New Man Theology
SESSION 2
In the language of Romans 6, which we were talking about last night, we learned that the old man is dead and we are a new creation in the sense of 2 Corinthians 5:14.
Let me read you this:
2 Corinthians 5:14-18 For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
The old man is dead and we are raised to newness of life. So our focus, therefore, moves to the new creation as the place of God’s dealings with us. New things have come and they all originate in God. You get to see all of those new things day by day, circumstance by circumstance, because there is not anything going on in your life that does not relate to the newness of life in Christ. There is nothing going on in any circumstance that does not relate to your identity in Jesus. Literally, everything in your life is about one thing – you being made in the image of God.
The number one order of business in every situation is:
- you seeing it as He sees it,
- you thinking about it in the way that He thinks about it,
- you talking about it and talking to it in the way that He would, and
- you seeing that new life emerge in you.
Partnering with the Holy Spirit
If the old man of sin is dead, then all the old things that are associated with that (behavior, thinking, negativity, the flesh, natural thinking, carnal thinking), they are all dead, too. Therefore, God is only dealing with the new man in Christ. That means we are being trained solely to be made in the image of God. That is what we are partnering with.
That is why we can count everything as joy because everything is about you in Jesus. Everything is about Jesus in you. We grow fastest when we love the learning. It is vital, therefore, that we do not oppose what the Holy Spirit is doing, but we learn to partner with Him in the process. God loves process. He loves impartation, but all impartation leads to process and all process leads to impartation. The two ways in which we grow are by an outright act of God in our life, an intervention, but also by following it through in walking out that empowerment in the pleasure of God and in the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Process
Because the old man is dead, it means that when God looks at you,He does not see anything wrong with you. He only sees what is missing
in your new man, and He is totally committed to giving you that encounter
and that experience of Him.
Process is a series of steps that enable us to move away from the old man and learn to become new in all things. Here is an example of what that process would look like.
John 14:27 Jesus says this: Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
Here is the thing, if you are anxious and you are worried then you are focused on the old man, because that is old man behavior. What is missing from you in the new man is peace. God is committed to giving you peace. He does not want you to learn how to change from being anxious and worried because if you are learning how to try and stop being something, then you will still be occupied with the root cause of why you are anxious and you are worried. God does not work on your anxiety and worry, He gives you peace as a replacement. When you work on your peace, the result is, you stop being anxious and worried. God is not working on your anxiety or your worry, He is helping you to cultivate peace as a life style.
I cannot remember the last time I worried. I think it was around, I do not know, 17 or 18 years ago. All I can tell you is that one day the Prince of Peace came into my life and never left. When Jesus says, My peace I give you, He is pretty serious about that, because He sees peace as the antidote to worry and anxiety. We do not have to stop doing a negative. We have to start becoming the nature of God in Christ. The work of the Holy Spirit in your life is to teach you how to live in the nature of God and be made in His image.
Is it not great that you do not have to work on the negative? We just get to replace it. God does not see anything wrong; He just sees what is missing. And He is giving you a Helper to supply that missing piece. When you take anxiety and worry out and put peace in, and you focus on your peace, anxiety and worry is like Grima Wormtongue. It has to leave. It has no voice any more. So you do not give anxiety and worry a voice. You give peace a voice. We become occupied with who God is, not with who we are not.
Let me give you another example.
1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love, not made mature by love.
If you have fears that affect your relationships with God or with people, perfect love is designed to cast out fear. So, again, we do not counsel people in terms of how to get rid of fears because fear belongs to the old nature that has already been killed off. So, if your old nature is being killed off, fear is not on the menu. Fear does not belong to who you are because you are a new creation. There is nobody in Heaven who is fearful right now. No one is standing around the throne going, “I hope He does not look at me. I hope He does not look at me. I am really scared that I will not match up to all of these people.” No one is thinking like that. Everyone is looking at Jesus and going, “Oh, He is so Holy. Oh, my goodness, I can feel it washing over me. He is so Holy. He is so Holy. He is so Holy. He is so Holy. I feel a bow coming on.”
We do not deal with the negative. It is already dead. It is important to get a little bit violent about that. Not just assertive, but sometimes on some days, downright aggressive with that truth. “Shut up! You are dead!” Do not give that dead thing a voice. You do not need someone sitting on your shoulder, whispering into your ear all kinds of negatives that keep you imprisoned and blind. You are released from all of that. We move into the new man that God has created for us in Jesus.
In times of fear, God wants to mature you in love. So, in those days, when situations do rise up and fear actually makes its presence felt, you have a choice right there, you can step into that fear and succumb to it and make yourself vulnerable to it, and come under something that does not belong to you, and that is, indeed, hostile to you, or you can step into the love of God and become a completely different person in that situation.
