John 15:7 If you abide in Me, and My Words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done to you.

Jesus said this because there are 2 streams of existence in us. Jesus Life and self life (man life)

Jesus practiced living out of God Life and He did that by keeping in tune with His Father’s thoughts and heart. That allowed Him to see what His Father was doing and what His Father was saying, or wanted to say to people and situations.

1John 4:17 In this is our love made complete, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, that as He is, so also we are in this world.

Background and definitions

There are two streams of existence inside us. One is full of His life and the other is full of death (the biblical definition for separation from Him).

We also have an 'identity' part of us that is the essential core of you or me and this is where we choose whether to be emotional or not, to listen to the demands of the body or not, to be involved in someone else’s pain or not, to be happy or dissatisfied with our lot, or to choose between Jesus Lordship or what the self 'I' wants.

The way I am using the word 'self' is different from some other definitions. However, I believe I am being consistent with what Jesus taught in terms of denying self and taking up our cross daily in Luke 9:23 (also Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34)

John the Baptist preached about this as recorded in Matthew 3:11, 12, I indeed baptize you with water to repentance. But He who comes after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire; whose fan is in His hand, and He will cleanse His floor and gather His wheat into the storehouse; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. and in Luke 3:16-17 . John answered all, saying, I indeed baptize you with water, but He who is mightier than I comes, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to loose. He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire, whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor and will gather the wheat into His storehouse. But He will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Wheat and chaff grow on the same plant. A dictionary definition of chaff is: husks or other seed coverings and other plant parts separated from seed during harvest or processing. Wheat is the useful grain and chaff is the left over rubbish to be burned. In the above parable used by John the Baptist, wheat is the new creature spirit part of us, while chaff is the selfish, carnal "old" part of us that is necessary for our survival in this world until our last day here. Chaff, or the stalk and husk serves the purpose of keeping the wheat grains up out of the earth and in the air where it will grow well and not decay until the wheat is ripe and ready for harvest.

Whichever life source you choose at any moment will flow out through your soul, then through your body and out into the world into all you do and say. (Matthew 6:22, 23)

The Spiritual Dynamics of this

The New creation or spirit man in each of us is connected to Him at new birth. This connection is never broken by Him. We will feel like it is broken at times but that is not the truth. Those feelings come out of choices we make that put the veil back up between the spirit-soul connection inside us and so are only the ”pangs of death”.

I call them that because God’s definition of death is separation from Him. Because the connection is never broken by Him to our spirit, we are never really dead. But we get to be feeling like it because we have just been living out of self. The reason for this is that self always puts the veil back up because it is by nature antichrist.

The new creation part of a person who is surrendered to Jesus is imbued with, or full of, His Life and power. This new creation part of us is the source of Jesus righteousness that flows from within us outwards to others and to the world. This is your spirit which is now fully connected with God. When your soul connects with your spirit, this life flows.

The old self creature is the source of sin and interference with His Life within us when it is in control. Antichrist is not only a spirit
1 John  ch2:18,22; ch4:3 ; 2 John v7 but has beginnings within us and is centred in self. Because of this, the works of self can become witchcraft so the choice we must get used to flowing into, is to live out of new creature or spirit within us instead of the old. Then we pour out effective life to all around us. The new creature part of us then instantly deals with self Galatians 5:23 by that powerful connection with the Holy Spirit.

New Creature Activation

A daily walk of surrender, repentance, baptism and empowerment is how to continue to activate the new creature already within a child of God. For many this comes down to living in righteousness consciousness vs sin consciousness. The freedom of believing we walk as His sons vs self condemnation attitudes of “I am only a worm in God’s sight”.

It is important to resist pride and the only way to do that is to practise surrender to Jesus through maintaining an internal focus on surrendering to “Jesus in me”. This can be understood by picking up on a powerful image parable of being the temple of the Holy Spirit, and then believing that we are "tabernacles" or walking portable temples of God Himself.

So who are you? –The reality of this is that God has made you able to be the portable temple of God almighty. In your new creature place, you are a powerful spiritual being in surrendered partnership with God. When we begin to dare to believe that, we find that it becomes reality in our experience. We the children of God ARE the Redeemed and we ARE undergoing the working out of that redemption, so we should start to dare to truly believe it.

The son of God part of you does not sin.

1 John 3:9 Everyone who has been born of God does not commit sin, because His seed remains in him, and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. When you start to believe that, you will not be trapped by sin consciousness and the resulting self-condemnation that disempowers you by breaking your connection to the new creature within you. That is why God hates self condemnation so much that He came in the person of Jesus Christ to remove all the penalties due to you from sin.

He who knew no sin was made to be sin for you so that you would be made the righteousness of God in Christ, forever able to enjoy His Fatherhood. This is because He has given you as a free gift a place to stand before Him that cannot be taken away except by your self-condemnation. You now have control over whether or not you live out of His presence within you. So choose Life. Choose to align with the precepts and law of the spirit of Life that His Kingdom runs by. NOT the law of Moses or any other law.

Discipling is a journey and Jesus commission is about achieving it. Discipling should be about those who have already been there helping others to get there also, not someone only "one step ahead helping another who is one step behind" them on the journey.

Unfortunately, Discipling is something that some Christians tend to expect to fall out of the sky at God’s pleasure, instead of being a natural and real part of being the Family of God with others.

Authority is something that we have but do not understand and our journey suffers accordingly.

Miracles are the normal Christian life, intended by God to follow beside our walk, but some Christians run about seeking to be spectators of them.

Personal Keys

I mentioned above that there are keys that help to regain New Creature connection. Singing praise and worship songs works for many people, and Paul mentioned some others that I have tried and found useful like 1 Thessalonians 5:14 - 23 among others.

Specifically:

1Th 5:15 See that none gives evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue the good, both towards one another and towards all.

1Th 5:16 Rejoice evermore.

1Th 5:17 Pray without ceasing.

1Th 5:18 In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

More keys - Philippians 4:4-9

Some Christians find that walking in nature is a key, while others thrive from reading the Bible. Another method is to try to notice when a thought process comes that brings a sense of connection and His peace. Whatever the method, experimenting further while asking for Father's help and wisdom is often very helpful. He has made us all a bit different from each other so the keys that work for me won't necessarily work for you and vice versa. That is why I wish to encourage you to find what works for you, so that when you find that your switch has gone to self, you can make it switch back to your spirit or New Creature place.

3 June 2016