The Evil Heart

Discovering the Evil Within

By Abraham Israel

The great truth which astonished the apostles in the Bible after they have received the Holy Spirit and His Baptism on Pentecost was the self-disclosure that He brought out about themselves, which was too ugly to look at (John 20:21-23; Acts 2:1-4). To discover means ‘to notice or learn especially by making an effort, to learn about for the first time in one's experience’. Who is a true apostle or apostolic? It is the one who has discovered that they have the law of sin and death living in their soulish realm of mind, emotion and will, taking them captive to itself all the time without even letting them know it (Rom 7:23-24). The mind, emotion and will are directly connected to the members of the physical body as a software is connected to a hardware in a computer. Once the body system starts to work from the day we are born, the malicious software program sitting in the software of our soulish mind [i.e. flesh (Rom 7:17)] starts to control our thought, emotions and even our will over a period of time.

Believer where are you?

Of course as Jesus has promised the apostolic believers before crucifixion, the Holy Spirit came in them [Note: Not upon them till the day of Pentecost but in a continuous sense of being within them (John 14:17)] when Jesus breathed on them, the awesome Holy Spirit started to work the work which Jesus described as conviction, guidance and declaration of truth which is the voice of Jesus from Heaven (John 16:7-11, 13-15; Heb 12:24-25). The Holy Spirit’s work of conviction is done in three areas of a believer’s life who live their life as an over comer by faith (1 John 5:4-5). Whenever a believer sins, the Holy Spirit will convict the believer of sin and then will immediately point to the fulfillment of his imputed righteousness by Jesus who has done it for him as a substitute before God and then if he accepts it, He will immediately point out that Satan and all his demonic angels who have made him to sin are all defeated already and have been judged by the Lord Jesus on the Cross, and are therefore powerless to control him by keeping him in bondage to its whims and fancies (Rom 4:5-6; Col 2:15). The Holy Spirit will act in a two dimensional way to a defeated believer who keeps falling in to sin, He will convict him of sin and then will immediately point out to the righteousness of Christ fulfilled on the Cross for him, at this point of time when that believer says sorry and doesn’t look for victory he will again fall in to sin and the same process repeated.

But to the unbeliever he will just convict him of sin and will go no further because of him rejecting or not understanding the “one sacrifice for sins forever” (Heb 10:12) which can only be acceptable to God, or for still taking time to accept the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ because of living in religious mode of works based salvation. This process of conviction of sin, righteousness and judgment is being done by the Holy Spirit right from the day Jesus breathed upon his disciples and then on to the whole world like them. When the Holy Spirit was received in the apostles through the impartation Jesus did by blowing or breathing upon them, literally Jesus said to them in John 20:23, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." Can such a great thing as the authority to forgive sins be given in to the hands of mortal, sinful and judgmental men as them? Yes, indeed because of the Holy Spirit’s presence in and with them. The Holy Spirit continuously from that point of time began to guide them in to all the truth of the same life that Jesus lived while he lived in His flesh body on the earth. The lesson is, God is willing to give mortal man the authority to forgive sins through spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ because of the perpetual presence of the Holy Spirit within them from the day they become saved.