No need to work on fear. It is dead. We are working on being perfected in love. We are working on becoming mature in the love of God. What does that mean? We receive the love of God. We embrace the love that God has for us, and we stay there. We stay in that place of love so that our thinking is transformed by love, our perception is transformed by love, and our language comes out of the love language that God has for us. That is what it means to be alive to God and to practice newness of life.
This is our lifestyle now - only about the new man. So, for every negative, God has already ordained an opposite. Why? Because He moves in the opposite spirit to the enemy. And, He is teaching us to do the same. What is the opposite of that? Well, let us do that.
Moving in the Opposite Spirit
What is the opposite of fear? It is love. “Let Me overpower you with love so that you are not overwhelmed by fear. Let that love cast out that fear. I do not want you to deal with it. You receive this love. This love will deal with that fear. This love will cast it out. We are only dealing with the new man; We are never dealing with the old because God has dealt with it once, for all.”
which means that everything every day could be about joy.
What a relief that is. What a peace. What presence can come to us. We are only engaged with the new, and we are loving that learning, which means that everything every day could be about joy, because there is a joy in discovering who God is for us and what God wants to be for us. We are learning, we are opening up to a whole new realm of possibilities that God can do anything.
We are living in Christ and that makes us vulnerable to the Majesty of Jesus. We move into the new man that God has created for us in Christ. We learn to see things the way He does. We think about it from the mind of Christ, and we use His language to deal with that issue.
God is not working on your behavior.He is creating your identity in Jesus in the new man.
Let me read you something from the Bible.
Ephesians 4:20-24 But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
- The main issue for us is how are we learning to become like Jesus?
- In every situation you face, how do I get to become Christ-like in this situation?
- What is the truth that sets me free from a sin-focused lifestyle?
The truth is, we do not deal with the old self; we lay it aside. We put it away from us. God is not engaged in behavior modification. You know, if a gospel is only about behavior modification, Jesus need not have died. He did not die to change our behavior; He died to transform our personality. He died so that we could live in Him, so that our identity in Him could give us a life above our circumstances, and teach us how to be citizens of Heaven living here on earth.
The truth is you belong to a new realm and that new realm of the Kingdom is imposing itself on your life and your circumstances. It is giving you a brilliant way of seeing, an amazing way of thinking, and a fabulous way of speaking that makes you different from anybody else in the world. Why? Because you are a walking habitation of God in the Spirit. You are a new creation never seen in the world before Jesus. Before Christ, everyone had a visitational relationship. After Christ, everyone who comes to God has a habitational relationship.
It is not possible for God to leave you because He lives in you. It is not like God is living in your house and He is nervous about your lifestyle, so He never really, totally unpacks His bags - they are always in the hallway just by the front door just in case you make a mistake. That is classic religious nonsense that makes God double-minded. It makes God capricious, someone that you cannot understand and are always up and down, and you never quite know where you stand with them. That is not the way it is with the Father.
He has provided a place where you are absolutely secure in His love whilst you are changing. And He knows, on those days, He knows that as we are learning how to be different, we are going to have relapses, we are going to default to something, some aspect of behavior is going to be a little bit more difficult to shift, and we are going to make mistakes, and we are going to sin. You really think He is bothered about that? He has made provisions for that.
1 John 1:7, says, But if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
The possibility of sin may be present, and God has made provision for it in all areas of our life. As we confess our sin, we encounter His faithfulness and His forgiveness and His righteousness to forgive and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. There is a provision if you make a mistake.
Here is the thing, when the devil wants to call you on your mistake, Jesus is your Public Defender. You do not want to get in a court room with Jesus because it is going to be pretty ugly for anybody who is in opposition to Him. That is why judgmental Christians are going to have a hard time walking with Jesus. You do not want to get in a court room with Jesus. He is defending His people based upon what He has done. There is no case to answer. He is your Advocate. Do you not know that God has covered all the bases?
What He is saying to you is, “If you make a mistake, it is covered. No guilt, no shame, no condemnation, it is covered.” What I want you to do is love the learning. Love your life. Love the fact that you are growing up into all things in Jesus. Take the joy that is always present because He is your Presence. He is the happiest person I know. God is making you into His own image, which means we should be laughing a lot more. He is a smiler. He is a grinner. He laughs out loud. He laughs at His enemies. He loves to laugh with us. Occasionally, He laughs at us. It is His good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. He loves to work and to will in you for His good pleasure. Why? He enjoys working in your life. He loves it. He loves it! He loves it. He enjoys it. He has a lot of fun in it. There is a lot of comedy material in our lives.
It is a pleasure for Him to teach you about newness of life. It is an absolute joy to train you to become like Jesus. I wish that I had the words. I wish that I could articulate how much pleasure God has in teaching you to be like Him. In every situation, He is super excited about what He wants to show you - what He wants to be for you.
So, the process is, lay aside the old man and reckon yourself dead. There is a partnership between your mind and His that you be renewed in how you see and think about yourself.
