Mike Bickle emphasizes the transformative power of being a new creation in Christ, as outlined in 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Romans 8. He explains that believers often overlook the miraculous change that occurs in their spirit at the moment of salvation, which empowers them to walk in victory over sin, addictions, and depression. Bickle highlights the importance of understanding one's identity in Christ and living according to the Spirit rather than the flesh, encouraging believers to renew their minds with the truth of Scripture. He stresses that true transformation comes from recognizing and confessing the new reality of our spirit, which is filled with the Holy Spirit and righteousness. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a shift in focus from natural experiences to the spiritual truths that define our new identity in Christ.

on the subject of walking in victory over sin, walking, experiencing power over sin, addictions, depression. These are the themes that Paul is addressing in Romans chapter 3 to 8. Now, those of you that have been following this the last month or so, these six chapters are the key section of Scripture where Paul outlines the biblical principles necessary to understand and then to appropriate, to activate these principles in our life in order to walk free of sin, addictions, depression, all kinds of things like that. Now, one of the key passages that summarizes Romans 3 to 8, though it's not in the book of Romans, it's in Corinthians, but it's Paul writing it. He brings it together in one short passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17 to 21. Let's look at that. He summarizes the truths of Romans 3 to 8. He says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away, and behold, all things have become new. It's a pretty dramatic statement. All things have become new. And he goes on in verse 21, talking about the things that have become new that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ. Now, this is a really dramatic declaration that Paul is making. Paul is letting us know what is true about our spirit. Now, most believers are not very informed about the truths related to their spirit. They know about their body, and they know about their soul, that's their personality, their mind, emotion, will, but most people are uneducated or untrained related to the subject of their spirit. And that's what Paul's addressing here in 2 Corinthians 5. So, again, he said, if anyone is in Christ, it does not matter what kind of addictions they had, how messed up they were, how traumatized they were, how demonized they were, does not matter. Anyone, because there's a supernatural miracle that takes place in their spirit that is more powerful than how messed up their personality might be. Because sometimes when somebody comes to Christ, they think, well, I'm so messed up, it's going to take me quite a while to get strained out. What Paul's saying here is that a miracle takes place in your spirit. He said, you're a new creation. He's talking about our spirit, man. He's not talking about our soul or our body, he's talking about our spirit. He said, the old things related to your spirit are gone. And the old things related to our spirit, we were under condemnation, we felt rejected by God, we felt ignored by God, now we're enjoyed by God, that's the new truth. But the old things that have passed away is that our spirit was devoid of the power of God and our spirit was filled with darkness. And that state of darkness and that state of powerlessness in our spirit is now gone. Because the Holy Spirit came to live in us, that's what we're going to get to in a moment. Paul said, everything has become new. Now he's thinking, he's referring only to things related to our spirit right now. All things are instantly made new. Now eventually, our soul and our body are made new over time and then in the resurrection, but instantaneously at the new birth, all things related to your spirit are instantly, miraculously made new. Then he goes on in verse 21 to describe it. He says in a summary sentence, you have become that which you never were. You have become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Number, I mean, let her see. Now there's two things that happen pertaining to us becoming the righteousness of God. Two things take place. First, we receive a new position before God. Instead of being rejected by God and condemned by God, we are in a new position before him called the gift of righteousness. That he looks at us and he sees the righteousness of Jesus. That instead of giving us the judgment we deserve, he gave that judgment to Jesus and he gave the acceptance that Jesus had to us. So as a free gift, we have the position of righteousness, a legal position before God. But that's not all. It's more than just a legal position, a new position of acceptance, a new position where we're declared innocent. A second thing happens, our nature, the nature of our human spirit has been changed. It was full of darkness and the scripture says we were by nature children of wrath. Our spirit was filled with darkness. It had no power. None of God's power lived in our spirit. And what happens is at the new birth, our spirit becomes filled with God and our spirit is, there's a, we have a new nature. The constitution of our spirit has been radically changed from darkness to righteousness. Now, this is foundational to walking in victory over sin because walking in victory over sin and addictions and depression and all the things that attack us, it begins by knowing who we are in our spirit. You'll see that in a moment if this is a new subject to you. It begins by knowing what is true about us in our spirit. Most of us want to know things about our body and our soul, but transformation begins by believing and living by these new truths related to our spirit man. Paragraph D, 1 Thessalonians 5. Paul describes the human makeup in three parts. This is pretty fundamental, elementary, most of you know this. But all of us, every human being is composed of spirit, soul, and body. Now, man is a spirit. He has a soul, that's a personality, a mind, emotion, and will. You are a spirit, you have a soul, and you live in a body. Often people think of the true, you know, the true you as being your body, what you look like. Well, let me tell you this, the true you is what you are in your spirit. That's who you really are, that's what God sees when he sees you, is the truth of your spirit. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 17. Paul says this, but he who joined himself to the Lord is one spirit with God. This is remarkable. When you joined yourself to the Lord, which means you accepted the forgiveness of Jesus, and you asked for his leadership over your life. Joining ourself to the Lord means the day happened the day we were saved. It's an instantaneous thing that happens, it's not a process. You joined yourself to the Lord when you accepted his salvation, and you repented of your sin, and committed your life to his leadership. You were joined to the Lord. Something remarkable happened. You became one spirit with God on that moment. Now, another way of saying being one spirit with God is you are a new creation in Christ. Another way of saying that is you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus at your spirit, at the spirit level. But your spirit became one with God, and the way that happened is the Holy Spirit came to live inside of your human spirit. In your human spirit, Jesus said, out of your belly, or out of your spirit, flows living water, speaking of the Holy Spirit. Now, the reason we were created with a human spirit, we understand why we have a body, and we understand why we have a soul, a personality, you know, mind, emotion, and will. But the reason we have to have a spirit is to relate to God, because God is spirit. And in order to relate to God for eternity, we have to be created with the spirit. Animals have a soul and a body. They don't have a spirit. They don't have supernatural abilities to comprehend revelation and to have communion with God. But the only human beings are one spirit with God, and that's only after we accept salvation in Jesus. In our spirit, that's the place where we commune with God. That's the place we receive revelation from God. Paragraph F. Now we have, with our body, with our body, we can receive from the physical world, our five senses. Because you have sight and sound and touch, taste, you can receive from the physical world through your five senses. You can't receive from the spirit world through your five senses. It doesn't work that way. But our spirit can receive from the spirit world. Our spirit can commune with God. It's two different dimensions of the human makeup. Paragraph G. Now there's two different Greek words in the New Testament, most of you know the New Testament was written in Greek, and there's two different words for life. And it's important to understand these two different words to understand our salvation. The first word is the most common is psuche. It speaks of just natural life, natural animal life. Every human being, every animal has psuche life. They have natural life. Breathing, you know, senses, appetites, they have life. But there's another word that's very different. It describes an entirely different dimension of life. It's the word zoe. Now the zoe life is not natural animal life. Zoe life is the supernatural life of God. It's the life of the Holy Spirit. Now every human being has psuche, has natural life. But only born again believers have a second type of life. They have spiritual life. They have zoe life. They have the life of the Spirit living in them. So they have two different types of life. You have physical and spiritual life. But you've only had spiritual life from the day that you were born again. And if you're not born again, you can receive that Holy Spirit life as a free gift. You can ask Jesus to forgive you for your sins, give your life to His leadership, commit yourself to live under His leadership. That's called repentance. We break our agreement with denying and rejecting His leadership in our life, and we accept His forgiveness, and we ask Him to come and live in us, and His Spirit comes. And the Holy Spirit, the zoe life of God, literally comes to live inside of us. Now, when Adam was first created back in the Garden of Eden, he had natural life. He had suche life. He had physical life. And then it says God breathed the breath of life into him, and the very life of God, the Holy Spirit power, came to live inside of Adam. Now, God breathed the zoe life into Adam's spirit. Adam had physical, natural life, and he had connection with God. His spirit was filled with God's Spirit. Paragraph H. But then the problem came, Adam sinned. Now, before Adam sinned, before he sinned, when the Spirit of God lived in his spirit, his spirit governed his body and his soul, his emotions. He lived, the way that he lived his life was with an orientation to his spirit. He lived with the spirit orientation. His whole life was oriented first to his spirit, and secondly, it was oriented to his body and his natural experiences. His leadership of his life, his decisions, his thought processes, were flowing out of an orientation to his spirit. And that's how God created humans to live, first with an orientation to their spirit, with their soul and their body living under the leadership of their spirit. It's a glorious and a powerful way to live. But then what happened is that Adam sinned. And when Adam sinned, the life of God left his spirit, the Zoe left him. He still had physical life, but spirit life left him. He had physical, natural life, but no longer did he have spirit life. Spirit life left him. He was spiritually dead. His spirit became filled with darkness. That was when he fell under bondage to sin. From that time on, he was a slave to sin. He had no power in his spirit to resist sin. When sin tempted him, after he fell originally to sin, from then on, his body and his emotions were dominant over his spirit. His spirit became dark. His spirit was devoid of the life of God. His spirit was powerless. And from that point on, his spirit lived as a slave to his emotions. And that's where most of us find ourselves today, that our body appetites and our emotions dominate our life. And our spirit, the truth of our spirit is almost, it's not even on most