When Jesus was in the flesh even though He had all authority to judge any sinner because of Him being the only sinless person to live on earth, He did not judge and condemn the woman taken in adultery. Instead, Jesus said to her, “… Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more." (John 8:11). This is the art of being non-judgmental in ones thinking process. First of all Jesus did not condemn this woman taken in adultery because in His own words Jesus said that the very mission of Him coming in to this world is for it to be saved through Him (John 3:17). In other words, this very woman was saved in a moment of time when she recognized Him as the Lord of her life (John 8:11). Then Jesus said to her “….go and sin no more”. After she got saved Jesus did not demand a sinless perfection from her but He said to her to trust in Him to overcome her sinful desires of evil which dwells within, which also made her to sin by committing adultery. The other reason Jesus said to her “….go and sin no more” is because he gave her the power to overcome her innate sinful nature in the future. The sinful inclination in her sinful soulish nature which led her to commit adultery was completely made powerless as she had already believed Jesus as the Lord of her life and got saved (Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 12:3). This is just a typological story which Apostle John used in order to emphasize what happens in the life of all the believers. We are all born with a adulterous and inborn nature within us which makes us to sin and go away from the God who loves us. But when Satan the “accuser of brethren” (Rev 12:10) accused us before God, God did not condemn us immediately to death which we rightfully deserve according to the law (Rom 6:23). But He instead condemned Jesus in our place and through Jesus declared us to be free of death (2 Cor 5:21). God has rejected all our religious imperfect works of the flesh which we had done in the past to please Him with our own strength because it is of no real spiritual value to Him than a ragged cloth to cover the nakedness of a man (Isaiah 64:6). Because of God declaring Jesus as our substitute righteousness before Him in His sight, we who have believed Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior have become as righteous as God is, and all the works we do in the name of Jesus for God from the day we were saved by Jesus, are perfectly accepted by God and will be rewarded in due time. Each day’s work done for God in Jesus’ Name, from the time we have received Jesus as our Lord in our life to the day we will die and go to heaven will be scrutinized by fire of God in the day of the reward Judgment for all believers, in it we will be rewarded but all believers will be saved from eternal destruction even if they lose all their reward for careless living (1 Cor 1:30; 3:13-15; Col 3:23-24). God will reward us because he is already pleased with us that we believe in Jesus as our righteousness and walk daily in the confident consciousness of what he has already said about us in Jesus Christ.

True Apostolicity

The moment the woman encountered the truth of Jesus she was set free from sin (John 8:32, 36). We as one among humans who have the sin nature within us, we cannot say to another person “go and sin no more”. This is the reason Apostle Paul said to the apostolic believers, “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.” (Gal 6:1).

A good apostolic believer will never judge another believer or unbeliever when he is overtaken in any trespass of any kind and condemn him because he knows that he himself is susceptible to the same sin if not for the grace of God. To judge here means 'To censure rashly; to pass severe sentence, to form a opinion about someone especially in a bad way, to kill some one's character with our bad opinion and words that we express about them based on their outward behavior that we have seen or heard.' For us to form an opinion based on what we have seen outwardly and heard about a person might not be always correct, because there is a motive behind an action that finally can decide whether someone is right or wrong. The reason God always judges rightly is because he weighs the motives first and then he gives reward for the behavior of any humans (Prov 24:12; 21:2). Motives are nothing but the immovable thought sitting in the mind of a person which influences his actions. This is why the Lord sees the thoughts which influence a man's action first, before deciding whether an action is right or not (1 Sam 16:7). Because only the Lord can know the thoughts of any man, only His judgment can always be right in the entire universe (Ps 94:11; 19:9). This is why when God rewards any man it is not just for his actions that he does it, but also for the motives behind the actions (Job 34:11). This is the reason prophetically the Scripture spoke about Jesus nearly 750 years before He came to this earth saying, "...He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, Nor decide by the hearing of His ears; 4 But with righteousness He shall judge the poor..." (Isaiah 11:3-4). If Jesus who knew the thoughts of men while He was on earth, chose not to judge a person caught in the act of sinning but showed mercy judging by the sight of His spirit, how much more we should act who do not know the thoughts of people (Matt 9:4; 12:25; Luke 5:22; 6:8; 11:17; John 8:10-11). For example, if a person has lied to you and you come to know about it, do not confront him saying 'you are a liar but rather tell him that he has lied and that he should not do it again.' This is the difference between judging a person and correcting him without judging him (Matt 18:15-17).

This is the true apostolicity of the apostolic believers that Jesus is raising up in our generation. Don’t keep searching to find what is mean by this strange word ‘apostolicity’. Apostolicity simply means, ‘being of or contemporary with the Apostles in character.’ The art of being non-judgmental is to know that as a human we are as susceptible to fall in to any sin of the worst kind as like any other person who has already fallen in to it. This is where we can only say loudly, 'If not for the grace of God...I will powerlessly fall in to any sin or would have done any sin imaginable to human mind like any other person who have already sinned or will sin in the future' (Titus 2:11-14).

If we check in to the life of the Apostles they all confessed that they were all fallible men with sin nature like any of the other humans present in this earth. Hear what the apostles said about themselves.

Paul the leading apostle to gentile world said to the people who wanted to deify him and his fellow apostle Barnabas seeing the miracles they did, “….We also are men with the same nature as you” (Acts 14:15, b). In other words he was saying to them, we are as much fallible to sin as you are when tempted by the sin nature.

