"MOVE OUT OF THE WAY FLESH! HERE COMES THE SPIRIT! " (PART 1)

Good Evening  To ALL!

Have you ever heard people say, I don't like to read the Bible because I don't understand it?  I have heard that quite a lot.  I even said it myself in my "early walk with Jesus"For one thing we look at the Bible in a completely physical sense when in all actuality, it is purely spiritual.

Furthermore, I have even heard people try and downplay the Old Testament as not important because it is just history.  They couldn't be further from the truth.  For example, all of the Old Testament feasts point to Christ.  God uses the Passover.  In 1 Corinthians 5, MSG) Paul is chastising the Corinthian church for scandalous acts of sex. He tells them of one instance of a man sleeping with his stepmother, and how the church is more or less condoning it because it isn't fazing them. He then says what he would do .  After telling  them  this, he goes on to say, "Your flip and callous arrogance in these things bothers me.  You pass it off as a small thing, but it's anything but that.  Yeast, too is a 'small thing', but it works its way through a whole batch of bread dough pretty fast.  So get rid of this "yeast." 

Our true identity is flat and plain, not puffed up with the wrong kind of ingredient. 
The Messiah , our Passover Lamb, has already been sacrificed for the Passover meal, and we are the Unraised Bread part of the Feast.  So let's live out our part of the Feast, not as raised bread, swollen with the yeast of evil, but as flat bread--simple, genuine, unpretentious.

Types and foreshadows in the Old Testament are physical things that represent the spiritual.  The author of Hebrews talks of the tabernacle being a picture of Heaven. What is so neat is that the five senses with which He has given us in the physical body represent what we can have in the spiritual realm. Not only do our outer senses  represent characteristics of the inner man, but often times the way we use our senses can hinder or promote the development of those spiritual characteristics.  

The problem is as humans, our sinful nature tends to want to overindulge in the desires of our senses.  We can be so self absorbed and wrapped up in our own physical wants and desires that we start worshipping the "CREATION" rather than the CREATOR.  We start putting "stuff " first instead of remembering who made it possible to have that "stuff".  (Romans 1:25) says Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

God is stirring His church to intimacy with Him more than ever before.  In order to obtain intimacy with Christ, we must go beyond our five senses.  We must not be distracted by what our flesh  (or physical bodies want).  There is so much more than what we see with our natural eyes and fell with our natural hands.  There is a spiritual realm, a  supernatural realm where faith comes into play.  We can't see Him with our naked eye, but we can feel Him with our hearts.  We know He exists because God's Word says He does.  According to Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen".  The Bible encourages us to look not at the things that are seen, , but at the things which are NOT seen.  For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal".  (2 Corinthians 4:18)

There is no way man can do this on his own, because "...the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God , for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."  (1 Corinthians 2:14)

It is only when we finally surrender our lives to Christ and ask Him to be the Lord of our lives, that we are able to begin the journey of being saved, and receiving the Holy Spirit enters our spirit as a dwelling place.  I want to clarify that, yes, we must ask Jesus to come into our lives and we must accept Him as our Savior, but that is not all there is to it.  Being saved is a journey.  If we read Acts 2:38, we must REPENT, BE BAPTISED IN THE NAME OF CHRIST JESUS FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS and we SHALL RECEIVE THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST.  Even that is a prerequisite to being saved.  The Key is we MUST LIVE FOR GOD.  Once saved always saved is not an option.  We must continually strive for completeness in Him.  We must put Him first in all things.    If you think about it, in His Word, according to Matthew 10:37 KJV  He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

As we are intimate with our spouses, not in the physical sense, but knowing what they want without asking, feeling close enough to them to understand what they are feeling without being told, so should our intimacy be with Christ.  It cannot be if we place physical things in the way.  Our physical desires are not important when it comes to our relationship with Him.  He should be first and foremost.   

I look forward in continuing this series tomorrow.  There is just too much information for one to soak up on this subject for one night.  

It surely feels good to be back blogging again.  I can't help but feel that I have been letting you as my readers down (hopefully I still have a few) but God as well, but that is going to change.  Thank you for your patience.  

Good night and May God Bless!