It is a great and blessed fact that God is the Father of our spirit. He is eternally set on changing creation by transitions and adjustments, by words that are constantly coming to us humans until we grasp for something stable, solid, and enduring in Him. Much of the inner drive for change in man is simple evidence that man is NOT satisfied. Even most Christians have not found their completeness, their REST in Christ:
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him…” I John 3:2
Here is true stability for any person: when He appears, we will be like Him. We have immutability. This means the quality of our nature and life would remain the same just as HE is the SAME yesterday, today, and tomorrow. This is one of the characteristics God has promised sons who partake of the fullness of Christ through union with Him. We are to be changed until we become changeless in the absolute oneness with what He is.
He who is unchanging cannot be influenced, affected, moved, altered, damaged, destroyed, or improved in any way. He cannot grow tired or old. God is alive and He gives His life to rearrange the present orders of our human life. His followers are provided with mindsets of common faith in an eternal, changeless, unaffected, loving, joyful, peaceful, righteous order of life like in His firstborn son. We are to be empowered not to rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall while dealing with resistant fleshly matters.
Matters not what happens or what devilish men say or do, LOVE is God’s nature! His purpose empowers us with a steadfast faith, an unmoved place, an unquenched thirst for rightness, with undiminishing hope. He gives a quickening to see His spirit coming NOW to help us to be unaffected about the many frustrations of the flesh. The eternal existence of God is certain, for He is the source of all created and spiritual life. Death cannot touch Him for He is not dependent upon the sustaining power of another. He is Yahweh, the Self-Existent One.
When lofty considerations of God are in our minds, our hearts will respond with joyful accord with the spirit of Christ’s wisdom. The spirit shows us what God’s intentions are. Those who are taught to walk in the spirit are a blessed realm of maturing sons and daughters who are constantly being changed as they see God coming in the body of Christ. To His disciples, Christ spoke these incredible words:
“For as the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.” John 5:25-26
LIFE IN HIMSELF! This is self-existent God life, a life not derived from nor dependent upon any earthly source for sustaining. Jesus inherited the complete portion of God life! We see Jesus standing in radiant light declaring, “I AM THE LIFE!” The exceeding great wonder of it all is that not only does Jesus possess the self-existent life of God, but God has made Him to be a life-giving Spirit.
“And this is the testimony, that God gives us life eonian, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who has not the Son of God has not the life.” I John 5:11-12 concordant
How plain. If the Spirit of sonship is in us, it imparts THE POWER TO COMMENCE ETERNAL, SELF-EXISTENT GOD LIFE WITHIN US NOW!
The key is to HAVE THE SON in this matter of receiving God Life. God is giving the spirit of sonship to those taught of Jesus. They overcome the imperfections within their own being that keep them from His perfection. The candlestick churches on earth had only an in-part measure of the spirit, a down payment of what is needed to conquer the imperfect conditions working in the flesh of men. The starting and finishing point of faith in Christ, however, should lead us to be like Him. We see how the truth of His coming by the spirit helps us align our spirit with His spirit.
God keeps coming to us until He conquers all the little hidden thoughts and motivations of the flesh in our lives. He washes our mind, our thoughts, and our attitudes toward others. We are constantly being examined by our Father to allow or disallow our spiritual development. God must work within our own lives by the Spirit of sonship to chase off the little foxes that spoil our vine. Babes in Christ will not defeat their giants until they start slaying the little things that keep them from Christ.
Like David, another type of Christ, we must first “slay our bear" and "kill our lion." We must conquor in the little things, like a king in the making who is made ready to strike the enemy giant standing against the Lord’s host and be victorious, just like David when facing Goliath. We start overcoming the little things, those little quirks and idiosyncrasies in our personality, those things we think we are right about, those words spoken in haste, those attitudes held in us from time to time, the verbal expressions mixed with bitterness, including slothful attitudes toward sin of any kind.
God’s life does not lack or fall short or miss the mark of being a true expression of divine glory. God intends to change us all, yet some are now firstfruits of this change! Firstfruit folk have spiritual discernment when hearing messages in worship meetings. They prove the spirit of every man before giving assent to his message. Firstfruits must take on — appropriately — the truth of His Word, putting on Christ’s instructions by spiritual means until Christ’s life is formed in our spirit to do the ongoing purposes of our Father in our own life.
The spiritual mind of Christ is absolutely contrary to human thinking. He is not warring with the “old man” or wrestling with the devil. His Spirit conquers and is conquering to renew our spirit into oneness, to put His control within us. We are to be a kind of NEW CREATURE who can grow to be like Jesus. When we see Him with the eyes of our understanding, His spirit teaches us so that all that is contrary to His divinity is displaced. It is put to death, so to speak, and not remembered any more.