Something happens. The old man in you rises up and you take it and you put it aside, and you think for a moment, what is it that God wants to be for me now?
- How do I need to think like Him?
- How do I need to see in this situation?
- What is the language - the truth that is going to set me free?
Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. When the Holy Spirit tells you those things, that is what you put on. You put on the new man because you know that you are going to get some revelation right now that is going to change you. You are going to get to see something that you have never seen before. You are going to get an upgrade in your language. You are going to talk about yourself differently. You are going to talk about this situation differently. You are not going to talk about it from a negative.
“I am really going through a hard time right now.”
Ever met those people? You say, “Hey, how is it going? What is going on? What is going on with you and the Lord?”
[sad sounding response] “Well, He is really changing me.”
Ever meet those people? Ever been that person? Oh, Yeah.
[sad sounding response] “Well, the Lord is really changing me.”
Or, you get some pelican who says to you, “Well, you know, the Lord was really kind of showing me what He wanted me to do, but you know, I just resisted it for a couple of months.” Seriously? You said no to an upgrade!
Okay, if you were in an airport at ticketing, and they said to you, “The only seat available on this flight is in 1st Class. I am going to give it to you.” Would you say, “Oh, no, no, no, no. No. Thank you, but no.” Seriously?
God is offering you an upgrade in every situation in your life, and to say, “Well no. You know God was trying to show me that and I resisted Him for two months.”
I want to slap you, in the nicest possible way, but I want to slap you. Seriously! You are actually refusing an upgrade because you are happy when you are sad? Come on…that is not who you are any more.
Put on the New
We put on that new man. Put on the upgrade. You see the replacement piece that God wants to give you in Christ, and you put on that new piece of God’s character, which is in the likeness of God, so that the old part is recreated in righteousness and holiness and the truth. The truth that sets you free is this: there is not any situation in your life that cannot deliver an upgrade to you if you want it. If you want it.
If every problem comes complete with a provision, then every circumstance has to carry an upgrade.
This is what it means to be renewed in the spirit of your mind. When you get used to this way of thinking, you look at a problem like it is a steak. “I am going to eat this thing. This belongs to me. This is not a problem! We convert it into a possibility because the mind of Christ would do that. This is not a difficulty! This is an upgrade in Jesus, because the mind of Christ would do that.” “No, no, no, you are not seeing it right. Do not see the problem. Do not see the negativity. See the opportunity that I am giving you. This is an upgrade; let Me show you how it works.”
What the Father is absolutely focused on is your developing your identity in Jesus. He gave you a personal trainer called the Holy Spirit. I love the Holy Spirit. He is such a character. He is the funniest person I think I have ever met in my life. He is super excited about everything. He is the Genius of Heaven. He is the One who makes everything. He is the One who does everything. Jesus is Lord over the church. The Holy Spirit is Lord inside the church. He is the One that takes everything that belongs to Jesus and makes it work. Let me read you this;
John 16:13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.
That is why all of us can hear the voice of God. On days when we are having a “spirit of stupid” day, the Holy Spirit can hear for you. So, when you do not hear it yourself, He will hear it for you and He will make sure that you get that message.
So, it is like, it is a double portion. God is teaching you. You are in Christ. You can hear the voice of God. But, if you are having a stupid day, the Holy Spirit can hear for you, so just ask Him. I missed that. What did you say?
John 16:13-15 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.
- When God says something once, it should be enough.
- When He says it twice, He is saying, “I am really serious about this.”
- When He says it three times in three verses, that is nuclear. That is God exploding.
This is really super critical for you. “I have given you the Holy Spirit and He will disclose to you. He will take everything that is Mine and He will release it to you. In every situation, therefore, you are a victim to the Holy Spirit. You are vulnerable to the Spirit of disclosure. You are not a victim to the enemy. You are a victim of the Holy Spirit. You are vulnerable to revelation.”
When you are in Christ, you are vulnerable to the truth because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. He will only tell you the truth in your situation. He will say to you, “The truth is, this is not a problem. This is a possibility. The truth is, this problem carries a provision with it. Let Me show you the provision.” Every circumstance carries a promise. That is the Spirit of Truth. Why? Because you are learning to be like Jesus.
Has Jesus ever had a problem He could not solve? Seriously? Do you smell hot coffee? Are you waking up and smelling the coffee? You have Somebody on the inside of you who has never been defeated, never been overwhelmed, never not known what to do. He always knows what to do. Your life is supposed to be too good to be true. You are a model of what a brilliant life should look like in Jesus. So, we need to start modeling. We need to be modeling something.
What Are You Modeling?
What looks good on you in Christ? Seriously, what looks good on you?
- Peace looks good on you.
- Laughter looks good on you.
- Seeing the joy in everything, that looks good on you.
- Being the Beloved, that looks so good.
