The Enormity of Being Born Again: The Natural and The Spiritual

Let’s begin by looking at 1Cor 15:44 b  

[As surely as] there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body

Paul made this statement referring to us and the fact that in our resurrection we will have a new body. It will be a body that will be fashioned according to our spiritual body and not our earthly body that we must experience now. This new body, our spiritual body, already exists in the ‘heavenly’ which is the realm of God‘s unseen spiritual universe.  I would like to talk about this unseen realm using a few scriptures.

1Cor 15:40 There are heavenly bodies (sun, moon, and stars) and there are earthly bodies (men, animals, and plants), but the beauty and glory of  the heavenly bodies is of one kind, while the beauty and glory of earthly body is of another kindies is a different kind.

So, if there is a natural body, there is also (at the same time) a spiritual body, then these bodies  mentioned in the scripture above also have spiritual bodies. The sun, the stars, the animals, men and plants.

In fact, an atom, an electron and all of the quantum sub particles that make up the atoms, also posses a spiritual body existing in the heavenly spiritual realm.  

Our very universe is a body and that which is visible  is a sort of a projection of the spiritual unseen universe. This heavenly reality is the spiritual substance behind all the visible universe.

This is why science may probe deeper and deeper into the makeup of sub atomic particles (for example) but they can never through natural means break through to the underlying spiritual reality that is the true backbone nature that upholds  the visible nature of our universe.  They will only discover smaller and smaller bodies. Never reaching the end.

Of course the heavenly (spiritual) is the realm of the Word of His power which upholds all of His creation.

Matt 16:19b  whatever you bind (declare to be improper and unlawful) on earth must be what is already bound in heaven; and whatever you loose (declare lawful) on earth must be what is already loosed in heaven.

So the natural visible things of our every day world can only express and make visible to us what is already a reality in the heavenly spiritual sphere (remember heaven speaks of the world of the spiritual) which is the essence and substance of what we experience here on earth. 

Considering your  Born Again Experience , you have been immersed into Christ Jesus and therefore immersed into His death and Resurrection. 

You become One Spirit with Him! 

Think on that for a while.

His resurrection provided for you a new spiritual life (loosed in Heaven), and a new spiritual nature (loosed in Heaven). This means that your new nature and life can become visible on earth as it is in Heaven.

 

The Look of Love

 In 1 Cor. 12  The Word talks and teaches about God’s placement in the church of certain individuals with certain gifts and graces- 1Cor.12:29-31a

Are all apostles (special messengers)? Are all prophets (inspired interpreters of the will and purposes of God)? Are all teachers? Do all have the power of performing miracles?  Do all possess extraordinary powers of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire and zealously cultivate the greatest and best gifts and graces (the higher gifts and the choicest graces).

We are told that we should earnestly desire and zealously cultivate the greatest and best gifts and graces.    

Earnestly Desire… Zealously Cultivate!

Well, we should all realize what desire means. There must be some young man or young woman in your life at some time that made this emotion kick in for you.

To earnestly desire is one step higher. It’s certainly something exceptional and not an everyday event. It means you want something in your strongest way and you won’t ever forget or lose it if it’s in your power to somehow keep it.

But that’s not all. Besides trying to motivate us to earnestly desire these gifts (the best ones) we are exhorted to zealously cultivate these desires.

What happens when we cultivate a plant? We feed it, water it and do whatever we can think of to help the plant grow. And, in this case, we are to do whatever will help these desires to grow with zeal. No messing around intended here. With zeal. 

And yet I will show you a still more excellent way [one that is better by far and the highest of them all—love].

Aah, the purpose of this writing emerges- LOVE. We’re told (rightly so) that love is a way more excellent than even the best of these gifts and graces.

There was a time, a few years ago, when I read this and thought ‘Love must be important’. I looked up to heaven and prayed, ‘OH God, give me love’. That was it. What followed for the next week or so was a series of events that showed me, without question, that God loved me.

I realized then, that I (and you also) didn’t have try to make myself create my own love, but the secret was (like the gifts) that I had to only receive His love which was already there.

Notice this scripture in 1 John 4:10

In this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation (the atoning sacrifice) for our sins.

This then was the beginning of my believing in faith for God’s Love. Faith for His love for me and faith for His love within me.

