Deaths final Defeat

Today while it is called today do not harden your hearts as in the day the Israelites rebelled in the desert. 

Death, where is your victory? Where is your sting? Physical death is not our enemy so what is “the death” spoken of as enemy?  I submit to you that death is a spirit (a fallen angel) that has power through deception and enticement to separate us from knowing the true person of God who wants to be known as our Father.  In the book of Revelation you will see death riding a horse and hell follows after. God created mankind to live as His Sons in relationship with Him as our Father but these spirits are opposed to us knowing and living in the power of that relationship. 

When God related to Moses what was to be recorded of the history and His purposes and plans for mankind that became disrupted by deception we learn right away how death (the spirits who perpetuate deceptions and enticements) wants mankind to believe God is withholding something beneficial from them. 

Deception is rampant and now permeates mankind’s cultures. These deceptive spirits operating on death’s behalf started affecting mankind’s thoughts, actions and feelings even though God was and is still fully engaged in and holding together all of His plans and purposes that will without fail come to pass. 

Mankind has been experiencing death (separation from God) since the beginning. Sons Of God chose death instead of Life and the Lifegiver. That’s, uniquely, mankind downfall. God gives them authority to choose between life and death. 

To become a Son a person has to receive the salvation that comes from the sacrifice of Jesus. The sanctity of His life lived on the earth qualified His blood to be offered for our sins (our missing the mark.) and as a result, sins are not being held against us. While we are once and for all saved from the consequences of sin, sanctification and maturation continues. 

We can’t save ourselves. We can’t sanctify ourselves. We cannot mature ourselves. We will never exactly represent our Father until we conform to His likeness and mature.  It is by grace we are saved and a free gift from God. 

Most Christian religions are familiar with and teach this portion of the good news.  Scripture tells us that whoever calls on the NAME of the Lord shall be saved. No one will call on the NAME apart from believing God exists and is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. 

The NAME is representation of all He is and all He represents. Calling on the NAME brings us to “imputed righteousness” or purification from our sins or redemption. We come into Christ just as we are but living in One Who is Holy brings changes to each and everyone who has become a Son. Instantly, metamorphosis begins. We refer to this as sanctification. This includes having our minds renewed to understand the truth of Who our Father is and to be brought to a place where we become like Him.  This is a process and is not instantaneous. The majority of believers are infantile in maturity. . 

Upon being “saved” and born again into Sonship (born of the Spirit of God)  maturity begins to take place. Just like an infant grows into adulthood, our newly born-again spirits are being trained by the Holy Spirit who has taken up residence in us. Conformation to Christ brings us to living in His character and nature. Maturity brings grounding in the elementary doctrines Paul spoke of in Hebrews 6. Maturity brings us understanding of our identity as Sons. We learn we have the seven-fold Spirit of God resting on us just like He did upon Jesus if we’re mature. We know there are at least five stages of development pointed out in scripture. Exact representation is Huios (Greek for fully mature)! We have to be able to “see” the Kingdom. We have to be able to enter the Kingdom. We come to know what allotment of power and authority the Holy Spirit gives us for the ministry He serves out of His Being through us. We grow to understand that we are all One body functioning with the headship of the High Priest after the order of Mechezessek. We are the body of the King. We are the body of the Bridegroom while the bride is the New Jerusalem that comes down from heaven. We should understand how we identify with with and that the four living creatures pictures the corporate body of Christ.

Maturity positions us to take back the ground death (separation from God) has gained in our soul’s make-up. We, as mature Sons learn how to stop allowing death to influence us in any and all of the ways that our death-ridden cultures that have influenced us to replace the Kingdom of heaven. 

This spiritual growth of any Son of God can be accelerated or retarded by the cultures that our parents and families have been exposed to, adapted to, and are living in. 

If our parents live in the culture of the Kingdom of God and have matured spiritually, themselves, according to truth the empowerment of the truth surrounds the child continually.  Even when the cultures of the world exist around them they learn how the Kingdom opposes those cultures. This doesn’t eliminate the fact each one must choose Life but being exposed to God in Spirit and in Truth in a Kingdom family that lives the truth affords them strength the world doesn’t have from which to make a higher choice. 

Most of us were not cultured by the Kingdom of God but by cultures that had a form of godliness (if denominational institutional religion plays a part in our lives) but has no power to bring us into the changes needed nor the revelations given of the order of the House (Gods family in heaven and in earth) or what  the government of God puts in place to equip the Saints so we live as a mature Son on the earth.

In other words religion has no power to recognize the enemy called death let alone rule in such a way that he loses the ability to deceive or entice us.  Death’s influence permeates everything that is not included in the Kingdom Life we live in as Sons of God. 

