Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of walking according to the Spirit as outlined in Romans 8:5, contrasting it with living according to the flesh. He explains that believers must choose to set their minds on spiritual truths rather than on their physical circumstances or emotions. Bickle highlights that understanding one's identity in Christ and the transformative power of the Holy Spirit is crucial for overcoming sin, depression, and other bondages. He encourages believers to recognize their new creation status and to engage in a dialogue with the Holy Spirit to cultivate a spirit-oriented life. Ultimately, he asserts that true freedom and emotional transformation come from knowing and confessing who we are in Christ.

I have them there just so you can have more chance to study on your own. Now, for those of you that are with us for the first night, this is about session six or seven that I've been talking about on the subject of the revelation of the grace of God, and particularly we're focusing on Romans chapter three to eight. And these six chapters is a place where Paul gives the clearest line-up-on-line teaching in terms of giving the principles of the grace of God and how to walk free from sin. And if you're interested in walking free from sin, which we all are, or free from depression, or from addictions, or bondage, or fear, for six chapters, Paul the apostle lays out line-up-on-line, principle-by-principle, all that we need to know in order to appropriate the power of God that dwells in our spirit. I call Romans three to eight, it's like a heavenly manual on how the born-again human spirit functions in relationship to the Holy Spirit, and how we draw on the grace of God and walk free from the things that cause trouble to our life. Paragraph B, Paul contrasts two different orientations to life, and he calls it walking according to the flesh, or walking according to the spirit. And every born-again believer has to choose which one of those orientations to life that they're going to live in. Let's look at Romans chapter eight, verse one to five. And I'm just wanting you to see how Paul emphasized these two concepts, and so I've edited the passage here just so you see how much that he's declaring the contrast of these two different orientations of life. He says in verse one, those who do not walk according to the flesh, but they walk according to the spirit. Verse four, he says it again, who do not walk according to the flesh, but they walk according to the spirit. Then he says it the third time, within five verses, those who live according to the flesh, they set their mind on the things of the flesh. That's the key phrase, they set their mind. It's where the setting of the mind is, it's a mindset. But those who live according to the spirit, they have a mindset, or they set their mind on the things of the spirit. So again, Paul is talking to born-again believers. And he's saying, in essence, the most natural way to live is according to the flesh. And the way that you do that is by having a mindset that's according to the flesh. But he's saying there's a higher way to live, there's a superior way to live, it's called living according to the spirit. And the way that we do that is by setting our mind on the things of the spirit. Now to set our mind on the things of the flesh is much more than just having, you know, really wrong thoughts, filling our mind with immoral things. Some people think that to set their mind on the things of the flesh only means like scandalous sins or, you know, real extreme kind of sinful behavior. But Paul means something more than that. He's been describing it in Romans chapter 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. A mind of the flesh is much more than just scandalous sin. It's talking about a mindset that interprets life, that interprets our life only through what our five senses tell us, and what our emotions tell us, and what our natural circumstances tell us. But to live according to the spirit means we find out what God's Word says about our life, and we find out what the Spirit says about our life, which is the same as the Word of God, what it says, and we live by what the Word says instead of living by what our five senses tell us. So many believers, they've walked with the Lord 10, 20, 30 years, and they still live with a mindset of unbelief. They live without any regard to what the Word says about who they are in Christ. When their five senses tell them to give up and give in to sin, or their emotions, they just feel overwhelmed by sin. They feel these raging temptations from the physical appetites of their body. They just say, I'm just going to give up and give in. I always do. I always have. But the Word of God describes who we are in our spirit, in our spirit man. And again, Paul's been outlining this in Romans 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. And so here he is at the beginning of Romans 8, and he's saying, you need to draw on the truths of what I've just told you, particularly in Romans 6, about your spirit man. You need to believe what the Word says about your spirit, not what your five senses or your physical appetites or your natural circumstances tell you about how messed up your life is. So really it's a mindset. Most believers live with a mindset of the flesh. They take their read. They take their cues from life. They take the primary information they base their life on from their five senses and what they see or what their appetites say to them or what their emotions say. But Paul said there's a superior way to live. It's called living with your mindset on the spirit. Or you could say, your mind filled with the Word of God. And particularly what Paul's referring to is the part of the Word of God that tells us who we are in Christ and what our spirit looks like before God and what we look like as a born-again believer before God. And that's called living according to the spirit. Now again, Romans chapter 8, this contrast between living according to the flesh and living according to the spirit is in context to the five chapters before where he describes what our born-again spirit looks like to God. Now we're going to look at this in a little bit of detail tonight. We're going to cover some of the ground we've looked at in the last five or six sessions. And if this is your first time here and you say, I would like more information on this, you can go to the website and look at the notes from the previous sessions. Now if this is new to you, this whole idea, I just want to encourage you, Romans 3 to 8, these six chapters, there's only a couple really important principles that are laid out. And Paul explains these principles in detail. But if you get a couple key principles and a couple of the key terms and you become familiar with it, you will flow in this and you will connect with this. And so if you're new with it, give yourself a little bit of time to become familiar with these terms and these concepts of Romans 3 to Romans chapter 8. Because the goal is, is to change the primary orientation of our life