WALKING THE WALK

WALKING THE WALK

Only speak when spoken through…Only do what He tells you to do

Only go where He tells you to go…And He will let you know what you need to know

                I have always had a certain amount of the gift of gab. Growing up on stage as I did, you could throw me into an awkward moment in a program and I could usually say something and not just something, but something that brought all of the loose ends together and returned the program to cogency. And while our gifts and talents certainly come from God, and God can even speak through a donkey when He needs to, I find myself these days deeply desiring an entirely different realm of communication. I want to be spoken through. That is to say, I want the Holy Spirit to speak through me, as unhindered by the flesh as much as possible.

                You know this is not as wild a desire as you might think, for this is exactly what Jesus made possible for every believer when the veil between flesh and spirit was torn in two from top to bottom. By His death on the cross He opened up a way back into the Holy of Holies… and that Holy of Holies is our spirit in which the Holy Spirit now dwells. This event, the tearing of the veil has many applications. For instance it represented the breaking down of the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles as spoken of in Ephesians 2:13-22, so that we could become one new man in Christ.

                The tearing of the veil also represents our reconciliation to the Father through Jesus Christ. It also represents the fact that by His death, Jesus made the two compartments of the Tabernacle into one big compartment… And this is why we are called to live in the Spirit and not in the flesh. We have become temples of the living God and our goal in this life is for the presence of God in our spirit to invade and fill and rule over our flesh to such an extent that our lives will reflect the life and ministry of Jesus. In fact He has mandated that of us… to do His works in the world… works that can only be done by His Spirit.

                Before Adam fell, He was dominated by his spirit. He was a spirit being for whom God created a body out of clay. Made in His image we were created spirit, soul and body. As such Adam could see into the spiritual realm. He could hear God’s voice and he could walk and talk with Him. He could see into the creative works of God and understand the depths of their meaning and purpose  because everything is spiritual at a certain level. We are told that everything we see is made out of things we can’t see. We are also told that the invisible things are eternal, while the visible things are temporary.

                Col. 1:16 says: “For in Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities- all things have been created through Him and for Him.”

                2Cor. 4:16-18 says: “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

                So, how are we to grow spiritually to a place where we can look at the things that are not seen? Well… did not Jesus come to restore what Adam had lost? Did He not by His death remove the dividing wall between soul and spirit so that we can have bold access to the Most Holy Place? Have we not been given access to God’s eternal realities, being born of the Spirit? Absolutely yes!

                So why are we still so blind to spiritual things? Why do we continue to judge reality by what our physical eyes see rather than what our spiritual eyes see? If we look up everything that Paul has to say on the subject of spirit and flesh, you will come to the revelation that we are very much intended by God to learn to live by the Spirit and not by the flesh. And by this he doesn’t mean that we should carry around a suitcase full of doctrines and proofs. What he is saying is that we need to learn how to live in and operate in the spiritual realm, thus becoming spiritual conduits of His Spirit to those who live in darkness.

                However we, like the children of Israel at the foot of Sinai, often refuse to hear God’s voice for ourselves and we ask Moses, or our preacher, or a prophet to hear God and to convey His messages to us so that we don’t have to seek out that relationship ourselves. And by this I don’t mean that we should avoid good teaching and preaching. I am always learning from others as I listen for God’s voice in those who walk with Him. So what we are learning we must also apply to our ever growing lives.

                The truth is that no one can enter within the veil for us, other than Jesus, who entered there as a forerunner for us. We must all enter within the veil through the blood of Christ, every one of us.

                Hebrews 6:19, 20 says: This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

                So Jesus entered into the Most Holy Place as a forerunner and by this He opened the way for us to enter within the veil as well. And He did not do it as a Levitical priest with the blood of animals and a law written on stone, but through His eternal spirit He entered so that we could receive His Spirit into ourselves and then enter the Most Holy place with Him…This is our access to the tree of life that Adam lost.

                People who don’t understand this keep on ministering the Law to born again Christians rather than the Spirit. But it is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus that we are to live by and not the law of the flesh which is carved on stone.

                Paul says in 1 Tim. 1:9: “ But we know that the Law is good if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous man but for those who are lawless and rebellious…”

                So while we must minister the Law to those who are not born again, we ourselves must be learning to live by the Spirit, bearing the fruit of the Spirit and hearing the voice of the Spirit and walking in obedience to the Spirit. This is the New Covenant that Jesus bought for us with His Blood.

                We must always qualify this by saying that Spirit and truth are infinitely linked so that life in the Spirit will never go against the Word of God for Jesus is the Word made flesh. And He entered our realm of flesh in order to both demonstrate how we, as flesh beings may walk in the Spirit as He did, and also in order that He might have a body of flesh in which to die for our sins.

                Okay, so now having covered that, we must realize that our purpose on this earth is to be filled with the Holy Spirit to the point where our lives are ordered by the Lord on a moment by moment basis.

