It was for the salvation of our souls and the rebirth of our spirits that Christ came the first time. It will be for the redemption of our bodies that Christ comes the second time. Christ’s first coming resulted in our spiritual resurrection; His second coming will result in our physical resurrection. Until Christ returns and the resurrection occurs, how are we to live? According to the Apostle Paul, we are to “seek” and “set [our] affection on things above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God...not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:1-4). In other words, until Christ “shall appear” and we “shall...appear with him in glory,” our heads are not to be turned by the things of the world but tilted upward toward Christ. Christ is to be zeroed in on and the world zoned out!
To live our lives gazing at Christ and only glancing at the world requires a radical reprogramming of our minds. No longer can we live as we have always lived, by what our fallen minds make of the faulty information we receive from our fallen world through the five senses of our fallen bodies. Instead, we must now live in a brand new way, by what our King speaks from His throne to our hearts through the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit who lives within us.
In Romans 12:2, the Apostle Paul admonishes us not to be “conformed to this world: but [to be] transformed by the renewing of [our] mind, that [we] may prove what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” The only way we will ever know “the good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” is to stop being “conformed to this world”—living like the rest of the world does—and to be “transformed by the renewing”—reprogramming—“of [our] mind.” As long as we live like the world lives; that is, by what our fallen minds make of the faulty information we receive from our fallen world through the five senses of our fallen bodies, we will never know or experience God’s will for our lives. However, God’s will for our lives can be known and experienced if we will reprogram our minds to start living by every word God’s Spirit speaks to our spirits.
Having never been taught the necessity of renewing their mind, most Christians today continue to live as they have always lived. They continue living by the wrong readouts, those their fallen minds receive from a fallen world through the five senses of their fallen bodies. This is, after all, the only way they know how to live. Though they are spiritually alive, thanks to the stupendous miracle of the second birth, they continue to live as though they were spiritually dead. Though they now possess the capacity to live in the Spirit—by every word Christ speaks to their spirit through the person of the Holy Spirit who lives within them—they continue to live in the flesh—by what their fallen minds make of the faulty information they receive from a fallen world through the fives senses of their fallen bodies.
The story is told of a lumberjack who comes to town to buy a new ax. The salesman at the hardware store suggest that he buy a chainsaw instead, assuring the lumberjack that he can cut down trees faster with a chainsaw than with an ax. The lumberjack believes the sales pitch, buys the chainsaw and takes back off to the woods. Several days later he returns to the store demanding his money back. When the salesman inquires why, the lumberjack complains that it takes a whole day to cut down one tree with the chainsaw. The salesman, baffled by the lumberjack’s complaint, removes the chainsaw from the case, looks it over carefully and starts it. The moment it starts, the lumberjack cries out, “What’s that racket?”
Though his new chainsaw enabled him to cut down more trees than he ever dreamed possible, the lumberjack’s ignorance of how to use it resulted in his work becoming more difficult and less productive. Though our new spiritual life in Christ enables us to live a life we never dreamed possible, ignorance about how to live it is the culprit behind the spiritual difficulties and defeat of most Christians today. When God speaks to the hearts of today’s Christians, the majority respond by crying out, “What’s that racket?” Ignorant of their ability to hear God, and consequently undiscerning of the divine voice, they continue living by what their senses suggest to their head rather than by what God’s Spirit speaks to their heart.
In Philippians 2:5, the Apostle Paul writes, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” As Christians we are to think the same way Christ did. How did Christ think? In John 5:30, Jesus said, “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which sent me.” Notice, Jesus judged things according to what He heard. He lived His whole earthly life by every word He heard the Father speaking to Him. He did not live His earthly life by the way everything in this fallen world appeared to Him through the five senses of His mortal body. In fact, Jesus condemned the people of His day for judging by appearances (John 7:24).