from living by what our emotions and our physical appetites tell us, to living from a direction that comes from our spirit that's indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Because we want to take the lead, we want to make life decisions being inspired by what's happening in our spirit. We don't want to make life decisions by our physical appetites or emotions or negative circumstances because if we do that, we'll end up giving up and giving in to sin. And we'll believe wrong things about who we are before God. Paragraph C, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, now this is the passage that we'll look at over and over and over again. This is the classic passage in the Bible that summarizes the entire six chapters, Romans 3 to 8. If Paul was going to put six chapters into one passage, it would be 2 Corinthians 5, 17 to 21. It's a very classic statement, it's a summary statement of who we are in Christ and what our spirit looks like before God, our born again spirit. Again, we've looked at this for the last five or six sessions and we're going to look at it more and more, we're going to reference it time and time again because the goal is for you to become so familiar with 2 Corinthians 5, 17 and 5, 21, particularly those two verses, that they become a part of your confession before the Lord. Meaning these truths will not help you unless they get into your conversation with the Lord. These truths are as powerful as they are, they don't transform my emotions. If I don't speak these things to God, if they don't get into my dialogue with God, my conversation with God, in other words, if I don't make confession of these before the Lord, they don't mark my heart and they don't come alive in my understanding. And then I never have the emotional transformation that Paul is promising, because if you get a hold of these truths and the whole orientation of your life moves from being a primarily a flesh orientation to a spirit orientation, I want to make you a promise, your emotions are going to change over time. You will begin emotionally to feel differently, and I tell you when our emotions change and they are inspired and impacted by the grace of God, it's life is much, is a much grander thing when our emotions are being touched by the grace of God. And what Paul is telling everyone, no matter what bondage, what fear, what depression, what addiction, he's saying there is liberty if you do this thing God's way, but it begins by knowing what is true about you in Christ. It begins with knowing, and many believers never learn who they are in Christ, so therefore they never draw on it by making confession of it. It never gets into their conversation with God, and so therefore it never becomes living understanding or revelation in their spirit, and therefore their emotions are never ever impacted by these truths. That's tragic, but it would be true to say the vast majority of the body of Christ, at least those I know, that's how they have lived for many years. They are in the same bondage that they were 10 or 20 years ago, emotionally. They're in the same fears, they have the same deep propensities to stumble in the exact same areas they did 20 years ago. And what the Lord, what Paul is saying is you don't have to live that way for decade after decade, but it begins by knowing the truth of who you are, of what your born again spirit looks like to God in Christ, and then drawing on that truth, and then it causes there to be a new primary orientation to your life called living according to the spirit. And again, it's only a few ideas in these six chapters and a few terms. You get them clear? Over time, your emotions will change, and you will find that victory becomes far more common in your life than maybe it is at this point in time. Well let's look at the classic passage, 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17, he says, if anyone is in Christ, in other words if anyone, if you're born again, anyone, if you're born again, he says, he is a new creation, old things have passed away, behold all things have become new. And then he goes on in verse 21, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Now this is a very dramatic statement, it's a, it's an amazing declaration from heaven. Paul says, that if you are in Christ, if you're born again, you are a new creation. You're not going to be one, you are, instantaneously, your spirit is born again. And your spirit is made righteous, and the nature of your human spirit changes dramatically, it's a miracle. Now when he says, he is a new creation, and old things have passed away, and all things have become new, that is not exaggerated. That is not an exaggerated statement, literally all things are new. Now he's not talking about all things that are new in our body, or our soul. He's talking specifically about our spirit man. The real you is your spirit. Most of you know that you are a spirit, you have a soul, and you live in a body. The real you is spirit, your personality, your desires, that's your soul, your mind, emotion and will, and you live in a body. Now the most natural thing to do is live by who we are in our body. And then to live by who we are in our soul, our personality. But what Paul says, the real you is who you are in your spirit. And he says that a miracle happened the day you were born again. And everything related to your spirit changed, literally everything became new. This is not exaggerated, this is not just optimism, this is a fact of history from God's point of view. Your spirit man was radically made new. A miracle happened at the spirit level which many believers never ever become aware of, and therefore they never appropriate the truth of it or draw on the truth of it, therefore they never live in the great wealth that was given them in their spirit the day they were born again. Now verse 21 he develops it, he says it real clear what happens in our spirit. We became the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Beloved, in one moment your born again spirit was made righteous. Your born again spirit became new in a very dramatic way, the very constitution of your spirit. Your nature of your spirit changed in one moment. And that's what Paul is declaring. Now what we are to do with this truth, and I'm going to break it down a little bit more because I still haven't said it just real clear for those that are just here for the first time. Though I've looked at this in the last five or six sessions with a lot of repetition, but you want to get this. And again if you're new, I want to encourage you to go to the website, get some of the notes, and become familiar with what happened in your spirit the day that you were born again. Paragraph D. Now we're going to look at what does it mean in verse 21 that you became the righteousness of God. You became literally the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Well there's two immediate implications to that related to your spirit. Number one, you received a new position before God and it's referred to as our legal position before God. That everything