When our spirit became alive in the Lord, our spiritual eyes and ears were opened. Our spiritual growth is a growing awareness of the life of the Lord. This life of the Lord begins to grow in us as we come into submission to it. It is called the mystery of the Kingdom-the Lordship of Jesus over our lives. This life is not forced upon us, we willingly submit to it. Our desire for it becomes so great, that we hunger and thirst for it, and then we are filled with it.
That which hinders our spiritual growth is anything and everything that distracts our focus from our Lord. In a subtle way these things get our attention and enter our heart. When God becomes first place in our heart, then everything else becomes secondary or non-existent and we can grow quickly in the Lord.
It is in the surrendering of our will, or the submitting of our Life to His Lordship that we find or experience His Life. This life of the Lord will grow until it swallows everything else up.
That which starts out as a tiny seed in your spirit, grows until everything within you comes into submission to it. The living Word transforms your mind and heals your body and fills you with the glory of God so that you start shining like Jesus on the Mount of transfiguration.
The seed in us cannot sin, the seed is the living word-Christ in us. The seed grows as God reveals his word, the divine attribute that he wants us to walk in. We live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God which is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.
The living Word has to become a part of you or it won’t work! It has to be written on your heart. You have to hear it over and over again until finally it becomes the way you think, feel and act. You believe the Word in the spirit realm and then it will come into manifestation in the natural realm.
We are to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. One word from God, one verse of Scripture will change your life. And then God will give us another word, and we go from grace to grace, faith to faith, strength to strength and glory to glory!
Our awareness of the Lord should be growing every day, as all the divine qualities of His nature come forth in us and begin to develop.
The fruit of the Spirit is the divine nature of God. It is called the fruit (singular not plural) of the Spirit not the fruits of the Spirit, because they are all a part of His divine nature and cannot really be separated.
As we grow in the Love of God we also grow in the perception of God. The pure in heart see, and in the seeing our heart becomes pure. The love of God and the wisdom of God grow together. The moment we are not moving in the Love of God, that moment we are not seeing clearly.
The word of God tells us to get wisdom, that it is the principle thing (the primary source of something, the basic way in which something works). But we cannot separate this wisdom from the Love of God.
God is love, this love is totally selfless-its concern is for our well being. There is wisdom in this love that absolutely makes perfect sense. We are being called upon to trust this love and this wisdom. Anything that God calls us to do is for our own good, and it makes perfect sense, if we have the wisdom of God to understand the why of it.
James 3: 15This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. 16For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. 17But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. 18And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
James 1: 2My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. 5If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. 6But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. 7For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. 8A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
Unless God opens our eyes to see the truth, we don’t understand why we are going through something. But God only opens up our spiritual eyes when we are willing to do the Father’s will. This requires trust-or life commitment.
It is not God’s will that anyone perish, but all come unto repentance. This repentance is a gift of God; it is the opening of our spiritual eyes so that we can come into full agreement with God.
It is not God who destroys us; it is we who destroy ourselves. God has come to save us from ourselves. But people miss the visitation of God, because their eyes are closed, they cannot see the truth, they are set in their own ways. They hold on to a life that is just a vapor that appeared for a moment and then vanishes away. Instead of giving God their mortal life and let Him transform it, they hold on to it and end up losing it.
When God opens our spiritual eyes, he puts a measure of Himself into our spirit. He puts a measure of His very own love and faith in us which begins to grow. It is this faith and love in God that He Himself has put into our heart that is growing which begins to submit to His perfect will. It is in this submission that we begin to see more and more clearly unto the perfect day when we fully know, just as we are known.
The love of God growing in our heart is what causes us to lay down our natural life to Him, and as we submit ourselves to Him we partake of more and more of His divine nature. The more we give to God the more we receive of His nature. It is then in the giving that we are receiving. In reality we are not losing our live but we are finding it, we are becoming more like Him in the process.
Though our outward man (body) is perishing, our inward man (spirit and soul) is being renewed day by day. The more we seek God the more we find Him; we become willing to sell everything to get this treasure in the earthen vessel. God becomes the only thing that really satisfies us and everything else becomes secondary or non-existent in our lives.
But the word says that we cannot come to Him, unless we believe He exists and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. This is the gift of God- (that He has made Himself available to us)-and to the degree that we desire Him, and seek Him, to that degree we find Him.
It becomes our one consuming desire, to know the Lord-and to the degree that we know Him, to that degree we are changed into the same image. He is enabled to live inside of us, until we are finally filled with all the fullness of God.
It is as we grow spiritually that we become mature in our whole view point of Life. The more we love God the more we partake of His wisdom. It is as we get caught up in the pursuit of Knowing God intimately, that we forget all about ourselves-which is the problem. Living independently where He doesn’t become our all in all.
Now the first requirement in growing spiritually is that we have to want to grow up. God is not going to force His will upon us. We have to desire His will above all else, or we will not experience it. It is the Spirit of God who works in us this desire. This desire becomes all consuming, where we desire nothing else, when we hunger and thirst for it then we are filled with it, which gives birth to the power given us to accomplish it. As our motivations become purified, then our ability to experience what we desire comes to pass.
The reason we don’t experience the fullness of God is because we are pursuing something else. This is where the wisdom of God comes, to be willing to sacrifice everything else to attain this one thing. And it is in this maturity, where we attain this one desire (knowing the Lord) that we have the wisdom to rightly relate to anything else the Lord adds to us.
