What a different world it would be today if even the so called “Christians,” much less “Christian nations,” followed Jesus’ commands and teachings…

“You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them who despitefully use you, and persecute you; That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven: for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Mat 5:43-45 KJ2000)

When we return evil for evil, curse for curses, hate for hate and murder for murder, who do we manifest as the one who is our father? The same father as those who sought to kill Jesus Who said to those self-righteous Jews, “You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” (Joh 8:44 KJ2000)

Do we know what spirit we are of in this hate filled world? I think that there is a lot of room for some real soul searching and repentance among those of us who claim Christ as our Savior and times like this show us what is really in our hearts.

Paul wrote, “And of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:” (1Co 1:30 KJ2000). Notice that little word “in.” Paul did not say “about” or “unto” or “upon,” but rather he used the intimate word “in.”

It is the Father’s doing that we who have believed INTO His Son (the true meaning of John 3:15, 16, 18 and all the other salvation verses in the N.T.) are placed IN Him by that same faith. The word “in” referring to Christ Jesus is found in more than eighty verses in the New Testament, yet we spend our whole religious lives oblivious to where we live and to how many are the privileges we have in where the Father has placed us. Instead we see ourselves in this world to the extent that we are OF the world. The church system has inoculated us against who we are IN Christ.

Paul, speaking to the Athenians said, “In Him we live and move and have our beings” as the saints of God. He did not say, “In the world we live and move and have our being.” Nor did he say, “In church do we live and move and have our being.”

We in Christendom have been taught that the more we are in our respective churches and their functions, the more we are “in Christ.” The “church” has become “our wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption” not Christ Jesus. Even focusing on being “out of the church system” can fall short of who we are IN Christ when it becomes our identity.

When Jesus is our All in all, then we have unity for IN Him we all have the same redemption (salvation), the same wisdom of the Spirit, the same righteousness and the same sanctification. It is ALL of Him and not of the whims of religious men and their doctrines or of ourselves. Only as we each live and move and have our being IN Christ Jesus will we know the unity in the Father which is ours.

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus…” LITERALLY!

Jesus said to the learned scribes and Pharisees, “You search the scriptures and in them you think you will find life and it is these which speak of me, but you will not come to me that you might have life.” The more that things change, the more that the mind of religion remains the same.

T. Austin-Sparks wrote:

…the difference between soul and spirit is very clear and definite. The spirit is the organ of spiritual knowledge, and spiritual knowledge is very different from natural or soul knowledge. How does God know things, and by what means does God come to His conclusions, decisions? On what basis of knowledge does He run the universe? Is it by reasoning inductively, deductively, philosophically, logically, comparatively? Surely all this laboriousness of brain is unknown to God. His knowledge and conclusions are intuitive. Intuition is that faculty of spiritual intelligence by which all spiritual beings work. Angels serve the will of God by intuitive discernment of that will, not by argued and reasoned conviction. The difference between these two is witnessed to by the whole monument of spiritual achievement. If human reason, the natural judgment and ‘common sense’ had been the ruling law, most, if not all, of the giant pieces of work inspired by God would never have been undertaken. Men who had a close walk with God and a living spirit-fellowship with Him, received intuitively a leading to such purposes, and their vindication came, not by the approval of natural reason, but usually with all such reason in opposition. ‘Madness’ was usually the verdict of this world’s ‘wisdom’. Whenever they, like Abraham, allowed the natural mind to take precedence over the spiritual mind, they became bewildered, paralysed, and looked round for some ‘Egypt’ way of the senses, along which to go for help. In all this we are “justified in the spirit”, not in the flesh. The spirit and the soul act independently, and until the spiritual mind has established complete ascendency over the natural mind, they are constantly in conflict and contradiction. In all the things which are out from God and therefore spiritual, “the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the spirit is life and peace” (Rom 8:6). This, then, is the nature of spiritual knowledge.

