as the cross is laid upon you. It is automatically laid there because that process goes to work the moment that you see the essence of that life being pressed right into your spirit.

THE BUILDING OF OUR SPIRITUAL LIVES

Every circumstance of your life has a reason. Character is not made in heaven, it's made on earth. The forming of character requires resistance, evil resisting good. The building of your spiritual life is a matter of choice. You can choose to be spiritual or you can choose to be carnal. You can choose t remain a spiritual baby or you can choose to move into all that God has provided. It is a mater of choice.

Do not fight the spiritual dissatisfaction that is raging within you. God gives us unsatisfied satisfaction. Never be satisfied with the spiritual status quo. If you do your spiritual life will regress.

God never made us just for spiritual survival. He made us to be inhabited by His life that we might rise in the fullness of the reality of it.

"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels..." (2 Cor. 4:7).

What is the treasure of the ages? Jesus. Who is Jesus? The life of the Father expressed to humanity. When God gives you a spiritual revelation, He has to work it out in you. His life grows not by carnal knowledge or the carnal mind (human things). The spiritual man is not fed by human reasoning. It is not fed by the natural things that are around us. It is fed by the Word revealed -- then we come into revelation knowledge.

Many times we do not understand this process and we become confused, frustrated, resentful, dropouts, castaways; and we stop moving ahead. The devil will do everything in his power to discourage you from moving ahead. He will do anything to sidetrack you. He may do things like giving you the best job in the world just to distract you and keep you from taking hold of the real essence. It is the devil's business to side track us into secondary things so that the main issue is neglected which gradually produces a lessening of life until, eventually, reality is gone. This is how the church regresses. This is how it loses vitality and its reality.

OUR IDENTIFICATION

Who are you? You may not realize who you are in Christ because you have never matured to the level that God intended. When you enter into the fullness of that relationship. you enter into really knowing who you are. You live different and you talk different. Words like defeat, impossible will melt away from your speech because through Christ you can do anything. You realize when you walk down the streets of the town, Jesus is walking down the street in you.

The miracle of the imparted life is far beyond our human comprehension. It can only be unveiled by God. You have within you the hope of the ages. He needs to be manifested to lost humanity.

THE MANIFESTATION OF THE SEED EXPRESSED IN A PERSON

When a baby is born into this world, he or she is born physically naked and needs to be clothed. When a person is born again they are born spiritually naked and needs to be clothed by the Word, by the nature, by the image and by the patterns of all that Jesus is; His character - His righteousness - His purity. They need to be clothed with the holiness and and the power of Jesus. They need to move far enough into God and let His life have preeminence and everything that is unlike Christ will become distasteful like sour milk in their mouth.

All the worlds fountains are dry when it comes to satisfying the inward cry of your spirit. They are dry because there is no substance in them. They look great to the carnal nature, but once you get into them there is no spiritual satisfaction.

Every time you say yes to God and no to the world, another spiritual two-by- four goes up. Every time you obey the Word instead of your carnal fleshly desires another spiritual rafter goes up. You are maturing and building a house that Jesus delights to reside in and work through.

We are built from within, not without. This is what we have to comprehend. The world wants to mold us into its image. That is the conflict between your sprit and the carnal nature. Once full surrender comes to the life that is within, your struggles begin to cease. But sometimes it is hard to die to self and we are troubled. The more our carnal nature dies the more of Christ is revealed. "This is the treasure we have in earthen vessels."

