Robbed of Our Blessing
November 13, 2015
Haggai 2:10-14
On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Haggai: 11 “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Ask the priests what the law says: 12 If a person carries consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, oil or other food, does it become consecrated?’ ”
The priests answered, “No.”
13 Then Haggai said, “If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?”
“Yes,” the priests replied, “it becomes defiled.”
14 Then Haggai said, ” ‘So it is with this people and this nation in my sight,’ declares the LORD. ‘Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled.
Robbed of Our Blessing
This is a day when the Lord desires to lay the spiritual foundations of His Temple again. What the Lord speaks to Haggai here He is speaking to us. In the analogy that Haggai brings forth, if a priest carried meat that had been sanctified and consecrated to the Lord in their pocket or the fold of the garment and touched another substance of food it didn’t automatically sanctify and consecrate that food. On the other hand if someone had handled or touched a dead body that defilement was transferred to all that he touched. The Lord says this people, His people, have been like those who have touched the dead body and so what ever they offer becomes defiled.
Are we wondering why we aren’t blessed, coming up short in our finances and experiencing so many struggles that we may not need too? The Lord says it is because we are defiled in our giving and our living.
We have talked about how the body of the old man is dead and crucified with Christ and we are a new creation in Christ, but when we fail to lay hold and live out of this reality and truth we are in affect touching the dead body. We are living out of corrupted fleshly thinking and attitudes. Thus what we touch becomes defiled because it is not the mind of Christ we are operating out of, it is the mind of the flesh, the old man, that which is supposed to be dead.
If God is to bless the works of our hands they have to be the works of His Spirit through us and not our fleshly efforts any more. When we lay the foundations of the Lord’s house, it is a spiritual house not built with human efforts and thinking, but directed and ordered by the Spirit.
We all want the God’s blessing and favor to rest upon us and it is in God’s heart to want to bless and increase us, but there are things we need to get rid of and the primary one is the mentality of this old dead man. We speak often concerning our identification with Christ because His is the life and the mind that we are being renewed and brought forth in day by day as we walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh. Romans 8:5-10 says, “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. 9You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” It is easy to see from this scripture how much we may still be living out of that old man and nature mentality. The Lord says that this is a defilement and pollution of the life He wants to live through us and the works that He wants to accomplish with our hands. We must begin to truly put on the mind of Christ and view our world through God’s eyes and perspective. In doing so we will be blessed. It is imperative that we identify the thinking that is filled with doubt, fear and unbelief and turn that around to agree and line up with the Word of God. Anything less is sin. Allow Christ to be at the forefront of your motives, your intentions, your will and your purpose. Filter your world and all that you are dealing with through Him. Ask Him and trust Him for wisdom and direction in all of your ways. We are a people that are putting away that which is dead and walking in the consecrated and sanctified life that we carry within us. Walk in the Spirit, build the Lord’s house and live in His blessing. If you will come and build the Lord’s house by the Spirit, He will build yours.
Blessings,
#kent
The Pathway of Life
June 12, 2015
Proverbs 12:28
In the way of righteousness [is] life; and [in] the pathway [thereof there is] no death.
The Pathway of Life
The Word teaches us that the way of life is the way of righteousness. In that pathway there is no death. Today, when we walk in Christ we are walking in life. There is spiritual life and power resident and at work in your life. If we think that somehow that righteousness comes from our natural man we err and do not walk in the truth. It is because we died and were crucified with Christ and now, in spirit, we have been raised with Him in resurrection life. Romans 8: 10 tells us, “And if Christ [be] in you, the body [is] dead because of sin; but the Spirit [is] life because of righteousness.”
The Apostle Paul speaks to this attitude of righteousness in his life in Philippians 3:8-11, “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” The way of righteousness is the way of a Christ centered life where we endeavor to walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh. It is the spiritual law and principle of life that we find clearly defined in Romans 8:1-8, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Condemnation at work in our life brings death, but in Christ there is no condemnation for He has washed us in His blood and forgiven all of our iniquities. He has raised us up in the newness and righteousness of His life. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” It is the blood and our fellowship with Jesus that restores us and keeps us in the paths of righteousness and life.
Let us keep ourselves with all diligence in the pathway of righteousness and life. The Lord Jesus Christ has gone before us to make the way for us to walk in that righteousness and enjoy the benefits of His divine life that is resident within us. In the pathway of righteousness there is no death except to that former way of life, which was death.
Blessings,
#kent
Weapons of Our Warfare
January 3, 2014
Weapons of Our Warfare
1 Corinthians 10:3-6
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare [are] not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.