Did you ever notice the contrast between so-called deliverance ministries of latter rain and the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles? There are clear and obvious marks that distinguish exorcism, the casting out of devils by the Spirit of God. There is indeed such a thing as demon possession. To deny this is to repudiate the ministry of the firstborn Son of God. However, most of what is called demon possession in Pentecostal Christianity today is really not demon possession at all. For the most part it is merely the results of believing people who have been given over to the works of the flesh.
Their ministers call such fleshly activities as fear, lust, rejection, cursing, lying, criticism, gossip, sexual fantasy, masturbation, adultery, incest, harlotry, addiction to nicotine, alcohol, caffeine, gluttony, hatred, envy, and a hundred more — demon possession! Unbelievers are subject to many lies and are deceived by the devil, but believing people need instruction by the Word and Spirit of God to not give place for the works of the flesh to possess their soul. We Christians are exhorted:
“Yet now you also be putting away all these: anger, fury, malice, calumny, obscenity out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, stripping off the old humanity together with its practices, and putting on the young, which is being renewed into recognition, to accord, with the Image of the One Who creates it, wherein there is not Greek and Jew, Circumcision and Uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, freeman, but all and in all is Christ.” Colossians 3:8-11 concordant
“Consequently, then, brethren, debtors are we, not to the flesh, to be living in accord with flesh, for if you are living in accord with flesh, you are about to be dying. Yet if, in spirit, you are putting the practices of the body to death, you will be living.” Romans 8:12-13 concordant
“Deaden, then, your members that are on the earth: prostitution, uncleanness, passion, evil desire and greed, which is idolatry…” Colossians 3:5 concordant
“Now I am saying, Walk in the Spirit, and you should under no circumstances be consummating the lust of the flesh.” Galatians 5:16 concordant
Read these passages carefully, for it is plain to see that the works of the flesh are exactly and precisely the very things to which God gives solution by receiving His spirit and then walking in the power of that Spirit. God gives us the power to cast down every vain imagination that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. When we do, they are MORTIFIED (put to death) within us.
Nearly all of the casting out of demons I have witnessed in Christian meetings has been a deceptive show. The vast majority of it is rehearsed showmanship, theatrics to impress congregations of pentecostal people with healing and deliverance crusades. The people are psychologically prepared and conditioned to expect particular routines and manifestations and are encouraged to respond in certain ways. The way God moved once becomes quickly routine and traditional with clever gimmicks, psychologically-induced fleshly contortions, mesmerism, and mania. That is not how the true church of Jesus Christ conducts affairs!
Every demon responds to the power of the King's authority. Demons do not necessarily respond to the verbalization of the name Jesus. Some of the seven sons of Sceva tried to use that name, but it didn’t work, it backfired. Many people in Christ’s day were named Jesus. Our Lord was called Jesus of Nazareth to specify which Jesus He was. Today millions of men in Spanish speaking countries are named Jesus. There is no power in saying the word J-E-S-U-S.
THE POWER IS IN THE PERSON’S SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY, THE QUALITY OF THE LIFE. The spirit of man responds to the authority of His Word and Spirit. Jesus’ life has powerful authority. You will not have to shout the name of Jesus Christ at a problem all day long when the authority of His spirit is recognized by your spirit. Just an inner expression of His spirit within you will change the dynamics of the problem.
HE must increase, WE must decrease — and it must be in that order. You do not die to the flesh in order to live in spirit. Your spirit must FIRST be quickened to live in order to release your soul from the former fleshly ways. By accentuating the positive influence (light) of Christ within us, He eliminates the negative (darkness) working of the human nature. It is by turning on the inner light of Christ that God drives away the darkness of our fallen soul.
By the infusion of His Life, He abolished our death. His truth destroys our error. His spiritual reality negates our fantasy of imagined works. This happens IF we fill our mind with the truth of Christ, for we are changed to be like Him when we see to understand the Word and Spirit of God. When we partake of the divine nature from within our spirit, every knee within us will bow before that divine power and every tongue (thought that voices expression) within us must then CONFESS that Jesus Christ is our LORD to the glory of God the Father:
“For all of us shall be presented at the dais of God, for it is written: ‘Living am I,’ the Lord is saying, ‘For to Me shall bow every knee, And every tongue shall be acclaiming God!’ Consequently, then, each of us shall be giving account concerning himself to God.” Romans 14:11-12 concordant
All who consider themselves sons of God should truly see that, by JUDGMENT AND MERCY, God shall reconcile and restore all men unto Himself. His judgments are not vindictive. They are purposeful, remedial, and redemptive. Some do not believe that vile demon-possessed people will be blessed to be saved and raised into the Kingdom of God in coming ages, but ALL CREATION shall be gloriously reconciled to God!