Peter the leading apostle to the Jewish world who even boasted to Jesus that he will not fall in to the sin of deserting Jesus before men by denying Him, learnt the great lesson of the fallibility of his inherent sinful nature within him even before the crucifixion of Jesus (Luke 22:31-34). Peter learnt the hard way that it is not within his ability to overcome sin (Luke 22:54-62). Jesus even revealed to Peter that the strength to keep his faith intact from failing or falling away like Judas or any other person is based on the faithful prayer that Jesus had prayed for him (Luke 22:31-32). Jesus after His resurrection touched upon his old fleshly confidence and checked Peter after his blunt failure before crucifixion, when He asked him three times, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” (John 21:15). In fact, Jesus didn’t do this to humiliate Peter and remind him that he was a failure who has failed him three times just as He told him. But He did this to make Peter to understand that his soulish strength can never make him a winner. He wanted Peter to depend on God’s grace to make him a spiritual success story in his future. If Peter had not repented of his dependence on his inherent fragile soulish strength to stay strong spiritually during temptation, he would have said with that old sarcastic confidence in his own strength, ‘Lord, even if others fail to love you, I will still love you’ (Matt 26:33, 35). But this time because of true repentance in the heart of Peter, he said to Jesus, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love you”. This way he answered to Jesus two times and the third time he even took that “Yes, Lord” out of his vocabulary and just said “Lord, You know all things; you know that I love you.” (v 17). This is the place where God wants all the apostolic believers to stay at, to be effective in their service for Him even as Apostle Peter was in his later life. In other words after realizing that Jesus was expecting even the smallest root of self-confidence in his flesh to be rooted out of his thinking system, finally he came to the point where he plainly told, ‘Lord, You know how fallible I am with my sinful nature within me, but you also know that in my inner spirit how I truly love you.’

Later because of the constant convicting work of the Holy Spirit in the life of Apostle Peter, he came to the point where he immediately confessed to the multitudes watching him in amazement after he worked out a miracle of healing by the power of God, saying, “...Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?” (Acts 3:12). In other words Apostle Peter was openly declaring that the miracle was not the product of his human work or strength and is also saying that it was not because of his so called spirituality and godliness that caused God to do this great miracle of healing (Acts 4:22; 1 Cor 12:10). What does it show? It shows that Peter has grown humble enough to acknowledge that he cannot please God by his own strength.

He even came still lower when a godly Roman professional army officer directed by an angel in a vision fell at the feet of Peter to worship him, “Peter lifted him up, saying, "Stand up; I myself am also a man."” (Acts 10:26). What does Peter say here, he is saying, ‘I am also a sinful and a fallible human like you’. Humility, humility and more humility was the reason Apostle Peter was used as an apostolic rock powerfully later in his life. Apostle James even implicitly told that the Old Testament prophets too were like one among us with a sinful soulish nature when he said, “Elijah was a man with a [sinful] nature like ours…” (James 5:17, a). The writer of the book of Hebrews has also said that the Old Testament priests were directed by God to offer up sacrifices daily for their own sins first and then for the sins of the people because of the sinful nature present within them (Heb 7:27-28). Sinful nature means that a particular person is powerless to overcome sinful tendencies and has the evil nature within him which makes him to fall in to sin all the time knowingly or unknowingly (Lev 4:22-24; 5:15; 6:7; Rom 7:19). The first appointed High Priest Aaron was as inclined to sin as like any one of us, but because of the grace of God he was kept holy by faith in God’s keeping power (Heb 7:11). When we say such truth the so called Christian church which has deified these prophets and apostles will immediately say that such things are heresies. But always when the truth has been hidden for a long period of time, when it is revealed it is usually seen as a heresy to that present generation. But to the next generation it becomes a mighty move of God in history. The truth is when we realize and confess our inability to walk with God or please Him with our own strength, we are treading in to the miraculous and mysterious godliness of true Spirituality (1 Tim 3:16).

