We can perfect an outward appearance of being the consummate Christian.
We can get Christian speak down with perfection.
But none of this really matters at all.
What matters is that we see and hear spiritually; that we are alive unto God.
Today's study addresses this awareness that we need to have as Christians.
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There are some scriptures which unfold a principle about being alive- totally and wholly alive.
Paul recommended in I Thessalonians 5:23 that your whole spirit, soul, and body be sanctified wholly and preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord.
This indicates that there are certain areas in your life right now which are dead to God, and that as the Parousia and the first resurrection draw near, there might be a process by which these areas can come alive to God.
An unawareness is kindred to death.
Ephesians 5:14-21:
Wherefore He saith, Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead.
Without a doubt, Paul was speaking here to believers, not to sinners.
He was telling believers: Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee.
Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
And be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot, but be ye filled with the Spirit; speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord Jess Christ to God, even the Father; subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.
Note this very carefully.
Paul was saying, "Come Alive.
Be aware of the will of God.
Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead; and Christ will shine upon you."
Notice that revelation comes because some faculty within you awakens.
It is amazing how much connection there is in the Scriptures between the words "death" and "sleep."
The reason some believers are not more spiritual is because some of the faculties within them are dead.
They may have dead ears, and so they must struggle to hear.
They may find that heaviness comes over them, and when they go to the house of God they become sleepy.
Awake, thou that sleepest!
Sleep and death are very real; they must be battled and overcome.
We are never going to be what God wants us to be until we come alive- totally and completely alive.
There are specific areas in believers' lives that are dead to God.
They are often defeated because there is no awareness of the Lord in these areas.
When a man does not have spiritual ears to hear or spiritual eyes to see, so that his heart can respond to God's provisions, where is the focus of his life?
It is through his soul.
He reacts emotionally to his circumstances, to what he sees and hears.
He always finds himself crippled where God is concerned because the faculties of his spirit are not alive to God.
We must come to the place where we can move and see and experience things in the spirit world as well as we can in the natural world.
II Kings 6 tells the story of the young man who was the servant of Elisha.
When the siege was laid around the city to take Elisha captive because his revelations were disturbing the military plans of Syria, this young man went out in the morning and looked over the wall of the city, and he went to Elisha and cried, "O Master! What shall we do?"
Elisha was a seer; he could actually see the protection that was around him.
He prayed to the Lord to open the young man's eyes that he might see.
The Lord opened his eyes to see all the angelic hosts and forces that were there.
Immediately, the young man's faith was great, because God had opened his eyes; a faculty within him that was dead had come alive.
The restoration of the New Testament Church is being held back because of the fact that more prophets are needed; but a prophet cannot be dead in any aspect of his life.
We can call it "death" because something within him is dead.
He must be aware of the spirit world.
He must be able to hear the voice of God.
He must be able to see what God is doing.
Christ was always beholding the face of the Father.
He did only those things that He saw the Father doing ( John 5:19 ).
Just imagine having sight like that.
The world cannot comprehend it.
A psychiatrist would call it hallucinations, seeing things that are not there.
Hallucinations that belong to insanity are one thing, and what a seer prophet sees is another thing completely.
Many of our limitations remain because we do not actually isolate an area of need and focus on it until God meets us in that area.
If we would, we could break through one limitation after another.
We would not be stumbling along, but we would be walking clearly before God.
We must have spiritual faculties if we are going to have a spiritual walk.
We cannot win in warfare unless we know what we are fighting.
Even when there is a willingness ans a dedication to intercede, intercession is often not as effective as it should be.
This is due to the fact that our perception needs to be opened up to a greater extent so that we know exactly how to pray and how to focus in on the need.
The provision for us is great, but we cannot move or function in what God has for us until we focus on His provision; it must become more real to us than the problem.
If intercession focuses on the problem, it becomes a desperate wailing that is ineffective.
But if intercession focuses on the provision, there is a constant drawing of the provision to meet the problem.
This is very essential.
Paul wrote in I Thessalonians 5:5-6 ...we are not of the night, nor of the darkness; so then let us not sleep, as do the rest.
Paul was speaking here about people in the world who do not know that the Lord is coming.
They are just stumbling around in the darkness.
But the light is shining.
God is sending forth a living Word into the earth.
However, that will have no significance for you if you do not have ears to hear or eyes to see.
You will still walk in darkness!
