Breath Of Life Online Ministry
 
Do you remember our look at Genesis 3? One of the important issues we pointed out was the  temptation to do something to become more like God. We need to recognize that this is one of  the chief cornerstones in the ungodly thing we have come to know as man's religion.

We've already discussed "Doing vs. Being" somewhat. Now that we've looked at the Law, let's revisit that topic for a little more depth.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of  the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;  for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.  James 1:22-25

Does the act of doing the Word make us a Doer of the Word or does being a Doer of the Word bear the fruit of actually doing the Word?

Do we become obedient when we have obeyed or do we obey because we are obedient?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Only chickens can lay eggs, but chickens come from eggs. The question seems to present a conundrum. But we all know the answer ... God created the chicken and caused it to bear the fuit of eggs.

For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:13

So the fruit of Doing must come from the created being. Bearing fruit is not what creates the being.

James said that a hearer who is not a doer is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror. What does that really mean?

It may just sound like common wisdom until we see what the words really men. When James refers to the natural face, the terms he uses are "genesis prosōpon". Genesis refers to the source of origin and prosōpon speaks of the appearance or countenance.

Do we even know what a genesis countenance is? What did Adam see when He first opened his eyes? 

He saw the Face of his Creator, the vey image he had just been created in. Adam saw his genesis face.

So when we look into the Word of God, what should we be looking for?

Rules and regulations? They're in the Word. But should our focus be on what to do in order to achieve desired results?

If I have never seen my Genesis Face, how could I walk away from the Word and forget what manner of man I truly am? How will I even truly know what manner of man I truly am?

If I look into the Word for rules and regulations, I will see myself falling short and constantly in need of correction. That's not my Genesis Face ... that's my Old Nature's face. And if that's all I ever see in God's Word, I will never see my Genesis Face and I will never find the Perfect Law of Liberty to walk in.

We truly need to seek our Genesis Face ... it is the Face of Jesus, Himself! 

He is the embodiement of the Perfect Law of Liberty.

This is why it is so much more important to observe Christ than the Law or rules and regulations. We can become so immersed in our pursuit of doing that we never realize that it is Jesus, Himself we should be immersed in.
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Let's continue with our look at fulfillment of the Law. If you're not familiar with the scripture, take a moment to read the account of Jesus walking on the water. Its in Matthew 14:22-33.

Can we walk on water? No, of course not! We do not have the natural ability to walk on water. We can float a little bit and we can swim till we get tired, but we can't walk on water.

We have the same natural ability to keep the Law. We may float a little bit and manage to keep our head above water. But we simply aren't able to keep the Law.

Jesus can walk on water and we the same proficiency, He kept the Law to its complete fulfillment. The only way we can walk on water is the same way we keep the Law.

Notice in the scriptural account that Peter was able to walk on the water as long as he was observing Christ. But the moment he began to observe his surroundings, down he went.

If we try to observe the Law as if to fulfill it ourselves, we face an insurmountable problem. The Law that hasn't been fulfilled will always look to the future. We can only do our best and hope to get better in time. But we will never be free from the bondage of an unfulfilled Law. Every day, we will drag ourselves out of bed, pick up our trusty shovel and go back to digging a ditch that doesn't need to be dug.

But if we observe Christ as the Law fulfilled on our behalf, we are instantly freed from the bondage of slavery to the Law. We can walk on water and we can keep the Law. Since Christ is the Law fulfilled, sin isn't an issue any more because as we observe Him, we will not be contrary to Him.

And yes, that includes ALL of the Law.

I may struggle with the moral code, but we often overlook the first two commandments when we think of the Law as being fulfilled. 

Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 22:37-40

Preachers are constantly hounding us to "get our love walk in line with God's Word". They're still telling us to try and fulfill the Law ourselves. 

I can't love God as I should. I always fall short. And if you have neighbors like mine ... forget keeping the second commandment like I should. I will blow it!

Guess what! Jesus is the only One who could love the Father with all of His being. He fulfilled that commandment for me! Now as I observe Christ, I don't love the Father better, I love Him with all my being, too!

Jesus was the only One who could love my neighbors as I would myself. He fulfilled that commandment for me! And now as I observe Christ, I can love my neighbors without judging or condemning them. I see their needs and have compassion for them as Jesus does, not the shortcomings with accusations like the devil.

