Reality

By

Lee

Reality is what is real, what you see all around you every day that you can touch, taste, smell, hear and see.  If you are a person of faith that believes in God, can you directly by these physical senses, detect the reality of God?  If God were physical, then the answer would be yes.  God however is not physical; God is a Spirit and cannot be detected by any of our physical senses.  The only way someone can believe in the existence of God is by faith. 

God created what we call reality and our reality is the physical universe in which we live.  Human beings were designed by God to interact with this physical universe and all that we can know or understand apart from God's Spirit is only the physical reality.  The Bible defines as carnal those people who are limited to this physical reality.  Scripture uses other words like fleshly or worldly to describe the carnal human being.  Carnal people therefore use the things of the physical creation to relate to a Spiritual God because it is all they know.  The universe, which is the physical creation, is composed of four things; time, space, matter and energy.  The carnal mind uses these four components to worship a Spiritual God.  The component of time is used to specify the time or times assigned for worship and these are called holy days that are observed daily, weekly, monthly or annually.  The physical space used to conduct the worship ceremony is called the holy place, space is place.  The objects used during the ceremony are composed of matter and are considered holy.  The energy expended by the worshippers are their works, work requires the use of energy.  All of these things then are directed to a Spiritual God in order to please Him and gain His favor.  Usually the ceremonies are repeated in a yearly cycle, continuously, thus becoming a ritual or vain repetition performed by carnal minds.  This is an accurate description of the worship practices of ancient Israel.  It is also an accurate description of modern day professing Christians.   Do today's churches have holy times, places, and objects in which they expend their energy in an attempt to reach a Spiritual God?  Physical things cannot be used as a conduit to connect ones self to a Spiritual God who insists that He be worshipped in Spirit and in truth.  This type of worship is the worship of the creation rather than the Creator.  When a person by faith in Jesus receives the Holy Spirit, a new conduit or connection is made with the Creator.  The person is said to become a new creation and not of this world.  Their worship style is changed and their mind is changed or renewed by the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit.  The physical body remains the same but the human spirit undergoes a transformation from the physical reality to the spiritual reality.  Spiritual knowledge and wisdom is given through the Holy Spirit to "see" spiritually that there is another reality that is not physical and temporary as the one we have previously known.  Anyone who becomes a new creation in Christ is exposed to a new reality in which all things become new.  The old things pass away and are replaced with new spiritual things.  This change is an inner change of spirit and not an outward change of body and as such goes undetected by those who have not experienced the same change.  Scripture says that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, that is our fleshly body is not that part of us that receives salvation.  It is the spirits of, "just men made perfect" that will inherit God's kingdom.  God is concerned with the human spirit because that is what He is making in His own image and likeness and not our fleshly bodies.  In the resurrection at the return of Jesus the saints receive glorified spirit bodies and a transformed human spirit. Those who are of the Spirit of God are in a transformation process that culminates when our salvation promise is fulfilled and our fleshly bodies are replaced with spiritual bodies. 

After the Eden sin, the hope and promise given to humanity by God is salvation, therefore it becomes necessary that we be called and chosen out of the sinful world first spiritually, then bodily.  The spiritual happens before the bodily because God will prove us first before we inherit everlasting life in His kingdom.  We must run and finish the race that is set before us first before we receive the crown, we must grow in grace and in knowledge, we must bear fruit unto righteousness and we must endure to the end.  The crown is not given until the race is finished.