Here now, is your goal:

The realization in your faith that God really does love you. This can’t be faked. So this is how you must begin. Ask God to show you and help you to know His love for you. Mean it and keep asking. Like the gifts and the graces of God  you must earnestly desire and zealously cultivate your desire- to:   

Know the love of God who is Love.

Love in you is not a requirement that you must meet out of your own works. Rather, it is the response of your heart- to your faith- when it knows God indeed does love you. As the scripture above tells us- in this is love-not that you first loved God- but that He loved us first- and He demonstrated it by the cross of Christ- which was first given for us.

Once His love is in your heart by faith, it will slowly infuse your whole thinking and personality. Eventually, you will find your love for others beginning to manifest itself even to the unlovely.

How important…  is it for you to know He loves you? Take a look at the scriptures that follow…

If I [can] speak in the tongues of men and [even] of angels, but have not love (that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such  as is inspired by God’s love for and in us), I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  

And if I have prophetic powers (the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love (God’s love in me) I am nothing (a useless nobody).  

Even if I dole out all that I have [to the poor in providing] food, and if I surrender my body to be burned or  in order that I may glory, but have not love (God’s love in me), I gain nothing.   1 Cor. 13:1-3

It’s obvious then, that in the eyes of God, even if you secured all the gifts and all the graces but lacked God’s love within you, you are only a noisy clanging cymbal or gong, a useless nobody and should not expect to gain anything from God.  

Also consider this:

Gal 5:6 For [if we are] in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything,

but only faith activated and energized and expressed and working through love.

In Christ Jesus, where you now are, and where your spirit has become one spirit with Christ who is a Spirit, and where you have been born again, and where you have been justified and where you (shall) live by faith-

but only by a faith that has been activated and energized and is expressed and working through God’s love for you.

Even all of your faith must be tied with the assurance that your Father loves you and has placed His love for you into your heart.

Not only is love the more excellent way than the gifts and graces, LOVE is absolutely, fundamentally necessary!  

YOU MUST FIND HIS LOVE…  FIRST-  

Love, is, of course about relationships. First and foremost it is about God’s relationship with you. Then,  just as important, (says God) is your relationship with others. Now most of you have, at one time or another, been part of a relationship with someone you believed you were in love with. Now the comments below are quotes taken from 1 Cor. 13: 1-4 and they explain what God’s love in you and for you looks like as it’s expressed outward to the people in your life.  

Picture God’s love for you as a strong beam of light and your heart as a mirror. When His beam of light hits your mirror heart, it bounces off  into the hearts of the people around you.

Remembering, now, the times when you believed you were ‘in love’ with someone, check yourself to see how your love matches up with this kind of love.

Love endures long and is patient and kind;

It just doesn’t give up. It doesn’t grow bored or tired after a time. And, it always presents itself with an attitude and a personality of kindness to the other person or persons.

love never is envious nor boils over with  jealousy,

Love is always satisfied in itself since you are already immersed in the greatest love possible, God’s love. It has no need to ever present itself with an attitude or personally of jealousy. This love isn’t overly concerned about itself. The other person or persons are the main object of the Love of God that lives in you.

Love is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.

Love does not advertise or brag about itself, and as the KJV puts it, God’s Love is never ‘Puffed up’. It hardly notices itself.

Love is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride);

Love never produces an excessively high opinion of itself. Nor does it act like it is better than anybody else. It does not ever compare itself to anybody for it’s own benefit.

Love is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly.

Love  feels and thinks always with high respect toward others. It admires those who express and show respect towards God and who are grateful for the love of God and the Hope that that Love brings. It does not admire or respect those who rejoice in misbehavior, and it knows there is never a good reason for people to be disrespectful towards God in thought, works or in word. It weeps for those who willingly condemn themselves.

Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking;

God’s Love in you can sometimes be misunderstood by others and mistaken for weakness.  This is because a person of God will easily lay down his own rights and his own ways in order to clear a path for someone else’s discovery of God’s love. Standing up for yourself for the sake of some principle or another- is low on the ladder of righteousness compared to the Love of God flowing in your veins. Those who come to know, in truth, the Love of God- have no need to ‘win’ anything since they’ve already won everything.

it is not touchy or fretful or resentful;

I would say that we all have the temptation to fall into these little traps at one time or another. The thing is, when we start to feel this way, we need to realize that it’s not the love of God causing it. It’s Satan trying to come against God’s love in us. Therefore, we can fall into the assurance that these feelings, when they come, are lies and not reality. Moreover, as we learn to ‘walk in His love’ we will learn to dismiss these feelings from ourselves by stepping back into the fortress  that our God is.