Its awesome and its easy! There's no work to this at all. And if the voice you are hearing is driving you to work as if to make it happen yourself ... it may be good advice to seriously consider the source of that voice.
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I'd like to use an analogy to show the truth about the fulfillment of the Law. So take a moment and pretend with me that I'm your Pastor and I'll begin with the closing words of our Sunday night service.

"Everyone remember that we're breaking ground tomorrow morning for our brand new church building! Everybody needs to come with a shovel or whatever tools you have to dig the footer for our new building! We're going to build a fine new church for Jesus!"

After the service ends, everyone goes home to rest except for Brother Bob. He happens to be a contractor.

Bob went to his shop in the evening and brought in his backhoe. During the night, Brother Bob used the backhoe to completely dig the footer for the building's foundation.

So when we all show up first thing in the morning, we're amazed to see the work is done. 

Now the question is, how many people will stay around if I said, "OK folks, its a beautiful new day! We're going to build a fine new church for Jesus. So everyone get busy digging that footer!" ...?

I'm sure you would have enough sense to pack up your tools and go home. And if your Pastor persisted in asking you to come help dig that ditch, you're probably smart enough to stop coming back.

Why? Its pretty dumb to dig a ditch that's done been dug, right?

Well its the same thing with us trying to keep the Law. That ditch has done been dug. The work is finished. We can put up our shovels now and rest in Jesus' finished work.

The foundation of Christ has already been laid. If we keep trying to dig, we'll find that its not the foundation we're working on, but our own grave. The Law can only minister death* to us.

*2 Corinthians 3:7
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Now let's bring in some understanding of the Mosaic Law. This should help us recognize the difference in our works vs. our grace mentalities.

Remember God's primary will for mankind? God wants us to be made in His image, after His likeness and have dominion in all our affairs of life. 

Did the Law accomplish this?

No! It did not because it could not.

As we follow many different teachings about the Law, there is one important focus that many overlook. That focus is on the image. 

God wants, expects and demands that we reflect the image we were created in. To conform to the image of the Law is to be restored to that original image.

Man's problem is that no matter how hard we may work, we will never be able to conform to that image. That's why God implemented the system of atonement into the Law, so that when we fall short of the image (that's called sin), our failure is atoned for and justified.

There are a couple important aspects of the Law that we need to understand. First, the Law was given as a mirror. When we look into this mirror and compare ourselves to it, we recognize that we fall short of and do not conform to the image it represents.

Second, the Law was given and intended to be fulfilled ... but not by men. When the Law of Moses was effective theologically, it was constantly looking forward to a future fulfillment in Christ. And until it had been fulfilled, the people were required to observe the Law by faith in its future fulfillment.

Jesus did not come to do away with the Law, He came to fulfill it.* So the Law unfulfilled is the future image of Christ and the image of Christ is the Law fulfilled on our behalf.

So if we observe the Law today as if to fulfill it, we have NOT accepted Jesus' work to fulfill it on our behalf. This is critical and it deserves some serious attention.


*Matthew 5:17
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Let's pursue this a little deeper. The New Testament scriptures speak much of the mind. Here are a couple of scriptures that speak about the renewing of the mind. Have a look...

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:2

And be renewed in the spirit of your mind Ephesians 4:23

The problem with much of our teaching and understanding about the renewing of the mind is with our definition of the word mind.

We have translated the Greek word 'nous' as mind in both of these scriptures. And that may not be such a bad translation. It is our connotation of what the word means that gives us problems.

The word 'nous' does NOT refer to the 1/3 part of the soul we call the mind. 

In fact, it is referring to a particular mode of thinking, judging, and reasoning according to our thoughts, feelings, purposes and desires.

When the scripture speaks of renewing our minds, it is talking about the sum of our soul's functions of judging and reasoning.

If we isolate the intellectual part of the soul we will absolutely fail to renew our minds correctly. We will gain much knowledge and fill our libraries with volumes of material, but nothing will really change.

"For as he judges in his soul, so is he."

1 Corinthians 12:16 tells us that "We have the mind (nous) of Christ"!

Now let's look a little closer at the context of Ephesians 4:23.

This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind (nous), having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind (nous), and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:17-24

If we continue to walk as we used to, according to the futility or vanity of our old mind, we will continue to bear the fruit of that old mind.