God provides for all that we need to achieve salvation and the only part we have is to submit to the working of His Spirit in us by our own free will choice to do so.  Thy will be done, meaning God's will, not ours.  While a person is carnal they have no free will to make the choice to serve God.  Carnal people are servants to sin or to Satan who holds them captive to do his will.  No person in this state can come to God; God must draw them to Himself through His Son Jesus Christ.  God stirs up the carnal human spirit by granting them repentance; by producing in them Godly sorrow because of their sin and instills within them a desire for truth.  Carnal rituals and physical forms of worship are replaced by the working power of the Holy Spirit of God.  God imparts His own nature to the convert chief of which is His love that will fulfill in us all righteousness.  These spiritual qualities of God's nature are given or imputed by faith alone without our performing any works of any kind.  This entire process is called "Grace" and that is what we are saved by.  The worship of God becomes spontaneous without regard to time or place and has no need to expend energy in works or of matter in physical objects.  God's love is the force and power guiding the life of the convert to love God and neighbor and it is God who works in and through you both to will and to do His good pleasure.  Of your own self you can do nothing because Christ in you is your hope of glory.   Some carnal people in the world's churches try to mimic the spiritual with things they call slain in the spirit or drunk in the spirit.  They also try to imitate tongues and healing but fail in all these things to match the example of Christ and the Apostles.  Holy laughter is another false way that is used to mimic the spirit.  When carnal flesh attempts to mime the Holy Spirit the results are worthless and meaningless.  Some churches also have do's and don'ts that amount to law keeping such as; no alcohol, keeping the Ten Commandments and infant baptism.  The keeping of days that are viewed to be holy time like Sunday, Saturday, Christmas or Easter and holy places like their church building or objects like images of what they think is Jesus or of the cross are all physical carnal methods of worship. 

The true worship of God is 100% spiritual and 0% physical because God is 100% Spirit and 0% physical.  The way God is, is the way He should be worshipped.  The saints do not worship God with their bodies because your body is not your spirit.  Your human spirit is what enables you to think, reason, plan and design. Your human spirit is your intelligence, your conscience. You can think and have awareness of yourself and others; your human spirit is what makes you human.  This is the part of you that God connects  with His Holy Spirit and is the part of you that receives salvation.  Your human spirit controls your fleshly body because you cannot do anything that you cannot think of.  The fleshly body is the vehicle used by your human spirit to act out what you are capable of thinking.  Once you become a saint, your human spirit is merged with God's Spirit and the control over what your body does, what your mouth speaks and your mind thinks, must be given over willingly by you to God.  In this way both your body and your spirit will become a living sacrifice to God.  Scripture says that you have been bought with the price of the blood of Christ and that you no longer belong to yourself but to God.  You lose your life of self to gain life by becoming God's property that He dwells in and works through.  God's Spirit is to become the controlling Spirit in your life and not your human spirit.  The will of God becomes your will and the nature of the Almighty becomes your nature.  This is called conversion, you have been called and chosen to spiritually exist in another reality totally different from the one you came out of.  If you remain faithful to the new reality and do not rebel against the Holy Spirit to retreat back to the old reality you are promised everlasting life in the kingdom of God at the return of Jesus Christ.  It is of absolute importance that you do not try to hide your sins but rather confess them to a loving God who will forgive and give you the power to overcome sin.  This requires a continual examination of ones self in all honesty to determine if we are indeed submitting ourselves to the will of God.  There is no sin that God will not forgive except the sin we do not ask forgiveness of and seek God's power to overcome.  Unless you repent you will likewise perish.  God grants us this repentance under the grace He gives to us because of our faith in His Son. I know that at this very moment we all have sins in our lives that we need to address using the guidelines that I have written above.  Dear brethren in Christ, keep your garments clean and white, free from wrinkle and spot.  The enemy wants us to not address our sins and causes in us feelings of fear or shame so that we fail to seek God's forgiveness and help.  Sin is impossible for us to overcome alone and sin is not forgiven if we do not ask.  Do not allow Satan to rob you of your crown. 

Spiritually speaking, we are in the true reality that will exist forever and has existed eternally.  We have been called out of the darkness of our past life of evil into the light of Christ that shines in righteousness and love.  We have tasted of the heavenly gifts and have been given a glimpse of the new reality. Brethren, it is God's desire for all of us to someday come into the full realization of what we only know in part now.  Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither has it entered into the hearts of men what God has prepared for those who love Him and live according to His purpose.

Lee