We read in Galatians 4:1-7: "Now what I mean is that as long as the inheritor is a child and under age, does not differ from a servant, although he is master of all the estate; But he is under guardians and administrators ot trustees until the date fixed by his father. So we [denominational christians] also when we were minors, were kept like slaves under [the rules of the denominational rituals and traditions] and subject to the elementary teachings of a system of external observations and regulations, but God sent His Son, born of a woman, born subject to the Law. To purchase the freedom of, to redeem, to atone for those who were subject to the Law, that we might be adopted and have sonship conferred upon us and be recognized as God's sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying Abba, Father! Therefore you are no longer a servant but a son; and if a son, then it follows that you are an heir by the aid of God through Christ." (Square bracketed words are mine)

When you are saved, you are a son; but you lack the revelation knowledge of what is yours through Christ. You are more in a servant state, receiving the milk of the Word and doing what you are told by other Christians and leaders. This knowledge that you need is not something that you are going to acquire by human reasoning or human wisdom. It is a knowledge that is going to be revealed by the Spirit of God as to who you really are. You can know it in your mind and not know it in your spirit. There are many christians that have been saved for a long time and still do not know their identity in Christ. But when you know it in your spirit it is in a different realm and the circumstances of life will not cause you to lose faith. The description of a servant is one who is under bondage and they serve.

In Bible times a son was trained in all the things of the household and business because trades were passed down in that day. If the father was a potter, his son would be a potter. The trades went from generation to generation.

But that son was a servant. He was under tutors and governors until he came to the knowledge of the household and business. When he came to that certain age, their would be a celebration. This celebration was a celebration of adoption. Now if he was a son, why was he being adopted? Because the son was now going to move into a place of authority. The son had come to the level of knowledge where no longer would he serve has a servant; but he would move into full rights, privileges, freedom, liberties and the responsibilities of the household. Because of the knowledge through the tutors and governors, he had come to the level that he could be trusted.

Let us consider the spiritual realm. When we think of adoption, we think of a family reaching out and adopting a child they have not given birth to. This child is adopted into the family legally and has all the rights of that family. But it does not have the life stream of its parents.

This is not what the Bible refers to by adoption. When we come into the family of God, we are born into it, we are not adopted into it. We have the life stream of the Father. The word adoption here means that because of the tutoring of the Holy Spirit, the Word and the life stream of Christ put into us by the new birth, we live as a servant until we have matured to the point that we can be entrusted with the realization of who we are in Christ.

Now when that realization hits home a knowledge is born in your spirit of who you are. There is a reality on the inside of a deep relationship letting you know what sonship and being an heir really means.

The father had two sons, the only begotten (Jesus) and the created (Adam). Adam moved from God, thus we have the story of the whole human race. Our (Adamic, carnal) nature is at enmity with God. The carnal nature that is of the world and is worldly doesn't want God. In fact it is impossible for the carnal nature to know God.

But through the new birth God reaches us and we are saved, and His life begins to mature within us. As we submit more and more to the Spirit that life matures and we move into the full relationship that God desires for us to have. That knowledge is the revelation knowledge that comes when Jesus is being unveiled in your spirit. soon it begins to come out in your understanding and you begin to talk differently. You approach God differently. Do you know that as you move into maturity, you won't pray 90% of the prayers you are praying now? You will cease being a beggar, you won't pray as a servant in bondage any longer. You will pray as free men, you will pray as sons.

While God is dealing with us, sometimes we get hard to live with. We get mean, rebellious, critical, negative and blame God for what is happening. We want to strike back and run away. This doesn't mean that you have are unsaved, only that you have an unsurrendered nature, you are being governed by your carnal nature. But through all this God is wants us to refine the nature within us. It is not the circumstances that will defeat us it is our reaction to the circumstances.

God has placed inside of you all of the ingredients of everything necessary for righteousness, victory, restored dominion and authority over every circumstance of your life. It just need development and your correct reaction to circumstances will help develop it. This takes your whole spirit, soul and body being surrendered to God so He can work out the spirit of authority so you will take authority and practice a sonship relationship.

Now in that sonship there are three levels that you pass through - babe, carnal and spiritual. As a babe you have everything, but you don't possess it because of a lack of maturity. As carnal you can't possess it because the carnal mind is at enmity with God. It is only as spiritual can you move into all the benefits of knowing who you are and being what the Word says you are. You have to possess your possessions. The children of Israel had Canaan, but they had to drive out the giants and displace what was there. The giants in your life that have grown there because of environment and teaching through your old Adamic nature has to be displaced and replaced with the truths of God's Word.