The only knowledge of God which is of spiritual value for ourselves, or for others by our ministry, is that which we have by revelation of the Holy Spirit within our own spirits. God never—in the first instance—explains Himself to man’s reason, and man can never know God—in the first instance—by reason. Christianity is a revelation or it is nothing, and it has to be that in the case of every new child of God; otherwise faith will be resting upon a foundation which will not stand in the day of the ordeal.

‘The Christian Faith’ embraced as a religion, a philosophy, or as a system of truth, a moral or ethical doctrine, may carry the temporary stimulus of a great ideal; but this will not result in the regeneration of the life, or the new birth of the spirit. There are multitudes of such ‘Christians’ in the world today, but their spiritual effectiveness is nil.

The Apostle Paul makes it very clear that the secret of everything in his life and service was the fact that he received his gospel “by revelation”. We may even know the Bible most perfectly as a book, and yet be spiritually dead and ineffective. When the Scriptures say so much about the knowledge of God and of the truth as the basis of eternal life, resulting in being set free, doing exploits, etc., they also affirm that man cannot by searching find out God, and they make it abundantly clear that it is knowledge in the spirit, not in the natural mind.

http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/001341.html

To the learned Pharisees and scribes Jesus said, “And you have not his word abiding in you: for whom he has sent, him you believe not. Search the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And you will not come to me, that you might have life” (John 5:38-40 KJ2000). We can have all knowledge and wisdom, but without His love in us as our motivating force it profits us nothing. The question is will we come to Him as a child or will we be as so many proud scholars that are blind because they say they see? The gospel is so simple that even a child can receive Christ “for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” But men with carnal minds have made it complicated that they might secure for themselves a position among the saints of God. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. Oh how we love to accumulate knowledge.

How did the early church ever have faith in Christ without their own personal Bibles and all these scholastic resources and Bible teachers we depend on today? They had no seminaries or Bible schools, no Sunday school classes, and no Vacation Bible schools, study guides, concordances, or daily devotionals to read, yet they had a faith in Christ that turned the world upside down. Jesus gave us the answer to this question in a promise He made before He died, “But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you” (John 16:13-14 KJ2000). So did you read this and say, “Yes, but Jesus was talking to the apostles when He said this and they were special”? Well, Apostle John was so convinced of the need of the Spirit abiding in each saint as their Teacher and Leader that he wrote to the early church and said, “The anointing which you have received of him abides in you, and you need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, ye shall abide in him” (1 John 2:27).

Even the prophets of old knew that the New Covenant would have this as a foundation to its existence. Jeremiah wrote,

 Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; my covenant which they broke, although I was a husband unto them, says the LORD: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:31-34 KJ2000 – emphasis added)

In the Old Covenant the people of Israel new of the Law as a kind of straight jacket that they had to preform in or suffer the consequences often by being stoned to death. They still broke it because they did not have a heart change with the needed motivating force placed within them. But that is not the way the New Covenant is. It is NOT according to the covenant God made with the Children of Israel when they came out of Egypt and the Law was given them by Moses… which covenant they did not keep. Even Peter described the Law as “a yoke upon the neck… which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear” (See Acts 15:10). So what was God’s solution to the inadequacies of mankind? Ezekiel wrote:

 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments, and do them. (Ezekiel 36:26-27 KJ2000)

It is having a new heart put by God in us and His wonderful Spirit placed in us that enables us to do the Father’s will. But what is that will? The writer of Hebrews spoke of a new priesthood in this New Covenant and a new law to go with it, “If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchizedek, and not be called after the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law” (Hebrews 7:11-12 KJ2000). Jesus spoke of this new law saying, “A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another” (John 13:34-35 KJ2000).

Are we free to do whatever we will now that Christ has set us free? Not if we are still living by the dictates of our flesh instead of by the Spirit of God. Paul went on to say,

Owe no man anything, but to love one another: for he that loves another has fulfilled the law. For this, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, You shall not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, namely, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love works no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Romans 13:8-10 KJ2000)

Love is the summation of the whole law and as we walk in Jesus’ New Covenant commandment of love, which fills our new hearts, we are fulfilling all that God requires of us.