Jesus first called Apostle Peter with his real Hebrew origin name ‘Simon’ which means ‘reed’, the unregenerated character of Peter which had no spiritual strength to stand but bends itself in whatever direction the wind of opportunity blows, and then named him ‘Cephas’ which is of Chaldee origin when translated in Greek means ‘A Stone’ thus indicating clearly that in the future after the regeneration of the Holy Spirit he will become strong in his spiritual character like a rock or a stone (John 1:42). This is what had happened to him later, he truly became the apostolic rock of character spiritually by the wonderful transformational work of the Holy Spirit. This shows us that when God calls us in to his kingdom, he understands our weakness but sees the potential of His character in us as our real character. When we confess to God while struggling with sinful tendencies like Apostle Paul saying, "19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. 20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good." (Rom 7:19-21). Father God will say, ‘See the evil nature of the flesh my son is struggling with, but also see he is beginning to learn and understand to draw my supernatural heavenly power released through my Son from my right hand, where I have positioned him in his spirit.’ (Rom 7:24-25; Eph 1:17-21; 2:6-7). Praise the Lord!

Be Wise to Know Yourself First

A true apostolic will always understand that the greatest evil that can deceive him in to wickedness does not from come from the outside world but lies within. The faith-patriarch C.H. Spurgeon who is considered as the “the prince of all preachers” told this astonishing yet down to the earth quote, “Beware of no man than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us”. How wise we will become if only we will realize this wonderful truth in our lives and live according to it. Even now as you read this, say to the Lord, “Master Jesus, open my spiritual eyes and help me to understand my own evil heart before I try to judge or understand other people’s life.”

The Bible says, “9 The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? 10 I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings." (Jer 17:9-10; NKJV). The heart is the factory that produces all our thoughts.

The rational cause or instigator of anything related to the intellect which causes feelings and the feelings which influences our will to choose the right thing or wrong thing is known as our heart. It is the seat of our intellect or imagination which makes us who we are over a period of time. The effectiveness of this thought producing factory the Bible speaks about in Proverbs chapter 23 verse 7 saying, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” What kind of thought material you accept or reject will make you who you are over a period of time. The Lord who constantly watches what goes on in the thought producing factory of our heart, will only reward us when the thought material and its preceding actions are from Him and for Him. God-thought produces godly actions. Evil-thought produces evil actions. When all we do is broodingly dwell and fantasize in  evil thoughts of jealousy, covetousness, pride, sex, violence and pornographic images of perversion habitually, the resulting action of wickedness will soon be found out by others over a period of time. God-thought conceives God-materials which will start to live and take root in us over a period of time. Wicked thoughts of evil only conceive satanic-material which will start to live and take root in us over a period of time. Jesus clearly describes how the output of this thought factory would be without God involved in giving you the direction and thought material to produce the castle of your thought life in Mark 7:20-23 saying, "20 ..., “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”" (Mark 7:20-23, NKJV). This is the natural state of every man living in this planet earth. What I am telling includes believers, unbelievers, learned, unlearned, godly, ungodly....etc.

But for the believer the apostolic secret of an overcoming life has been gloriously revealed by Apostle Paul in a 2 stage process to be applied in real life situation. In the first stage he says, "14 ... put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts" (Rom 13:14). In other words Apostle Paul is saying, 'Do not supply evil thought in the supply line of your thought factory instead reject it in the Name of Jesus, or else the evil thought material supplied in to the thought factory will surely bring an output of evil actions which will force itself upon you at the output point.' Some people say I will play fetish in my thought life for relieving my sexual desire and fantasy fulfillment which is nothing but imagination unrestricted by reality. In other words, these people who say I will play only with my imagination which they think is not a serious sin, when they are supplied the privacy and environment to fulfill it they will be the first to dabble in to the actual sin to fulfill it. This is why Jesus said imagining something in one’s mind lustfully to get a thrill or intentionally thinking a sexually lustful thought to create an emotional satisfaction from it willingly is as much as like doing something in reality (Matt 5:21-22, 27-28). A person who fantasizes over anything will fall in to it or fulfill it within a period time. It is only matter of time before he fulfills in reality. Today's media is promoting every single program to gratify such fleshy thinking and people who gulp everything and expect a different godly result in their actions are making a fool of themselves and their children. This is why the Bible clearly says, "Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts." (Prov 4:23, GNB). In other words, be careful with what you feed your mind with, the actions of your future life will be entirely dependent on the thoughts you are now feeding your mind with.