Christian, you can't give what you haven't got or don't know you have. You cannot lead anybody to a higher spiritual plateau than you are yourself. That is why God desires you to grow until you know. You know that God is the same when you feel bad as when you fell good. When the spirit is in control and you are mature you will not move into the wilderness of emotions. You are not overwhelmed by feelings of frustration. You know that God is with you through every circumstance and you keep your focus on Jesus instead of the circumstance.

The life within you continues to swallow up the patterns from your past and the desires of your fleshly appetites. There are passions that have been inflamed by sin, but He takes the fire out. Everything inside of you was made for His purposes, but sin inflamed it while you were in darkness, unrighteousness and evil. You were in this state because you were born with the Adamic nature. But when He comes in, He begins to take all these things out and bring your whole lifestyle back into the divine pattern where it belongs.

God never intended for you to live with a heavy spirit because of your past. God never intended for you to live crying out of your circumstances. God has not planned any defeats for you. But the devil has. If you give into your carnal flesh you will be defeated. Hindsight is always twenty/twenty and we often look back and whip ourselves because we didn't do that or this. Yet we may have done the best we could at the time. But the devil tries to whip us over yesterday's failures. These are the things we have to learn to lay at the alter and leave it there.

As you begin to move into the reality that resurrection life flows because of relationship you come to a great revelation. God made you to share in everything that He created for His Son, you are joint heirs. You are elevated out of the place of condemnation, out of a place of question, out of a place of insecurity, out of a place of wondering if God really loves you, out of a place where you judge your position by your problems and into a place of knowing who you are in Christ! When you start realizing who you are, God begins to move heaven and earth to bring you into the realization of your identity in Him.

1 Peter 2:9 says: But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, [God's] own purchased, special people, that you may set forth the wonderful deeds and display the virtues of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

This holy nation, the redeemed of all nations, the church is to be the powerful force that demonstrates the life of Jesus by resurrection life flowing. The body of Christ needs to come out of denominational slumber so that the world will see a holy people whose king is Jesus.

Jesus knew who He was when He was on the boat in the Sea of Galilee and the wind's came up. The boat was tossing wildly about. The disciples were panicking, what was Jesus doing? In this adverse circumstance Jesus was sleeping. How could Jesus sleep in such conditions? Because He knew who He was. The disciples were frantic. Waves were sweeping over them and they shook Him, crying out, "Jesus don't you care that we perish?" What did Jesus want of those disciples? He wanted them to know that nothing could happen to them as long as He was aboard. There was a purpose in every move that Jesus made.

Jesus has to permit the devil to get to you. Everything that is happening in your life has a purpose, to push you into making choices. you have to choose how to react to whatever circumstance you are in. You must choose between what the Word says or what the circumstance says. You are going to choose what He proclaims or what the world proclaims.

The life within you needs to grow. Everything in our lives that does not fit into His eternal purpose as revealed in His Word will become a conflict within your life. You choose weather or not you will fight against the will of God because you want your own way.

You are the sum total of your choices. The life within you wants God, but you can diminish that life by how you react to your circumstances.

As His life enlarges within you, you will grow to the position of maturity that life's emergencies will never cause you to push the panic button. What He has started in you, He will perfect until that day.

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HOLY SPIRIT INFLUENCE ON HIS LIFE IN YOU

This life that is within you is the chief concern of the Holy Spirit. God has measured out in you the life of the Son through the incorruptible seed, the living Word. We are motivated by our old life until we come to the end of ourselves, the end of our old nature. we are motivated by the world until the cross has been laid strong enough upon us that we are motivated by His life. Your going to walk through valleys, your going to walk through testing and you are going to walk through pressures. You may want to run away but don't, run to God.

God will bring you to the realization that you can sleep in the boat during the storm, too.

This life has to mature in us before we step out into the arena of resistance of this world. Once you manifest the resurrection life of Christ, you can expect the devil to try to discourage you or alienate or lead you away. He does not want you to manifest the fully matured life of Christ. Satan wants to pull you away from it so that you will not live in the power of His resurrected life on the inside because if it does it will flow out through you and destroy his kingdom. The resurrected life of Christ is the tool of the Holy Spirit. He does not use the flesh. He uses the life of Jesus that is in us.