- Everything in Jesus looks good on you.
So I am going to wear it. Lay aside the old stuff; put on this new man.
Ladies, if you are going to a ball and you have a choice between a brand-new dress that is up-to-the-moment in fashion and something that you wore 12 years ago, is there really any choice in that? You lay aside the old dress. You may donate it, but you are not going to wear it because you do not look good in it any longer. What is the difference between your old man and your new man? You do not look good in the old. It does not fit.
Guys, old car, 15 years old vs. brand-new car, zero to 60 in 4 seconds. All the bells and whistles, great color, and you look really attractive in it. Is there a choice in this thing? An old car that is zero to 60 in 20 minutes. Seriously? This is a no-brainer. I think this qualifies probably for the best no-brainer in the history of no-brainers.
The Holy Spirit guides you into all truth, especially about who you are becoming in Jesus.
Jesus uses a word here in these three verses that I do not think He has used anywhere else in the New Testament. It is exclusive to Him. The word is anagello. It means “to show”. It means “to disclose”, but it has all these ancillary meanings. It means “to make secret truth available”. That is what revelation is.
The problem when we have a doctrine that says we are sinners rather than saints, the problem is that is the surface truth. It is not revelation. When the Bible says study to show yourself approved, it is not talking about academic theology or head knowledge. It means to study Jesus and your place in Him, and develop a relational theology.
You know the difference between Saul and Paul in the New Testament?
Saul was an academic theologian who studied at the feet of Gamaliel, and he was a Pharisee and a murderer. He persecuted the people of God. Jesus was around but he totally missed who He was. But when Saul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, the Bible says that scales fell from his eyes and he saw for the first time. And Saul moves from being an academic theologian to becoming Paul who was a relational theologian. What does that mean? He tracks his theology through the heart of Jesus.
God deliver us from academic theologians who do not really have a close walk with the Lord Jesus, and who do not even have the grace to be amazed at who God is. They study truth, but they are not astonished.
Anagello means “make secret truth available”. Revelation. It is a formal public declaration of intent. He will disclose everything that belongs to Me to you. Count on it. You are always going to know.
Walking in your new man means that you are always in the know. We are never ignorant. We are never in the dark. We are always in the light. We are always in the know. You get to know stuff. You get to hear stuff. God discloses stuff to you. There are things that He wants you to know. You are going to know. Ask Him. Have an expectation of knowing. “I have the Holy Spirit. You are my Helper. Your job is to disclose to me. Thank You for being my Helper.”
What is it that I need to know right now? What do I need to know?
- In this situation, what do I need to know?
- I have got a problem with my child, what do I need to know?
- Work is really difficult, what am I not seeing? What do I need to know?
- My finances are under pressure. What is it that I need to see right now?
- What is it I need to know right now so that I can stand with you and walk with you?
And you get to pass that knowledge on to somebody else. It is called testimony. This is where I was, and this is what I found out I could know. And when I stepped into what God knew, I knew it, too, and I changed and my circumstance changed. Our testimony is, “Hey this is what I used to be, this is what I know now.” Now I know stuff.
My name is Graham Cooke and I know stuff. I know who God is for me. I know what God wants to be for me. I have a handle on this situation. I am totally not worried about it. I am really excited about what God is going to be for me because I know stuff now. The Holy Spirit showed me what this situation is for. So, now I know.
That is the Holy Spirit telling someone, you need to know this.
It is an Amber Alert. We are fixing to know stuff. When you know stuff, it is pretty alarming to the enemy because what you know disarms him.
Anagello means to align yourself with that Spirit of Truth. Come on, pick a side. Whose team are you going to be on? Pick a team, be on that team. Choose your partner in this situation.
Obedience
When you are living in the old man you are reacting to things. The new man does not react. He or she responds because God tells you stuff and you respond to it. That is how we learn to walk with God. That is what obedience is - responding to what we have been told. Responding to what you know. Saying yes. Standing up. Walking forward. Pressing in. That is what obedience is. And when you do that, you validate the process of your own transformation. You are acting decisively with the Holy Spirit, and you know that this situation is going to transform you and you are up for it.
I am partnering with that transformation deliberately. You are in the moment with God being transformed and you know it. You get to partner with the Spirit of Truth who is just a flat out Genius at life. He told me to tell you that. (smile)
Three times God has repeated Himself – that means that this is a vital thing. You have a Helper. Get help. You have a Helper who discloses everything that Jesus wants you to know and receive. There is a Spirit of disclosure in your life who is given to you to empower your transformation into a new identity.
Colossians 3:9-10 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.
Anyone living in their old man and dealing with sin and calling themselves a sinner is not living in the true knowledge of Jesus. You put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge. That word knowledge there is epenosis. It means “knowledge leading to experience” or “knowledge that gives you an encounter with God”.