How many of us are still trying to combat and fight flesh with flesh. Is just a positive mental attitude, or using a right formula or trying to be good enough or religious enough going to win our battles over our flesh? What we are experiencing in our lives is frustration, defeat and condemnation. We want to do right, but we are still experiencing that law of sin working on our flesh. Our flesh and even soul are not very good at overcoming the weaknesses in themselves. The Word says that the weapons that God has provided for us are mighty to the tearing down of strongholds. There are many of us that haven’t experienced a lot of victory in tearing down these strongholds. We continue to allow these stronghold to be a part of our thinking, behavior and being. We are still identifying with them and in so doing we continue to give them life and power over us. Our greatest weapons are not our earthly thinking. That is the source of our greatest defeat. We think as the world thinks and not as the Spirit of God thinks. When the Word exhorts us to be renewed in the spirit of our mind, it is telling us to put on the mind of Christ and renew our thinking according to the Word and not according to our natural reasoning. It is telling us to put our identification on who we are in Christ and not on whom we have been in the flesh.
The first place we must come too is a place of total surrender to the Lord and the Holy Spirit that indwells us. We are like a country taken over by the Lord, but the flesh still maintains its pockets of resistance, it’s guerilla fighters that provide avenues for the flesh to have access and regain position and power. Most of us don’t want to admit to these, but they’re there. We know they are there because we are struggling with these fleshly strongholds in areas of our lives. Romans 12 starts out by telling us the first position we need to take, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. “ The first thing we need to do is offer our lives a living sacrifice which means that we are willing to lay the flesh upon the altar and allow it to be consumed. It means that we are turning our mind and thinking from a worldview to a kingdom view. Our thinking, goals and attitudes are no longer geared towards this earth; they are geared towards heaven and the spiritual calling we have in Christ Jesus. Here, in this earth, we have no abiding place, but our eyes must be set upon the city whose builder and maker is God. It is in this mindset that we begin to fashion our lives and our thinking after the Spirit and no longer after the flesh. As we begin to walk in the Spirit then all that flows through our senses begins to flow through Him. He is the Discerner of the thoughts and intents of our hearts. If we are sensitizing ourselves to Him then He begins to put His finger on the wrong motives, thoughts and attitudes that are working in our lives. If we indeed want the weapons of the Spirit to operate in our lives, we must first be in agreement and submission to the Holy Spirit. While the Holy Spirit indwells us to help us in living a godly life, He by no means usurps our will to decide and choose to whom we obey and to whom we give our mind and our flesh over too. If we want to choose the fleshly things, then the Holy Spirit will back off. We may still have a conviction that what we are doing isn’t right, but if we desensitize ourselves to the Holy Spirit through following after our self-will then we will be less and less sensitive to the Holy Spirit. When God says draw near to Me and I will draw near to you, He is saying as you become more sensitive and obedient to Me then you will begin to sense more of My presence and dealings in your life. The thing we learn about walking in the Spirit is that it is a continual conscious act to live in that place. When we walk after the Spirit long enough it may become more natural to us, but our spirit man must always be a guarded city. As soon as our defenses go down the enemy is ready to come in.
Indeed the weapons of our warfare are mighty, but they do demand diligence and full surrender of our hearts and minds to Christ. Our over coming is by allowing the Holy Spirit to over come every thought and temptation that is contrary to the will of God. We will no doubt loose some battles along the way, but that must not discourage or detour us from our mission of being conformed to the image and likeness of Christ. In this life, the warfare is continual and ongoing, but we do have the weapons to defeat our foe. We must indeed to do as Ephesians 6 exhorts us too and put on the whole armor of God that we might stand against the whiles and schemes of the devil. It is up to us to appropriate our spiritual weapons and armor through fully and unceasingly yielding ourselves as living sacrifices in obedience and submission to the Holy Spirit.
Blessings,
kent
Living in a Higher Law
October 15, 2012
Romans 7:21-25
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Living in a Higher Law
This passage in Romans 7 is sometimes confusing and controversial. It is one that we can relate with because we struggled with the law that operates out of the sin nature. Paul speaks of the law that in my mind or inner man delights in God, but then he speaks of another law that wages war with this higher law that is in Christ.
Quite honestly, we have all dealt with these inner conflicts and most of us still do. What we find, is that in ourselves, we may always seem to be losing the battle even though our inner man desires the higher way.
Paul expresses here the frustration that we feel in our being, “Wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
Then answers by saying, “Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
It is really essential that we read Romans 7 in conjunction with Romans 8 if we really want to see and understand the problem and the solution.
The problem is that, we, operating out of the law of sin and the law written against sin, will never overcome it. Our only solution to rising above self and our propensity to sin is coming into the higher law that Christ has established for us through the cross.
Paul is ending chapter 7 by making the proclamation that our only solution is Christ Jesus, our Lord. Lord means that self and sin no longer have the dominion. That lordship, dominion, headship, rulership has been given over to Christ.
