I haven't met too many people in my life that didn't want to be successful. Whether it was financially, educationally, career, family or even ministerially, most of the people that I've encountered, at some level, want to be recognized as successful and feel like they've personally achieved their goals and dreams. With this being said, every culture has a "standard" by which success is measured, and a particular means or path for which to obtain that success. There's nothing wrong with this per se, but the challenge is that as Christians, we are not supposed to reach for the same success as the world.
The challenge with this thought over the years has been that if Christians aren't supposed to reach for "worldly success," then it's God's will for His children to live in poverty or somewhere close to it. This misinterpretation is not the will of God. A person isn't more spiritual just because they lack material possessions and wealth. Then we go to the other extreme. If it's not God's will for His people to be poor, then it must be His will for His people to be rich! This is where we get the "Prosperity Gospel" and the "name it and claim it" theology. This misunderstanding too, is not the will of God.
The challenge with believers and how we negotiate this all-important principle of success is significant and pertinent to our witness of Christ and our witness to the world. But let us clarify; God does not have a problem with His children experiencing what could be described as "worldly success." As a matter of fact, God says in His Word that He wants us to prosper (3J ohn). God's issue with the church is not us experiencing "worldly success," it's obtaining that success the world's way.
There's a success that God is ready to bring His people into that will "far exceed" the success of the world. It's called "Blessed Success". The success that the Christian is supposed to experience is rooted in our relationship with Christ and the covenants that God has established with our forefathers, the Jews. Blessed Success is based upon Covenant Agreement, which means it's contractually based. So if you don't know, understand, or adhere to the the terms of the contract, then you forfeit the ability to experience the Blessed Success that God has prepared and ordained for all of His children.
I really want to emphasize that the Blessed Success of the Father is not reserved for just a few of His "special children," it's for all of us! But the reason so few Christians are witnesses to this Blessed Success is because we don't understand how it works. Thus the Word says, "my people perish for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4). May God bless us with the wisdom and the revelation to position ourselves to receive the Blessed Success of God.
In regards to Walking in the Spirit, the key is Crucifixion of the Flesh. The key to crucifixion of the flesh are the two primary components of the flesh, the Affections and Lusts (Galatians 5). After or as you deal with the crucifixion of the affections of the flesh, then one has to deal with crucifixion of the lusts of the flesh.
The lusts of the flesh can be described as an exaggerated and inordinate desire towards self-indulgence, self-promotion and self-exaltation. The key to lust is that it's all about you. Any sin that one commits is rooted in self-centeredness. The reason that's a problem for Christians is because we're supposed to be Christ-centered. If the flesh can keep us more focused on self than Christ, it diminishes our capacity to walk in the Spirit.
One of the greatest examples of lusts of the flesh is sex. America in particular, has totally perverted the Divine Ideal for sex. Why? Because we've made sex all about us. Let us clarify for the record, God made sex to be reserved for the marriage bed (Hebrews 13). Which means, if you're not married and you're having sex, you are outside of the Divine Will of God; including masturbation! Fornication and promiscuity, in a lot of our churches, has become acceptable behavior. This is not the Will of God. But it all has to do with lust.
A lot of people try to be abstinent, but many times, unfortunately, this doesn't work. Why? Because the flesh hasn't been crucified. So how do you do that? Two things: you have to starve one appetite and create another one. You have to starve the desire for sexual involvement. Any situation that "tempts you" in that area you have to "flee" (1 Corinthians 6, James 1). However, in addition to "starving the flesh," you then have to learn how to feed your spirit. You must learn to feast on the Word. Too many Christians are spiritually malnutritioned because they simply refuse to read the Word for themselves. I can't stress it enough, you've got to start reading the Bible everyday! And once you start proactively crucifying the flesh, your spiritual lifeline is going to literally be the Word of God (Ephesians 5).
In addition to feasting on the Word, you've got to learn to get into the Presence of God. Prayer, praise and worship is an indispensable ingredient to crucifying the flesh. If you don't saturate your spirit with the Presence of God, you're going to inevitably go back to those cravings of the flesh and the lusts thereof. Take the time to bask in the Presence of God, Hallelujah!
As you proactively and persistently learn to crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts, you will find your capacity and ability to have the Divine Will of God manifested in your life stronger and greater. The Scripture says, "walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh" (Galatians 5). That same passage goes on to say, "if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."
There's a Perfect Path that God has ordained for us to walk in as His children. However, we can't do it without the leadership of His Holy Spirit. As you learn to walk in the Spirit, you may fall sometimes. No baby learning to walk for the first time, does so without falling over and over and over again. Yet, I've never seen a parent give up on their child because they stumbled and fell while learning how to walk. As a matter of fact, it' to be expected. Be encouraged my brothers and sisters, God has not given up on you. No matter how many times you've fallen in the flesh, The Father is waiting with outstretched arms to pick you up so that you can walk together into Eternity.