In the second stage Apostle Paul says, “16 Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish." (Gal 5:16-17). What we naturally wish to do without thinking about what the word of God says about a particular matter is known as the "lust of the flesh". If we do not do the things that we wish to do by asking the help of the Spirit of God to empower us as an over comer by our own choice, this is what is known as "walk[ing] in the Spirit". We are walking yet not we but by the empowering grace of Jesus Christ which comes to us at the moment of our temptation through the Spirit of God, hence we remain in the victorious state of an over comer by our faith (2 Cor 13:14). The Spirit of God will always supply thoughts which are contrary to the soulish natural fleshly thoughts. The fleshly thoughts are always earthly, sensual and demonic at the end of the tunnel (James 3:15). You might not recognize it at first when your thinking pattern enjoys the earthly and worldly thoughts, but at the end the actions and emptiness that comes out of it will sting you like a serpent. These thoughts supplied in to our thought factory by the soulish flesh will always be contrary to the Spiritual thoughts of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God will give thoughts only based on the word of God and will never cross the boundary of the word of God (Eph 6:17). The soulish heart which in the natural is supplied with the thoughts of the demonic spirit world will always supply thoughts that are not in line with the word of God but in opposition to it (John 8:44; 2 Cor 4:4). The result of acting with the soulish heart always produces only death – dead thoughts, feelings, habits, spiritual practices, relationships…etc. So the believer must learn to feed his spirit-man with the life giving word of God which always produces resurrection life of God. After this by eventually praying in the Holy Spirit we must be able to recognize the thoughts of the Holy Spirit, after which we should consciously take it in to our soul and intentionally make ourselves think about it over and over (Col 3:16; Jude 20; James 3:17-18; 1:21; Phil 4:8; Heb 4:12; 5:14). The result of such walking in the Spirit will be "22...love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control." (Gal 5:22-23). These are heavenly Holy Spirit supplied products received at the output line of our thought factory in feelings and actions. It can be perpetually enjoyed on our pilgrimage on earth if we willingly continue to supply the Spirit’s heavenly thought materials at the input assembly line of our soulish heart. O what a privilege, Praise the Lord!!!

Does God know me really?

Yes God foreknew that even though you were saved from sin, you will sin as long as you will die because of living in a body which operates naturally by the soulish sinful flesh (Rom 7:18-20, 23-24; Acts 15:18). He knows that you can’t live in sinless perfection until you die so only He has sacrificed Himself as a “one sacrifice [for all of God the Father’s requirements for the perfection that He demands (Col 2:14)] for sins forever” (Heb 10:12). He knows even before you received Jesus Christ that you have got a sick and hopelessly irreparable sinful heart of flesh (Jer 17:9). He knows that he has bought a damaged and constantly deteriorating product of sinful humans who are not totally compatible in the natural with his divine program (Isaiah 55:8-9; Gen 8:21; 1 Cor 6:20). This is the reason Apostle Peter clearly agreeing with the grace theology of Apostle Paul said, “…consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation--as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you “ (2 Peter 3:15). John the Apostle has also clearly written the grace theology saying, “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” (1 John 2:1). John the Apostle knew that we as spiritual children taking the baby food of the milk of the word will be having much problems with sins, so he wanted us to really understand that Jesus takes care of the sins that we do by cleansing it through his blood once we confess to Him (1 John 1:9; 1 Peter 2:2). Apostle John also knew that it will take much time and struggle to grow spiritually as a young man and then a father (1 John 2:13-14). He didn’t want any believer to feel so guilty and self-condemned to run far away from a loving and merciful God (1 John 3:20), so he wrote the way to be over comer is through believing the simple promises of God which says “…He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins [whatever it may be] and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness [i.e. means to forget all our sins again as though we have never done it at all (Ps 103:12)]” (1 John 5:4; 1:9).

God has not bought the bad products of sinful humanity in order to try and repair it as much as possible. He has bought us in order to infuse His very own life in us and thus make us a brand “new creation” in Christ Jesus (1 John 5:12; 2 Cor 5:17). God sees us in the perfection of Jesus from the day we have received Jesus as our Lord and Savior of our life (Col 3:3). According to God all your old baggage of sinful nature and its control have been made to die in Christ on the Cross, as a result of this new spiritual position He says to you that all your “old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor 5:17). You have not done anything to gain this high position with which God sees you. He sees you that way because it is He who has positioned you perfectly holy and righteous in your spirit before Himself (2 Cor 5:18; Eph 4:24; 1 Cor 1:30).

