The key to releasing the divine nature is in our will. What we need to learn is how to activate our spirit so that we are moving in the Spirit. This is how we grow and develop in His nature. We have to increase what is in us by exercising it.
When we are born from above we receive the identical same life that was in Jesus Christ. It is in seed form but grows as we exercise in it. Now have two lives inside of us, our natural life and our spiritual life (God inside us).
We now have two lives in us (the life of the flesh, and the life of the spirit). What we have to learn how to do now is to walk by the one and not the other.
A walk with God starts by having a broken spirit or a repentant spirit. We are poor in spirit; our spirit is now willing but weak. We have to learn how to walk and this takes exercise or practice.
Our first reaction to something contrary to our will, will be wrong because we are naturally self-centered-this is our flesh rising up to act. Now that we have the life of God in our spirit we can instantly recognize this and not act. Instead we look to the Lord and move in Him. This takes patience because it is not natural. As we learn how to walk in the spirit it becomes our second nature.
In time through practice, we learn how to walk in the Spirit so that we never fulfill the lust of the flesh; we are able to keep our body under.
We develop in the divine nature until we become mature, and then we will never turn back to our old life because it has no more attraction.
When we are filled with the life of God it overflows so that we are living in a heavenly realm. Everything we think, say and do is in the spirit. God is manifested in us and through us. This is called flowing in the Spirit.
Because the will of God is not automatically done in the earthly realm we encounter contrary winds. This is the time of testing, a flood of opposition will come against us-This is when we find out how much of God’s word is written on our heart.
As we learn how to live by every word of God- in the time of testing, we pass the test because our life is now founded upon the Word-Rock.
We have to learn to live by the word, so that when the test comes we pass the test because we hold fast the word so that it cannot be separated from us. Only those who are mature in the word can pass the test, because they no longer live by their natural life but through practice they learn how to respond to every contrary circumstance in Christ.
We go from grace to faith to strength to glory. The life we are called to live is impossible with only human ability. Only Jesus was able to pass every test perfectly. As we learn how to depend upon the Holy Spirit we too come into this perfection, but so as by fire. We learn how to rejoice in these testing’s, because they are the means by which we are glorified.
First faith comes- this is acceptance in our spirit of the revelation God gives. Then we move into the strength of the Spirit, where God is able to do through us, what we could not do without Him. We then give Him all the glory or credit; we are now God centered or God dependent. Without Him we can do nothing, but through Him we can do all things.
To be glorified means that the word is sealed to our heart, we no longer act independent of it. We are now abiding in the word which qualifies us to inherit all the blessings of that word.
The word of God first becomes a cross to us, because it is death to the human nature. This is the testing of our faith. The word of God is refined in us so as by fire. This is what separates the human nature from the divine nature. When the word becomes rooted and grounded in our heart so that it becomes our response, then we begin to bear fruit-this is the fruit that remains-it is the glory of God, His nature and His ability.
Jesus is the way, the only way that that we can make it through the refining process. As we are going through the fire we have to have a fixed focus on the Lord, so that we draw God’s strength into our inner being. Until we know the Lord intimately we will always fail the test. We have to be more aware of God’s Spirit than the testing we are going through.
As we learn how to walk in the new nature there will be hardly any manifestation of the flesh at all, every time we feel it rising up, we break connection with it. As we look to the Lord in every test He shows us the way out-or what to do.
The reason our spirit was made alive, was because God joined Himself to it, our spirit now wills to do the will of God, but our flesh has its own will. The will of the flesh dies or becomes inactive as we learn how to walk in the spirit. If we have no desire working in us to do God’s will, then our spirit is not alive to God but is asleep.
We must hear the word until desire is conceived in us. Desire being conceived in us is one of the ways that we know our spirit is alive in God.
Once desire is conceived in us, then we can begin to act upon it. Everything God calls us to do; He must first give us the desire, and then the power to carry it out.
Once our spirit is born again, our spirit was given a will in the new birth. We activate this will by determining to do God’s will. Our soul must come into agreement with this will; we have to make up our mind.
Our will becomes free as we practice God’s word which is learning how to walk in the spirit. Once we walk in the spirit, then the flesh is rendered powerless which sets our will free, because the flesh is no longer warring against it.
The new covenant is our spirit, soul and body in submission and agreement with the Spirit of God so that He can live in and through us.
God has made a covenant with us through the death of Jesus on the Cross, making the provision of His Spirit. When we say yes to God’s will through the Holy Spirit drawing us and convicting us, then the Spirit of God enters our spirit giving us the desire to do his will.
