As I have noted - we all have this duality inside of us, this old man and new. The question is one of suffering. Someone had to suffer in order for you to be born. Someone also had to suffer for you to be born again. When we are born into this world, we're born of flesh and blood. When we are born again into the next world, we're born of spirit and blood. We now have "dual citizenship" in earth and in Heaven. Both are competing to become our permanent citizenship Both are competing for our soul, which is caught between our flesh and our spirit. Put another way - our flesh is our "old man", our spirit is our "new man". Our soul hangs in the balance, between Heaven and earth. Both vying for our soul's affections and attention. Who will win the war?
Each and every day the battle is fought. Some days the Spirit wins. Some days the flesh wins and some days the battle rages back and forth, one or the other gaining ground multiple times in the same day. Our actions determine who has the upper hand at any given moment. We should not act on the man of sin - The Old man's suggestions. He may taunt us and tempt us from the Cross we've put him on, but do not take heed. Do not let him off the Cross. The two thieves crucified on either side of Christ represent our old man and our new - one mocking Christ, the other humbly reverencing Him. Let's act on the man of righteousness' lead, the new man. They are both constantly vying for our attention. They both want to be the one to set our course, to determine the path we walk each day. Narrow or wide road, up or down.
How do we win this battle? How do we "put on the new man?" How do we "walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh?" Our hearts are the key to victory. Who does your heart belong to? Who are you really in love with? Who sits on the throne of your heart? For many of us, we've invited Jesus into our hearts and we've given Him a seat of honor - seated next to our right hand, while we've remained on the throne or our hearts. It's not enough to invite Him into our hearts, we must surrender our hearts to Him completely. We must give Him the throne of our hearts and as He sits there, we must bow before Him within ourselves in constant worship. Our actions will show the truth - Are we "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God?" Daily we must  1) Die. We must crucify the old man with the affections and lusts thereof. We must pierce him through with the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. Starve him, and he will get weaker. 2) Eat our Manna fro Heaven, our Bread of Life, Jesus. We must commune with Him in our hearts daily, fellowship with Him, talk with Him. 3) Be forgiven our sins as we daily forgive the sins of others who have sinned against us. 4) Put on the New man. If we "put off" the old man it will avail us naught if we do not put on the new man, by daily inviting Jesus to possess our hearts anew. We need a daily cleansing from His presence within us, amen.
The New man can perform miracles, the Old man cannot. Have you ever prayed for someone to be healed and nothing happened? Perhaps it was your "Old man" praying - who honors Christ intellectually with his lips but denies His power, who believes Christ can heal but not through his hands. Peter did not say "In Jesus name be healed". He did not pray "Jesus heal this man". No, when the cripple was healed it was Peter who healed him but he did it through the power of the Holy Spirit coursing within him, which is the same way Jesus healed people. Peter said "Silver and gold have I none but SUCH AS I HAVE GIVE I THEE." The crippled man was looking for money when what he needed was Jesus. The Old man would offer money to a cripple instead of what he really needs, to be healed (and he would feel good about it, proud that he gave "alms to the poor"). The New man, however, offers what he has - Christ in him, the hope of glory. What the world needs is Christ, not more money. Prosperity teachers, by the way, would probably like to strike that verse from the Bible (silver and gold have I none). The New man can do all things through Christ who enables him - it does not say that Christ can do all things through us, it says "I CAN DO ALL THINGS  through Christ which strengtheneth me." Now that's the New man talking! The Old man can do nothing of spiritual worth or consequence. PS: Not only will OUR Old man mock us and taunt us to try to get us to let him off the Cross, but everyone else's Old man will despise us and mock us too....people we meet who have not the Old man crucified will hate us if we have put on the New man.....

