Being spirit, soul and body, Jesus said our spirits are what are born of God's Spirit in the new birth experience.
- Nicodemus thought only of BODY when the thought of birth arose.
- But Christ was speaking of being born of God's Spirit, and the human body is not born of God's Spirit.
- Human spirit is born of God's Spirit.
And it is therefore one SPIRIT that results from a union with the Lord, whereas in physical relationships it is ONE BODY.
So the human spirit is an entity within us that God is very much
concerned with, since it is that which is born of His Spirit and it is
that with which God's Spirit becomes one.
- But, sad to say, the human spirit is so little understood and even so little INVOLVED in many born again people's lives.
- And this is due to a disease amongst the body of Christ
that is willingly inflicted upon God's people by ministers, without
their realization of what they are doing, in attempts to fulfill what
God desires us to experience in this Christian life.
The largest error of them all in many church circles today is the error of legalism.
- Legalism is not simply being harsh with people, as most seem to think.
- A man can be very kind and compassionate, and fully
misunderstand the methods God wishes us to utilize in teaching the
saints to live a godly lifestyle, and use legalism instead.
- Legalism is THE ABANDONMENT OF THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE
HUMAN SPIRIT WITH GOD'S SPIRIT in efforts to cause us to live a
spiritual life.
- Legalism is simply SELF MAKING SELF LIVE RIGHTEOUSLY.
It is human power making ourselves pleasing to God.
Rom 10:1-4 KJV Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for
Israel is, that they might be saved. (2) For I bear them
record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to
knowledge. (3) For they being ignorant of God's
righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
(4) For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every
one that believeth.
We must understand the issue of righteousness.
- God's goal in every life is for us to be righteous and to live righteously.
- But there was a grand error that Israel committed although they had a deep desire to please God.
- And they were in the exact same boat that many Christians are in today.
- They went about to establish their OWN righteousness.
- They knew nothing about God giving us HIS righteousness.
Righteousness is the state and lifestyle we are supposed to have before God.
We read that JESUS CHRIST is the end or THE GOAL of the law FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
- The righteousness God wanted man to have is through JESUS CHRIST.
- Through Jesus we are actually GRANTED righteousness.
Rev 19:8 KJV And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in
fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of
saints.
A GRANT is a free GIFT.
Rom 5:15 KJV But not as the offence, so also is the free gift.
For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of
God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath
abounded unto many.
Romans 5:15 mentions a free gift, which is by God's grace.
Rom 5:17 KJV For if by one man's offence death reigned by one;
much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of
righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)
Verse 17 says it is righteousness.
If you have not yet made this your goal, make RIGHTEOUSNESS your goal in your lifestyle and in your behaviour.
- Understand that you received a GIFT of righteousness when you were saved, and that you must now LIVE righteously.
- Make that everything to you.
- Make that your life's ambition.
- Make that the number one priority in your Christianity!
RIGHTEOUS LIVING.
But do not make the mistake of seeking to achieve that through your OWN righteousness.
- The GOAL of the Law is righteousness, and it can only be achieved by Christ.
- Not YOU.
Now, this is important, because ...
Gal 5:5 KJV For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.
Rom 8:4 KJV That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Rom 8:10 KJV And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
Eph 5:9 KJV (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
Notice these scriptures that associate righteousness with the HOLY GHOST or the SPIRIT of God.
God knows that only by your spirit learning to touch God's Spirit and
have a relationship with God's Spirit will you be able to ever live
righteously.
- That is why your spirit had to be born again and made one with His Spirit.
- Once saved, our spirits are willing and ready to grow and
learn to experience God's Spirit working through them to cause us to
change in our hearts and in turn our lifestyles.
- God works from the inside out.
Changes your heart in order to affect the things you do.
But you need to learn to use this new faculty or organ in your being now.
- Up until new birth it was dead in trespasses and sins.
- Imagine having legs you never used before.
- You never learned to walk before.
- For the sake of my point, imagine you never even knew you HAD legs before.
- After twenty or thirty years, you realize you now have legs and have to learn how to walk.
- The infants learned to walk in about 9 months.
- But you never used those legs for twenty or thirty years!
Infants bump and fall over, and teeter and totter on their legs, as they learn to walk.
- I imagine their little minds get frustrated with trying to walk, but not being able to.
- This is a lot of what it is like when you are born again
and seek to learn how to use your human spirit to live your Christian
life by.,
- You had it all your life, but it was dead and inactive.
Imagine a man having a stroke, who must learn to walk all over again.
- In some cases, a stroke leaves a person with the part of his brain that learned how to walk erased.
- And he must learn all over again like a child.
- It will take mistakes, and falls, and time to learn how to walk again.
- But it is easier to take a wheelchair, and use our arms that we are familiar with using.