Although Jesus was God, He did not live His life on this earth as God. Instead, He lived His life on this earth as a man. This explains how He could say, “I can of mine own self do nothing.” Why would Christ limit Himself to living as a man during His earthly sojourn? This question’s threefold answer provides us with a trio of indispensable truths. First, Christ could not have died for the sins of all men had He not first lived a sinless life as a man. Only by living a sinless life as a man could Christ become man’s sin substitute on the cross of Calvary (Hebrews 2:9-18). Second, Christ had to live as a man in order to be able to sympathize with us and intercede for us as our great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14-15; 7:25). Finally, Christ had to limit Himself to living as a man during His earthly sojourn so that He could set the perfect example of how every man should live. This is why the Apostle John called Christ “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9). Jesus Christ is “the true Light” who has brought to light the way God intends for “every man that cometh into the world” to live. The Apostle Peter echoed the Apostle John by teaching that Christ left the perfect “example” for us to “follow” and emulate (1 Peter 2:21).
How did Christ live? He lived His whole life in response to the Father. He thought what the Father told Him to think (John 5:30). He did what the Father told Him to do (John 5:19). And He said what the Father told Him to say (John 12:49). Christ lived His earthly life by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of the Father.
How are we to live? We are to live our lives as Christ lived His. Just as Christ lived His life in response to the Father, we are to live our lives in response to Christ. We are to think what Christ tells us to think. We are to do what Christ tells us to do. And we are to say what Christ tells us to say. We are to live our lives by every word Christ speaks to our hearts through the person of the Holy Spirit who lives within us. When we do, we will be living in the Spirit.
In John 6:63, Jesus said, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” When it comes to our spiritual lives, Jesus taught that “the spirit” quickens us or makes us alive, while “the flesh”—what our fallen minds make of the faulty information we receive from our fallen world through the five senses of our fallen bodies—“profiteth nothing.” To live spiritually as God intends us to, you and I must live our lives hearing and doing everything Christ speaks to our spirits through the person of the Holy Spirit. This explains why Jesus said that “the words” He speaks to us “are spirit” and “life.” Living our lives by what the Spirit dictates to our hearts is all it takes for us to live in the Spirit.
Many Christians, perhaps most, will take exception to this teaching, insisting that God no longer speaks directly to us today, but only indirectly. According to them, we speak to God through prayer and God speaks to us through the Bible, others, and circumstances. If this is true, then what kind of a relationship can we ever hope to have with God in this life?
Let’s suppose that your spouse would only communicate with you indirectly; through a love letter he/she wrote to someone else a long time ago, through other people or third parties, and occasionally through circumstances, within which he/she left you certain signs to figure out for yourself. What kind of marriage could you possibly hope for under these terms? Obviously, you would have no hope at all for a successful marriage. Likewise, you have no hope at all for a successful Christian life if these are the terms of your relationship with God.
There is absolutely no way that we can follow the example of Jesus in our spiritual lives if God doesn’t speak directly to us today. How can we live as Jesus did and as God intends us to—“by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”—if we can’t hear God? Contrary to popular opinion, God does speak directly to His children today, just as He did to His beloved Son two thousand years ago.
In John 16:5-7, Jesus told His disciples that it was better for us that He was going away. How could this possibly be true? How could Jesus going away be the best thing for us? According to Jesus, His going away was the best thing for us because it would result in Him sending “the Comforter” to us. Who is this “Comforter” that Jesus promised to send? He is none other than the Holy Spirit of God.
How is it better for us that Jesus left and the Holy Spirit came? Until the ascension of our Lord and the arrival of the Holy Spirit, Jesus lived among us, but not within us. During His earthly life Jesus was living in our world in His mortal body. If you wanted to be with Jesus you had to be wherever He was. However, now that He has ascended and the Holy Spirit arrived, Jesus no longer lives in our world in His mortal body, but in ours. He no longer lives among us, but now He lives within us! This is why the Apostle Paul calls us “the temple of God” and our bodies “the temple of the Holy Ghost” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:19). It is also why Paul teaches that we are “a habitation of God through the Spirit” and Christ’s “house” in the world today (Ephesians 2:22, Hebrews 3:6).
Now that Christ lives within us, we don’t have to be wherever He is, because He is always with us wherever we are. His present indwelling of us is far better than His past dwelling among us. Eternal and spiritual inseparability is better by far than temporal, physical proximity. This is exactly what Jesus was talking about when He said, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14:16-20).