Love takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].

God’s Love in you will never prompt you to snarl to someone, ‘Now, that’s the fifth time I’ve had to tell you… don’t you get it, it’s not good when you do it that way!’.

If someone has hurt you, Love will never get you angry and cause you to throw what they did to you back into their face at a later time.

Love ‘covers’ a multitude of sins rather than expose someone with gossip or talking behind their back.

God’s Love in you will not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but you will rejoice when right and truth prevail, once you are aware that God has revealed His love to your heart.

Because of God’s Love for you, in you- You will find that you bear up under anything and everything that comes, and you will be ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]. Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end].

Hoping that God’s Love is yours soon. I will be praying-  I love you and your family-

Thank you-

 

The Apostle Paul: Walking in the Light of the Unseen

Note: you can read a ‘lost post’ Thoughts from the book of Galatians by clicking on the name above, which is in the black. (Really don’t understand how this happened). Thank you.

I am not conscious of anything against myself, and I feel blameless; but I am not vindicated and acquitted before God on that account. 1 Corth. 4:4a amp.

Important words for so many of us to hear. One day we may feel very positive about how we’ve been doing and confident that the Lord does approve and loves us. A few hours later however, anything can change and for one reason or another, we can feel as though nothing we do at all is right and soon we’ve turned ourselves into a total mess.  Our feelings about ourselves has nothing to do with the truth at all. If we have been justified by receiving God’s free gift of righteousness then there is only one answer for us and our feelings have nothing to do with it. God has already told us in His Word that ‘The Just(ified) shall live by faith’. The sooner we get that settled, the better off we are.

The Apostle Paul did not come to his state of faith in Christ as easily as it might first appear. Even though he had a great spiritual birth experience on the road to Damascus, Paul really spent something like twenty years or so being dealt with by God before he could say, ‘It pleased God to reveal His Son within me so that I might proclaim Him among the Gentiles’. 

From that point on. Paul had something to say. He spoke only out of God’s Son living in Him and Him crucified. God had revealed His Son within Paul’s inner man and  gave Paul the words to express Him.

You realize that most of Paul’s teaching in the New Testament were letters dictated to Timothy, Sosthenes, Silas or some other brother in the Lord. Then they were read out loud to the churches. Often dictated by Paul from jail or some other unlikely place. Paul spoke, and a brother wrote the letter down even as Paul was speaking. Perhaps Paul had some notes he had  prepared before his brother (in the Lord) arrived but mostly those letters were conversational in nature- spoken off the top of his spirit, if you will. However it happened, Paul did not ‘figure out’ what to say beforehand. God gave him a spirit of wisdom  to understand what he should write, or say, as touching his churches as he was speaking. 

It is the Lord [Himself] Who examines and judges me. 1Corth.4:4b amp. 

Jesus is the one who is aware of all truth including all the truth of what Paul was all about. (also you and I by the way). Paul knew that it’s very short-sighted to worry about the approval or disapproval of the people you find yourself with. The true awareness that Jesus is Lord (for real) can help to sober up anybody’s thinking regarding the opinions of others. God is the only one that matters.  

So do not make any hasty or premature judgments before the time when the Lord comes [again],

Chill- wait on God if it’s a season for waiting- Do your work and no matter what kind of job you have right now do it as though the Lord Himself hired you. Read scripture, pray and praise Him. Wash your car. Tell your wife and children (if you have them) often how much you love them. Walk in love to the best of your ability. No need, however,  for judgement– wait.

for He will both bring to light the secret things that are [now hidden] in darkness and disclose and expose the [secret] aims (motives and purposes) of hearts. Then every man will receive his [due] commendation from God. 1st Corth 4:5 amp.

So, it hardly matters what kind of judgments we may or may not form in our minds regarding the actions or words of those around us now. (except remember, if you judge you will be judged). One thing especially if you must consider other people. Avoid jumping to conclusions. This little trick of the enemy is a weakness of many believers. First of all, you haven’t the insight regarding the nature of the subject or person at hand. God does but if He isn’t talking neither should you- even to yourself. The best thing is just to stay out of other peoples affairs, even in your own thoughts unless it is love that powers any intervention you may consider making into the lives of others.  Now, of course, if God should show up as a word of knowledge or something like that, things are different. In any event, the coming of the Lord is near and all things will resolve themselves.