With maturity comes responsibility. When we grow up in the Lord, he entrusts us with things. We become kings and priests. We rule over and intercede for others. We come into the mind of Christ, where we have the necessary love and wisdom so that God can entrust us with other people’s lives.
The whole purpose of what God is doing in the earth today is to cause us to grow up in Him. The reason God gives gift ministries- the Apostles, Prophets, evangelists, and Pastors and teachers is so that we be no more children-being tossed to and fro because we have not come into the character of Christ. We are still being influenced by things that are to be secondary or non-existent in our lives.
With the impartation of the divine nature comes the responsibility for that which has been imparted to us. With every gift of God comes the responsibility to allow the Spirit of God to govern it. We become stewards (somebody who manages somebody else’s property, finances, or household) of everything God gives us.
We have been bought and paid for with a price, we are not our own person. We govern everything in Him, through Him and for Him. We become a part of one big family-the Kingdom of God. He who becomes the greatest becomes the servant of all. God becomes all and in all. It is a self-less kingdom. The old self cannot inherit it. It is a kingdom of divine love and wisdom where everyone in it knows the Lord. And this government will never end but is eternal. Everyone in it is in willing submission to it.
Maturity in the Lord does not automatically happen. We grow in the divine nature, which means that we grow in divine love. We learn how to love God with all our heart; we learn how to trust God with our lives. As we grow up in the Spirit we learn that our heart cannot be set on many things, and we cannot drink of many different fountains, we learn priorities, about values, that which is important, and that which will pass away. We become willing to let go of things that are to be non-existent or secondary in our lives. We must learn and then prove- what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God.
As we grow in divine love and wisdom we become aware of all the things that are taking place. This maturity is a result of divine revelation; we possess a knowledge that we didn’t have before. As we look back, we no longer condemn ourselves for our foolish behavior. We see that we were immature because we couldn’t see clearly; the focus of our life was on something that should not exist, or it was on one of those secondary things that took our eyes off of the Lord.
All sin is foolishness in God’s eyes. No good thing will God withhold from those who walk uprightly before Him. The problem is we get our eye on the good things which are secondary, and mean nothing unless Jesus is the Lord of our lives. It is only through His wisdom that we can relate properly to things, because we are seeing through His eyes.
As we grow in God, we partake of His Nature; we share His glory or character which causes us to see all things in a different light. We now have God’s viewpoint concerning a matter.
There are two kinds of knowledge-human knowledge and God’s Knowledge. The knowledge of God comes with the impartation of His nature, which is called revelation knowledge. It is experiential knowledge because we are experiencing the presence of God in it.
It is not just knowledge in the mind, but the knowledge that causes the seed of God to grow into the image of God.
Knowledge apart from God’s character puffs us up, it is called self-knowledge it makes us think that we are somebody.
The knowledge that comes through God revealing it to us causes us to humble ourselves and glorify Him because He has shared it with us. It is His wisdom; we are only a partaker of it because He loves us so much.
But with this wisdom comes a responsibility to now act accordingly. Before we knew no better, now that we know, if we don’t walk in it we lose it. We walk in the light of God so that we can become a son of that light, we become one God can trust to walk in the revelation we receive from Him.
God gives us His love so that we can love Him and others with it. God gives us His faith, so that we can believe Him with it. God gives us His faithfulness which is the growth of faith so that we can be a good steward of that which He gives us to possess. We possess all things for Him.
He becomes our inheritance and we become His inheritance. God becomes all in all. We will always be a worshiper of God, but it is in our worshiping Him that we partake of Him. We do not want to be worshiped; we give Him all the Glory. Everything is in divine order and flows perfectly. We experience His life-we are a partaker of the glory of His children-Rom 8:16, this glory is different from the Father’s Glory. And this is the only thing that satisfies us. Everything else is secondary.
We are entering into the time of the double portion of the Spirit of God; we are becoming the first-fruits of the Spirit of God. This is a result of the maturity of the Word of God being released in the earth. The revelation and understanding of His word, causes us to worship Him. And as we worship Him we partake of His Spirit, as we partake of His Spirit we are transformed into the same image. As we enter into this maturity comes the responsibility to father or mother of those who God brings into His Kingdom, through the outpouring of His Spirit into the earth.
God is bringing to us a growing awareness that we are the sons of God, and it is in this awareness that we realize that we are responsible to loose the creation from the futility to which it has been subjected. It is a growing revelation; it is God growing in us- His nature is coming forth in us. And with this maturity comes a responsibility to act accordingly. It is as God comes forth in us that we become the vehicle through which He expresses himself. We begin to think and to feel the same way that God does as we enter into this oneness with Him. The word of God becomes a living part of our spirit as he reveals what he wants us to become and to do through Him.
As God’s love is perfected in us it casts out all fear, we begin to see face to face-this is the impartation of His glory in us, It is the revelation of the Kingdom within us that comes prior to its establishment upon the earth. This revelation comes to a remnant of His people, those who learn how to love Him with all their heart, they become His bride in whom he imparts the authority to rule over His kingdom. We are called to be kings and priests unto God, and this only comes to pass when we grow up in Him. With maturity comes responsibility.