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n order to have the Divine Will of God manifested in one's life, it is imperative that one learn how to Walk in the Spirit. It's one thing to have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you as a born-again believer, but it's another thing to learn how to walk in Him. One of the greatest obstacles to learning how to walk in the Spirit is the wrestle with the flesh (sinful nature, indwelling sin). The key to overcoming the wrestle of the flesh in order that one may have sufficient capacity to have the Divine Will of God performed in their life is the Crucifixion of the Flesh.The flesh is comprised of two primary components: The Affections and Lusts (Galatians 5). Let me reiterate, human will-power is not sufficient to combat the flesh in having the Divine Will of God fulfilled in one's life. One has to learn how to crucify the flesh, with the affections and lusts.
The affections of the flesh can be described as energy and passion directed towards something or someone designed to reinforce one's self-esteem, self-worth and significance. The key to this definition is energy and passion. Every human being has energy that they utilize to establish and affirm their sense of being and sense of self. The way it's "supposed" to work is that you find that affirmation and significance in Christ. However, since the church hasn't done a very good job of teaching believers how to practically do that, we find our sense of self-worth through the world like everybody else. This displacement of affection strengthens the flesh and weakens our ability to submit to the Divine Will of God for our lives.
The thing that's tricky about the affections of the flesh is that they're not always overtly "sinful." That's why it is so important to understand grace and justification in Christ, because if you get caught up in the "sin game," you won't have sufficient focus to appropriately deal with the flesh, thereby not truly walking in the Spirit. One example of this is dating relationships. You'll never see in the Bible "thou shalt not date." But the danger in dating the opposite sex prematurely is that you can place your affections in a person and in a relationship that's supposed to be reserved for Christ. Ever been "in love" and after a while it turns to nothing? Heartbreak, heartache, can't live without them, all of this represents "affections of the flesh." But yet at the same time it's not an "overt sin."
This is why Jesus said if you're going to be His disciple you have to "deny yourself" (Matthew 16). Not deny sin, deny yourself. This is how you address the crucifixion of the flesh in the area of the affections. This denial of self in this particular component of the flesh will increase your capacity to Walk in the Spirit.
In order for the Divine Will of God to be manifested and fulfilled in your life, it is imperative that one learn how to "walk in the Spirit." Hopefully everyone understands that once you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is the third person of the Godhead (John 3, 1John 5). If you do not have the Holy Spirit living inside of you then you do not belong to Christ, which means in essence that you are not saved (Romans 8). So every Christian, every born-again believer in Christ, has the Holy Ghost. However, that is not enough. In order to have the perfect will of God executed in your life, you must learn to walk in the Spirit. It's one thing to "have" the Holy Spirit, it's another thing to learn how to walk in Him.
When you first get saved, you are described as a babe in Christ (1Peter 2). As a babe in Christ, this means that you have to "grow up." The challenge of growing up spiritually in Christ is the wrestle with the flesh (the sinful nature). Every person (not just born-again believer) is born with a sinful nature (Psalm 51). Once you accept Christ and receive the Holy Spirit, the flesh wrestles with the Spirit and makes you do things that you know are wrong and against the Divine Will of God (Galatians 5, Romans 7). This is expected of babes, but something's suspicious if you're an adult and you're walking around with diapers on pottying in your pants. We have too many Christians that have been saved for far too long and been in Christ long enough to continue stumbling in the things of the flesh. The reason this is the case is a lack of maturity, and a lack of understanding in regards to how to appropriately address the sinful nature.
In order to appropriately and effectively deal with the sinful nature so that one may learn to Walk in the Spirit, one must learn how to crucify the flesh. This is where a lot of new Christians mess up, because they're taught to just stop sinning. Wrong. This doesn't work. Your will power to obey God is not greater than the sinful nature's ability to coerce you into sin (Romans 7). Until a believer learns this, no matter how sincere or even disciplined they are, they will continue to wrestle with indwelling sin and have some area in their lives that is not submitted to the Divine Will of God. The key to perfection is Crucifixion of the Flesh.
This in turn will create the necessary capacity to Walk in the Spirit.
One of the things that you rarely see in the contemporary, mainstream church is the expectation of miracles. Most of the time when I attend services on Sunday morning, rarely do I see members of the congregation exhibiting a visible and palpable desire to witness and experience the Miraculous Power of God! There's the expectation to hear a word. There's the expectation of worship and praise. There may even be the expectation of the movement of the Spirit. But it's not often that you witness the expectation of Supernatural Manifestation.
In the 21st century, this is a sad indictment on the Body of Christ. Nearly 2,000 years after Christ's death and the majority of His church (at least in America) are not witnessing His miracles, signs and wonders. Why is this the case? When you read the scriptures, on numerous occasions, when Jesus was preparing to perform a miracle, He would often say, "according to your faith, be it unto thee" (Matthew 9). It's not like God is not still performing miracles (Hebrews 13). The faith level of the church is not commensurate to receive them!
This, saints, must change.
