Breath Of Life Online Ministry
 

"...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.

Add Comment
 
 

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.
Add Comment
 
 

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.
Add Comment
 
 
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.
1 Comment
 
 
Dealing with our Sufficiency Crisis.

Among these three crises, this is the one that seems to impact us the most. All of the imperatives of our survival fit in this category.

Where do we get food, clothing and shelter? How do we maintain our fragile health? The list goes on, and with it so does the need of humanity. We are not sufficient of ourselves.

The devil's world system includes an economic system that operates on the precepts of the curse found in Genesis 3:16-19

To the woman He (God) said: "I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."

Then to Adam He (God) said, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it': "Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return."

As long as this curse is in place, there is no fix for our sufficiency crisis. But if we could find a way to eliminate the curse, we could escape and find sufficiency.

The important thing for us is not to reverse the curse, we can't do that. As long as we allow the enemy to make us perceive our insufficiency, we will continue to have a sufficiency crisis. We need to return to our pre-fall sufficiency in God and like the other crises, this will take our repentance. There are only two positions to hold, blessed or cursed. 

The good news is that Jesus bore this curse for us, and by His sacrifice of love has set us free from it. The simplicity of solving this crisis is to submit to Jesus as our Lord,  Master and Provider and enter into His Kingdom. We need to understand that we have a choice, life and blessing or death and the curse.

"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'


For after all these things the Unbelievers seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."  Matthew 6:25-34

Much like the authority crisis, there are more preceptual connections to make about our sufficiency and we'll bring them all together as we progress.
Add Comment
 
 
How to deal with our Identity Crisis.

This is probably the most difficult crisis most of us will experience. Once it has begun, it winds it way deep into our being and may take some radical intervention to resolve.

A lot of teachers point to Jesus at His baptism when they teach about knowing our identity.

When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."  Matthew 3:16-17

It was good for Jesus to have His identity established, because the next thing He did was face temptation in the wilderness.

But if we're waiting around for the clouds to part and the Father to make His announcement from heaven, we may be in for a really long wait.

Jesus didn't really have an identity crisis like most of us do. And while we can learn much from His example, perhaps we'll understand ourselves better if we look at someone who was a little more messed up ... you know ... like us.

We can talk about the great examples of the heroes of the faith. And that's good, we should have those examples. But where is the example for those of us who aren't there yet?

Tell me about the "If He Can Do This ANYBODY Can Do This" guy. I want to know about the guy voted "Most Likely to Fall Flat On His Face". Because when I'm in a serious crisis, that's who I think I am.

My personal favorite is Thomas, the poster child for Doubt and Unbelief, Inc. Thomas doubted everything around him. He doubted himself, he doubted his brothers and his sisters. Thomas doubted Jesus and he doubted God. And still, he's near the top of my list of exempliary believers.

I love Thomas. He only did two things right, he followed Jesus and he was honest. Oh, he was brutally honest about what he believed...which was that he doubted everything.

Thomas doubted Jesus in life, and he seriously doubted Jesus after He died. And even after the others had told him that Jesus was alive, Thomas still doubted. This man had a serious identity crisis.

Still Thomas kept doing the one thing right. He followed Jesus...sometimes from a distance, but he  never left. 

Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, "We have seen the Lord." So he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe."

And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said,"Peace to you!" 

Then He said to Thomas, "Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing."

And Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!"  John 20:24-28

The first step to solving Thomas' identity crisis had nothing to do with his own identity. He needed to settle his identity crisis with God. Thomas got the revelation of Jesus' true identity. 

And when he said, "My Lord and my God!" Thomas got a new name. 

We may still call him Doubting Thomas. That's not his name anymore.

So it doesn't matter where we start. It doesn't matter how messed up and confused we are, its fixable. And if we can only do the one thing right, keep doing it. Follow Jesus. He will do whatever it takes to reach you.

Now if you want to speed things up, then hear what Jesus said to Thomas, "Do not be unbelieving, but believing."

Believe means to 'Be Persuaded'. Unbelieving is to resist being persuaded. Don't resist the things God says and does in your life that would persuade you of His identity. "Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live"*


*Isaiah 55:3
Add Comment
 
 
How to deal with our Authority Crisis.

This won't take long to answer. Simply yield the authority you think you have to God. When you feel challenged to take that authority up again, remember that you don't have the right to make that judgment and then walk in what you know God has said about the situation.

We must yield this authority in the beginning when we are first saved. This isn't a work we do to earn anything it is a discipline we follow as we express His image within us. We'll talk about this more on a later topic. For now, here's some related scripture.

The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. Psalm 34:17-19

For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, You will not despise. Psalm 51:16-17

For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Isaiah 57:15

Thus says the LORD: "Heaven is My throne, And earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest? For all those things My hand has made, And all those things exist," Says the LORD. "But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, And who trembles at My word. Isaiah 66:1-2

Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:4

And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Matthew 23:12

So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. James 4:7

...God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time. 1 Peter 5:5-6

Add Comment
 
 
Satan is called the god of this word system. It has nothing to do with him being a true god, rather its because everyone in his system obeys his will. And as we've just seen, his method of causing us to obey his will is to create or cause us to perceive some kind of crisis.

Once we acknowledge his crisis, he recommendeds a solution to the crisis that is always contrary to God's will. So the devil perpetuates his rebellion by keeping us bound in sin.