- But a wheelchair is so inferior to walking.
This is the way it is with a newly born human spirit.
- It takes time to learn how to hear from God.
- It takes time to see your spirit learn to relate with God and commune with Him.
AND RATHER THAN TAKE TIME TO LEARN AND BE FRUSTRATED WITH TRYING TO HEAR FROM GOD, MANY PEOPLE HAVE RESORTED TO LEGALISM.
- We all learned how to hear rules and make our minds up to obey them and then make efforts to obey them.
- We did that without the Holy Ghost.
- And now that we have the Holy Ghost, it is easier to
continue that sort of thing rather than go through the time and
frustration of learning to walk in the spirit.
- And so after time, churches stopped teaching what the bible said about walking after the Spirit.
- Those issues were left behind.
- Legalism took over, and people were simply told to make themselves obey rules.
- Live without ever learning to hear from God.
- Live without ever learning to depend upon God's Spirit to actually change our lives and affect the very natures of ourselves.
- Live without ever learning to pray and ask God to change us.
- Live without ever seeking God in these ways which actually
cause us to mature spiritually the more and more we do them, and begin
to experience God's work in this way.
All the while our spirits remain unused and inactive.
It is a security blanket to live by rules.
- It is easier.
- A quick fix.
- But it is OUR righteousness we are producing.
- God's righteousness never shines through because we
frustrate the grace of God by trying to concoct a lifestyle with human
will power.
The newly born spirit never grows.
- It is fully capable of all we need to be spiritual, except time for it to mature and learn to use it.
- But it remains inactive in people who learn to live by rules.
Spirituality is having a life in which God directly intervenes and works.
- He works directly with our human spirits.
- Changes us.
- All of this never happens amongst legalism.
- Due to some having been under this legalism for so many
years, they may never learn to walk in the spirit, and be left behind
as write-offs spiritually speaking.
We become our own workmanship rather than God’s workmanship when under legalism.
Eph 2:8-10 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not
of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (9) Not of works,
lest any man should boast. (10) For we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them.
Gentiles old covenant.
- But God did something to change that.
- We could never do it.
- God alone could do it.
Eph 2:11-15 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past
Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is
called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; (12)
That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise,
having no hope, and without God in the world: (13) But now
in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the
blood of Christ. (14) For he is our peace, who hath made
both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between
us; (15) Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the
law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of
twain one new man, so making peace;
He did it by the cross.
- Likewise, we cannot make ourselves righteous.
- Only God can do that.
- The blood of Jesus provided that through the work of the cross.
- God alone took the wall that separated us from Him and Israel.
- Now we simply BELIEVE.
- And God does the work.
His image is not physical.
- No man has seen God at any time.
- So it cannot be a physical issue when we speak of His image.
- His Image is in us when we abound in the fruit of the Spirit.
- But legalism is fraudulent fruit.
- It’s fake.
- It’s a form of godliness but it does not have the power of godliness that makes the godliness present!
- It’s a shell.
Works are distinct from fruit.
- Works of the flesh versus fruit of the Spirit.
- I do not need anyone else in order to produce works of my own flesh.
- But to produce FRUIT of the Spirit requires the Spirit of God.
- I must have a relationship with God’s Spirit to produce fruit.
- Jesus spoke of being the Vine and we being the branches.
- And in that context He said we can do nothing without Him.
- We can work fleshly works.
- But that is NOTHING to God.
- Useless to Him.
- Anything of any value must be produced by HIS SPIRIT.
- And we need a relationship with Him in order to produce.
- A woman needs a man to produce a child.
- A branch needs a vine.
- We have the Vine inside us!
- Jesus!
- But we abandon Him and abandon what has a relationship with Him, that is our human spirits, when we submit to legalism.
The other extreme from legalism is living for God to merely FEEL His Spirit.
- Such people likewise do not want to learn.
- They do not seek bible study.
- They do not seek preaching.
- Prayer.
- They think that feeling God’s Spirit does everything, and they remain spiritually immature as well!
The following verse is seemingly the most clear and perfect explanation as to how to mature and become spiritual.
- We need to learn this as we know John 3:16 or Acts 2:38.
- Romans 6:13.
- Repeat that and memorize it.
Rom 6:13 Neither yield ye
your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield
yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your
members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
Our bodies were not dead to be made alive form the dead in verse 16.
- Our souls were not dead either.
- But when we were saved our SPIRITS became alive from the dead with Jesus.
- So we learn to YIELD our spirits to God.
YIELD is a term that reminds me of a traffic sign that says YIELD.
- It means we must stop our cars, and allow another car to proceed.
- Likewise, we must stop our righteousness, and allow another
righteousness to come forward in our lives – God’s
righteousness!
- Stop our work and let God work in us.
- Stop our wills and allow God’s will to come forward.
YIELD to God!