Do you remember the Hurricane that hit Houston awhile back? It was a horrific storm and a friend of mine from Ireland texted me at the time "Hi Chris, so the Texas situation. Why do you think it's happening in a presumably God fearing state that is conservative? This was my immediate reply - and I never so much as thought these words until then - led by the Spirit, I looked up the meaning of the word "Houston". The storm is God's judgment on religious, dead Christianity in America. "Houston" literally means "Hugh's town". "Hugh" means "mind, intellect". Religious Christianity, i.e. Denominationalism, America's favorite form of Christianity, leads people into an intellectual relationship with God, not a heart relationship, which God despises. They constantly fill their minds, week after week, with knowledge about God but rarely meet with God for they are eating from the Tree of the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil, not from the Tree of Life.
This storm was a prophetic sign to America to flee Babylon and turn their hearts to Him, not just their minds. Prayers prayed from the mind alone, without the heart praying also, will have no effect.....By the way the hurricane that struck Houston was named "Harvey" which means "eager for battle". Yes, God is going to make war on all who abuse and misuse His name, who oppose Him with their hearts yet honor Him with their minds. Intellectual Christianity will be exposed and will fail and fall....like the walls of Jericho, from around human hearts, setting them free, to engage God heart to heart, not just mind to mind. The heart always comes first. Love the Lord thy God with all your heart, then mind, soul and strength.
"It is a terrible place for a man to be when a man is blind yet says he can see".
TO think we know, is a sin
when we do not know, Him
We use His word intellectually
yet don't digest Him internally
Only with mind, not heart,
yet we're surprised when He says - Depart.

Truth is a person we follow with our hearts, not a "belief statement" we agree to with our minds. Most churches are content to have you sign their "statement of beliefs". Now they will accept you and extend their love to you....flesh! Knowing a set of beliefs in our minds does not transform us into the image of Christ rather knowing Christ, in our hearts, transforms us into the image of Christ. We become like who we spend the most time with, especially as children. If we're spending most of our time with Jesus, we'll become more and more like Him. If we're ignoring Him and His Spirit within us, we'll become more like the world and the spirit they're walking in (hint: it's not holy). This is why it's so important to teach our spiritual children how to walk closely with Him each day - how to receive from Him, bread and wine and the water of the Word, personally. As children we're still "malleable clay", we can still be molded and shaped, we haven't hardened yet. Very few adults are still malleable, that is to say, teachable. Usually, once we're grown, we're set in our ways. If we spend most of our time seeking Christ through our Pastor instead of personally, we'll grow up into the image of our Pastor, not Christ. To the degree our Pastor is Christ-like, will be the degree we will be too, we inherit our parents good and bad sides, don't we?

Every church on earth, just about, sings "Amazing Grace" - "I once was blind but now I see", they sing. The sad thing is, they get a glimpse of Jesus, they see He is their Savior, for instance, and they confess Him at an altar, once, and from then on they believe they can see - but it's not what you did at that altar once, it's what you do after....many go to the altar and confess their love for God but very few consummate the marriage. The church where we first confess Christ becomes, in our minds, our spiritual mother, like the ducks who, upon being born, think the first living thing they wee is their mother, in one case, a researcher named Rick. It's called imprinting. The ducks willingly followed Rick wherever he led them, sincerely believing he was their mother. New born Christians associate the euphoria they feel upon meeting Jesus for the first time with whoever led them to Christ, not realizing it was the Holy Spirit who did it. "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit" "But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit".
But rather than continue to be led and taught by their Father's Spirit - they follow after their "Mother", who immediately teaches them, among other falsehoods, you must remain faithful to US, you must become one of us, a member of our "congregation", in order to remain faithful to God. We, after all, are the ones God used to reveal Himself to you - WE SEE! We see God, we see truth. They may not say this. They may not say this explicitly (though some do) but it's implicit in everything they teach. They do not teach people to follow and learn from the Holy Spirit for they themselves are not doing so. Those who say they see (but are blind) must become blinded by Jesus so they can see with spiritual eyes and perceive they are blind, while those who are blind, but do not falsely profess  they can see, will have their blind eyes opened by Jesus. The religious leaders, the ones who say they can see, who say they have the knowledge of God that people need, are usually the ones who miss Him, who miss the day of His visitation (though there is the occasional Nicodemus) because Jesus came (and still comes) for the poor in spirit, the poor in knowledge, those who are empty of pride, those who humble themselves continually before God. "The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank You, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this Publican. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the Publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto Heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying "God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."
One definition of Pharisee is "a person who thinks they are very religious but who does not care about others" - I can tell you story after story of churches in America who "think they are religious but do not care about people". They, like the Greeks before them, pursue knowledge, not Christ. Christ, after all, is love made flesh. "Knowledge puffs up (with pride, the leaven of the Pharisees) but love (Christ) edifies".    To be continued.....  

