BEING BORN AGAIN AND SPIRIT FILLED

BEING BORN AGAIN AND SPIRIT FILLED

                First of all I want to thank all 180 of you for the beautiful birthday blessings. So now I enter into a new voyage of discovery in the land of 70+. Seventy is a very important number throughout the Bible. We are given 70 years as a life span and 80 years if we are healthy enough and blessed enough to make it. So now in enter into the realm of borrowed time. Every day and every year is a bonus blessing from God and I want to make the most of it. I love all of you!

                There is an ongoing dispute concerning law and grace that never seems to be fully settled. There are those on one side that say the law was done away at the cross… we are all hopeless sinners (Calvin) and we are saved by what Jesus did and not what we do.

                I can agree with that.

                But on the other hand there are those who believe that we must obey God and keep His commandments, that we must die to self and the world and live only for Jesus… that we must put away sin from our lives and live righteously.

                I can agree with that as well.

                So, what is the common denominator that makes both of these statements true? And what makes them both incomplete?

                Jesus hit the nail on the head when He said in John 3:3 that we must be born again. So let get some terms straight here.

1.       To be truly born again we must also be Spirit filled, for the Holy Spirit is the agent of our New Birth. So we become Spirit filled at the same time as we are born again by the Spirit.

2.       Paul describes the New Birth in Gal. 2:20 when he says: I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself up for me.

3.       So if we are not born again and Spirit filled, we are under law whether we want to be or not.

4.       It is in the New Birth that the Holy Spirit breathes life into our once dead spirit and we become new creatures. Now, instead of living by a law on stone, we live by the Spirit and thus the law is fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

5.       It is in this new marriage of our spirits with the Holy Spirit that we become temples of the Holy Spirit. As such then, obedience becomes a part of our nature as we live life in the Spirit and in God’s Word. Spirit and Truth are an inseparable pair.

                The problem  with much of Christianity today is that we have a lot of people who have no knowledge of the New Birth or the Spirit filled life that have no other seeming purpose than to argue that we don’t have to keep the law. This is true if you are born again and Spirit filled and living by the Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit in your life. But if you are not born again and Spirit filled, then you are under law whether you want to be or not.

                The only way out from under the law, as Paul explains it in Romans 7 is death. Through the law I die to the law in order to live unto Christ… but we can’t live unto Christ unless we have His Holy Spirit and we can’t have His Holy Spirit until we have first entered into His death and it is not until we are dead that we can be Born Again.

                So, as I enter into Christ’s death, I die to the Law. After all it was the Law that condemned me to death as a sinner. So Jesus died for me and as me and He took my sin upon Him and then gave me His righteousness. But what many Christians fail to understand is that we, by faith, enter into Christ’s death with Him. WE don’t stand back and watch Him die and then go our merry way forgiven. It is in entering by faith into His death that we die to the Law and to the world. And then it is through Yeshua’s resurrection power that we are born again into His kingdom and it is His Holy Spirit that has given us this new life. In this new life Jesus is the Vine and we are the branches. His Spirit and life now flows through us. WE cease being slaves to the Law and we become His Children.

                Now as God’s children, having His spiritual DNA and living by His Spirit, fulfilling His laws becomes a part of our nature as the Holy Spirit fulfills the law in us who walk by His Spirit and not by the flesh. Now we are growing up in all aspects into our Father’s image from glory to glory.

                There is no such thing as cheap grace or false grace, it is true… but there are many Christians today that are claiming to live by grace alone that is not grace at all. They have fooled themselves into thinking that we can live in the flesh and just claim grace over our lives. To this Paul gives a resounding “NO!” He says instead: “… for those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you, but if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him.

                This is the urgency of the message I bring. Belonging to the right church or having the right doctrines does not constitute the New Birth. Those things amount to mental ascent. Intellectual Christianity is not a new birth. Joining the right church is not a new birth. Only entering by faith into His death and resurrection and receiving His Holy Spirit as our new life constitutes the new birth.