You know, as evangelicals we say, “Well, you know, I know it in my head and I am waiting for it to make the 18-inch drop into my heart.” What a crock! There is no 18-inch drop. Why? Because God does not speak to your head. He speaks to your heart. He speaks to your heart and not your head so you cannot hear God in your logic or your reason or your rational. You hear Him in your heart. That truth then explodes up into your life and into your conscious mind. You have a spirit of wisdom and revelation.
Ephesians 1:18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know…
God does not speak to your head. He speaks to your heart and He gives you a vision of what He wants you to see, so that the eyes of your heart - the ability to see what God is saying - the eyes of your heart will be opened in the light fully seeing what God wants you to know. The eyes of your heart will be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of His calling. The eyes of your heart will be enlightened so that you would know what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. The eyes of your heart will be enlightened so that you would know what is the surpassing greatness of His power towards us who believe.
Revelation elevates you. It lifts you up. It causes you to see more than you need to see. It causes you to see more than you need.
You know that God is always going to overwhelm you, right? You know that He likes to overwhelm you? He just loves to…He likes to show off. He likes to show everything. He is not just going to give you this tiny little piece just for this situation. He is like, no let Us pour something out. Let Us not just like, you know, pour a little bit. Careful. Careful. No, let Us just pour it all out. He lavishes things upon us. He pours Himself out.
Language of Heaven
You see the language of Heaven? He pours Himself out. He lavishes things upon us. He talks about fullness, about abundance, about having more, about you receiving so much - He is going to shake you so that He can get more in.
Anyone going through a shaking right now? What are you being shaken for? So He can get more in. I think He has everything covered. You are so blessed, you should kiss yourself. This new self of ours is being renewed constantly into the true knowledge by experience in being made in the image of God. These are the greatest days of your life coming up because you are going to have adventures with God like you have never had before.
Elevation
Your walk with God is meant to be elevated. What if every situation elevates you? What if no situation is designed to hold you down and everything is designed to lift you up?
Being renewed in the spirit of your mind is possible because you are a new man now. You have focused on a new man and so you do not have that drag of the old nature on your life.
What if you are a hot air balloon that is not tethered to the ground anymore? You are free to soar. You do not have that drag of the old nature holding you back or holding you down.
- My Lord, what could you see?
- What could you think about?
- What is going to change in your language?
- What in heaven are you going to do with all of this?
- Who could you become?
- What if there is a quickening spirit about to grab hold of you that accelerates your development in Jesus?
- What if you could press into something so incredible that you could become a different man or woman by the end of this year?
We called it LifeChangers for a reason.
Remember:
God is not dealing with your sin. He is establishing your righteousness.- Romans 6:10 dealt with sin once for all
- Romans 6:6 Our body of sin has been done away with.
- Romans 6:11 Consider yourself dead to sin.
What about this scripture?
2 Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Old Man Has Been Traded Away
You just got traded. Your old man got traded. Jesus became sin. He took your sin on Himself. He became sin for us so that we could become righteousness in Him. He takes your sin. He gives you your righteousness. So we are learning how to be righteous. We are practicing how to be holy. And, fortunately, we have the Holy Spirit to help us be holy. It is a trade.
Righteousness is a Gift
I Corinthians 1:30 By His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.
Jesus has become to you righteousness. He is your righteousness and you are practicing His righteousness in your life; and that righteousness is a gift. It is not something that you have to develop on your own initiative. It is given to you as a gift in every situation and your job is to hold on to the gift. Hold on to the gift. In this situation, I have righteousness as a gift, I am going to hold on to it. When you focus on the fact that you already are righteousness in Him, you learn how to abide in that gift.
Romans 1:17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”
Righteousness is being revealed in you as you partner with the Holy Spirit in your new man. I love that. I love that He becomes our sin to take it away, and now He becomes our righteousness to teach us how to be like Him. So, where the enemy is tempting us to sin, the Holy Spirit is attracting us to holiness. He is our Holy Spirit.
Upgrades are Coming!
When the Holy Spirit is putting His finger on a part of our life that is not workingproperly, He is pointing to the site of our next miracle.
When the Holy Spirit is putting His finger…because He is training us in the new man. Remember, God does not see anything wrong, He only sees what is missing. So when the Holy Spirit puts His finger on something, He is saying to you, “You are missing something here, and I have what you need.” He is pointing to the site of your next upgrade. He is not berating you because of sin. He is not condemning you because that is in your life. He is just pointing out, “I have come to give you an upgrade for this area.”
He is pointing to the site of your next upgrade in Jesus. Why? Because we are learning how to grow up in all things in Christ and it takes time. It is a process. We are learning how to walk in newness of life.
We are growing up in God into all things in Jesus.We do not have a sin nature. We have a sin habit, and habits can be broken. Your sin nature died on the cross with Jesus. What we have right now are sin habits that we are learning to put away from us. We are learning to do away with them. We are learning how to become habitually righteous in Christ.