that's true about Jesus as a man is now being given to your account. Whatever Jesus accomplished as a man, as our high priest, the Father gives that to our account. It's in our account. It's our legal position, which means when God looks at us, He looks at us through whatever was true or whatever is true about Jesus as a man. Now the Scripture makes it clear that the innocent one, Jesus, became guilty. So that the guilty ones, you and I, became innocent. I mean it's the most marvelous exchange. It's an offer you cannot refuse. The innocent one, Jesus, became guilty. The guilty one, you and me, became innocent. And the Lord put the robe of righteousness around us. And the Lord gave us a new position before Him. And whatever is true about Jesus and His position before the Father is now true of every born again believer forever in terms of our position before the Father. That is massive. And we stand in a position of righteousness. Which means there's nothing between us and God. There's nothing hindering God from giving the fullness of His favor to us. The day you were born again, you received a new position before God. And you received the position before God that Jesus has as a man before God. All that's true of Him is now true of you instantaneously. It was put on your account as a free gift. Now beloved, we need to fill our mind with that truth. Many believers never ever draw on that truth. So when they feel condemned, they just wallow in their condemnation. They feel bad. They want to quit. It's not worth it. They don't deserve it. And what we need to say is, it is written. I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I have received His righteousness. I stand before Him in favor. And I stand before Him in a way that He totally enjoys me because of what Jesus did. So when the enemy comes and tells us just to give up and give in and we don't deserve it. And our emotions say, I just want to quit. It's depressed. We say no. No. In the name of Jesus, it is written. I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I am a new creation of Christ. That's what it means to live according to the Spirit because we say what the Spirit says and what the Spirit sees about our life. That's what it means to live according to the Spirit. That we see what the Spirit sees and we say what the Spirit says pertaining to our life. We don't say what our emotions tell us or what our physical appetites or our failure or our spiritual track record tells us. We declare what the Word and the Spirit say are true about us. That's what it means to live according to the Spirit. Because remember Romans 8, where these, this passage, according to the Spirit and according to the flesh, it is in context of five chapters of describing who we are in Christ. So in context, to live according to the Spirit means you live according to what the Spirit sees and what the Spirit says about you, which is what the Word of God says about you. We don't live according to the flesh. What our flesh will tell us is that we're failures, we're hopeless, we're rejected, we're condemned, our life is aimless, there's nothing happening worthwhile anyway, we might as well give up. Beloved, if you live according to the information that your emotions tells you, you will be stuck in a downward spiral of living according to the flesh. It doesn't mean that you're living in scandalous sin, it just means you'll be stuck in bondage to negativity all the days of your life. Then in the resurrection you'll go, oh my, all those years I wasted living according to a fleshly mindset when I could have been living according to what the Word said was true about me. Paragraph D, when we became the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, the first thing that happened we received a new legal position before God. It's called the righteousness of God. All that was true about Jesus as a man is now true of us as a free gift. Wow! I mean, that's like a huge wow! All that is true about Jesus is true of us in our position before God. But the second thing that happened, it's more than a legal position. We received a new nature. Our spirit man was made righteous and then the Holy Spirit came to live in our spirit. This is remarkable that our spirit was made righteous. Now, if our spirit was not made righteous, and I'll give you the Bible verses on that in a few moments, then the Holy Spirit could never live in us. The Holy Spirit could not dwell in our spirit unless our spirit was made righteous. And not only does He dwell in us, He dwells in us forever and forever. And the Holy Spirit is perfectly comfortable in the human spirit because it's a suitable environment for Him. Because of what Jesus did, our human spirit has been refashioned and remade to where the Holy Spirit has a suitable environment in order to dwell forever and to express the glory of God through the human experience. I mean, wow! Paragraph G, 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 17. Now Paul is describing the born-again spirit right here in 1 Corinthians 6, or he's describing the new creation, truth. You could call it born-again or new creation because they mean the same thing. They point to the same truth. Again, I like to use the phrase, the many-faceted diamond of grace. It's one grace of God. There's many facets of the one grand truth of the grace of God that we receive in Christ Jesus. But look at this. I mean, this is at the very top, the very pinnacle of what God gives us. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 17. It says, He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with God. Beloved, this is remarkable! Now, if you're born-again, you're joined to the Lord. That's what it means to be joined to the Lord. And you can be born-again by committing yourself to live under Jesus' leadership. That's called repentance. Jesus, I want to live under your leadership all the days of my life. I want your leadership in my life. I will renounce the way that's contrary to your leadership. I want your leadership. The Bible calls that repentance. And then we ask, Lord, give us your righteousness. Give us full forgiveness. Release your spirit to live in us. So that's called faith. We have confidence that He gives us the good things as we repent from resisting His leadership in our life. And if you do that, you can be born-again. If you're not born-again, you can be born-again tonight. Your own prayer. You can just say, Lord, I want to commit to your leadership. Forgive me and cause your spirit to live in me. And He will literally do it tonight. You don't need anybody to talk to you or pray with you. I encourage people to have someone talk to them and pray with them, but you don't need to. If you say it to Jesus, Lord, I want to live under your leadership. Forgive me. Come and live in me. He says, OK. It's what I've been wanting to do for a long time. So some of you, maybe there's someone in the room right now that says, I've never done this. You can do it tonight. All you've got to do is ask Him. And commit yourself to Him. But let's look at this verse again. It is a great miracle. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with God. The Holy Spirit comes to live in the human spirit. I mean, this is beyond anything the angels experience. I mean, the angels are servants of God, but the angels don't have the indwelling spirit becoming one spirit with God. We are one spirit with the triune God. The triune God means the Trinity. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one God, three persons. That's as detailed as I get. One God, three persons. We are one spirit with God. Now, false religions, they'll tell you that you are God. A lot of the false religions, they go in that direction. We're never God. We're always the creature, the created ones, and He's always the uncreated. There's a great gulf between the uncreated God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and the redeemed human spirit. But the intimacy is profound, even though there are distinctions between who He is as God. But the intimacy of being one spirit with God is absolutely remarkable. No matter what we understand in this age, we won't begin to tap into the fullness of what this means. This is glorious beyond comprehension, that God lives in our spirit. Now, the illustration that I, the two illustrations that I like to give, and I've given it almost every week, is every time I air each of these sessions, is Moses in the burning bush. I mean, Moses is on the mountain in Exodus chapter 3, and he sees a bush burning. Now, the bush was a natural bush, so it should have been consumed, because it was natural. It was just a normal bush. And then the glory of God, the fire of God, was on this bush. So we get a picture of the supernatural fire of God, which is the Holy Spirit, the glory of God, resting on the bush, this natural bush. It doesn't consume the bush. It's a miracle that the divine and the natural, the supernatural and the natural, come together on this private mountaintop that nobody sees besides Moses. That is the, that's a picture of what happens in the New Covenant. When you're born again, that burning bush, so to speak, the glory of God, let's call it that, the Holy Spirit, comes to live inside your spirit. And it's as though your human dimension is like the bush, the natural bush. And the glory of God is the supernatural dimension, and they work together. Paul called it the treasure in the earthen vessel. Beloved, we have this treasure called the Holy Spirit in our humanity, our earthen vessel. 2 Corinthians 4, 7, that's what he called it. The treasure is inside the earthen vessel. The burning bush is inside, I mean, the glory of God is inside the human frame. Well that's a picture of the New Covenant, the burning bush. It was up on a mountain. Nobody could see it besides Moses. It was completely hidden from the eyes of everyone else. The other analogy is the Holy of Holies in Solomon's temple. Back in the Old Testament, the most sacred room in the temple was this room called the Holy of Holies. It was 15 feet by 15 feet by 15 feet. It was a fairly small room. But something unique was happening in that room. It was the only place in the entire earth where the manifest glory of God was there all the time. I mean, the burning bush now was inside that room in the Holy of Holies. And the Bible calls it the Shekinah glory, or the fire of God, or the Holy Spirit, or the glory of God. It's the same God that was consuming the burning bush. Now this glory of God is in the Holy of Holies. And this Holy of Holies, only once a year, the high priest, only one man got to see it once a year. It was in this dark room, hidden away from all human sight. Just like Moses on the mountain, he was the only person that saw it. It was hidden from everybody else. So whether it's the burning bush on the mountain, or whether it's that same glory of God in a little room that nobody can see except for once a year the high priest, they are both a picture of what happens at the new birth. That Shekinah glory, that burning bush, again it's the purse of the Holy Spirit, comes to live in your spirit. Beloved, this is remarkable. And what the Holy Spirit's desire is, we would grow in a greater awareness that He's there, and we would grow in a greater fellowship and friendship and conversation with Him as He lives in our spirit. But what happens more times than not, believers go decade after decade, and they never ever grow in the awareness of this glory that lives inside of them. They live by what happens in their soul, their emotions, or they live by the impulses and the appetites of their body. So they're constantly pulled by physical appetites or by negative emotions, and they just go back and forth, failing and stumbling, crying, failing, stumbling, crying. And the Spirit says, you ought to try Me. I'm in you. You ought to grow in your awareness that I'm there. Grow in your conversation and your dialogue with Me. In other words, according to Paul in Romans 8, walk according to the Spirit. Walk with a new orientation to the spiritual realities that are true in you in Christ Jesus. OK, look at paragraph I, the top of page 2. Now, before Adam sinned, back in the Garden of Eden, there's no sin yet. The Holy Spirit is living in his spirit. He is a happy guy. I mean, he talks to God. He communes with God. Adam and Eve, they commune with God in the cool of the morning every day. They love it. But just to describe what happened with Adam, because it's a picture of what Jesus wants to restore in our human experience, that before Adam sinned, in paragraph I, his spirit governed his emotions and his appetites, his physical appetites. In other words, what happened in his emotional life and what happened in his physical life was influenced and inspired by what was happening in his spirit. And God was living in his spirit, and the direction and the inspiration and the leadership of his life for which his emotions and his physical appetites followed was coming from his spirit. And again, it was God in his spirit, so it would be true to say from the Holy Spirit or from his spirit, because they were one. They were connected together. But after he sinned, it changed radically. Because after Adam sinned, the Holy Spirit left his human spirit. His human spirit did not disappear. It did not cease to exist. His human spirit still existed, but the Bible describes it was spiritually dead. It had no Holy Spirit. And when the human spirit has no Holy Spirit, it doesn't mean that the human spirit doesn't exist. It means it's spiritually dead. Or another term in the Bible says, it was filled with darkness. His spirit was filled with darkness. His spirit was powerless. His spirit existed, but it was spiritually dead. He was physically alive, but spiritually dead. And that's the condition that you were in and I was in before we were born again. We had a spirit, but it was dead. Not nonexistent, but it didn't have the life of God. It didn't have the anointing of the spirit. The spirit of God didn't live in us. Our spirit was filled with darkness. So our human spirit was powerless. Our human spirit was unrighteous. Our human, the nature of