I just returned from an overseas flight where Jamie and I were upgraded to business class. The seats made out into a flat bed. It was wonderful. It really reduces jet lag. As I was drifting off to sleep, I thought about John Wesley who traversed the Atlantic in the hold of a ship. It took him a couple of months one way and the conditions were terrible. My flight from London to Denver took nine hours, and I had luxuries he couldn't have imagined.
All of this is possible because of knowledge. Man hasn't created anything new; he's just discovered the laws that the Lord established from the beginning. Bird's brains have been capable of flying from the start. The same is true with communications, electricity, computing, and a host of other modern breakthroughs. Man is just discovering the laws God created.
Although mankind has made huge discoveries that have totally changed the way we live, it seems like we know less about ourselves than previous generations. While our ancestors didn't have all the modern conveniences, they had a peace and strength that eludes most today. As our knowledge of our natural world has increased, our knowledge of spiritual things has decreased. In man's arrogance, he blindly believes all of life's problems can be solved by himself, but there can be no peace without if there's no peace within.
There is a whole universe that man in all his wisdom is ignorant of. That is the world of the spirit. I'm not just talking about the spiritual realm outside of us but also the spiritual being inside every person. We are not evolved animals; we were created in God's image and likeness (Gen. 1:26). We are spirit beings. The ultimate way to control bad behaviour isn't by more laws, metal detectors, or social engineering; it's changing the hearts of people, one at a time. Only Jesus can do that.
Yet sadly, even many Christians have lost this spiritual point of view. Very few Christians know who they are in the spirit. In fact, they have been taught by religion that they are sinners by nature ' just the opposite of what the Bible teaches.
It's true that we were all born sinners (Ps. 51:5) and had the nature of the devil working in us (Eph. 2:2-3), but when we came to Christ and received salvation, we became a new person in the spirit.
This isn't talking about your body. If you were a man before you accepted Christ, you were still a man afterwards. Your body didn't change. Your soul, which is what the Bible calls the mental-emotional part of you, didn't automatically change either. It's subject to change, but you have to renew your mind to experience change in your mind and emotions.
However, in the spirit, you became a brand-new species of being. Your spirit is totally new. There isn't an old sin nature left in you.
I know this comes as a complete shock to many of you who have been indoctrinated in the-old-nature-versus-the-new-nature theology. Most Christians have been taught to believe that after salvation, they are still the same at their core, and they live the rest of their lives trying to restrain this old nature. They believe they have two natures. That's schizophrenic, and it produces Christians who are nothing like Christ.
Paul dealt with this issue in Romans 6. He had so powerfully proved in the preceding chapters that God deals with us by grace through faith and that the logical question was, 'Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?' (Rom. 6:1). Of course this is not what Paul was saying, and he gave two reasons in this chapter that Christians should live holy.
The first reason Paul gave simply says,
Paul said that once we are baptised into Christ (Rom. 6:3), we experience a death to our old sin nature. It's dead. It's gone. It doesn't exist anymore.
I can just hear people saying, 'What!? Are you crazy? I still struggle with many sins. I'm not dead to sin.'
I will admit that Christians still sin. Paul made mention of this in this very chapter and dealt with it in more detail in Romans 7. Our nature has been changed. The only reason we still sin is because we don't know these truths (John 8:32).
Our minds are similar to computers in the sense that they can be programmed. Once programmed, they will continue to function as programmed until we re-programme them. We were all born in sin, and our old sin nature programmed our minds how to be selfish, bitter, angry, how to lust, etc. When we are born again (John 3:3), we become totally new in our spirits. This old nature has been completely changed (2 Cor. 5:17). It's not in the process of becoming new; it's already as pure and perfect as Jesus (1 John 4:17, 1 Cor. 6:17, and Eph. 4:24).