There are thousands of people in assemblies that know about Jesus, but do not know Him. The quote scripture by the yard, they read their Bible through and through and they preach over the pulpits, But they do not KNOW Jesus.

They will sacrifice, they will work and they will confess. They have been saved but they still do not know Him. Twenty eight years after his conversion on the Damascus Road, Paul said in Philippians 3:10: "That I may know Him..."

We would say, "Paul didn't you know Him?"

He would say, "Yes I knew Him back there, but He is such a tremendous Christ that I really don't know anything. Even though I have been caught away into the heavens, I do not know Him because of the magnitude of who He is.

We have not even entered into a fraction of who He really is and what we are through Him, yet He is within us. We need God to unveil His Son within us to the depth He wants to, if that happens The resurrection life would flow out of us meeting the needs of humanity.

Jesus said, "Upon this rock, I will build my Church." What is the rock? It is the REVELATION of WHO and ALL that Jesus is! When this revelation of Christ is realized in a person's life, it will take all the struggles out of doing His work. It changes your entire focus as to how you see things. You will cease to allow denominational hang-ups, and manipulating preachers to hinder your growth in God. You will not give up one inch of what you have found in the revelation of Him.

You may yell, scream and dance, but where is your authority? You pray for the sick and the oppressed, but where is their deliverance? Authority does not come until you have a revelation of Jesus, a revelation of Jesus can only come from an intimate relationship with Him. If you are not obedient to the revelation that you now have, you will have no deeper revelation of Him.

In John 16:7-8 & 13, we read: "Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.

The Spirit of truth is come. Who is the Truth that the Spirit of truth will glorify and testify of? It is Jesus. The Spirit of truth will reveal Jesus to YOU individually vv. 14 & 15.

Jesus said that His going was necessary in order to send the Holy Spirit. The disciples did not understand this at all. They were feeling sorrowful; in fact, they were going to be in travail as a woman was before giving birth to a child. They had put their hopes upon Him and now He was leaving them alone in this dark world.

But Jesus was saying, "Yes I am leaving you, but you must understand that there is more to me then the physical Christ that you see. I am leaving you, but I will be back and I will not be limited to my physical body when I return. You will not know me according to the flesh, you will know me according to your spirit. I will be alive, not in the flesh as you see me now, I will be alive in your spirit. The very life stream of God will be in you. There is going to be a reality on the inside of you where you know that you know that as I was in this world so are you. You have the very life of God in you as I have and you will go forth producing the proof that God is real and that I am the resurrected Son of the living God. This will all take place because of the revealing activity of the Holy Spirit and as He reveals me you will know my Father who will do what you ask in my name."

Let me ask you this question. Do you know Him? Or, do you just know about Him? So many christians know about Him but, to be effective in the Kingdom of God you must KNOW Him. You must not only seek Him because He is Master and King, and will one day return to set up His kingdom. You must seek Him to know Him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering.

There are so many preachers that only preach the Christ of the flesh. As a result we have a lot of carnal christians (christians who live after the flesh). Preachers need to preach as Paul, the crucified, resurrected Christ. And because of the Holy Spirit coming, that resurrection life is able to flow through you to meet the needs of humanity.

You can be born again, but never come into the realization of who you are. You can live on the fringes. You can live knowing your sins are forgiven, but not live in the reality of His indwelling presence. To KNOW Him is the key to your spiritual life and victory.

The Holy Spirit did not come to speak of Himself. He came to reveal the truth, the whole truth, JESUS. Yes the Sprint will convict the world of sin, yes He is our comforter, but He also came to reveal Jesus in you to where His resurrection life is flowing through you and out of you to bring the atmosphere of heaven down here on earth meeting the need of humanity. The only way to master the carnal life is to have the resurrection life of Jesus flowing. If you will go far enough in Christ there is not a circumstance that will come against you that will not be turned into victory. There will be no circumstances that will rob you of the joy of His reality within you. PRAISE THE LORD!