our spirit was sinful. We had unrighteousness. We had darkness and we had a sinful nature. Our spirits, the nature of our spirit was sinful. We were a mess. No matter how much we tried, we could not encounter the power of God in the inside. Now we're born again and the Holy Spirit comes to live in us. The Holy of Holies is in our belly. It's inside of us right now. Jesus said, out of your belly flows rivers of living water. He said that in John chapter 7, verse 38. Now what happened after Adam sinned, the spirit, the Holy Spirit left his spirit. So he's unable to commune with God and now instead of his spirit inspiring his emotions and his physical appetites, it's the other way around. His emotions and his physical appetites dominate his spirit. The voice of his spirit is silenced. There is no voice in his spirit. It's completely dead. His emotions and his appetites dominate him. And that's the condition we were all born in. Paul said, you don't have to live that way. Now that you're born again, Jesus made available the situation where all of this is reversed. But here's the problem. Paragraph J, 1 Peter 3, verse 4. Look at 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 4. There's a challenge and the challenge is real. Is that what happened is that your spirit, I'll say this, is hidden from you. Peter calls the born again spirit, the hidden person of the heart. Meaning, because your spirit is spirit, you can't get a handful of it. I mean you can touch somebody's body. You can understand somebody's soul, their personality, what they like and dislike and what mood they're in. You can see it. You can measure it. You can evaluate it to some degree. But you can't measure somebody's spirit by your five senses because the spirit man is invisible. And so it creates a challenge. Is that we don't even know we have a spirit. If the word of God did not tell us we had a spirit, we wouldn't even know it. But our spirit man will live forever. And so Peter called it the hidden person of the heart. That your spirit is hidden even from you. You can't measure your spirit with your five senses. Like you can measure your body and your soul. Again you measure your body, obviously your physical traits. Or you can measure or evaluate your soul, what you like, what you dislike, what moods you're in, what abilities you have. That would be the way that you could evaluate your soul. But you can't do that with your spirit. The only way you have information on your spirit, only one way, by what the word of God tells you about your spirit. The most powerful part of you, you only have knowledge of by the word of God. Now in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 3 it says, that which was created, the world, the visible and the invisible, in the invisible realms, were created by the word of God. In other words, the word of God is supreme to all of God's creation. And though our spirit is so dynamic part of our personhood, it's the real you, and the born again spirit is so dynamic, you can't have information about it except you read the word of God and you believe what the word says. Your emotions will tell you your spirit doesn't exist. Your body may tell you your spirit doesn't exist. But the word of God says not only does your spirit exist, it's made righteous, it's filled with righteousness, filled with God, and filled with the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Joy, peace, patience, all of those virtues are in your human spirit right now. Well Peter called it the hidden person of the heart. It's the person, it's the real you, but it's the person you can't see. You can't show your spirit to your friend, and you can't see your friend's spirit. It's invisible. God is spirit, but it's real. It's the person you don't know that exists except for God tells you it does. And then he says, now live by what my word says about your spirit. And you speak what my word says about you, and don't believe what your senses tell you. You believe what my word says. Look at Colossians chapter 3, verse 3. Paul says the same thing that Peter says. He talks about our spirit being hidden. And again, it's hidden from us. It's hidden from our five senses. It's hidden from our physical ability to measure it. But it doesn't mean that it's nonexistent, it's simply hidden. And this is where the whole dynamic of faith comes in. He says in Colossians 3, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. Now when he says that you died, he's not talking about you physically died. He's saying the you, the spirit man that you were, the spirit person that you were before Jesus that was devoid of the life of God, that was filled with darkness, that was powerless, that was rejected by God, the spirit person you were is gone forever. The you that doesn't have the Holy Spirit, the you that doesn't have the power of God living in you, that person is gone forever. It's done forever. There will never be a you who doesn't have the Holy Spirit. He's gone forever. And Paul wanted to stress the finality of this, so he uses a word that could kind of throw us off a little bit if you're not following his train of thought. He says you died. And you go, well if I died, how am I still alive? He goes, well I don't mean you now, the who you were, the spirit man that you were that did not have the Holy Spirit, that was under the judgment of God, that guy is gone forever. Praise God. He is so gone forever that let's just finalize it and say he died. He doesn't exist anymore. He never will exist again. He will never ever somehow pop back up. But he said the you, your life is hidden with Christ. Now when he said your life, he's talking about your born again spirit. He says it's hidden. It's not perceptible to your five senses. You can't see it and your friend can't see your spirit. But it's connected to God, it's invisible to your five senses, but it's real. It's real. Now paragraph K, let's look at that. We only know about our spirit, I've said this over and over, because the Word of God tells us about our spirit. Now most believers, they don't know who they are in their spirit man, in Christ. Now we know that we can receive training for our body, athletes do all the time, or we can receive training for our soul. That's why students go to the university, to get their soul trained. But beloved, we need training about our spirit, not just our body and our soul. The greatest neglected area in all of human experience is training related to our spirit. What our spirit man looks like, and the Bible has great clarity about it. Now the eastern religions, they see the value of cultivating a spiritual, a spirit orientation. The eastern religions, there's many different types, and they're all false religions, they're all wrong. But they have this awareness that there is a valuable spiritual dimension to man. And if they could get in touch with that inward spiritual dimension, that's the place to find peace, tranquility, that's the place of freedom from their lust and their anger and their bitterness and all of their covetousness. If they could only get in touch with