October 27, 2010

Education means to bring out what is already in. (Latin) No one can give you something that is already inside of you. That’s why the things from outside of you will not change you. Something needs to happen inside of you in order for you to be changed. Sometimes we don’t know what is going on inside of us; especially when we become a Christian.
Your identity is built up on a foundation created between when you were conceived until you turned 7 years old. Everything and everyone in your life has affected that foundation and from that foundation we build our life. This is called memory. If you want to rebuild your foundation then you would have to be born again. We need to be born again out of the water and of the spirit. In order to be born again we have to come out of the water and out of the spirit.
In Genesis we have creation and the spirit was moving over the waters. Then came creation and then humanity. Revelation 17:15 “Then the angel said to me, ‘The waters where the prostitute is ruling represent masses of people of every nation and language.’”
To be born out of the spirit we have to come out of the water. You have to separate yourself from your nation, the multitudes of people and language; these things make up the water. But you don’t have to be born again in order to believe. If you want to be transformed, nobody can do it for you. You have to want it and to be open to God to transform you.
The disciples were not born again but they were believers. A true disciple is someone who will follow Jesus no matter what that means. Jesus first gave the disciples a calling and a mission which was humanity. They were giving responsibility and authority to be “fishers of men”. Then Jesus gave them authority and power to heal and cast out demons. The disciples were not baptized in the Holy Spirit when they were given this authority. For them to experience something beyond their natural experience, God gave them this authority and mission.
Every time a miracle happened Jesus highlighted the faith of the receiver. He never talked about himself or his own power. He even told people not to tell that it was him who did it. We cannot give anything to anyone unless they are willing to receive it or unless they have faith. Jesus always exalted the faith of the person receiving the gift or the miracle from Him. Every action in our life that is not an action of faith is basically sin (Romans 14:23).
Faith: The assurance of the things you cannot see and the conviction about a future that is still to happen. When you are assured about something and you have conviction of something, you act on in. Faith leads to action. Our faith forces that future that was promised to happen. The opposite of faith is memory. You cannot be born again or change your identity unless you live in faith. If you live in memory, you make decisions according to that memory so we condemn our future to be a repetition of the past. Nothing is new if we live in memory and not in faith. Faith in God makes all things new.
If you are in Christ you are a new creation, the old things pass away and everything is made new. It doesn’t matter what happened before and what is in your memory or what age you find yourself in Christ, all things are made new. God makes things new every morning. Your faith opens up opportunity for God to work in your life.
Hebrews 2:14 “Because God’s children are human beings-made of flesh and blood-the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death.”
We have a fear of death and a fear of punishment but Jesus died to overcome that fear and show us the love of God. Love of God cast out the fear of death because He covered all sin and therefore we don’t have to fear punishment because it has already been paid. It’s the fear of death that holds us in captivity and holds us in punishment. Sin was established in us as soon as we were conceived (Psalm 51:5). That is why we need to be born again. Not to have faith but to be rid of our sin.
What we have been in Christ has always been because it was there before the creation of the world. We are born to live forever but our identity in Christ has no beginning and no end. The living word of God is the seed of God. It is Jesus.
John 20:21-23 “Again he said, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.’ Then he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’” We have been forgiven and given the authority to forgive sin according to his word. What we have freely received by grace we are now authorized to freely give. ¬When we have received the Holy Spirit, living water will flow from us (our new identity). We are a holy nation and a chosen generation or living water.
Prayer is speaking what God is saying.
Acts 2:37 “Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what should we do?’” (This is when the apostles were praying in the upper room and God sent wind and an earthquake so they ran out. When they came outside there were multitudes of people for a festival in the streets and the disciples could understand the different languages and began preaching the gospel in native tongues.)
We are the church. Our foundation is love, forgiveness, blessings, grace, mercy, power, authority, life, peace, etc. In reality our foundation is God himself. Now we have this foundation that was given to us and it has a connection to our life which is called the spirit. Now to build up our new identity we give the things that our foundation was built on. We are to give as freely as we received to transform and change people and the world. These things will be manifested by us wanting to do it and by faith. Our free will is not over ruled by receiving Jesus, so we need to choose to share these things. All of these things are inside of us already; we have to discover them within ourselves. We have to put ourselves up on this foundation so that our souls may become a channel for this flow of living water.
The question is this: In terms of transformation, when we are born again, do we need someone else? The reality is no. We take what is inside of us and bring it out. Nobody can do that for us.

If we have a new covenant then the old covenant is useless. Whatever we use from the old covenant will not produce anything because it has been made invalid by the new. The church makes itself visibly known as a building and then physically as people.
In the morning we wake up and our senses have to stimulate to our environment. We are supposed to start our day by dying to ourselves, picking up our cross and following God. We are supposed to die to our self-determination. If we don’t we have already failed. We have to listen to God; not our senses, not our wants and not our own thoughts. We are supposed to listen and follow God. Even in our natural dimension we are limited but God is unlimited. What we learn to believe and what we start to believe with faith turn into things that we know.
The first thing God gave the disciples was authority and ironically, that is the last thing the church will give you. We have to submit to one another because our foundation is the same. We have to lean on each other in order to fulfill for the Kingdom of God, not our personal satisfaction.
There was gathering and activities for the church but there was no temple for the church. The church manifested every day through each other. They did not stay in a building and call themselves Christians; they were spread over the land and went out all over. There was no limit of time and space, they purely believed that when two or more are gathered God will do what they asked him to do. They came together in community to achieve a common purpose. THAT is what the church is and what it should be. We are meant to love one another.
If the church becomes a temple where Christianity only manifests in a building among a few people, it is not going to change anything. If we depend on a building to go to one day a week to feel this fulfillment and to feel God, we will wake up the next morning feeling like crap. It will not do anything for our spirit and it will not help us to grow. What you receive from a church is not going to help you in your life and not going to change you, you change yourself once you discover God who was with you since before the world was created.
The temple was not an idea of Jesus because it is a part of the old covenant. Paul preached that God didn’t inhabit buildings made by men. He can visit there but He does not dwell within the temple, He dwells inside of us (His church). God does not need a temple to dwell on earth, He needs us to open ourselves for Him to inhabit our beings and our bodies to bring the world to Him.