This is the wonder of the New Testament Christianity. We do nothing but believe and gain everything that God has for our lives (John 6:28-29, 39-40). For example, it is like the world’s richest man saying to his son, ‘My son, all I have belong to you, believe what I say, live and enjoy every day of your life on earth. Never forget even for a moment that I am with you to provide you all that you need anytime and anywhere (Rom 8:31-32; Phil 4:19).’ In the Old Testament people were taught, ‘Do, do and keep doing perfectly all the commandments of God that you hear without breaking even one intentionally, you will be blessed or else you will be cursed’ (Deut 11:26-28). In the New Testament we are promised by God that we are already blessed with all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ and that all His promises are yes and amen as much as we believe (Eph 1:3; 2 Cor 1:20). It is like a king who told his servant that as much as he walks and covers will belong to him, this is the same type of belief that God encouraged faith warriors like Joshua even in the Old Testament times (Joshua 1:3). These men of faith like Joshua and Caleb lived as a model of New Testament faith even during the Old Testament times (Num 14:6-9, 24, 30). They all as God’s faithful servants obtained a good testimony through their faith, but did not receive the promise of the Spirit of God to regenerate their spirit-man with God’s perfect righteousness and thus live with God as his own sons and daughters on earth itself (Heb 11:30, 33-34, 39-40; Titus 3:4-7; Gal 3:13-14). O what a privilege God has given us as a New Testament believer to live His God-life on earth!

To give a hypothetical example, I would equate a believer with an old Car in the natural. Say God has bought the old car (1 Cor 6:20). Usually people will try to repair an old car when they buy it that way. But not with God, he leaves the old engine and puts a new hi-tech engine named as “new creation” inside it (2 Cor 5:17). This “new creation” is the new spiritual nature of God Himself which has been put in to us once we were bought by Him (1 Cor 6:20; Eph 4:24). Along with the new engine an instructor, guide and driver has been placed in us who is the Holy Spirit of God (1 Cor 6:19; John 16:13). Say, we as a car have usually driven with the old engine only, which is faulty and runs imperfectly. This old engine along with the outer body of the car can be directly equated to the inherent fleshly sinful old nature which controls us (Rom 7:17, 24-25). Now we will bring the latest 21’st century technology inside the car. Say the new owner who has fit the new hi-tech engine and have put a driver inside the car to guide it has also given a choice to the car itself by placing artificial intelligence storage inside it. In the artificial intelligence program, say the car is given the option to choose to run with the new hi-tech engine guided and empowered by the new instructor or run itself in its inefficient old-engine. Say also because of the so called artificial intelligence the owner expects the car to train and reprogram itself by its own choice to run with the new hi-tech engine which is purely solar powered environmental friendly choice.

In the same way, God has put the new creation of the spirit inside us with the Holy Spirit as the instructor to guide us with the power of the new engine. The Apostle Paul advices us to spiritually reprogram and train ourselves to choose to put off the old smoke producing and environmentally destructive engine of our soulish old nature and operate in the new hi-tech solar powered engine of the born again spirit-man consistently by saying, “22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Eph 4:22-24). Because we are fitted with the new engine and an instructor who runs it, we will be nudged and challenged constantly by the instructor to run with the new (John 16:8-11), but the choice he has given to the intelligent believer who is like that car we have seen, either to choose to operate in the old engine of our sinful nature or in the efficient engine of our new nature of God inside us (1 John 3:9, 6, 3; 1 Peter 1:15-16). This can be done only as we like the artificial intelligent car begin to gather new data’s of benefits and efficiency about the new engine and start to choose the new over the old as the software gets itself updated. This artificial intelligence software updating and choice of operation in to the new is what Apostle Paul spiritually says as, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Rom 12:2). In other words Paul advises to reprogram our software which is our mind in order for the hardware of our body to work in line with the new hi-tech engine of new creation in our spirit-man which God has fitted in us when we were born-again (2 Cor 5:17; John 3:3, 8). Once we choose the new engine to run by reprogramming and updating our software code, the instructor of our new life in Christ who is the Holy Spirit will take-over the entire operation and will begin to drive the new hi-tech engine of the “new creation” without any of our own effort (Col 3:9-10; Gal 5:16, 22-23; Zech 4:6). If we try to work with the old engine of our flesh, the new driver and instructor who operates only with the new engine will become silent and will only watch as a spectator (Gal 5:17). But whenever we choose to operate the new hi-tech smoke-free environmentally new healthy engine of the “new creation” spirit-man, the old fleshly soulish-man will not operate or affect the car of our life and its travelers (Gal 5:18-21; 2 Cor 5:17). Praise the Lord!