the spirit dimension, and there's lots of different words that different eastern religions use, that finally if they can get in touch with it, and if they can cultivate a spirit orientation, they can finally live free of anger and lust and rage and frustration and all these things. Now the problem is, that the eastern religions, they don't have revelation of the human spirit. They're using the philosophy of men, all these different human ideas mixed with some demons about what's real about their spirit. But they have completely wrong ideas. The only place, anywhere in the earth, of which the human spirit is revealed is in the Word of God. And only through Jesus can the human spirit become born again. They don't know about the human spirit and the born again spirit, they have all these, again, all these different religions, all these different ideas, but they see the value of cultivating a spiritual orientation, but they're not approaching it with the spirit of truth. They're looking for peace and freedom from sin. They have this quest for freedom and liberty from connection with the spiritual dimension, but they're doing it in all the wrong way and without a spirit of revelation. And there is no Holy Spirit living in their spirit. So it's emptiness, and it's staring into an empty, vast nothingness. At the end of the day, their spirit is dead. But we have the Word of God, and we have the Holy Spirit living in us. We need to be cultivating a spiritual orientation to our life, not, I mean, the eastern religions are doing it fanatically. I mean, they spend hours in meditation, fasting, and focusing their mind inwardly. And they're doing it for vanity. It's not even real. Their hunger is real, but their quest is not according to the spirit of truth. Let's come just to the last few points here. Paragraph A, under Roman numeral II. Paragraph A. The miracle of becoming a new person in Christ. The creation of the new man consists of the born-again spirit and the renewed mind. You can think on that a little bit more on your own time, because that's maybe such a new idea. You think, now what? Just take a little time, and maybe get a few friends, and dialogue, and have conversation about some of these ideas, get some of the other handouts on the website, and just work through the issues. And again, there's only a few main points, and a few terms. You get them right, you get them clear, the whole thing will make sense. Look at Ephesians 4.24. I mean, this is a powerful statement about the born-again spirit. Ephesians 4.24. Paul said this, put on the new man, which was created in true righteousness and in holiness. Now the new man was created in righteousness. He's talking about your born-again spirit. It was created in righteousness, and then it was indwelt by the Holy Spirit. That's the real you. Look at Colossians chapter 3, verse 10. Colossians chapter 3, verse 10 says the same thing, but it adds a little bit more to it. Colossians 3.10. I'm waiting for it on the PowerPoint so that you can get it. What Paul is talking about is this. He says the same exhortation as he said in Ephesians. He said, put on the new man, but here he says that that new man is in accordance to the image of God. That new person inside of you was made in the image of God. That not only is that new man righteous, not only is your born-again spirit righteous, your born-again spirit is filled with righteousness, but more than that, your born-again spirit is filled with God. Your born-again spirit is filled with the fruit of the Holy Spirit. You know, when the Holy Spirit came to live in you, with love, joy, peace, patience, all of those things are in your spirit right now. The fullness of God is actually in your spirit. You are remade, you are created, your spirit man, in the image of God. Full of righteousness, full of God, and full of the fruit of the Holy Spirit is already in you. Now the goal is to get what is in your spirit expressed in your personality and in your body, in your soul and your body. But it's already in your spirit right now. We don't ask for love, we thank the Holy Spirit for the love that's in us. We don't ask Him to free us from anger, we turn our attention to the Spirit of God living in us and we talk to the Spirit and we thank Him for peace. We don't say, free me from anger, free me from anger, but rather we acknowledge the truth that He is in us and we thank Him for the peace that's already in our spirit. We talk to that burning bush, that Shekinah glory, that glory of God, it's the person of the Holy Spirit in other words. We talk to Him directly in our spirit. We thank Him that our spirit man is righteous, it's full of God, it's made in the image of God, and it's full of the fruit of the Spirit and we thank Him for that. Now what happens as we do that, as we do that, we begin to cultivate a spiritual awareness and a spiritual orientation in our life. That our mind becomes more aware of what's happening in our spirit with the Holy Spirit than what's happening in our body and in our emotions. Now we still know what's happening in our body and emotions, we still know that. But we become our primary orientation and inspiration is from what comes from our spirit. Now it takes time to develop this orientation, but it's called by Paul, walking according to the Spirit. We'll talk on this more next week as well, we'll give more details on it. Now let's look at 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 4, 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 4. Paul tells us this, he says that God has given us, 2 Peter 1 verse 4, He's given us exceeding great and precious promises. That through these promises you would become partakers of the divine nature. I mean this statement, this is so full. I'll just mention just one little part of it. The divine nature, your human spirit has been so remade in a miraculous way, it's been created in righteousness, it's been created in the image of God that the Bible, let's keep that verse up there, I wanted them to see that if you would. That your spirit has become a partaker of the divine nature. The divine nature is already working in your spirit. Now the goal is for that to increase and to touch our soul and our body. But right now, the day you're born again, your human spirit changed it's nature from it's nature being sinful to now it's nature is what the Bible calls the divine nature, it's godly. The nature of your spirit is godly, it's righteous, it's full of God. And what Peter says, these are great promises, these are precious promises. That you have become a partaker of the divine nature. Your spirit man is godly by nature right now, the day you're born again. And again, the goal is for that nature to dominate, to be expressed through our soul and our body and it will be more in this age and then in fullness in the resurrection that divine nature will be expressed, body, soul and spirit, all three dimensions of our humanity. But right now, our spirit is by nature godly right now. Now Jesus, we're coming here to the end, Luke 11 verse 35 and 36, He talks about this. Luke