                So, as usual, this brings us to Romans 8, for Romans 8 is all about life in the Spirit. Here we find out that the law is not done away, as some would say, but rather that it is fulfilled on an infinitely higher level than the Law on stone could ever produce. The Law can never produce the Character of Christ in us. Only the Spirit of Christ living in us can produce the character of Christ.

                This is why Jesus said in Colossians 1:27 that it is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Col. 1:27, Heb. 2:10

                This is the mystery that was hidden from all ages past which is Christ in you the hope of glory. Clinging to the letter of the Law will only prevent you from entering into the Spirit of the Law. Jesus is calling us to a much higher standard than the Law. For the Law can only control our actions, but the Spirit can now rule over our motives and our heart as well. He is calling many sons and daughters to glory and this is the glory that we fell short of in the fall, for as Romans 3:23 says,” All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” and we can’t get that glory back by the works of the Law. God never intended for us to receive it by the works of the Law.  The LAW IS WRITTEN TO THE FLESH AND FLESH CAN NEVER ATTAIN TO THE GLORY OF God. The Law was designed to lead us to the foot of the cross, there to enter into Christ’s death and then to be raised up in the power of His resurrection. This is what it means to be born again. We will now operate from an entirely different power source.

                But now that we have been born again, we need to press on… to enter within the veil… to feed our spirit man and starve our man of flesh so that we can grow up into the Spirit filled, Spirit directed, Spirit empowered life of  Jesus  And we are the conduits of His Spirit to the world. That is why the beginning poem is so important. When I write and when I speak my deepest desire is that I will speak only when spoken through and write only when written through.

                And the closer we get to Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit, the purer will be our message and the more power it will contain to transform lives. Why should we waste time speaking and writing words that have no power to transform? Time is too late to be wasted on mere opinions. I want every word to come from above… and for that to be true, I must walk and talk with God all day…learning to live life within the veil… living in friendship with Jesus so that my fleshly life is consumed by His presence.

                As someone recently mentioned, there is a price to be paid for this kind of walk. And by this I don’t intend to set myself apart from others. Yes, I have a heavenly responsibility to continue learning to speak by the Spirit and not from the flesh, but by the same token, every born again child of God, must be on this same pathway.

                All of us must be moving from the outer court through the Holy Place and into the Most Holy Place, the secret place of the Most High and there we must learn to operate in the Spirit of God, having offered our bodies as a living sacrifice, having been washed by the regeneration of the Word, having partaken of the body and blood of Christ and having put sin behind us, we now by faith enter within the veil. We must all pursue peace with all men and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. Heb.12:14

                But now, rather than laying a burden on you, I bring you good news! Living in the Spirit is not a burden… in fact it takes our burdens away, for until we learn to live life in the Spirit we will struggle on in the flesh and we will carry our own burdens. We will fight a losing battle with our flesh and we will give up in despair. No, what I am talking about is living by the power of the Spirit of God in such a way that none of it is done by the works of the flesh and this, my friends, is the true Rest. This is the rest with which He has called the weary to rest. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. To live by the Spirit is to be set free from the deeds of the flesh that have weighed us down like so many anchors.

                Walking in the Spirit and operating by the Spirit should be the most natural thing for any person who has been born again, but it has become a strange and difficult thing even for many who claim to be born again, simply because they have never moved beyond the outer court of the temple… and in fact they have never even passed through the outer court for there we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice unto God. There we die to the flesh and we are born again by the Spirit and washed by the Word… and only then we can enter into the Holy Place where the Bible has now ceased to be mere information, for as Jesus said, “The words that I speak to you  they are spirit and they are life.” John 6:63

                Here in the Holy Place we are transitioning to the Spirit controlled, Spirit empowered, Spirit filled life and as such the Word of God becomes spiritual food for our spirits and our prayers have the incense of the Holy Spirit mingled with them so that we begin to pray in the Spirit, rather than just rattling off prayers based on our fleshly desires. Here we begin to desire God’s will more than our own. Here the Holy Spirit prays for us and through us.

                For all of this we need the Holy Spirit’s help and we need to ask Him to help us every step of the way. Our flesh cannot get us where we need to go. It is all done by His Holy Spirit as we ask and walk in what He provides. In this, many Christians become halted in their progress simply because they refuse to accept the gifts of the Spirit that would help them to enter into the spiritual realm. They say, “Nope, I won’t do that one, and I can’t do that one and my church won’t allow that one and anyway the gifts of the Spirit ended with the Apostles so we can’t go there at all and as a result many are using their flesh to control the Spirit rather than learning how to allow the Spirit to control their flesh.

                For this reason, many churches or denominations today have a form of godliness but deny the power therein and so they remain carnal Christians. But even among those who operate in the gifts of the Spirit, there are many that never press on to grow up into the character and image of Christ. Of these many will say in that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy and do all of these things in Your name? And He will say, “Depart from Me… I never knew you.” Mt. 7:20-23

                Clearly then, our Lord is calling us, as the final generation, to enter fully into all that the Lord has provided. WE must come to realize that we have been called to be sons and that all of creation is waiting in eager anticipation of our coming into full sonship  “For whom He foreknew He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He predestined these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” Rom. 8:29, 30.