You cannot grasp a living Word and reason it out in your mind; it is not real to you until your spiritual sight and your spiritual mind take hold of it.
Paul continued, But let us watch and be sober. Verse 6.
The Word teaches much about being alert and about watching.
Jesus gave the warning in Luke 21:34, "Watch and be careful, lest the day come upon you unawares."
Keep your spiritual eye open so that you can see.
You can train yourself to become very observant (which few people are ); but in a spiritual sense, your spiritual eye will tend to go blind unless you use it and constantly exercise it by being watchful.
If you do not pay attention to what God is saying and give diligence to it, you will miss it.
If you have your ears trained in the spirit to hear what is being preached, you will grow by it.
You may be sitting right next to someone in the congregation who does not give the diligence to hear.
He knows that the Word is from God, but somehow his mind starts wandering and the Word passes him by.
You must bring your imagination and your thoughts into captivity, subjecting then to Christ ( II Corinthians 10:5 ).
If any man has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches ( Revelation 2:7 ).
Train your spiritual ear to hear and your spiritual eye to see.
People should be trained to grab the Word the moment God speaks it.
They should be alive to the Word.
For they that sleep in the night; and they that are drunken in the night. I Thessalonians 5:7.
The night exists for these people.
What makes the difference between daylight and the dark?
The difference comes in having an eye to see.
This constitutes an entirely new level.
What makes color?
The eye that can see it.
What makes beauty?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
What makes rough and what makes soft?
What makes bitter and what makes sweet?
These distinctive qualities depend upon your ability to see, to taste, to smell, to feel.
Products or items themselves know nothing about those qualities.
What makes the difference between the end time with all its darkness and the new age?
You will discover the difference as you come into the resurrection life where spiritual perception is concerned.
There is a time when we will all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, but I am speaking about obtaining this piecemeal style.
Step by step, the sons of God are going to reach into God and grab hold of certain qualities of sight and of understanding.
Satan tries to create a sleepiness and a heaviness.
Often he brings deception by distorting and clouding your faculties so that you do not receive a true picture when you hear the Word.
That is all the enemy has to worry about.
He does not care if you understand almost all of it, just so you miss the one thing that would help you to take hold of it and then begin to walk with God in a way that is far beyond what you could ever dream of.
Claim it:
"God is going to give me eyes to see. I am going to be awake.
My faculties are going to awaken to God.
I am going to rise from the dead!
Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee."
Come alive to your need and determine to have that need met.
The woman who had the hemorrhaging for twelve years was in a terrible condition and was growing worse.
She knew that if she could just touch the hem of Jesus' garment, she would be made whole.
She found a way to get through the crowd, she touched the hem of His garment, and she was made whole.
What about all the other people in that crowd?
They were tuned in to many other things, but were unaware of what was really there for them ( Mark 5:25-34 ).
How many times have you been like that?
Be aware of the provision.
Reach out, determined to touch the lord.
Be like the Syrophoenician woman, who cried out with a desperation.
The disciples could not send her away; Jesus could not discourage her.
she was determined to have an answer ( Mark 7:24-30 ).
When you realize that you have a need, you too must determine to touch God.
Being spiritual is not some special quality with which you were born.
No one is born with a spiritual quality.
That is why the Word says in Ephesians 2:1 that we were dead in our trespasses and sins.
Nothing was alive to God.
But He has quickened us and made us alive though not completely.
Let us believe in an instant work of the grace of god in salvation, but let us believe also in the progressive nature of salvation.
In many aspects, a spiritual babe resemble a new-born baby.
A baby who is only a few days old has only tubular vision; he sees light and shadows, but he does not see anything clearly.
He has legs, but he cannot walk.
He has hands, but he cannot hear too well.
The baby is alive, but his faculties are not yet developed.
This is the spiritual condition of the babes who have just come into Christ.
Their faculties are undeveloped.
They need blessing.
They need the milk of the Word, so that they can grow thereby.
Strong meat belongs to him who by reason of use has his senses exercised to discern both good and evil ( Hebrews 5:14 ).
Those who are spiritual ought to be deeply concerned about the babes in Christ, and not expect them to grow automatically because they have the Word preached to them.
Pray for them; ask the Lord to help them.
So then let us not sleep, as do the rest, but let us watch and be sober.
For they that sleep in the night; and they that are drunken are drunken in the night.
But let us, since we are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.
For God appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation through our lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. I Thessalonians 5:6-10.