                The Law is holy and righteous and good but it can’t save you. Its job was to condemn you to death for living in the flesh, because by living in the flesh you can never please God. But Christ’s remedy is twofold. He didn’t just die for us. He offered His death to us as an escape from the condemnation of the law. Then He offered His resurrection power to us so that the Law can now be fulfilled in us who no longer walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

                So we see two groups of people today. One group tells you that the law was done away. The other group tells you that the law is still in effect and that we must keep it to be saved.

                Both groups are wrong and as I have explained above, the New Birth and the Spirit filled life is the answer to both wrongs.

                “So then brethren we are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh- for if you are living according to the flesh you must die;; but if by the Spirit  you are putting to death the deeds of the body you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” Romans 8:12-14.

                The book of Galatians creates a great paradox for us that can only be answered by the New Birth. For just as Jesus the true Lamb of God validates the sacrifices that came before Him, so the sacrifices that came before Him validates Jesus. Likewise the Law brings us to the foot of the cross, there to find a new life in the Holy Spirit that satisfies the demands of the Law. So the Law is validated by the Spirit filed life that we live in Christ.

                Paul explains it by saying:  “Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law. (Torah)

                So it is in refusing to be truly born again and Spirit filled that many Christians today are creating a false grace that isn’t grace at all, but a license to live in the flesh. As such they are under law and lost.

                We are in this life to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. We have been born again into the family of Jesus. We now have the family DNA and we are growing up in all aspects into the body of Christ …”until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of eh son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” Eph. 4:13

                Without Christ, yes, I am a hopeless sinner, but I am not without Christ. “Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.” Eph. 3:20.

                We are destined to overcome by the blood of the Lamb. But overcome what? The world, the flesh and the devil . In Christ we can overcome sin and live holy lives. 1Jn. 4:9

                “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them; for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light.” Ephesians 5:6-8.

                “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Eph. 4:30.

                “…put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” Eph. 4:24

                “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1Thess. 5:23

                “If you love Me you will keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper that may be with you forever. John 14:15

                “And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and doesn’t keep His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him.” 1John 2:3, 4, 2 Peter 1:2-4 1, Peter 1:3-5, 1 Peter 1:22, 23, Heb. 12:14.

                Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment that we believe in the name of His son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He commanded us and the one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And we know by this that He abides in us by the Spirit which He has given us.” 1 John 3:21-24.

                “And the dragon was enraged with the woman and went off to make war with the rest of her offspring who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. Rev. 12:17.

                So there are two things that are consistent throughout scripture:

1.       Obedience to God is required

2.       This kind of obedience is possible only if God is dwelling in us.

                So the bottom line is this:

                We must be born again and Spirit filled if we are ever to see the kingdom of God.

                I grew up in a strict legalistic home as the son of a pastor. We had all the facts and the doctrines and the arguments, but inside I was a mess. I did not realize or understand until I was about 40 years of age that I had never been born again. Fortunately for me, in coming out of dead religion, the Lord eventually guided me into a born again, Spirit filled life and man what  change it has made. I live life with a passion now to know God better each day and to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. I have never been so free or full of joy in the Lord.

                Unfortunately there are many who come out of legalism, who try to get rid of legalism by getting rid of the law. They simply abandon every rule and live for themselves and presume that God will cover them somehow.

                But you can’t get free by doing away with God’s eternal laws. Doing so only gets you deeper and deeper into slavery to sin and self. The answer then is not to kill the law, but to die to the law and to be born again into Christ and filled with His Holy Spirit so that the law can be written on your heart. Then you will find a joyous compatibility between the Old and New Covenants… and the Holy Spirit teaches us how to rightly divide the word of God so that you make the right application of truth, by understanding which role each part plays. The law brings us to the foot of the cross where we die and are born again.         The law is now written in our hearts and we have become adopted children of God, having received His spiritual DNA through the Holy Spirit. We are now growing up in all aspects unto Christ and we share the same Abba Father and together we are all brothers and sisters in Yeshua.

                Don’t sell yourself short of the full Gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to them that believe. Everyone who is living according to the flesh is under law. Ask Jesus into your heart today. Ask Him to do what you have never been able to do. He will give you a new heart and will renew a right spirit within you.