If we will successfully renew our minds, we will have to put off our old mode of thinking, judging, and reasoning according to our thoughts, feelings, purposes and desires.  I think, I feel and I believe caused us to fall in the first place. Continuing in that old mode of thinking will only perpetuate our fallen behavior.

And we must put on a new mode of thinking, judging and reasoning according to God's feelings, thoughts and unchanging Word! 

This IS the mind of Christ! If we are born again, we already have it within us. We don't need to struggle, to work for, to study hard, go to conventions or buy books and tapes to get it. We just need to put the old nous off and put the new nous on.
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Now that we have been miraculously quickened and resurrected to live in abundance of life, we must remove the false appearance of death to reveal the fullness of Jesus' life that abides within us. This revelation is accomplished as we are transformed by the renewing of our minds.

If you haven't followed this study series, the term "renewing the mind" may get lost in the thinkology that religianity has imposed on us. So if you haven't already, pause at this point and go back. We're building on those lines and precepts and you may miss the full impact of what we're going to discuss.

We need a good grasp of the terminology we're using. I've gone to great lengths to define the "soul" so that we will be able to understand how God's Word applies to us. This is incredibly important because where that understanding is lacking, our application of His Word will not produce the fruit we expect.

Why is that important? The very first thing God said to Man was, "Be fruitful!" So if we're not being fruitful, we're not living according to His plan, design and will for our lives.

Some of the most respected teachers in the land promote the idea that our Mind is the Battlefield of our Christianity. I believe they are horribly mistaken in their understanding of the "Mind". 
 
The battles we face are many and the prize of each one is our will set in motion.
 
One of the most telling problems with this "Battlefield of the Mind" mentality is the teaching that our emotions are irrelevant. Because our emotions can change, we must ignore them and stand in the truth we know. That may sound reasonable and we might be swayed to agree because we know our emotions are generally "unstable".
 
The problem with this thinking is that we're pitting the mind against the emotions. In order for us to win this spiritual warfare, we think the mind must triumph at any cost. We're actually working against ourselves and in doing so, we're turning our spiritual warfare into a work of self.
 
But if we mentally stand in the truth long enough, eventually our emotions will line up with the truth, right? Again, it sounds reasonable and we may be persuaded to agree. But that's an awful lot of work on our part, isn't it?
 
If it is Christ who began His good work in us and Christ who will finish it ... if Christ is the author and finisher of our faith, what good may come from us trying to change ourselves?
 
Then they said to Him, "What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?" Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent."  John 6:28-29
 
Believe means to allow oneself to be persuaded. This isn't work, its just the opposite. God formed Adam from the dust of the ground...Adam played absolutely no part in his own creation. 
 
And until we can become like the dust in His hands and stop trying to manage our own re-creation, we will continue to struggle in some manner of dysfunction.
 
So how did Jesus handle this spiritual warfare, the temptations and such ... everything that might fit on the "Battlefield of the Mind"?

"I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me." John 5:30
 
If you know me, you've heard this scripture before. The critical factor I'd like to address here is the word "will". It is 'thelema', one of two words commonly interpreted as "will". Thelema speaks of the desire aspect of the will, where the other word, 'boulamai' speaks of the purpose aspect of the will.
 
Why is that important?
 
Because desire is not of the mind, it is of the emotions. What makes Jesus' judgment righteous is its foundation in the desires of the Father's heart. And if we are to be like Him, so should our judgments be founded in and motivated by the Father's love ... not in our knowledge.
 
One of the keystone scriptures of the "Battlefield of the Mind" school is Proverbs 23:7. And we usually hear it quoted to say "As a man thinks, so is he". But that's not what the scripture says.
 
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. Proverbs 23:7a
 
Funny thing ... when did we start thinking with our hearts?
 
The word "think" here is 'sha`ar' meaning to split open, reason out, calculate, reckon, estimate. It is different from most of the terms translated as think in the OT.
 
Compare "sha'ar" to the term "krinō" Jesus used for "judge" in John 5:30. It means to separate, put asunder, to pick out, select, choose, to approve, esteem, to prefer to be of opinion, deem, to determine, resolve, decree, and to judge.
 
Think and Judge seem to be pretty much synonymous in these passages.
 
So what is the man doing this Thinking or Judging with? His heart!
 
And the Heart, by the way is "nephesh" or soul. 
 
So Proverbs 23:7 could be more accurately quoted to say "For as he judges in his soul, so is he."