We have to re-establish our desire and our demand to experience the miraculous. No more settling for the natural. No more being content with the Normal. We don't serve a Natural God, we serve a Supernatural God! Take the shackles off of God and release your faith to do something miraculous in your life. I want to challenge you today. I am persuaded that there is something in your life that can only change, that can only be addressed, that can only be fixed, with a Miracle. I strongly encourage you to go to God and ask Him for the Miracle that your situation needs. Stretch your faith. Know that within your own power and resources it's not going to be fixed. But the God we serve has All Power!. Even if it's not directly related to you. It could be a loved one who's sick. It could be a friend that's going through something and there seems like no way out. You know what it is. And please hear me today. I'm not saying "pray about it". No. I'm saying, ask God for a miracle! Go to Him with the expectation of Supernatural Manifestation.
We're entering a season saints where the supernatural is going to be the norm. But you have to start building your faith now so that when the move of God starts you'll be in position to move with Him. Stretch your faith, take the limits off of God and let the Holy Spirit condition you for the Expectation of a Miracle.
Generally when we think of the Body of Christ, we think about the church, particularly a local congregation or assembly. This of course is correct, considering that the church can be described as a body of baptized believers who confess Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior. However, I'd like to consider a somewhat broader perspective of what we describe as the Body of Christ.
The Body of Christ is more than simply an assembly of baptized believers gathered together in Jesus' Name. The Body of Christ is also the Temple of the Lord. This too is not news to many, but how we conceptualize it may be. A body, in the natural, is designed to house the spirit and the soul. If you don't have a physical body in the natural, legally, you can't operate in the Earth realm. That's why, in order for Jesus to serve as the Savior of the world, he had to be given a human body (Hebrews 10). Now that Jesus has Ascended and sits at the right hand of the Father, the Holy Spirit has been sent. Well, the Holy Spirit is just that, a spirit. So he too, must have a physical body to have legal presence in the earth realm. This is where the church comes in.
What we want to understand is that the Holy Spirit has been sent to the church so that we could literally serve as the body of Christ. Not simply an assembly of believers in Jesus' name, a "body" of believers. No, to actually serve as the "physical body" of Christ in the earth realm. The Divine Design of the Father is spiritual reproduction in the natural realm. That was the original plan with Adam, having made man (male and female) in His Image and after His likeness (Genesis 1). But Adam messed that up when He rebelled against the authority of God. However, if Adam hadn't disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, all of the offspring that he and Eve would've produced would have been made in the Image of God, just like Adam was.
Remember, Christ is described as the last Adam (1Corinthians 15). So what God was doing wasn't "just" redeeming humanity back to Himself, He was re-starting the original reproduction plan that He originated with the first Adam. Jesus, of course, was successful in fulfilling the Divine Mandate of the Father, and so the Holy Spirit has been sent to impregnate the soul of every believer just as He impregnated Mary at the birth of Christ (Luke 1).
So the question today is, how much of your physical body is a manifestation of the Divine Personality of Jesus in the natural realm? What a lot of believers don't understand is that when you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, in essence you were saying that I am now making my body and mind available to be possessed by the Divine Personality of Jesus Christ that walked the earth nearly 2,000 years ago (1Corinthians 6). It's not just about going to heaven when you die or trying to live a nice "moral, Christian life."
May all of us who name the name of Jesus be convicted in our spirits that we will deny ourselves so that our human vessels can truly represent the Body of Christ.
One of the most significant things that a person needs in order to be socially functional is a sense of acceptance. Psychologists have said for years that this is one of the most basic social needs of human beings. Everybody wants to feel like they belong. However, for the believer in Christ and the child of God, this is not always the case. A lot of times, when you're living for God and having to take a stand for God, you can't always be accepted by the crowd. You don't always have the luxury of "fitting in". Sometimes you have to "stand out", and this requires the Audacity of Uniqueness.
If you are part of the elect that God has chosen to play an instrumental role in this next Kingdom Move, then I can already tell you that more than likely, you're not fitting into your current, present-day environment. Whether it's your family, whether it's your job, whether it's your community, or even your local church congregation; if you have been anointed and are submitting to the call that God has placed on your life for this Season, then probably for all intents and purposes, you're the oddball in the bunch.
For a lot of Christians, this is hard to handle. As stated earlier, everyone naturally wants to fit in. Everyone wants to feel a sense of social acceptance. But saints, what we have to wrap our minds around if we're going to diminish our frustration, is that God has set it up this way. God has called us to be separate. God has called us to stand out (1Peter 2). God has called us to be unique (Romans 12). And for this reason, we must summon the courage and the strength to demonstrate the Audacity of Uniqueness.
What helps us exhibit this Audacity is the fact that we're no longer looking for acceptance in the earth realm, we're looking for acceptance and reinforcement from the Heavenly realm. The Scripture says in the 1st chapter of Ephesians that we are "accepted in the Beloved". Our acceptance comes from God. When we resolve this belief in our hearts and souls, then we expect to stick it out. We expect to be different. Because we understand that this is what God has called us to be.
Let us not be guilty of the witness of the Pharisees. The Scripture says that they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God (John 12). God is looking for some warriors and some soldiers who will dare to be different. Who will dare to take a stand for The Kingdom; even if it makes them look "weird." But in order to take this type of Kingdom Stand, you must possess the Audacity of Uniqueness.