Now Romans 8 begins by enlightening us to the higher law that we are now to be living out of that has set us free from the law of sin and death. It is a law where sin has no dominion, place or power to condemn. It is place of no shame, no blame and no embarrassment, because it is the law of Christ’s righteousness that now abides, lives and should hold lordship in our being.
Romans 8 starts out by declaring the two laws that work in us. ” Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.”
Do we want to be free from sin and have the righteous requirements of the law met in us? Then we have to live in a different place than we did before; not geographically, but spiritually. We know that the same laws that govern us on earth are different once we enter into outer space. When we are still on earth and in its atmosphere, we are subject to the law of gravity. It is always pulling us back to the earth. It is like the power of sin that was always pulling us back from righteousness. Christ broke the bounds and bondage of earth and set us free from the gravity of sin. He brought us up into a higher law. The law of life in Christ Jesus. The law that is not subject to sin and death.
What is required for us to experience this higher law of living?
We have to live in a different place by faith. The natural man we reckoned dead with Jesus on the cross. It was crucified there with Him and in Him and buried in the earth. That former man we used to identify with ourselves, is no longer. He’s dead.
If we become identified with Christ in His death and burial we have also become identified with Him in His resurrection and ascension. We have been raised up a new creation, new creatures in Christ, no longer identified with the old self man that was subject to the law of sin and death and lived in the condemnation of it. Now we have been set free to live in the dimension of Spirit. Our location has changed. Ephesians 2:4-6 says, ” But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus…” We are heavenly kids, living out of a heavenly realm because we walk by the Spirit of God and no longer after the dependency and reliance upon the flesh. Outwardly, nothing may look different, but inwardly we have just gone to whole other dimension and place. Romans 8 is teaching us that out of this place we have victory over sin and death, because “by the Spirit” we put to death the deeds and the motions of sin that still want to operate in the body. As we abide in that place of Spirit we operate out of that higher law of Christ.
The enemy is always trying to rob that reality and truth from us. He is always working to steal back the identity you have in Christ Jesus. This is why it is imperative that you live each day in the Spirit, with your eyes fixed upon Jesus. Always look into the likeness of what you are becoming, not what you came from. We can’t look back. We can only look forward, pressing into Him who is our life, our liberty and freedom from sin and death.
Blessings,
kent
Temptation Through the Back Door
June 7, 2012
Mark 14:38
Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.
How often have we found ourselves in sin because we were in a place of complacency and we had let down our spiritual guard? We all can easily get distracted with natural things, events and happenings around us. It is so easy to slip out of that attitude and place of prayer and vigilance then find ourselves in a place of giving place to the devil.
That word “watch” means exactly that; be on the look out, give attention, be cautious, active. Take heed lest through a letting down of your guard, laziness, sloth or apathy you give place to temptation. Because the body and the flesh is weak, we can never be dependent upon our natural abilities to walk in righteousness and not be overcome by sin. Our walk in the Spirit is what gives us victory over sin. Romans 8:12-14 tells us, “Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, 14because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” We can plainly see here that it is not by the efforts of the flesh that you put to death the flesh. If the flesh can find in loophole and means by which it doesn’t have to fully die, it will take it. So much of the sin in our lives is like when we go out into the garden to pull weeds, we just tear off the top, but don’t get the roots pulled out and we all know that it won’t be long until they come back. The Holy Spirit can help us find the root of our sin, so that it can be permanently extracted and have no more power over us.
Romans teaches us that our power over sin, is by understanding that we live under a new law. The old law of sin and death brought us into awareness of sin, but didn’t give us victory over it, it condemned us for it. The new law that we now live under is that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Under that law we no longer live out of the weakness of our flesh, but out of the strength of the Spirit of God within us. It is God’s Spirit empowering our spirit that gives us victory over sin and temptation as we walk in Him, relying upon Him and drawing from His strength.
As the flesh is ever present to demand its way and to seek its own, we must ever remain vigilant and watchful that we abide in the Spirit and practice the presence of Christ in our lives. We know by His word that we are dead to natural man and alive unto Christ, but as long we walk in these natural tabernacles the world, the flesh and sin exerts its influences and pulls upon us.
This is why knowing your identity is so important. You can’t be what you are, if you don’t know who you are. We have the identity of Christ and in that identity of “Christ in us the hope of glory” we host His presence and honor Him by allowing Him to have the expression through our lives and no longer the former man of sin.
The enemy is always out to rob your identity or to try and give you another. When he can get our eyes and our heart off of who and what we are, then he can lead us into who we are not. Maintain that place of watchfulness, vigilance, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)”
Let’s end with this exhortation from Ephesians 6, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”
Somebody needs this today to overcome a temptation in your life.
Blessings,
kent
tricklesoftruth 