Say the car owner says, the car which operates consistently with only the old by willful choice of its own intelligence will finally be thrown in to recycling fire in the car crushing factory after a period of time. This is perfectly acceptable and right, because the car has not adopted itself to run in the design with which it was refitted, so also with the people who will consistently and habitually operate in the old nature rejecting totally the covenant of our Lord Jesus Christ through which they are redeemed from the sinful self of old (1 Cor 6:9-11; Heb 10:29; 2 Peter 2:20-22; 1 John 2:19).

The things that we can learn from the above expositions are,

1) Know yourself first – There is a sin nature that lives in you which can make you fall in to any sin, any time and any place, if not for the grace of God (Rom 7:17). Always learn to confess to God, “Dear Lord, nothing good dwells within me except the goodness of your Spirit that makes me who I am. Without you I can do nothing good of any eternal value in my life. So thank you Lord for your goodness in my life and keep me humble enough to receive your grace constantly in my life and as a result of it prosper in every area of my life.” (Rom 7:18; Ps 16:2; Neh 9:20; John 15:5; James 4:6-7).

2) Never ever judge others – When we start to judge others, we must remind ourselves that we have first forgotten of how vile a sinner we are in the first place. Always a religious mindset that justifies oneself can be the one to easily judge others. The mindset that justifies its own works and judges others faults is a hypocritical, prideful and a pharisaical self-deceived abomination before the eyes of God (Luke 18:9-14; 10:29; 16:15). This is the reason Jesus said, “1 “Do not judge others [but first judge the hopelessly sinful state of yourself first (Prov 20:9; Eccl 7:20)]. Then you will not be judged [because of judging yourself first (1 Cor 11:31)]. 2 You will be judged [by God] in the same way you judge others. You will be measured [by God] in the same way you measure others. 3 “You look at the bit of [sinful faults and weaknesses in the size of] sawdust in your friend's eye. But you pay no attention to the piece of [sinful nature in the size of] wood in your own eye. 4 How can you say to your friend, 'Let me take the bit of [sinful faults and weaknesses in the size of] sawdust out of your eye'? How can you say this while there is a piece of [sinful nature in the size of] wood in your own eye? 5 “You pretender! First take the piece of [sinful nature in the size of] wood out of your own eye. Then you will be able to see clearly to take the bit of [sinful faults and weaknesses in the size of] sawdust out of your friend's eye." (Mat 7:1-5, NIrV).

3) Always learn to acknowledge to God your true perpetual helpless condition in the midst of your triumphs and thank God for the strength of His grace through which He gives you the victory (Rom 7:24-25) – The Bible clearly says that "The LORD is constantly watching everyone [around the whole earth], and he gives strength [to achieve supernatural success in the natural realm] to those who faithfully obey him..." (2 Chron 16:9, CEV). When we do what we are commanded by God to do, He supernaturally works through us. Once the supernatural power of God gets displayed through us and achieves great success in the natural realm, at that point of time God expects us to humble ourselves and say to Him, “….We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do. “(Luke 17:10). In this way we can really be balanced in our spiritual life without getting tripped over by pride. Once pride comes in to us, God immediately stops giving us His supernatural grace to achieve success. From that moment God also starts to resist our activity unless we again acknowledge our helplessness and humble ourselves before him (James 4:6-7; Isaiah 63:10).