At the risk of being redundant, the problem is that my judgment is based on what I think, I feel and I believe and that's always faulty. The only thing that matters is what God thinks, how He feels and the absolute truth of His Word (Not man's interpretation of It based on man's judgment).
 
So do we win the battles of life with our mental prowess? Of course not. 
 
Remember, if overcoming the devil means overcoming the emotions and the will, the battle isn't with the devil anymore ... its with ourselves and that's a no win situation.
 
If we're really going to win these battles, we need to stop falling for the devil's tricks. Jesus said that a kingdom that's divided will fall. The devil's most effective tricks will divide us internally, motivate us to judge and bring us to a fall . 

We need to beware this "Battlefield of the Mind" teaching, it is not effective in our warfare and ultimately leaves us in a conflicted state of mind. James 1:8 tells us that a "dipsychos" or divided soul" man is unstable in all his ways.
 
What we really need is to have our emotions rooted and grounded in His love and our minds stayed on Him. As we do this, we become more and more persuaded in Him and doing His will isn't a forced work but a natural fruit.

The renewing of our minds is not the same thing a gaining knowledge of God's Word. Millions of believers have vast knowledge of God's Word. We've studied for years. We've sat under anointed teaching and we've got bookshelves filled with tapes, CD's, DVD's and books to prove it.

The thing is, if we're truly renewing our minds our lives will prove it, not the content of our library.
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"...our old man was crucified with Him (Jesus), that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin." Romans 6:6

Of the many images that express what it means to be born again, the Bible uses our following Jesus in His death, burial and resurrection more than anything else. But there are a couple of important extremes being taught on this subject that we ought to be aware of and avoid.

The first is that its all finished in Christ. It is true that Jesus has done all the actual work for us. However, we have a part to play in comprehending and aprehending the full benefit of His work in our lives. Once we're saved, we don't jump onto an automatic "Bless Me" cloud that will escort us through life while we eat bon-bons.

The second extreme is one of works to earn blessings and keep our salvation. We have to keep crucifying the old man. God is unhappy with our failures and so we must work very hard to gain and keep His approval.

No, no we need to realize that Jesus is our High Priest. He stands between us and the Father with His hands raised up. When the Father looks at us, He sees us through the nail pierced hands of His Son. He can't even see our failures, He sees the perfection of the sacrifice given to redeem us from them.

"And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins" Ephesians 2:1

To demonstrate this with a little more clarity, have a look at John 11. Let's use the record of Lazarus' resurrection as an analogy.

We follow Jesus in His death, burial and resurrection. Just as Lazarus was dead and buried, so were we in our trespasses and sins.

When Jesus stands before the open tomb of our heart and calls out to us, it quickens us to come out of this death and rise up in newness of life. It is just as miraculous when we are born again as it was when Lazarus was raised from the dead.

Once the miracle was accomplished, Lazarus stood in the doorway of an empty tomb completely ALIVE! And its the same with us, once we're born again, its just like standing in the doorway of our own empty tombs...completely ALIVE!!

But that's not where the story ends, even though this is where our typical methodology tends to break away from the analogy.

After Jesus performed the miracle, he commanded the others to take his grave-clothes off, to LOOSE HIM AND LET HIM GO!!!

Why is this so critical? Well naturally speaking, its pretty obvious. Lazarus was bound hand and foot, wrapped in grave-clothes and his face was covered with a linen death mask. A fellow can't do much living dressed up like that.

And so it is the same with us. Beneath our death mask and grave-clothes is a living, breathing new creation! He has been miraculously quickened, resurrected to live in abundance of life! Now its time to take off that false appearance of death to reveal the fullness of Jesus' life giving power of resurrection.

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Now that we understand how the devil exploits us to lead us into temptation, we need to turn to the appropriate alternative, the new and living way in Christ Jesus!

There is much debate over how we make a practical application of this new life. So before we try to explore this, let's look at it in its simplicity.

Jesus told Nicodemus "You must be born again." Nicodemus was confused so he asked the Lord how to do this. Jesus told him that we need to be born not only of the flesh, but of the Spirit as well. We can't DO born again. By the Spirit of the Living God, we must BE born again.

The simplicity of living the Christian life is not in doing, but in being born again.

Consider the apple tree. It doesn't do anything, it simply exixts in its being as an apple tree. From this existence, the apple tree naturally bears fruit. It doesn't fret about how to bear fruit, the apple tree produces apples simply because that's what it was created to do.