chapter 11 verse 35 and 36, now this is just weeks before His death and resurrection. He's on His way into Jerusalem and He's talking about the new covenant. He knows He's going to die within the next week or two or so, or three. He's already visited Mary of Bethany's home in Luke 10, now He's in Luke 11. He's walking to Jerusalem, He's right there. He's at that final week of the passion or just the, just days before that, we don't know exactly when, but it's at the end. And my point of telling you the when that He made this statement is because He's giving it at the end of His three and a half year ministry. He's not talking about His teaching ministry per se for the last three and a half years. He's talking about the born again spirit, what's going to happen as a result of His death and resurrection that's going to happen in a few weeks. And He says to them, verse 35, this is a very powerful passage talking about the dynamics of the new creation that are going to be established real soon after He dies and raised from the dead, pours out His spirit, and all the born again believers have this dynamic working in them. Now look how He describes it. He says in verse 35, take heed that the light which is in you, now the light which is in you is going to be the Holy Spirit living in their spirit. Again it's weeks away from His death and resurrection. He's telling ahead of time, He's prophesying and describing the dynamics of the new creation. He says make sure, verse 35, that the light which is in you, you can put the Holy Spirit, that it does not become darkness, meaning you don't neglect the Holy Spirit and the Word of God which is yours. And then you end up living in darkness, that's what He's talking about, but verse 36 makes it more clear. Look at verse 36. Now it's, He's saying it's a bit cryptic, but if you, and He's not filling in all the blanks because He knows the apostles teaching are going to fill in all the blanks, particularly the book of Romans. But He's actually saying it ahead of time, the new creation realities. He says, verse 36, if when your whole body is full of light. Now the phrase, your whole body, in the New Testament, it has two meanings, your whole body. Sometimes it just means your physical body. But other times, like in this case, it means all that goes to making you, you. It means your whole personhood. And that's what it means here. Jesus said, now if your whole personhood is full of light, with no darkness at all. Now He's talking about the human spirit, the born again spirit. He goes, in a short amount of time, you're going to be born again, you're going to become a new creation, you're going to become the righteousness of God. And inside of you, you are going to be full of light. The burning bush of Moses, the Shekinah glory of the Holy of Holies, is in you, in the person of the Holy Spirit. You're full of light. And if you combine who you are in your spirit, with a renewed mind, meaning your mind is living by what the Word says. Your mind is committed to the truth. You're not living with a mind of the flesh, and unbelief, and just disregarding the truth about who you are. But your mind is full of light. He said, if you do that, then your whole body will be full of light, which He's saying now. He's using the same term, but using it in a different way. He says, you will express the light of God in your everyday living experience. So let's look at this again, verse 36. He goes, when the time comes, that you're born again in your spirit, and you're a new creation in your spirit, and you're the righteousness of God in your spirit, you will be full of light with no darkness at all on the inside of your spirit. If you will join to that, renewing your mind according to the spirit of truth, which is light, if you will live in those two realities, light in your spirit, and then the light of revelation touching your mind, He said, if you will do that, then your whole life will be full of light. And it will be like the bright shining of a lamp that gives you light. It will shine as a lamp to give light to other people, because a lamp gives light and darkness to others. It will be a source of light to many others around you if you live this way. Again, what a glorious, I mean, powerful statement talking about who we are in Christ. Again, He was looking ahead of time, describing that which was going to be established soon. OK, we'll end with paragraph B. It says in Romans chapter 6, let's look at that, verse 11. Romans 6, verse 11. It says, reckon yourself, reckon yourself to be alive to God. Let's go ahead and get that up on the PowerPoint if we can, so that they can see that. This is the critical passage that I want you to all follow. Romans chapter 6, verse 11. It says, to reckon yourself, or to see yourself as alive to God. Now the important part, they'll get that up in a second. The important part of this passage, it says, reckon yourself or see yourself to be alive to God in Christ Jesus. That's what this passage is talking about. Now, to reckon yourself, some translations use the word, see yourself. To see yourself, it says there's dead to sin, but alive to God. I'm going to look at this phrase, see yourself as alive to God in Christ Jesus. Now I'm going to end with this point. Now, Paul has been talking in Romans 3, 4, 5, 6, four chapters on who you are in Christ. He's been talking about what your spirit man looks like before God. He's been talking about more than that, but that's one of the key points. Now what he says, this is the first exhortation he gives. And the whole of the book of Romans, this is the first time he actually said to do anything. And it's significant that the first exhortation that Paul gives in this great section of Scripture talking about walking free from sin, the first exhortation he gives, he says, see yourself alive to God. The very first thing that needs to happen in our, in our journey to walk free from sin, we must see ourselves differently. We must see ourselves alive to God. Now you'll see in the notes there, I just have it hinted, and I have it developed in other places in more detail, to see ourself alive to God. Now being alive to God has many, many implications. We see ourself as enjoyed by God. We are alive to God. We're forgiven and we're accepted. We are enjoyed by God. God looks at us and smiles. We must see ourself alive to God in that regard. Secondly, we see ourself alive to God in the regard of we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The glory of God is in our spirit, in our reek, in our born again human spirit full of God. We must see ourself this way. Third, we have been entrusted, I mean we have been empowered with the authority of Jesus. We can speak the name of Jesus and release the works of God and stop the works of the devil in the lives of others. We can speak and healing can flow. We have, we've been empowered with the authority of Jesus. We're alive to God, but also we've been commissioned. Every single born again believer, every single one of us, the day we're born again, we have a life assignment. And there's many