4) God knows you more than your know yourself – God is not surprised by your faults and weaknesses because even before you were born He knew that you will be a fallen sinful being and that He had to send his Son to die and pay for all your past, present and future sins in order to snatch you from your self-destructive sinful ways (Acts 15:18; Rom 7:24-25). Once Jesus achieved justification for your life before God, he said “Paid in full” (John 19:30). To ‘justify’ means ‘to be declared sinless and devoid of any wrong doing’. In other words, once we are justified by our faith in Christ Jesus, God sees us as if we have never sinned at all (Luke 18:14; Rom 5:1; Rom 8:30; Col 3:3). We become as righteous as God is, once we have received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior (Rom 10:9; 2 Cor 5:21). From this point of time, because He knows all about your sinful weaknesses and the perverse ways your natural heart tries to deceive you, He chooses to suffer long when you fall in to sinful thoughts, actions and habits, and He expects you to humbly ask His help to overcome it by His supernatural power (James 4:6-10; 2 Peter 3:15; Luke 11:13). God suffers when we sin, yet His anger for all our sins He has appeased already by sending Jesus the one and only perfect sinless man ever to be born as a baby, who also grew and became as a man one among us on earth and then died for all our sins once and for all time (Acts 2:22-24; 17:31; Isaiah 53:6, 8-10; Heb 10:12). Because God loves us as much as His only begotten Son (John 17:23), he hates sin that makes us to be separated from Him (Isaiah 59:1-2). Because sin destroys man and deceives him to run away from God and his goodness, He wants us to eradicate it by our choice and His power (Rom 6:23, 12-14; Is 40:29; 2 Cor 10:3-6). In other words, God hates sin but loves sinners like us and this truth Apostle Peter calls as the real salvation of grace which he also says Apostle Paul spoke about (2 Peter 3:15). As a result of loving us, he has covered all our sins and have cleansed us from all our sins (Prov 10:12; Col 2:13; 1 John 1:7). He has extended His hands of friendship and have adopted us as His very own children, as a result of it He has forgiven all our sins once forever through Jesus Christ (John 15:15; Rom 8:14; Eph 1:5-7). Now we are sealed by God and has been given the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of His sonship on earth, even until we receive the glorious celestial Spirit directed body on the day of rapture very soon (2 Cor 1:21-22; Eph 1:13-14). Praise the Lord!

5) Train yourself to consistently walk by the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit – The new creation of the spirit-man inside us which was mercifully regenerated and born anew grows in to maturity only as we feed it constantly with the word of God and by exercising it through praying in the Spirit (Titus 3:5; John 3:3, 5-6; 1 Peter 2:2-3; Eph 6:17-18; Jude 20). Once we start to grow mature in our spirit-man, we will be able to hear the voice of the Spirit clearly in our soul (1 John 3:24; Rom 8:16-17). As we hear the voice of the Holy Spirit and consistently obey His direction, we will receive the power of God to overcome all the evil tendencies that brings us in to sinful bondages (Rom 13:14; Gal 5:16). The Bible says, “4 ...Do you not know that being the world's friend is being God's enemy? So whoever chooses to be a friend of the world takes his stand as an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose that the Scripture is speaking to no purpose that says, The Spirit Whom He has caused to dwell in us yearns over us and He yearns for the Spirit [to be welcome] with a jealous love? 6 But He gives us more and more grace [which is the] (power of the Holy Spirit, to meet this evil tendency and all others fully). That is why He says, God sets Himself against the proud and haughty [who choose to be friend of the world by walking in their fleshly soulish desires], but gives grace [continually] to the lowly (those who are humble enough to [obey the voice of the Holy Spirit and eventually] receive it).” (James 4:4-6, AMP). I would like to finish this article with the quote of the mighty faith-patriarch C. H. Spurgeon who said, “Christian, here is your practical lesson: Fight with your sins! Hack them in pieces, as Samuel did Agag. Let not one of them escape. Take them as Elijah took the prophets of Baal--hew them in pieces before the Lord. Revenge the death of Christ on your sins, but keep to Christ's cross for power to do it." If only you will fight with sin, sickness and death in all areas of your life by the empowerment, guidance and character of the Holy Spirit, all the cursed things of sins wages which is destroying all humans in the natural God-given blessed life will be ripped in to pieces and made powerless by your exemplary kingdom lifestyle in your life and also in the life of many others through your life. Praise the Lord!!!

Share:

Previous Posts