In this passage, the word "sleep" is to people who are walking around with two legs, yet they are asleep, they are half-dead.
The word "sleep" is used in a different sense in I Thessalonians 4:13, referring to those who are dead.
But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest, who have no hope.
The word "sleep" is used correctly in both passages.
When a person is asleep, he is not aware of what is happening.
Some parts of his being are not functioning, and other parts are functioning in suspended animation.
Certain areas of his consciousness are dead.
The subconscious is still quite active.
When you are asleep, parts of you are alive and parts of you are practically dead.
When a Christian dies, we say that he is sleeping.
What does that mean?
The soul is asleep; the physical body is cast off, but the spirit is alive in the great cloud of witnesses.
We who are alive will not precede them.
Even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. I Thessalonians 4:14.
The spirit will be brought back and the body resurrected.
We say that they sleep because parts of them are inactive and parts of them are dead, but the rest is alive to God.
When the body dies, it goes back to dust; that is the end of the body.
But the spirit is still alive, and a new resurrection body will be given to it.
God is not going to take the same old elements and put them back together.
We will have a new body.
Whether you are awake or asleep, you will live together with Him.
Your body is not dead yet.
It may be half-dead, and not functioning as healthy as it should, but you are still alive in the physical.
You can be alive in the soul.
You can be alive in the spirit.
Paul said, And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire ( not any of it half-dead ).
We want to be alive all the way.
We want new life for our bodies.
We want new life in our souls.
We want new life in our spirits.
We want to be preserved entire, without blame at the coming (presence) of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Faithful is he that calleth you, who will also do it. I Thessalonians 5:23-24.
Wherefore exhort one another, and build each other up, even as also ye do. I Thessalonians 5:11.
Each member becomes complete by what the other members give.
There will not be a malfunctioning member in the Body of Christ, because life is flowing through the Body to its members, giving them all the awareness they are supposed to have.
Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome, And this, knowing the season, that already it is time for you to awake out of sleep.
(Paul repeated his admonition to awake out of sleep, because the enemy is always trying to bring heaviness slumber, and spiritual unawareness.)
For now is salvation nearer to us than when we first believed.
The night is far spent, and the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness ( Just throw them off ), and let us put on the armor of light.
Let us walk becomingly, as in the day; not in revelling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantoness, not in strife and jealousy.
But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the the lusts thereof. Romans 13:11-14.
In any victory that you win in Christ, the important factor is not what you discard, but what you appropriate.
Why does a carnal Christian have such a difficult time over coming his problems?
It is because he lives in the realm of the flesh, and he cannot focus on anything but the flesh.
You cannot keep looking at your problem without having it grow.
If you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh ( Galatians 5:16 ).
The victory comes when there is a total distraction from the flesh.
A carnal man cannot do that because he is not able to see the spiritual.
He must have prayer to open his spiritual discernment, and then he can immediately overcome the flesh.
He can phase out the focus and concentration on the carnal, and he can phase in a strong focus upon the Lord and the things of the Spirit.
Before long he realizes that he has not had any temptation; he has not been fulfilling the lusts of the flesh.
When Satan tempted Eve, her focus was directed to the fruit.
She looked at it and saw that it was desirable to eat to make her wise.
There was a concentration on that rather than on what God had said to her heart.
In a walk with God, it is very necessary that you feed your spirit by listening to the living Word, by reading the Scriptures, and by waiting on God.
All of these activities train your spirit, which has been dead ( non-functional, to say the least ).
Once in awhile, it comes out to get a little blessing.
Do not be so carnal, so lacking in spirituality, coming to church just so that once in a while you can break through to a blessing and become real happy in the Lord, while all the rest of the time you are living down in the misery of your circumstances because your focus is on them.
Learn how to live in the heavenly places.
If you are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God ( Colossians 3:1,3).
You are not to be focused upon the carnal things.
Put them to death.
Mortify them.
Say, "Out of my sight!"
In your mind, bury them.
Stomp on them.
Whatever a man sows, that he reaps.
If he sows to the flesh, of the flesh he will reap corruption.
If he sows to the Spirit, of the Spirit he reaps life everlasting ( Galatians 6:7-8 ).
Being spiritual is not a matter of suppressing the carnal.
To be spiritual, you must be wholly engrossed with the spiritual; then the carnal will be dealt with and eliminated.
That is what you must put to sleep.
To put it rather bluntly- when you become alive to God, you receive an anesthetic for the flesh.