It is through the indwelling Holy Spirit that God speaks directly to us today. According to Jesus, the Holy Spirit lives in our hearts to “teach [us] all things” and to “guide [us] into all truth” (John 14:26; 16:13). In 1 John 2:20, the Apostle John goes so far as to assert that we already “know all things,” thanks to the “unction” (Holy Spirit) that we have received “from the Holy One” (Jesus). We already have all the answers, since He who knows all things lives in our hearts in the person of the Holy Spirit. Our problem is found in the fact that our fallen minds are not programmed to receive all the answers coming from our hearts. Thus, the answers in our hearts have a hard time getting above our collarbones.
The Holy Spirit lives in our hearts to tell us everything we need to know to live the Christian life. This is why the Apostle John teaches that “the anointing [Holy Spirit] which we have received from him [Christ] abides in us, and we need not that any man teach us: but as the same anointing teaches us all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught us, we should abide in him” (1 John 2:27). What other teacher do we need than the Master Teacher Himself who “abides in us” in the person of the Holy Spirit? Whatever He teaches us we know we can “abide in,” because His teaching is always the “truth” and never a “lie.” Unlike the teaching of men, which can be wrong or false, the instruction of the Holy Spirit is always right and true. Therefore, the Spirit’s instruction is all we need to live a confident Christian life!
To begin living by spiritual directives rather than worldly deception, sensual desires and human deduction, requires a radical reprogramming of our minds. To begin with we must stop being “carnally minded” (Romans 8:5a, 6a). We must stop judging things by the way our fallen world portrays them, our fallen senses perceive them and our fallen minds understand them. Next, we must start being “spiritually minded” (Romans 8:5b, 6b). We must start agreeing with God’s assessment of things. “How,” you may ask, “can we know God’s judgment of things?” In 1 Corinthians 2:11-16, the Apostle Paul assures us that we can know God’s judgments since we are indwelt by God’s Spirit. According to Paul, no one knows the thoughts of a man, but “the spirit of man which is in him.” Likewise, no one knows the thoughts of God, “but the Spirit of God.” Nevertheless, having “received...the spirit which is of God,” you and I “have the mind of Christ”; that is, the capacity to know Christ’s thoughts.
Having “the mind of Christ” does not necessarily mean that all Christians live as Christ thinks they should. The tragic truth is, most Christians today have never brought “into captivity [their] every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Far from living their lives by the Spirit revealed thoughts of Christ, most Christians today continue to live by what their fallen minds make of the faulty information they receive from a fallen world through the five senses of their fallen bodies. Having failed to renew or reprogram their minds, they continue to live in conformity to the world and by the wrong readouts. As a result, they doom themselves to spiritual deception and defeat.
The Scripture is rife with examples of how living by the wrong readouts produces dire consequences in our lives. For instance, consider the tragic tale of Israel’s wilderness wanderings. After miraculously delivering them from slavery in Egypt and miraculously providing for them in the wilderness, God led Israel to the threshold of Canaan. Canaan was called the Promised Land, because God had promised it to Israel. According to the Apostle Paul, there are no ifs ands or buts in the promises of God (2 Corinthians 1:19- 20). Whatever God has promised us we can possess. Therefore, all Israel needed to do was go in and take possession of the land that God had promised them.
Before entering the land to take possession of it, Moses sent twelve Israelites to spy it out. Two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, returned from the land and rehearsed for the people what God had said. According to them, the land was good, just like God said it was. The land was theirs, since God had promised it to them. And the time had come to take possession of it; after all, wasn’t that what God had commanded them to do? The other ten spies, unlike Joshua and Caleb, did not repeat to the people what God had said, but reported to the people what they had seen. According to them, the land was filled with warring people, fortified cities and even giants. Consequently, they strongly advised against obeying God and entering the land. There was just no way that they could see for Israel to conquer the Canaanites and capture Canaan.