The O. T. covenant was broken and replace by a New Covenant based on Jesus not Moses, “For finding fault with them, he says, Behold, the days come, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers… For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that he says, A new covenant, he has made the first old. Now that which decays and grows old is ready to vanish away. (Hebrews 8:8-13 KJ2000)

The Old Covenant was filled with commands and things for the Children of Israel to do (and not do). It was a covenant based on works. But oh how different the New Covenant is as Hebrew ch. 8 points out. Here the prophet specifies a NEW Covenant that is based on what God is doing in and for us, not on what we have to do for God. It is based on a big DONE as far as man is concerned. There is not a single “thou shalt” or”thou shalt not” in that list, but everyone of the attributes listed start out with God saying, “I will…” When Jesus hung on the cross He cried out, “It is FINISHED!” At that moment all the just requirements of the Old Law were fulfilled as well as the prophesies about the Sacrificial Lamb of God. We and our sins were crucified with Him AND we also rose again with Him and now sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus in the newness of our New Covenant lives. In that position the only works we can do are those done while resting in Him and these were ordained from the foundation of the world that we should walk in them. All other works not done from this position of resting in the Vine as His branches are dead works and are of no account in God’s kingdom. Speaking of the dead self-righteous works of the Jews Jesus said, “Every tree that my father has not planted will be rooted up.” First Father grafts us in and then we rest and abide in His Son, the Vine. Our fruit comes naturally after that because it is HIS fruit that we bear.

“And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. And he that keeps his commandments dwells in him, and he in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.” (1 John 3:22-24 KJ2000).

“This is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you.” (John 15:12 KJ2000).

As for the law, anyone who has read Jeremiah, Acts, Galatians, Romans, Timothy or Hebrews knows that the law is there to show us we can’t keep it and to point us to the righteousness that is ours by faith in Christ alone and HIS power to keep us.. The old Adam and his sin nature in us has been crucified and the life we now live we live by the life and faith of Jesus Christ who lives in us. Paul wrote, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, self-control: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:22-25 KJ2000 – emphasis added)

Paul warned us about those who teach the law saying, “Now the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain talk; Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor the things they affirm.” (1 Timothy 1:5-7 KJ2000)

For Christ is the end of the Law [the limit at which it ceases to be, for the Law leads up to Him Who is the fulfillment of its types, and in Him the purpose which it was designed to accomplish is fulfilled. That is, the purpose of the Law is fulfilled in Him] as the means of righteousness (right relationship to God) for everyone who trusts in and adheres to and relies on Him. (Romans 10:4 AMP)

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words… You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Galatians 5:1-6 NIV)

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” If Christians deny this they need to return to law keeping and forget the imputed righteousness of Christ. If you keep the law of the tithe or Sabbath Day observances or even circumcision to be righteous you are bound by the law to keep the whole law. “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed [is] every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10 KJV).

If we are truly born again, God has taken out of us that heart of stone and put in us a heart of flesh. He has put His Spirit in us. He has put HIS laws in our minds and in our hearts. We are talking about a NEW creation in Christ! THAT is what the NEW Covenant is all about. “They that are in Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof” (Galatians_5:24). Of the flesh Paul teaches us (Romans 7:18), “In me, that is, in my flesh dwells no good thing.” And again in (Romans 8:7), “The mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.” Of this flesh it is written, “Our old man was crucified with Him” (Romans 6:6).

If we are truly born anew in Christ we are new creatures in Him and He is our righteousness and it is by His grace that we live in Him, move in Him and have our being in Him not in flesh of fallen Adam or the law.

We know that Jesus was perfect in all His ways before God. What does it mean to be perfect in the eyes of our heavenly Father? Can we have such perfection?

When Jesus stood before Pilate being tried for His life, the man asked Him what He did to deserve crucifixion which the Jews, His own people, demanded. His answer was simple, “My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom was of this world my servants would come and fight.” Anyone that is found in this world that is not of the world religious/political system, but of the kingdom of God is an anathema to them and it. Just as Jesus was hated, called names and despised, so are they. This is why He said, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18-19 KJ2000).