In Mark 13:33-36, Jesus spoke about the spiritual unawareness that the enemy is always trying to bring to us.
Take heed, watch and pray; for ye know not when the time is.
It is as when a man, sojourning in another country, having left his house, and give authority to his servant, to each one his work, commanded also the porter to watch.
Watch therefore: for ye know not when the lord of the house cometh, whether at even, or at midnight, or at cock-crowing, or in the morning; lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.
( Notice: He finds you sleeping! )
The thing that drains your spirit and defeats you, the thing that robs you of the blessing and strength and energy in the Spirit, is the opposite of what it is in the natural realm.
In the natural realm, when a man works he gets tired.
Then he becomes discouraged and depressed; his energy is drained away.
However, when you work for God in the labors that He has ordained, you start coming alive.
Jesus said, "My meat is to do the will of Him who sent Me" ( John 4:34 ).
When you do the will of Him who sent you, you become alive, you feed your self, and you grow strong.
In the end time, those who sleep will lose out.
Sleep will drain them.
The people who are occupied with balanced spiritual living- waiting upon the Lord, laboring in what is Spirit-directed- are constantly drawing strength that seems supernatural.
Those who always complain about being tired never are rested up enough to work for God.
They are always in the doldrums.
Even after being encouraged, they sink back again.
And what I say unto you all, Watch. Mark 13:37.
The word "watch" indicates the attitude of the spirit that should be in you in this end time, when two opposite conditions will exist.
The Christian who is not alert will find sleepiness and heaviness coming upon him.
The day will come upon him unaware.
He will not even see what is going on.
He will lose his spiritual sight and his hearing.
Unawareness will come upon him suddenly and cause him to sleep.
On the other hand, a remnant of aggressive believers, by focusing their attention and by appropriating, will have their faculties sharp; nothing will pass them by.
Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion ( Revelation begets endurance ) ; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit on thy throne, O Jerusalem; loose thyself from the bonds of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. Isaiah 52:1-2.
Come alive!
Come alive to your provision!
Come alive to who you are.
It is not enough for you to say, "I am a son of God."
It has to be real to you.
You have to awaken to it and be aware of it.
The time of the Parousia is literally the time of Christ's presence.
Many Christians who are looking for a rapture have never developed the capacity to be aware of the Lord.
They would not recognize the moving of the Lord if the Lord Himself walked down the isle.
When they hear the Word, they do not even know if it is a Word from God.
Some may think that because someone preaches loudly and with emotion, his word is really anointed, when it is not anointed at all.
Yet when someone has a real Word from the Lord, they will grasp at it because the awareness is not there; the sensitivity is not developed.
During the days of the Parousia, many Christians will still be waiting for a rapture when all they need to do is to open their eyes and their ears, and find that He is walking in their midst ( Revelation 2:1 ), ready to bless.
How many times has the lord moved, yet you were unaware of Him?
How many times has God had great provisions for you, and you were unaware of them?
You could have reached out and grabbed them, saying, "This is mine; I am going to have it!"
And from that moment, it would have been yours.
Too many Christians are hidebound slaves of tradition.
They think that they must come to a quietness of soul, go off in a little nook or corner, and there repeat ritualistic prayers in order to merit favor with God.
Let us come to know Him in the alertness of our spirits.
We want to awaken to the truth so that when we hear the truth, it rings as bells in our understanding.
We want to awaken to righteousness and sin not.
We want to walk in the Parousia with the Lord.
The parousia has started.
It is the time to walk with God.
In the past, prophecies came over individuals, defining the spiritual gifts they were to walk in.
Ministries saw in part and knew in part; but now the days have come when that which is in part shall be done away.
We are coming to the time of open revelation.
We will not need prophecies to intitiate the revelation, but only to confirm it.
We will reach in and grab certain gifts, and then come to the ministries who will confirm the fact that we have these gifts.
Do you need this spiritual awareness?
Believe God to open the spiritual realm to you.
Of course, when God does that, you will also become sensitive to the demonic world.
You cannot expect to see only the things that are beautiful.
You will see everything.
You will have your senses developed to discern both good and evil.
When you see someone who looks like an angel of light, you will know who he is.
When someone presents himself as a minister of righteousness, you will know where he came from.
When great swelling words come to deceive, you will recognize them.
Develop your sensitivity in every direction.
Blessed are the eyes that see.
Blessed are the ears that hear.
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