Paul called this resurrection life. In Romans 6:5, he said,
Then Paul said,
Therefore, victory in the Christian life is as simple as renewing our minds to who we are and what we have already received in Christ. It's not the struggle of two natures inside us; we are the way we think (Prov. 23:7). If we see ourselves as old sinners, saved by grace, then we will continue to struggle with sin, but when we see the total change that took place in our nature, we will manifest that change in our actions.
When we see ourselves as being part devil, we act like it, but when we see who we are in Christ ' i.e., in our born-again spirits ' we become like Him (2 Cor. 3:18 and 1 John 3:2). The way we see ourselves becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This is the dominant revelation the Lord has used to change my life. I had a life-altering encounter with the Lord on March 23, 1968. The Lord used that to get my attention and show me there was so much more. But it's the revelation I received from the Word on who I have become in my spirit that has made the biggest impression and lasting change in my life. It has totally changed my identity.
I call this revelation Spirit, Soul & Body. That's not a catchy phrase, but it's descriptive of the way the Lord revealed these truths to me. I've come to know I'm a spirit being who has a soul and lives in a body, but the real me is my spiritual person. It's in the spirit that I've been totally changed and made just like Jesus.
Since God is a Spirit and He deals with me on the basis of who I am in the spirit (John 4:24), this has changed everything. I now worship God based on who I am in the spirit and not on who I am in my flesh; i.e., how I act or feel. I now understand how our holy God can truly love me, because in my born again spirit, I'm totally righteous and holy (Eph. 4:24). My spirit is His workmanship (Eph. 2:10).
I've discovered that I'm redeemed from the Law because the Law wasn't made for a righteous man (1 Tim. 1:9). The Law was given to show us our need for salvation, but it couldn't save us (Rom. 3:19-21). What the Law couldn't do, Jesus did (Rom. 8:3-4), and I'm now the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21).
This entitles me to everything God is and has. I have His authority to use, and to the degree that I've done this, I've experienced miraculous results. I'm so excited about this that I'm trying to let the whole world know these truths.
Right now I'm sharing these truths on television to a potential audience of 3.2 billion people daily. We have nearly 3,000 people actively participating in our Charis Bible Colleges (CBC) around the world and we are in the process of developing a CBC campus in Woodland Park, Colorado, where we can train at least 3,000 people at one time in these same truths that have changed my life.
I know this works. It has worked for me, and it will work for you. If you haven't got my teaching Spirit, Soul & Body, I urge you to do so. If you have had the teaching before and it hasn't radically changed your relationship with the Lord, then you need to go back through the teaching again, because you missed something. It's in there.
I recommend you get my Spirit, Soul & Body study guide too. This is specifically designed to enable you to conduct Bible studies on this subject. It's super simple. You just read the short statements from my teaching, and then there are questions you read and discuss. After the discussion, there are scriptures you look up that answer the questions. It's an interactive discipleship method that is changing millions of people's lives around the world. I ask you to help me share this good news with everyone you know.
I would also like to give a special thank you to our partners who are helping me to build this CBC campus I call The Sanctuary. I'm committed to doing this debt free, and we are over 85 percent of the way there. However, because of the way we have to order materials in advance, we are reaching a decision time at the end of July. Before we can commit to finishing the project, we have to know we can pay for everything. Remember, I'm doing this without a loan.
So, this month is critical for the on time completion of this project. Please visit our website: www.awmi.net for the latest updates on construction and where we stand financially. Anything you can do to help us this month would be a special blessing. Please help us get this done on time and debt free. Tens of thousands of people will benefit from the knowledge of what Jesus has done for them, and they in turn will spread this good news Gospel all over the world.
Together we are making a difference that will cause the knowledge of God to cover the world as the waters cover the seas (Hab. 2:14). Thanks for being a part.
Andrew and Jamie
Understanding spirit, soul, and body is critically important to every believer. It's like the key that opens the treasure chest of God's grace. It could be a matter of life and death, and it's the foundation to understanding the rest of Scripture.
Spirit, Soul & Body
In Andrew Wommack’s teaching Spirit, Soul & Body, learn how to see yourself as God sees and relates to you in your spirit.
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