If you will yield yourself to the Holy Spirit, the time will come when you will realize the indwelling Christ is in you. You will realize that as that life is fed within, there is not a circumstance in your life that can defeat you. Everything that God is doing works through His Word. This is why it is so vital for the Word to be constantly assimilated into our life through daily study and the Spirit's activity.

This is why the Holy Spirit came into this world to deal with us and to deal with our lives, that we would be prepared for the entrance of His life and the out flowing of His life.

God has commissioned redeemed men and women, filled with His Spirit, to deliver the message of life, outlived through the Word, to the ends of the earth.

Are you living in the reality of biblical Christianity? Or are you living on the outer limits of it, just barely stumbling along praying God will help you hold out until the end. The world is not going to be won by a carnally motivated Christianity. Christians are carnal because we have not gone far enough in God. We have been saved but we are still motivated by the old life evidenced by a lifestyle like the world's.

The Body of Christ (the Church) has to move into a relationship that is motivated by His life.

You will never achieve maturity by preaching the cross alone. You have to major in life, not in death. I can preach everything that is wrong about you, but it will never cause you to change. It will make you self-conscious, rebellious and resentful. But I can preach Jesus until life begins to flow and the whole life stream within you is different. When that life begins to flow, all those desires of the flesh and habits begin to fall off. Those dead leaves fall off because you are drawing your source from another supply.

What you don't feed is going to die. If you feed the life of God within you, the carnal self-life will wither and surrender to the higher life.

The revelation of Jesus is more than a blessing. It is more than power. It is more than authority. It is more than being used of God. It is more than feeling you are accomplishing something. It is more than going to a building that you call a church. It is more than preaching. The end result of the activity of the Holy Spirit revealing Jesus is to bring the atmosphere of heaven down to earth, by restoring the presence of God in you causing resurrection life to flow from you desecrating the kingdom of Satan.

RESTORATION OF HIS PRESENCE

We need the power and anointing, but that is not the ultimate end. The ultimate end is the restoration of God's presence in the earth. this can only happen by the restoration of God's presence in the believer so resurrection life can flow from the believer to affect the world he lives in.

When the presence of God is developed in your life the resurrection power flows and people will know there is a difference about you as compared to most believers. They will see it in your eyes and it will be radiant in your spirit. Your speech and your actions will vibrate with the truth of the gospel.

You pray different, your motives are different and you refuse to look at defeat. You don't look at the grave. You don't look at the difficult circumstances. You look at the victory that is being accomplished in your life by Him being manifested and the stream of God coming to the surface and resurrection life flowing from you.

I know the heartache and cry that is in the human heart. The world is sick and looking for an answer. Young people are struggling to find something to satisfy the yearning of their spirits. Spiritually starved believers are looking to experience and see the reality of biblical Christianity. Religion doesn't satisfy, man-made christianity doesn't satisfy. Denominational systems doesn't satisfy. Doctrines will not satisfy. Even knowing about Jesus will not satisfy.

The only thing that will satisfy is Jesus being unveiled in your spirit. If you move into the fullness of the reality of Jesus, you are spoiled for any death pattern concocted by the devil or by the appetites of the flesh.

It is the lack of this message that has caused the lack of relevance in the Church today. It is also the reason the Church is in such a poor spiritual condition unable to meet the needs of humanity.

But all is not lost because Jesus does not deal with you according to your past sins. He deals with you according to the seed that is planted within you if you will only feed that life rather than the carnal life. Once you are saved, everything about the gospel is meant to increase the life of Jesus in you so it can flow out from you.

When you get to fully understand the gospel, you will not play with it, nor will it be secondary in your life. Nothing else will be first in your life because your whole future depends on how much of Jesus is unveiled and developed in you and how much of the life of the resurrected Christ is flowing from you now.

There are two kinds of life available to the christian, the self-life and the Christ-life. What life are you portraying?