Ephesians 4:14-16 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
Our Love Story with God
You are involved in a love story. God is teaching you not only how to love Him, but how to love yourself. If you are a new man in Christ, there is a lot to like about you. You have this continuous capacity for brilliance. If Jesus is in you, and one of His names is Wonderful, what does that make you? You have to fess up to the fact, “You know what, I am learning to be wonderful. I am pretty sure that me being amazing is on God’s agenda somewhere. I am pretty sure that if I really understand how to live astonished, then I am going to be astonishing. I cannot avoid it.”
This life is so much grander than we ever imagined. So big, so huge, so grand, so splendid, that you can only talk about it in superlatives. He is Amazing. He is Incredible. He is Outrageous. He is Over the Top. He is Brilliant. He is Marvelous. He is Astonishing. He is Wonderful. This is God’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. Jesus is Marvelous. He is absolutely Marvelous. I am at a loss for words. I just marvel at this life that He has given us.
The Holy Spirit speaks the truth in love.
John 14:6 Jesus said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
Truth sets us free.
John 8:32 You will know the Truth, and that Truth will set you free.
John 1:17 says, The law was given through Moses; but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ.
Truth vs. True
The truth is always about how God sees you in Jesus.
Have you heard those people who come to you and they tell you things that they do not like about you? They tell you, “And I am saying the truth in love.” They are not. They are actually deceived because that is not the truth. It might be true, but is not the truth. There is always a higher version of the facts in the truth.
The truth is, you are a new creation, all the old things have passed away. All they are doing is looking at your old man and they are speaking things that are true, when they should be looking at your new man and calling you up to the truth.
If what they say does not set you free, you are free to reject it because it is not the truth.
The truth sets you free. The truth does not call you out on your behavior; it calls you up to your identity. The truth says to you, “Hey man, what are you doing that for when this is who you are? Did you forget that you are this person? Remember that prophetic word a couple of years ago that said you were going to be a warrior? That is who you are, man! You are a warrior, not a worrier. You do not need to be afraid; you are a warrior, man. This is not you. That is you.”
Speaking the truth in love elevates someone. It elevates them to who they are in Jesus. It does not put shackles on them and deliver them to the enemy. It does not bring shame or guilt or condemnation.
What is it about preachers who preach shame and guilt? You honestly think that you can shame somebody into transformation? Are we that stupid? Seriously? Do you think that you can guilt somebody into becoming better? What planet are you living on? What Bible are you reading? Man! That we would use the old man to try and change people, seriously?
There is a difference between what is true from what is truth.
The truth is, we are learning about who we are in God’s eyes in Jesus. We are learning about our identity. The truth calls us up to that identity all of the time.
Responsibilities in Prophecy
It is like in prophecy. You know, if you see something negative in the person’s life, then what you are hearing is not for them, it is for you because God wants you to understand what they are struggling with. Then the next thing He wants to do is, He wants to give you compassion so that you will stand before God on their behalf and say, “Lord, I understand what they are struggling with, what is it You want to say to them?”
If you prophesy the first thing you get, you are going to be prophesying the problem and you are going to be putting that person into a pit.
Here is the thing. This is a truth that sets you free. How many people here who are prophetic see negatives in people? Do you know what it means? It means you have a spirit of breakthrough. That is what it means. You have a spirit of breakthrough on you for that person.
on your behavior; it calls you
UP to your identity.
Otherwise, why would God show you stuff like that? He has shown it to you because you are the one that is going to break them out of it. You do not prophecy the first thing you get if it is a negative; you prophecy the second thing that you hear because now you have come into compassion. You can do this in a split second. You come into compassion that God has for them because they are broken, they are ruined. You step into the place; you hear what God wants to do for them because they already know that there is something wrong in their life.
David said, “My sin is ever before me.” That is what a religious spirit does for you. That is what living in a legalistic church does for you. You are only sin conscious. You are drowning in sin and in bad behavior and everything. You are hoping that God might rescue you this week, but chances are, by the following Friday, you are going to be drowning again. What is that? That is not Christianity. That is hell on earth in the church. That is a religious devil. That is a legalistic, Pharisaical mindset. That is the law. That is the law.
I am kind of passionate about that. When you see a negative in someone, you have a responsibility to the Spirit of Truth. Now you enter into a partnership. You let the compassion of God come on you, and you say, “Lord, what is it that You want to be for them?” That is what you prophesy.
Truth Brings Freedom
I was speaking at an event in the North of England a few years ago, and I am giving an altar call and I am watching people come forward. I see this guy walking forward. His face is so hard. It was kind of a face that says, “get out of my way. Do not look at me. Do not talk to me.” I am looking at him and I am saying, “Lord, what is going on in that person’s life?”