Any and all cultures other than the Kingdom of God (or heaven) are cultures of “death.” They are cultures that separate us from truth; therefore, from knowing and worshipping our “Father, God” in Spirit and Truth. These cultures may or may not look religious. Examples of cultures that have power to influence us from infancy, depending on what cultures the parents are guardians of the child are influenced by are family, denominations of religion, education, governments, country, and political persuasions.  

The depth of the deception afforded by the influence of “death” or the fallen angels that have power to separate mankind from God and His ways and His thoughts differ from person to person. The person who is separated from God experiences much harm as a result of sin. (Missing the mark of who God created us to be). If there are generations of demonic activity the bondage is likely to increase and control the person in ways others may not experience. 

God's word still holds true that was spoken to Cain. “Sin crouches in anticipation and has desire for you. You must learn to conquer it. 

I’ve come to understand that while there are stages of the spiritual growth that set us free from influences of death that can actually be observed as they manifest, (the Bible refers to this as fruit) the harm that sin has manifested in us also is being undone. God, our Father, through the work of the Holy Spirit in us heals us from the harm and damage that has resulted from living apart from righteousness. Examples of these are fear, depression, insecurity, rejection, mental illness, etc. the list would be exhaustive. However, until we can learn to listen to Holy Spirit and discern the harm brought through what we have accepted to be true through our cultures that just doesn’t carry us in truth we will continue to see harm come to ourselves and to those we love and we may be, without wanting or intending to, be the perpetuation of that harm. 

I’ve come to see that the place God established in the beginning where mankind could be where He was (the garden of Eden) parallels the place Jesus spoke of. “I go to prepare a place for you that where I Am there you may be also.”  

Redemption as Sons brings us to live in many dwelling places “in Him” or “rooms” in Him where we live in the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is defined as living in righteousness, (the condition acceptable to God that establishes right actions, thinking and feeling)  peace (the ability to destroy the authority that establishes disorder) and joy (rest in the finished work of God). All of this is in the Holy Spirit.

While death disguised itself as the right to choose to partake from what mankind decides is good and evil, our choices are made from an unsaved position. We make the choices out of logic and reason instead of from the righteousness of our spirits incarnated by the Living God. This can produce harm to us, personally and to others. 

God hates sin because it brings destruction to those He created and loves. Sin comes through deception and enticement. Therefore, He came to destroy the works of the spirits (devil) that support death.  These works continue to manifest in the earth but He completed the work that opens the gate that redeems us from their works of destruction. 

As a Son of God I have come to  understand that death that separates us from God disguises himselfb as “our right to choose to partake of or from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (cultures and traditions that we determine as good or evil). We are not capable of doing this apart from being born of the Spirit of Truth. Separation from God permeates our world because we cannot know Him apart from living in Him and Him in us. I continually find myself corrected by the Spirit of Christ in the simplicity of how my thoughts wander away from the way of the Lord in such a simple thing as complaining. If you pay attention heaviness in emotional well-being accompanies complaining. That heaviness of not checked can brings harm. You could find yourself on anti-depressants and even antipsychotic medications. That’s just one way.

Righteousness is understood and lived only in Him. While it is imputed by Christ the manifestation will be the condition in which we’re accepted. Our actions, thinking and feeling will be renewed to His actions, thoughts and and even feelings if surrender to His way. Our ability to destroy the power of the one who brings disorder can only be manifested as we live in Him. Joy or rest in what He has accomplished in us through His finished work in Christ is only ours in Him. 

We surrender in all things to the direction of the Holy Spirit. He leads us to only say what the Father is saying and do what the Father is doing. We give up the right to make choices about what we think is good or evil apart from being led by the Spirit. It’s only in the Spirit that we are able to discern what is righteous and live in it. 

This is the Way of Christ. The Spirit that rests on us carries the ability to rule over our soul’s choices. We learn we have power in Christ not to let death separate us from our Father in thought or deed. That same Spirit rests on us in wisdom, knowledge, understanding, power, counsel and fear of the Lord. It is the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. He dwells in us. We must only surrender to listen to and obey Him. 

In a religious world that is concerned more about operating in the gifts of the Spirit than obeying the Spirit we have tried to bypass the sanctification and maturation that comes in continuous surrender to every “Word” that proceeds from the mouth of our Father. The religious cultures have added and taken away from the Words of our Father and it produces the works of the spirit of death through confusion. Words the Lord has spoken has been twisted and distorted by the Spirit of death and taught through religious cultures that we trust to teach us God’s way. Many translations have not afforded understanding of God’s Word but actually changes what He means to be communicated. Only the Holy Spirit has the ability to make God's Word plain so we hear it and live in it in the purity in which the Holy Spirit inspired it to be written. 

The last enemy to be defeated is death. He will continue to be able to separate us from God through wrong thinking, wrong actions and wrong feeling until we surrender to only do what the Father says and only do what He does.  We will only be able to overcome the evil one through complete surrender to the Spirit of Truth.