So it is with us. As a new creation in Christ it is only natural for us to bear fruit. Yes, our minds need to be renewed, but the new man doesn't need to be taught how to bear fruit, he just needs to be freed to be himself so he will naturally be fruitful.

This is pretty simple. But for some of us, like Nicodemus this is a huge paradigm shift. We ask, "What must I do?" and Jesus answers, "You must be." It doesn't compute so we ask again, "What must I do?" and Jesus answers, "You must be."

Until we see this paradigm, the rest can be a painfully miserable experience. We don't DO to BECOME. In Christ, we already have BECOME and all our DOING is the fruit of who we have become. 

Hopefully this helps to settle this basic understanding. It isn't deep but its not as obvious to many of us, especially if we've had plenty of training in the old kingdom ways. It can be like a puzzle picture hidden within a picture. You may stare at it for hours until you finally see it. But from then on, the picture will never be hidden to you again.
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Let's continue with our look at repentance. So far we've identified some important issues that we need to turn away from. Its good to have some clarity and turn away from our sin. But keep in mind, anyone can jump out of the frying pan, the wise man doesn't land in the fire in the process.

The general problem most of us face as new believers is knowing where to begin. And the general answer our Churches provide is some kind of denominational indoctrination. While sound doctrine is incredibly important, we must keep in mind that we are being conformed to the image of Christ, Himself ... NOT a denomination!

Now I don't mean to rant for or against denominations. They describe divisions in the Body of Christ. Jesus is not divided. But denominations do describe certain differences in how we understand the application and practice of our Christianity. It can be very helpful to know what branches of the Church practice sound doctrine and which ones may not.

With that said, let's explore the target destination of our repentance. As we said in Part 3, we need to understand and come into agreement with God's Primary Will for our lives. God wants us to be in His Image, after His Likeness and have dominion in all our affairs of life.

We are re-created in His Image when we are born again. But we need to see how that effects our being holistically. It is the Spirit that is regenerated in perfection. This effectively restores our ability to interface directly with God.

The soul is not instantly fixed. The mind, emotions and will remain as they were and the progression that some people call sanctification is the development of our soul under the new way of living in direct concert with God.

The body is considered corruptible, it can, will and eventually must be replaced. But this doesn't happen when we are born again. God has made some awesome promises regarding our interim health. But in the end, we need to understand that full redemption of the body does not happen until Jesus returns.

So our real focus needs to be on the development of the soul and that's going to be the main subject of our study from this point forward.
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Before we move forward, let's make a quick review. Believe it or not, we've covered quite a few important issues even though we're still on the general topic of Repentance. So let's see if we can make a map.

SPIRITUAL WORLD-><-Spirit-> Soul<- Body-><-PHYSICAL WORLD

Our Spirit allows us to interact with our spiritual environment.
Our Body allows us to interact with our physical environment.
The Soul is the seat of our sentient being.
It processes what comes in through both the spirit and the flesh 
and directs what is outwardly expressed through the spirit and the flesh.

Soul
|
Mind    Emotions    Will

The mind is the seat of our thinking. It is the general target of the Lust of the Eyes 
and suffers the assault of an Identity Crisis.  This flaws what I think.

The emotions are the seat of our feelings. They are the general target of the Lust of the Flesh 
and suffer the assault of a Sufficiency Crisis.  This flaws what I feel.

The will is the result of our reasoning, purposes and desires. 
It is the seat of our opinions and beliefs. It is the general target of the Pride of Life 
and suffers the assault of an Authority Crisis.  This flaws what I believe.

This map of the soul is a fairly generalized.  While we're looking at the individual aspects of the soul, we should bear in mind that there is not a 'box' within the soul that holds each part separate from the other. We can look at them individually, but in reality they all blend together to become the single persona that we have all come to know and love as "ME!".

For "ME" to repent, I cannot simply stop doing bad things and start doing good things. 
I must abandon my flawed thinking, feeling and beliefs and turn from a crisis driven life.
This gives no place for the Lust of the Eyes, Lust of the Flesh and the Pride of Life.

Among the many benefits of this kind of repentance is the end of our judgment cycle.
When we stop making judgments based on our flawed thoughts, feelings and beliefs 
we stop reaping the flawed harvest of  our sin.
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