This is what the Lord said to me, “Graham, he is into pornography, lust, and masturbation, and he thinks that I do not love him.”
I heard the love that God had for this guy – he thinks that I do not love him. Like, nothing could separate you from the love of God.
“But what is it You want to do?”
“I want you to go to him and tell him what I am going to be for him.”
As I am walking across, the Lord said, “You know what I like about him, Graham? This is the sixth time that he has responded to an altar call. In the five previous times he has told people what his problem is and they shot him down. They judged him. They prayed aggressively against him. Nobody ever loved him. But look at him, he so wants Me that he is prepared to put himself in that same place of judgment. Graham, he just wants to be clean.”
I could feel my heart filling up and I walk across, and he has his eyes closed, and I tap him on the shoulder. He looks at me and he has the “oh dear God, no!” look. In Texas it is an “oh shoot” moment because that is what they do in Texas, they shoot things. Oh shoot.
He looks at me and he is expecting to get the same old message. I look at him and I say, “The Lord says to you, there is this huge ladle full of oil suspended over your life and He is tipping it over you. There is this golden oil that for the next two years, He is going to pour out upon you this gold oil, and it is going to cleanse your mind and your heart and your life because He knows that the cry of your heart is that you want to be clean.”
He looked at me and it was almost like water sprang out his eyes. He grabs hold of me and he starts crying. No, he is not crying, he is wailing. I mean, for 20 minutes he wailed. There was some real pain coming up. He wailed. I just held him like a father would hold a son. I just held him, and when he finished I was just talking to him, “You are going to be clean. God has heard your prayer. The next two years He is going to teach you how to stay clean. You are clean right now by the washing of the water and the word. You are clean right now. He is going to teach you how to stay clean.”
A couple of years later, I am in a different country and the guy comes bouncing up to me and says, “Hey, do you remember me?” I said, “Nah.”
And he said, “You prayed for me about the ladle of oil and two years of being cleansed.”
I looked at him and I said, “That was you?” Because he looked totally different.
He looked at me with tears in his eyes and he said, “Graham, I am holy. I am holy. I feel it. I feel it! I love the righteousness of Jesus. When you prophesied over me that day, you gave me a gift of righteousness.”
People, you know, do not need to be told what is wrong with them. They need to be told what is going to be right about them. Speaking the truth in love as we go to someone and say, “You do not have to be doing that, this is who you are.”
When I get hate mail, and I get a lot of hate mail, and sometimes it is really very virulent, poisonous curses that you would not believe. You know, these guys are technically believers. And so I write back and I just say, “Hey, thanks for your letter. I was praying about you this morning and the Lord showed me this about you.” And then I just say something wonderful. I tell them what their identity is and then I pray and just let the Holy Spirit do His thing because that is what He does best.
What is true about someone often relates to their behavior and their old man. How does the truth relate to their identity in their new man? Can we just agree that we are going to speak the truth that liberates, that sees people in Jesus, that calls them up to their identity, that makes them feel something different about themselves, and makes them see or hear something different about themselves?
When you speak something that is true, you are speaking to the sin habit and you are strengthening it. You heard that, right? When you speak something that is only true, you are speaking to a sin habit and you are strengthening it.
Truth Brings Growth
The truth speaks to the new man and breaks the sin habit. We speak truth in a way that causes the growth of Christ in us.
Now, an unstable person is always in two minds. They are always going to be tossed to and fro. For example, if you see yourself as a sinner but God sees you as a saint, someone has the wrong picture. No prizes for guessing who that is.
Identify your lifestyle through the language that God is using to describehow He sees you.
Primary Purpose
If you are trying to change your behavior, but God is developing your identity in Christ, you are going to have a disconnect. You are going to have a disconnect with primary purpose.
What is primary purpose?
Genesis 1:26 Let us make man in Our image.
Here is the principle: You do not become a new person by changing your behavior. You discover the person you already are in Christ and you act accordingly. You do not become a new person by changing your behavior. You discover the person you already are in Christ and you act accordingly. That is called being renewed in the spirit of your mind.
The Holy Spirit is on a mission to renew your thinking. If all of your thinking has brought you to a place you do not like, have another thought, because you are due one. This is not rocket science, it is just great fun.
Here is the thing, when our perception does not agree with God’s view of us we cannot walk with Him as He designs. And, we cannot receive from Him what He wants to give us and release to us.
we cannot walk with Him
as He designs.
Transformation comes by the renewing of your mind. If your mind is the key, we have to do something about the space between your ears. Identity is the key to transformation.
When the key element of your self-worth comes from a negative, it can only lead you into a negative experience. So, when you see yourself as a sinner you are going to be preoccupied with sin. But, when you know that you are a saint, a holy one, then you will be occupied with righteousness.