Through the infilling of His Spirit or His Spirit coming upon our soul we receive the power. As we learn how to walk in the spirit, by moving in His life, we no longer act in independence from His Spirit by moving in our flesh.
Our spirit desires the will of God; our flesh desires things contrary to it. As we learn to no longer yield to the flesh but to the spirit, the flesh desires decrease in their intensity until they are rendered inactive. As long as we have a body of flesh the desire is still in it, and if it becomes active then we disconnect from it by our focus on the spirit.
Our soul stands in between our spirit and our body. Our soul is our self-consciousness. We have to focus our consciousness on the things of the spirit; this is how we activate our spirit. When our spirit is active we feel the life of God in it. As we learn how to walk or move in this life, this life begins to flow or increase. We begin to live on a spiritual level instead of a soulish or natural level.
We pass from death into life, because we determine to love. In the new birth of our spirit we were given a measure of God’s love. This love is the sign or mark of the new nature. If we never walk in this it becomes inactive. God will then take our talent because we have buried it, and give it to another.
Our soul is the part of us that determines whether our spirit or our flesh is going to come forth. We cannot walk in the spirit and the flesh at the same time. The things of the spirit are death to the flesh, and the things of the flesh are death to the spirit. The mixture or duplicity in us is being lukewarm which God hates; he would rather have us hot or cold.
God commands us to walk in love or His nature, it is not optional. So we must determine to walk in love. We do not love automatically; we love because we determine to love. It is only as we become aware of this love filling us and moving us every day that it becomes second nature, our new way of life. It is only then that we truly live, everything foreign to it we instantly reject. We reject anything that hinders this love from growing and developing in our lives.
As this love begins to grow and develop in our lives we are enabled to love even our enemies. It is this love of God growing and developing in our lives that enables us to die to self. It is this love of God motivating and controlling us that never fails. When this love is missing or not flowing-then all our relationships begin to die.
Our love just like our faith will be tested. When problems develop in our relationships with people, it is just an opportunity to grow in love. It is then when we must determine to love. It is then when we must look to the Lord to teach us how to love. We always need more love; problems are just opportunities to appropriate more of God’s love.
We need to remember that the real problem is self, not other people. If a person is not walking in the love of God, then they are missing the opportunity to have more of God in their life. The secret to living the abundant life is in our focus. The moment our spiritual eye becomes bad is the moment we are filled with darkness. The right focus is always having our eyes on the Lord so that we are drawing more of His Love into us.
When someone offends us, we look to the Lord. If we fail to do this, then we fail because we move in self. The love of God never fails; this is why we need to be continually aware of it.
Self is the root of our problem; this is why human love fails because it is self-centered. The love of God is not focused on our self, but towards the well-being of those we come in contact with. Our desire is for other people to know the Lord, to take on His glorious character.
For the love of God to flow in our life, we have to get out of self. We can never take anything personal; we have to learn how to live in Christ. What people do to us they do to Christ. What we do to the family of God we do to Christ.
In order to move in the love of God, we need to humble ourselves. True humility is not focused on the self at all but focused on the greatness of God. In the testing of our love we have the opportunity to move in the greatness of God.
Jesus has so identified Himself with us, that what someone does to us they are literally doing to Him. What we do to our brothers and sisters in Christ we are literally doing to Him.
The revelation of our being identical with the Lord will get our focus off of ourselves and others so that we can begin to move in God. We have the same identical love that God has, and the offense must come so that we have the opportunity to grow and develop in this love.
We will go through the same experiences that Jesus did, but not to the same degree. One of the most painful is that of betrayal.
Jesus loved his disciples to the very end and never wavered in his love for them. He loved Judas by washing his feet even though he knew he would betray him. This was the job of the least of the servants and peter was offended by such an act.
Jesus gave us a new commandment, that we love one another as he loved us. This is the same identical love that was in his heart when the greatest became the least and he washed Judas’s feet. This is the same identical love that moved Him to lay down his life for us by paying the debt for our sin on the cross.
We experience this same identical love as we enter the secret place of true intimacy with the Father, the place Jesus prepared for us beyond the veil. We become so identified with God that we feel His love flowing through us.
This love is the essence of God Himself moving in us. It is as we learn how to walk in this love, that we enter into a oneness with God where we experience Him in such a way that we no longer see ourselves as an individual, but a manifestation of Christ in the earth.
Paul said for me to live is Christ.