Ask yourself - are you willing to embrace and believe Truth no matter what your Pastor/Denomination teaches? If they tell you the Truth is a lie, what will you do? Will you remain with them, in your comfort zone? Or will you be willing to follow Jesus "outside the camp"? "Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach". Are you willing to become of no reputation? Or a bad reputation? Called a rebel, a false brother, a liar or worse? Hated of all men for His name's sake? Your own brethren, picking up verbal stones to stone you with? All denominations, all 33,000 of them, profess to know the Truth, all profess that their understanding of scripture is pure, without spot or blemish. And because many of their official "Statement of Beliefs" are mostly true, people think everything they teach is true also. But it's not always what you believe on paper (the letter kills), it's not even that you know Jesus - James and John walked and talked with Jesus and yet Jesus, at one point, said to them - "You know not what manner of spirit you are of", so it's clear, we can confess Jesus as our Lord and Savior (as all Christian denominations do) and yet be of the wrong spirit. Jesus turned to Peter once and said "get thee behind me Satan". Without realizing it, this Apostle who would go on to write two amazing epistles, included in New Testament canon, was speaking on behalf of Satan, yet in most churches today, rather than recognize and rebuke the wrong spirit, Satan's when coming from the pulpit, the people sit and applaud and swallow all of it. If anyone ever did stand up and say "do you know what spirit you are of?" or "Those words you just spoke are from Satan", they'd be kicked out of the church immediately, no questions asked). Because of pride. Pride says "all I teach is true, for I am God's appointed teacher in your life". Now listen to Jesus carefully, as He speaks to the Pharisees, a religious Jewish sect that thought they knew the truth, that believed they were God's chosen people, His representatives on earth, just like denominations do today - "And Jesus said, for judgment I am come into this world, THAT THEY WHICH SEE NOT MIGHT SEE; AND THAT THEY WHICH SEE MIGHT BE MADE BLIND. And some of the Pharisees, which were with Him heard these words, and said unto Him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them "if you were blind, you would have no sin: but now you say, we see; therefore your sin remaineth."
Before I expound on this passage let me quickly digress to another - again, Jesus is teaching "But if your eye be evil, your whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness!" At first glance, this makes no sense, how can light be darkness? But when the understanding from the Holy Spirit comes, it makes perfect sense. From God's perspective, "Light" means "Revelation knowledge", knowledge revealed to us, Spirit to spirit, by the Holy Spirit, not taught by men. Jesus is saying "if the revelation you have of Me is a false revelation, how great is that deception! For it will lead you to Hell!" Many false Christ's/Christian denominations have gone into the world and deceived many. Not to mention all the cults with a false revelation of Jesus. The point is - the Pharisees thought they had light, they thought they could see (you can't "see" without light, but their "light" was actually darkness, for all they knew was taught to them by men, not revealed to them by the Holy Spirit of God. Think about it - Jesus Himself stood right in front of them, right before their faces...they actually spoke directly with Him, yet could not recognize Him as their Messiah. They actually argued Scripture with Him! He who was that very Scripture made flesh. Yet today, countless denominations do the same to the Holy Spirit. They all say "we see" and they are all blind. It is God's mercy to blind those who say they can see but in reality are blind and it is his mercy to bring sight to the blind - He exalts the humble but abases the proud.