By the time we're finished, you'll be amazed at how many different 'threes' we will look at. Let's add another three to our list of concerns.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. 1 John 2:15-16

Compare the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life with Genesis 3:6. Feed the flesh, please the eyes and satisfy the pride. That's no coincidence, these are the cold facts about the ways Satan manipulates mankind.

His system is designed to keep us in a consistent state of crisis. Then we're provoked to solve each crisis according to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. The real problem is that these aren't solutions to our crisis.

Remember when Eve judged the fruit? I think, I feel, I believe, right? This is our standard response to the types of crisis Satan loves to present us with. We judge good and evil for ourselves.

In Luke 6:37, Jesus said, "Judge not, and you shall not be judged."

Satan deceives us with a false crisis to cause us to judge. What is the original Greek word for the judgment we pass? KRISIS! He deceives us with a false crisis and causes us to create real ones.

Our actions of lust and pride not only damage us, but they steal, kill and destroy the lives of others, too. Our judgments come back against us in this life and many more are being stored up for us till the last day when we will have to face them all*.

If it isn't bad enough that Satan has separated us from God. Now he has us shoveling fuel on the fire of our own destruction just as fast as we can. This is why it is so very important to see the detail of his ways.

Before we complete this chapter, let's clarify this term 'crisis'. Its connotation may bring to mind thoughts of a major catastrophe and we do use it that way at times. But it doesn't have to be some grand or elaborate thing.

A crisis could be as simple as a 2 year old wanting more cookies. It could be the mildest provokation of our pride or contradiction to our knowledge. The big crisis will come, but its the little foxes that spoil the vine.**

*Romans 2:5 **Song of Songs 2:15
Add Comment
 
 
The final precept of sin we'll discuss is a Sufficiency Crisis. Again, here's the text.

The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made. One day he asked the woman, "Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?"

"Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden," the woman replied. "It's only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, 'You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.'"

"You won't die!" the serpent replied to the woman. "God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil."

The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.

At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

Genesis 3:1-7

Do you remember in Part 2 where we established our model of man? Take a moment to review if you need to. We're about to build on that understanding.

From the definition of a living soul, we learned that we are living, breathing beings that must rest and be refreshed. We have already established that mankind was created in a perpetual state of insufficiency.

The important thing to remember is that we were created to walk with God in a perpetual state of provision. We are entirely dependent on Him for our sufficiency and He is not only happy to provide for us, He expects us to receive our provision from Him. That's why He made us the way He did.

Where our Sufficiency Crisis begins is close to our Identity Crisis. The devil associates our insufficiency with our identity. Its just a ploy intended to psyche us into action. You (identity) aren't like God (insufficiency) because you don't know good and evil(challenge to defy authority).

But when we understand our identity, we recognize that our insufficiency is natural. When we are confident in our identity, we can trust God to provide for us and comfortably remain under the loving dominion of His authority.

But Adam and Eve didn't do that. They recognized their insufficiency and faced it alone. Instead of trusting God, they took it upon themselves to provide what God expected them to depend on Him for.

This is important for us to understand, GOD IS NOT HAVING A PROVISION CRISIS! We are having a Sufficiency Crisis!

The effects of our Sufficiency Crisis are extremely pervasive. Statistically speaking, in the time it has taken to read this at least 50 precious children have died from starvation and related illnesses.

Not because God hates children! Because we think we need to meet our own needs by our own works. And our works will never be good enough to provide what only God can give.

We must know our true identity, submit to God's authority and freely receive His perfect sufficiency.
Add Comment
 
 
The second precept of sin is an Authority Crisis. Let's post the text again for good measure.

The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made. One day he asked the woman, "Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?"

"Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden," the woman replied. "It's only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, 'You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.'"

"You won't die!" the serpent replied to the woman. "God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil."

The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.

At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

Genesis 3:1-7

Most of us think of man's rebellion against God's authority in terms of disobeying His command not to eat the forbidden fruit. And that's true, except that it bears even more weight when we understand what it meant to eat that fruit.

This particular fruit came from a tree called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Was this a unique tree in all of creation or was it a specific kind of tree that God had set apart to Himself? Some might debate that, but the end is irrelevant.

In order for man to eat the fruit of this tree, he would have to judge good and evil for himself. And that is what God did NOT want us to do. 

So why call this an Authority Crisis? God is the lone judge presiding on the Supreme Court of the unvierse. His ruling stands. What is good is good and what is evil is evil based on NOTHING but His judgment.

Our Authority Crisis begins the moment we consider something He has already judged. A lower court does not have the authority to make judgment on a case the supreme court has already decided, that's called contempt of court. Not only can the lower court not pass judgment on the case, they can't even hear it.

God has never authorized man to judge good and evil. He does expect us to discern the difference, but we'll cover that more later.

This is a critical precept, so we're going to look at it a little closer. How did Eve judge good and evil for herself?

"She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her."

What Eve is saying is "I think it looks good. I feel hungry. I believe it will make me wise."

I think! I feel! I believe!

The truth is, it doesn't matter what we think, feel and believe. God has already done the thinking, feeling and made the declaration on the subject. We do not have the authority to reconsider the case.

And we may think we do well with our judgment. But even if we pass judgment in agreement with God's judgment, we have still violated His authority by making our own judgment in the first place.

But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags... Isaiah 64:6

Faith works by love and whatever is not of faith is sin.* Until we submit to God's authority and simply live by faith in Him, we will continue to struggle with this authority crisis. The works that follow our lives will not be godly works and we will either walk in a false sense of righteousness or a destructive sense of condemnation.


*Galatians 5:6, Romans 14:23
Add Comment