stages to that divine commissioning of our life, but we have an assignment. We have a purpose. Now that purpose may be in a back room that no human eyes ever see, but God's eyes see you. And the purpose that you're doing, it moves His heart. It doesn't matter how big that purpose is to man, it's important to God and He remembers it, it moves Him, and He remembers it and rewards us forever. Beloved, the day we're born again, we have a life commission. Again, it may not look big in the eyes of man, but it moves God. And it gives our life purpose and meaning. We're not aimless anymore. We have an eternal purpose now. So the day we're born again, we are enjoyed by God, we are indwelt by God, we are empowered with the authority of Jesus, and we are commissioned with an eternal purpose that has meaning to God and therefore meaning to our life, no matter what anybody else thinks about our life, it has meaning to God forever. Beloved, when we see ourself in the way the Bible says to see yourself alive to God, the word alive to God means all of those and actually more. Now the first exhortation that Paul gives on the journey to being transformed emotionally, the way out of bondage, the way out of addiction, the way out of fear, the way out of depression must begin with this first exhortation. See yourself alive to God. Now many recovery programs in the church, even in the church, they don't, they skip this. They go right to action and behavior. Paul begins the pathway of transformation, begins with seeing yourself different, which means cultivating a mind of the Spirit, seeing what the Spirit sees when He looks at your life. And so this is the first step. See yourself different. Now notice, it says reckon or see yourself alive to God. Now the yourself that he's talking about is your spirit man. Now what happens typically is we see our body. People are really aware of what their body is and mostly what their body isn't. He says now don't look at your body, look at yourself, your spirit, who you are in your spirit. Well, we look at our body or we look at our soul, what we like, dislike, what excites us, what bothers us, what our skills are, what our skills aren't. We look at our soul. He says no, don't see your body or your soul first. So it's important we see those dimensions of our real practical life, but not first. We don't live by what our body and our soul tells us or by what it is. He said see yourself, reckon yourself, see who your spirit man is in God first. And beloved, as we cultivate this mindset, again, many recovery programs, even in the church, they skip this part and they go right to the other part. There is no recovery that's long lasting and that's deep that is not rooted and grounded in seeing ourself alive to God, seeing who our spirit man is in Christ. Well, in the weeks to come, we're going to look at what else is involved in transformation. But I've been this last week just laying the word out to begin to lay a foundation so we could understand what it means to see our spirit man alive in God. Because if we get that clear, we can do the other things that are necessary for wholeness and for fullness and for liberty in our life. We can do the other things much easier if we get this clear. And without this being clear, all the other things will not ultimately be lasting in their impact or they won't have a deep impact upon us. Well, I realize I gave you a lot tonight. A bit was repetitive. And we're going to stay with this for the weeks ahead. And those that are just visiting with us, I want to encourage you, you can join us in on the web stream and follow along with us. It is of the highest importance that you see who you are in your spirit. You see yourself that way and begin to cultivate a spirit orientation because in time, your emotions will change and you will find liberty. And that's what this whole series is about. Amen and amen. Let's stand. I realize some of you went, man, wow. What did he say? I don't know, but I think it was good. Well, it's good in as much as it's biblically true. So there's a lot of biblical truth in there. I want to encourage you again, just take some time and get familiar with the terms. Now, let's just take a minute as the worship team is coming, just take a minute or two. I want to encourage you, everyone in the room, just close your eyes for a moment so you're not distracted. And let's just determine. We are going to cultivate this understanding in our life. You're saying, Lord, I want this. It's not good enough that a few folks get this. I want to get this. I want to grow in this reality. I want to know this. I want to be able to share this with other people. Now, just take a minute and say, Holy Spirit, talk to the Holy Spirit. He lives in your spirit. He's that bonfire. He's that living flame of love on the inside of you. Maybe say, I can't quite do that. Stay with it. It will connect. You'll connect if you just stay with it. You just start talking to it. Holy Spirit, I want to see what you see when you look at me. I want a mind of the Spirit about my life. Holy Spirit, I just ask you now, just to come and touch us. Lord, we say yes to you. We want to live according to the Spirit. We really do. We want this. We want this. Just say that to Him. We want this. Just in your own words. I want to invite people to come forward. You're saying maybe you have a need for prayer physically or for another issue. Or maybe you want to pray about this. You say, you know, I just want someone to pray with me about, you know, really jumping off. I mean jumping forward in this reality. Really taking some big steps on this. I want the grace of God to touch me, to help me. If you would like prayer, whether for physical or related to this message or something else in your life, if you want someone to join with you, I want to invite you to come up. Stand on these lines. If you can sit, that's fine. Come up to these lines. Maybe you just want to stand up here and be private. You want to just come because you want to get away from others and just kneel before the Lord. Feel free to do that, too. I want to talk to Him for a while. So come and renew my mind. Come and renew. Come and renew. Renew my mind. Little by little. Here we are, Lord. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Renew. Spring of the well. We're talking to the Holy Spirit in our spirits. Spring of the well. River of life. Living flame of love. Spring of the well. Just a few folks, come on up and pray for people if you would, just take a few minutes, come on up and help. Just a few folks, come on up and pray for people if you would, just take a few minutes, come on up and help. come on up and help. Just a few folks, come on up and pray for people if you would, just take a few minutes, come Just a few folks, come on up and pray for people if you would, just take a few minutes, come on up and help. Enclosed is my Beloved. A garden enclosed is my Beloved. A fountain sealed, a spring closed to the world outside, there's a garden inside, my Beloved. A resting place in the heart of man, a garden enclosed is my Beloved.