Paul’s comments on the rejection of the Gospel.

But even if our Gospel (the glad tidings) also be hidden (obscured and covered up with a veil that hinders the knowledge of God), it is hidden [only] to those who are perishing and obscured [only] to those who are spiritually dying and veiled [only] to those who are lost.  For the god of this world has blinded the unbelievers’ minds [that they should not discern the truth], preventing them from seeing the illuminating light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ (the Messiah), Who is the Image and Likeness of God. 2 Cor. 4:3-4 amp.

Also consider Eph. 2:1b amp.

the course and fashion of this world, following the prince of the power of the air.  The [demon] spirit that still constantly works in the sons of disobedience. (The children born according to the disobedience of Adam- those who have not been born again).

It’s easy to forget that this world is ruled by evil spirits who are against God and therefore against you. These spirits explain the behavior we see around us as we watch the world’s governments political direction moving more and more away from God. In fact, the controlling leaders of this world are working hard at removing God as much as they can from the individual lives that they govern. It may get harder for us in the future.

Sometimes it’s just impossible to help your non believing friends to accept what you’ve come to know about Christ as real. My belief is that God already knows who His kids are, and when the time is right He opens their hearts for their born again experience, which leads to their realization that they are also God’s children.

Paul’s comments on our resurrection:

But someone will say, How can the dead be raised? With what [kind of] body will they come forth?

I would venture to say that most of us believe that we’ll appear mainly just like what we are now. Perhaps with some supernatural abilities and, of course, perfect health. Plus perfect lifestyles lived with everybody we loved that had passed away during our lifetime.

 You foolish man! Every time you plant seed, you sow something that does not come to life [germinating, springing up, and growing] unless it dies first.

And so it will be for us. We are God’s seeds.We are sown into our own death as well as ‘planted into the earth’.

Nor is the seed you sow then the body which it is going to have [later], but it is a naked kernel, perhaps of wheat or some of the rest of the grains.  But God gives to it the body that He plans and sees fit, and to each kind of seed a body of its own.

So, that appears to mean that we won’t look anything like we do now. Unlike our present body, our new body will reflect and glorify our spirit. Since we have been  completely changed in our spirit and since the Spirit of Christ and our spirit are now one spirit, our new body will reflect who we are… a being who is one with Christ. (1Cor 6:17 But the person who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him).

For all flesh is not the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for beasts, another for birds, and another for fish.  

So it is with the resurrection of the dead. [The body] that is sown is perishable and decays, but [the body] that is resurrected is imperishable (immune to decay, immortal).  It is sown in dishonor and humiliation; it is raised in honor and glory. It is sown in infirmity and weakness; it is resurrected in strength and endued with power.  It is sown a natural (physical) body; it is raised a supernatural (a spiritual) body.

[As surely as] there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. 

 Thus it is written, The first man Adam became a living being (an individual personality); the last Adam (Christ) became a life-giving Spirit [restoring the dead to life].  But it is not the spiritual life which came first, but the physical and then the spiritual.

The first man [was] from out of earth, made of dust (earthly-minded); the second Man [is] the Lord from out of heaven.  Now those who are made of the dust are like him who was first made of the dust (earthly-minded); and as is [the Man] from heaven, so also [are those] who are of heaven (heavenly-minded).  And just as we have borne the image [of the man] of dust, so shall we and so7 let us also bear the image [of the Man] of heaven.

But I tell you this, brethren, flesh and blood cannot [become partakers of eternal salvation and] inherit or share in the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable (that which is decaying) inherit or share in the imperishable (the immortal).

Take notice! I tell you a mystery (a secret truth, an event decreed by the hidden purpose or counsel of God). We shall not all fall asleep [in death], but we shall all be changed (transformed)  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the [sound of the] last trumpet call. For a trumpet will sound, and the dead [in Christ] will be raised imperishable (free and immune from decay), and we shall be changed (transformed).  For this perishable [part of us] must put on the imperishable [nature], and this mortal [part of us, this nature that is capable of dying] must put on immortality (freedom from death).  And when this perishable puts on the imperishable and this that was capable of dying puts on freedom from death, then shall be fulfilled the Scripture that says, Death is swallowed up (utterly vanquished forever) in and unto victory.

All I can say about the above is that it’s very, very good. I hope this has been helpful and that you and yours are blessed. I love you all in Christ Jesus-