Unfortunately, Israel believed the evil report of the ten spies rather than the good report of the two. Subsequently, they refused to cross Jordan and enter into Canaan. As a result of their disbelief and disobedience, God swore in His wrath that that whole generation, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, would die in the wilderness and never enter into the Promised Land. For forty years that unbelieving generation wandered around aimlessly in the wilderness. Finally, they all died in their unbelief without ever stepping foot into the land that God had promised them.
In the wilderness, Israel wandered around in circles, unable to get anywhere. In forty years’ time they couldn’t make an eleven day journey (Deuteronomy 1:2-3). Also, they grew tired of the things of God in the wilderness. They got sick of the manna that fell from heaven and started craving the things they once enjoyed in Egypt—fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic (Numbers 11:4-6). It was of course never God’s intention for Israel to eat manna for forty years. God intended for His people to enjoy the fruit of the land (Numbers 13:23). It was Israel’s disbelief and disobedience that forced God to put them on a forty year manna diet.
Contrary to popular opinion, Canaan does not represent heaven; instead, it is an Old Testament picture of the spiritual life that Christ came to give us (see APPENDIX D: THE THREE CATEGORIES OF MEN). Israel did not have to wait to the hereafter to enter Canaan, but was commanded to take possession of it in the here and now. Likewise, we are not to wait till we get to heaven to experience and enjoy our spiritual life in Christ; we are to experience and enjoy it right here and now.
Our Canaan or Promised Land is not a geographical vicinity in the Middle East, but an abundant spiritual life that Jesus came to give us (John 10:10). To take possession of it, we must learn, as Israel did during forty years of wilderness wandering, “that man doeth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:3). The only way to enter, experience and enjoy all that God has promised us in Christ is for us to live our lives by every word our Lord speaks to our hearts through His Spirit who lives within us. Until this lesson is learned and applied to our lives, we have no hope of possessing God’s promises in this world.
Like unbelieving Israel and the ten evil reporting spies, most Christians today live their lives by what they see in lieu of what their Lord says. This explains why they spend their entire Christian lives wandering around in circles, never able to get anywhere spiritually. It also explains why so many Christians tire of the things of God and crave the things of the world. Failing to hear, believe and obey daily communiqués from Christ, most Christians today live their lives by what their fallen minds make of the faulty information they receive from a fallen world through the five senses of their fallen bodies. As a result, they, just like unbelieving Israel, doom themselves to a lifelong diet of manna in the wilderness, while the Promised Land, “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8), lays unexplored before them.
How about you? Are you riding a spiritual carousel? Have you been wondering why your Christian life seems to be going around in circles? No matter how hard you try you just can’t get anywhere spiritually. You believe and profess the promises of God, but can’t honestly say that you are possessing and experiencing them in your daily life. Do you seem to be tiring of heavenly things, while finding yourself tempted more and more to return to the things of the world? And how about that never-ending, nagging feeling that there must be more to the Christian life than what you’re experiencing? Well, now you know what your problem is. You are living in the flesh. You are still living by what your fallen mind makes of the faulty information you receive from a fallen world through the five senses of your fallen body. You are not living in the Spirit. You are not living by every word Christ speaks to your heart through the person of the Holy Spirit who lives within you.
In spite of your present spiritual predicament, there is good news. You don’t have to die on the wrong side of Jordan. You can escape from your dizzying spiritual wilderness. Unlike unbelieving Israel, you don’t have to miss out on the promises of God. You can experience, enjoy and enter into all that God has promised you in Christ. All it takes is for you to renew your mind and commence living your life by the daily, hourly or even moment by moment communiqués of Christ.
In 2 Corinthians 5:7, the Apostle Paul admonishes us to “walk by faith, not by sight.” Trusting and obeying every word spoken to our hearts by the still, small voice of God’s infallible Spirit is the only way for us to get anywhere spiritually in this life. On the other hand, walking through this life like the rest of the world does—by what we see with our eyes rather than by what God speaks to our hearts—will prohibit us from ever stepping foot into the promises of God. No wonder wise King Solomon counseled us not to trust in our senses by leaning upon our “own understanding,” but to “trust in the Lord” and let Him alone “direct [our] paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6). Only the finger of God’s Spirit can point out to us the paths that lead to God’s promises.