Jesus was not of the kosmos (world)– that system that controls the world and the satanic intelligence behind it. Jesus describe Satan as “the prince of this kosmos (world).” He said, “The prince of this kosmos has come and he has found nothing in me.” Satan could find nothing in Jesus to tempt Him over. If we have crucified the flesh and the lusts thereof, he can not find anything is us to use against us, either.

Jesus also told the religious leaders of that day, “You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do.” Jesus did not have an army, but the temple priests did. Peter drew his sword to do harm to the High Priest’s servant as Jesus’ self-appointed body guard and Jesus rebuked him. Today we see every nation and despot with his own army to protect and enforce its/his will, even big time preachers and evangelists have their own body guards. Even the ushers in churches are taught to operate in this capacity. Their actions show what kingdom they are of.

How many of those who call themselves “Christian” today are no different. Someone attacks their home country and all their patriotic juices start flowing and they desire to do harm back to those who attacked them. Look at the USA and the lust for war that was fanned to a furry by its “Christian” president and even from church pulpits after the attack of 9/11. What a contrast this is to the teachings of Jesus who said,

“You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them who despitefully use you, and persecute you; That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven: for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love them who love you, what reward have you… Be you therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48 KJ2000)

I once played my flute on a church “worship team.” Well, God gave me the gift sovereignly to be able to play it for Him as an act of worship. The trouble was that this pastor who controlled all church ministry under his domain didn’t know the difference between worship and a production. So, it just kept getting worse Sunday by Sunday as he chose the music we played and dictated how it was to be preformed. Finally, the last straw was the “Christmas Cantata,” a canned performance that we had practiced on for weeks. When it was over the pastor came up to me and asked how I liked it and I told him, “I feel like a prostitute.” He blinked a couple of times like a deer in the headlights. So I told him the difference between my gift and how it was given to be handled and what had just happened with his canned performance (for which he had advertised throughout the community and rented an auditorium). Well, my days in that religious machine were over within a month. That was the last program centered Sunday institution I ever tried to make work, and you know what? I don’t miss it.
I have observed that many church Christians are also “users.” They tend to get this attitude from the example of the management of their local church franchise. Many of them attend churches to make business contacts as if it was a local country club. My wife and I were looking for some Christian fellowship one time and we ran into some old church friends from years gone by and they invited us over to their house for dinner. They wanted to tell us about what “great things God had been doing in their lives.” I thought “Alright!’ Well, we got over there and after the dinner out came the Amway pitch. Used again!
One church I walked into on a Sunday, the pastor walked up to me asked me two questions and then said, “We have just the program for you.” You walk into most of those places and you feel like a slab of meat waiting to be cut-up, packaged and tossed into somebodies freezer. How often we hear Christians say, “I just want to be used by God.” God is NOT a user, but Satan IS!
Jesus was always going about healing people and setting them free from all kinds of bondages. He enjoyed their wedding parties, ate with sinners and prostitutes, and He even fed them on a couple of occasions. Do you remember the story of Jesus healing the blind man? I am getting my spiritual sight in stages like that guy did. At first upon receiving some spiritual sight, I also was a church user. I saw men like this guy did at first, as “trees walking.” They were commodities to be harvested, reshaped, processed and used. Finally, after many years of being on the receiving end of that methodology, I cried out to God for the real thing. “Lord that I might see all men clearly as you see them.” Well, that transformation is still going on and I am starting to see that Jesus loved and set people free, but never used them. In fact He set them free FROM the users in the religious system of that day. Regarding that same system Paul wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
I encourage those of you who want to be “used by God” to first ask Him to let you see each individual He puts you in contact with as a human being and not a scalp to be hanging on your teepee lodge pole by the end of the day. People aren’t stupid. Take the time to get to know them like Jesus did with the Samaritan woman at the well. Listen to them. Ask God how HE sees them and what is on HIS heart for them and even take the time and effort to be their friend and listen to them. Then you might find yourself useful in God’s kingdom in setting people free to follow in the love of His Son.