To be continued....

The older I get the more concerned I'm becoming with sins of omission as opposed to sins of commission. I'd like to think I'm more aware of sins I commit than I am of sins that are things I should have done, or should be doing. I suspect I have no idea what most of those are - I need the Lord to show me. I need to pray "shine Your light, Lord, in the midst of my darkness, please. Teach me, please, Holy Spirit, how to be pleasing to my Father, as Jesus was, may I be now.
How many souls could I have helped to save that I didn't? How many Divine appointments have I missed? How often have I been looking inward - at myself, instead of outward at souls around me, in need of You? May I be your epistle Lord, read of all men. May my life, all my remaining days, be an epistle written by You. May my tongue be the pen of a ready writer. May the words in my mouth be the words You put there, and not my own, daddy. I don't want to mix my words with Yours. I love You. Thank You for being my Father.
"Who can understand his errors? Cleanse Thou me from secret faults. Keep back Thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer."
Keep me from presumptuous sins - "Presumptuous" - Full of presumption, readiness to presume in conduct or thought, as by saying or doing something without right or permission. "Presumption" - assumption of something as true. Something that is presumed to be true but may not be. Unwarranted, unbecoming, or impertinent (rude), boldness as a result of presuming. This sin, the sin of presumption, could well be one of the most common and grievous sins committed by churched, religious Christiandom. So many, so often, commit this sin. They presume something to be true because in their ignorance, often mixed with arrogance and pride, they believe all their Pastor/Denomination teaches is truth. Often, false doctrines appeal to the mind, they are logical, they make sense - to the carnal mind. They incorporate the world's wisdom, which is the opposite of God's. See 1 Cor: chapter One.
Worse than believing a falsehood is becoming impertinent in their boldness to defend what they know to be true - though it is not. When I was first "Born again", I mean less than a week, a Baptist I knew from my school came to congratulate me on becoming a Christian. Immediately he told me "tongues are of the Devil". He told me he knew this because of a book he'd read. He said the author took ten years to research and prove "tongues are of the Devil". I immediately thought "if you need ten years to prove something, you're probably wrong". Anyway, I was facing my first "doctrinal dilemma" because the man whom God used to lead me to the Lord, Scott Hollister, spoke in tongues, as did his pastor. So what did I do? I did what I would continue to do throughout my walk with the Lord, something every one of us should consistently do - I asked the Lord. I sat down with my Bible in front of me (my big ol' Thompson Chain Reference, KJV, my favorite Bible which I still use today) and said "Lord, one man says tongues are of You, the other says they're of the devil, which should I believe? I opened my Bible and it randomly opened to a passage on tongues. I said "Lord, it says here tongues are a gift from You." I went back to the Baptist and told him God had showed me tongues are a gift from Him and he exploded in a fit of rage, basically saying, as he shouted at me, "how dare you, a brand new Christian, tell me, a much older Christian, that my belief is wrong?!" I thought " I can see what spirit you are of". "BETTER A POOR AND A WISE CHILD THAN AN OLD AND FOOLISH KING, WHO WILL NO MORE BE ADMONISHED (reproved or scolded, especially in a mild and good-willed manner). Reader, denominations are full of "Old and foolish kings who will no longer be corrected". They are unteachable! They think they know and no one, including the Holy Spirit can tell them otherwise. Pride prevents us from humbling ourselves and admitting we're wrong....especially when it comes to our pet doctrines. Very few in leadership have the wisdom to at least listen to an opposing viewpoint with an open mind. Very few seek and love the Truth so much they are willing to accept it and embrace it at the expense of their own pride and arrogance for this takes great humility. They identify more with their "doctrines of Christ" than they do with Christ himself. Very few remain teachable, able to be taught of the Holy Spirit, for if they were, He would lead them and guide them into "all truth" and they would not be able to remain in their Denominational church. Either the church will kick them out or the Holy Spirit will lead them out because lovers of falsehoods hate lovers of Truth.

To be continued....