A sinner can receive forgiveness, but still live under the shadow of guilt and condemnation. A sinner mindset dwells on failings, short comings, and it internalizes shame. You get to that feeling that you do not feel that you can approach God. You think that “God must be fed up with me - that I am not this, I am not that,” and you live with this negativity about yourself. It makes God unapproachable for you. You are like Eve in the garden covering herself because she feels ashamed, hiding from God when He comes to walk in the cool of the day.
God says to you today, “Nothing can separate you from My love.” God says, “I killed everything off that would have separated us, and now you are born again and you are learning how to be a new person, and We are so helping you.”
You were a sinner who was saved by grace to become a saint. You cannot stop half way and say, “I am a sinner saved by grace” because it is not true. You have got to finish the sentence, “I was a sinner, I am saved by grace and now I am a saint.” That is the truth that sets you free. “I was a sinner, I have been saved by grace, and now I am learning to become a saint, and I am really enjoying it. I am learning to walk in this newness of life.”
You know, when you submit to guilt and shame, you are listening to the enemy and you are stepping back into your old man. Preachers who preach guilt and shame and condemnation, they are grave robbers. They are exhuming your corpse every Sunday and punishing you because you stink. What is that? It is religious, legalistic nonsense. You are listening to a person who is a Pharisee and they have a religious spirit. They do not understand their own freedom.
You do not belong in a place like that. It is a house of death. It is not the house of life.
Reformation is Coming!
There is a new reformation coming into the Body of Christ and the church worldwide - and this is it. It is not a new revelation. It is not a new truth. It is an old truth released and rediscovered. It fights against the religious spirit and the legalistic mindset. Churches are going to be defined in this country by who they are not in Jesus.
Unless the Holy Spirit sweeps through this country in a new way, we are going to see clearly defined who are the companies and groups in churches that are following hard after identity in Jesus and who are those who are trapping people in a legalistic framework that takes things from them but does not allow them to be free.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Freedom is going to be the issue on the agenda of God in this next move of the Spirit. Freedom is the issue and it may be that Jesus will come to some churches in a way that Moses went to Pharaoh and said, “Let My people go that they may serve Me.” This should be fascinating.
We are outnumbered right now, but we are still going to win.
You cannot listen to something that questions, that causes you to question, your identity in Christ. You cannot believe something that is contrary to God’s word and integrity.
Which Self is Talking?
When I am listening to someone, I want to hear the voice of the internal Jesus. I want to hear the Jesus voice. When I cannot hear Jesus or witness to their words, I have learned to ask the question, “Excuse me, which self is talking? Is this your old self or is this your new self, because I kind of like you man, but I do not want to really have coffee with a corpse.”
Which self is talking? You get to know. You get to hear the internal Jesus. If you do not hear that voice of Jesus, ask the question, “Which self is talking?” When someone is fearful, “Hey which self is talking right now? That is not the real you, the true you, the new you, right? That is the old you. What are you doing with that voice? Which self is talking?”
Sometimes you have to ask yourself that on days. “Which self is talking right now? OMG! He is back.” A sinner mindset produces a language that releases the negative. Doubt, lies, unbelief, fear, and that language ensures our captivity. You need the language that guarantees your freedom. In the new man in Jesus, our thinking transforms our language to reflect God’s heart for us.
- I love where I am.
- I love who I am becoming.
- I am not the finished article.
- It is easy to see flaws, but I am moving.
- I am pressing into something.
- And I love my life.
- I love what I am learning.
- I love who I am becoming.
- I love that there is a grace on me (we will talk about that later).
I love the fact that there is a grace on us to change and to enjoy the process of change.
The new man, the saint, is a person who is delighted by God. Would it not be great just to be so delighted, yet there are things in my life that need to change. And, you know, the Holy Spirit will get around to them. He is the Spirit of Truth. He knows His job. He does not want to be on your case all of the time, sometimes He just says, “Well, we have done pretty well this month. Let us just take a break. You enjoy everything that we have done and we will pick it up in a few weeks’ time. We will look at something different.”
He is not in a rush to transform us. He just wants us to enjoy the journey. He is doing things for His good pleasure, too.
Saints are occupied fully with who Jesus is for them. You know, the new man is reveling in being a new creation. “I love this life. I love who I am becoming. I love where I am right now. God is establishing this in me and it is probably going to take a few weeks and I am just going to hang out with the Holy Ghost until I get it - everything that I am supposed to have.”
So which self is talking?
The new man releases:
- a new spirit
- a new heart
- a new mind
- a new lens
- a new voice
- a new language
- a new lifestyle
- a new person
- a new creation
What is your new man saying about you?
Knowing the joys of your life really right now in all of this stuff, is to upgrade your sense of celebration. You celebrate Jesus and you celebrate that your story is changing, your journey is changing. Celebrate what you are learning. Celebrate with your friends what you are learning together and what you can be for each other. The new man knows how to throw a party.