I do not hesitate to tell you that men's unbelief shall not make the plan of God of none effect, nor shall it hinder God’s program one bit. Ministry that refuses to embrace God’s glorious plan shall be disqualified from being a part of that wonderful priesthood order through which redemption and restoration shall effect all. Those servants who now fail to perceive or permit the perfecting work of God harm the spirit of grace and mingle to themselves His corrective judgments. They MUST change to be an administration of God’s Kingdom. Those who would damn men to eternal torture forever without mercy are disqualified from ministering reconciliation to those of creation for whom Jesus died.
Jesus died to save all men. None who reject and oppose this precious truth of ultimate salvation of all men and women, the reconciliation of all things to God, will stand among the blessed company of deliverers now appearing on Mount Zion. Ministers who shut up the potential mercy of God from any man or woman do not understand the will of God nor His power. Only the Sons of God, clothed in His white garments of glory, have His truth in the inner parts to express His love in making things right for EVERY created man or woman, freely liberating others to partake of the firstborn’s likeness.
Jesus Christ, the firstborn Son of God, is the PRINCE OF PEACE. Jesus Christ sends us the spirit of righteousness, peace, and joy to reside within our spirit as His elected body of Christ. We see by this that Christ is come into our lives and we are like Him. God has already given us roles for peacemaking while in this world. It has now occurred to us what peacemakers do!
We peacemakers are expected to MAKE PEACE! When we fulfill what Jesus said about peacemakers, we are blessed indeed. It opens wide the paths of sonship by God. Then the nature of our Father can be recognized in our spiritual life. When we see him appear, we know we are being made like Him, for God acknowledges those who are like Him.
In order to be a proven peacemaker, one must become involved in legitimate conflicts with others. When our Father wants to bless us from the Kingdom dimension, we must encounter crises and conflicts in our daily involvements so that our character can be changed. We are changed by seeing Him come with the answers in every time of need. Every conflict is working us toward His solution. Even now the spirit of sonship is working within us to become partakers of the divine nature in the nitty-gritty of everyday life.
Don’t be thinking that it all comes in some future blaze of glory, suddenly becoming qualified to be a priest and king on behalf of principalities and powerful nations. Most Christians have not been taught by the spirit to allow — become involved in — uprooting of their own personal problems. Many would just as soon put it off, lie back in a Lazy Boy recliner with a glass of iced tea, watching their favorite television program, praying, “Thank you, Lord, for that wonderful message given Sunday. I am so blessed with good things, everyone should know the security that I have found.”
Anybody can have a sense of peace when all is going well and there are no cross-currents, opposition, trouble, or conflict. Learn the truth of this: PEACE IS MORE THAN THE ABSENCE OF WAR! The peace of God is unaffected by any external conditions. If our peace flees in the face of troublesome opposition, we have not His peace and are not crowned with His life. It is not being like Him to be defeated in those situations which demand a peacemaker, a savior, a son like unto Him. If we feel inadequate to attempt anything so demanding as being like Him, we say, “I can’t do it!” No, we can’t. No man can!
But there is One working in the midst of us, and when we see Him with our quickened spirit, our faith is conditioned to always rise to the occasion and accomplish the Father’s task.
"Rescue those being taken away to death, And you should keep back those who are slipping away to the kill." Proverbs 24:11 concordant
It is Christ who has come to our life. THE Christ works within us, as it is needed, to show us the Prince of Peace!
"Wherefore also, lest I should be lifted up by the transcendence of the revelations, there was given to me a splinter in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, that he may be buffeting me, lest I may be lifted up. For this I entreat the Lord thrice, that it should withdraw from me. And He has protested to me, ‘sufficient for you is My grace, for My power in infirmity is being perfected.’ With greatest relish, then, will I rather be glorying in my infirmities, that the power of Christ should be tabernacling over on me.
Wherefore I delight in infirmities, in outrages, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christs sake, for, whenever I may be weak, then I am powerful." II Corinthians 12:7-10 concordant
We can be perfected in the necessary daily trials, made powerfully perfect by grace about our fleshly weakness. That is, He has the ability to show us how to receive the spirit of Christ, to be like Him, to awaken, to arise and become a continual display of His power and victory working in us. Oh, yes! We can be the called, chosen, and faithful sons proven to be priests of a higher order. This Kingdom order exists even now. Those called to it are to be like Jesus, as sons.
The word “peace” is used approximately 90 times in the New Testament, and in the vast majority of cases it is used in reference to “harmony with God”. It should become clear that this is a principle characteristic of the King and is needed as the primary part of our spirit to be harmonious with Him.
BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS — those who have within themselves entered into a relationship with peace that has launched them upon a mission to bring help to all men seeking harmony with God. When we are brought to peace within, into harmony with the Father, worldly concerns become unnecessary. God’s life flows out and is manifested by extending a high holy heaven to our spirit, bringing peace and goodwill toward all men in us, just like Him!