believers' mind. They don't even think about their spirit. They don't know about the miracle that happened in their spirit. Or if they do, maybe they've heard about it and they know a couple Bible verses, but they don't live with the awareness of it. It's not on their mind at all. And this great treasure that's in their spirit, they never actually appropriate it. They don't do anything about it. So though they're born again and they love Jesus, they're very sincere, very sincere in their love for God, but they're dominated by their appetites and their emotions. That's their awareness. The orientation of their whole life is towards their emotions and their appetites and what they experience in the natural. There's almost no orientation to their spirit and the truth about who they are in Christ. So they live in the pain of constantly stumbling in their sin all the time. And I don't necessarily mean scandalous sins, but they're constantly living a slave to their anger, to their bitterness, to their jealousy, to their fears. At the heart level, when those emotions rise up, many types of lusts, not just immorality, there's many types of lusts. And there's angers and fear and jealousy and bitterness. When those emotions rise up, they have no power. They don't know what to do. They just ride out the storm for whether five minutes or five hours. They ride the storm out. They grit their teeth. They go, wow, that passed. Wow. And they just wait till that storm hits them again. And they become just slaves to that storm that hits them. They have to ride it out, get their head clear, they might call it. And then they kind of live, continue on until something strikes them again, another impulse of lust or another fear or another bitterness or anger, another annoyance. Just a wave comes over them and they just kind of grit their teeth and ride it out again. You know, again, whether it's five minutes or five hours, at different times, it lasts longer. But what Paul is saying is you don't have to do that. You have a miracle has taken place in your spirit and you're different now that you're born again. And if you would begin to live and cultivate an orientation of your life towards your spirit instead of just towards your natural experiences, you would begin to have a dramatic change of the whole environment of your inner life. It takes time, but it can be cultivated. But it begins with knowing who you are in Christ. It begins with knowing the truth of what happened in your spirit and then calling on that truth, confessing that truth, refusing to ignore that truth, but seeking to live by that truth. We'll look at that in just a moment, how to do that. It's quite straightforward and simple. But many believers, I would go as far to say, most believers, they just simply don't do it. They just ignore the truth about their spirit and they hope that one day they'll conquer their negative emotions. And one year turns to 10, 10 to 20, 20 to 30. They've loved Jesus 30 years and they're as much a slave to their emotions as they were 30 years ago. And the key isn't going to be by being more sincere. Sincerity is important. The key is going to be with mixing our sincerity with the knowledge of the truth and with the determination to live in the light of that truth. Again, we'll look at that in just a moment. Top of page two, verse Peter three, verse four. Now, the challenge, the challenge that we have is that we don't immediately discern or feel our spirit. And the reason is because our spirit is spirit. That's the reason. And our five senses don't discern spirit. And so our spirit, it's invisible and we don't feel it with our five senses. Peter called it the born again spirit. He called it the hidden person of the heart. And the reason it's hidden is because not only can you not see someone else's spirit, you can't even see your own spirit. It's hidden. It's hidden from you, from your five senses, and it's hidden from others. The born again spirit is called the hidden person of the heart. It's invisible. You can't get a handful of spirit. You can't with your five senses measure your spirit. You can't touch, taste, feel, you know, it doesn't work that way. Feel physically, I'm talking about. And so because our spirit is hidden, it's the hidden person of the heart or the born again spirit, what happens, most believers just ignore the truth of who they are in their spirit. And when they ignore that truth, they actually walk away from the power dynamic that will change their emotions and their life if they'll stay with it. And they kind of just shrug their shoulders and say, well, you know, I had joy when I was first born again. That was some years ago. And I've had a little moments of joy here and there. But for the most part, I'm not even aware of my spirit. I don't really know what the Bible says about my spirit, born again spirit. I don't feel my spirit. I don't really think about my spirit. And that is what the enemy wants. And the answer is to be educated from the word on the truth about what's happening in our spirit. Again, I want to say 1 Peter 3, verse 4, Paul, Peter calls the born again spirit, the hidden person of the heart because you can't feel it. You can't measure it with your five senses. That doesn't mean it's not there. It's there forever. It's eternal. And it's full of God and full of light and full of power, and it's filled with righteousness. Colossians chapter three, Paul agreed with Peter. He said, for you died in your life is hidden with Christ and God. Your life is hidden. He's talking about your spirit, man, is hidden. Paul uses the same word that Peter uses, hidden. You can't see it. You can't measure it with your five senses. You can't discern it with your five senses. He says it's hidden. Now, when he said you have died, he doesn't mean the suki life, your animal life. He doesn't mean you died somehow. He means the man or the person you were with darkness in your spirit, a defenseless slave with no power, that person doesn't exist anymore. Now, you may, the day you're born again, you have the light of God, you have the power of God. You may not use it, but you do have it. The person that was devoid of life, filled with darkness in their spirit, that person, in terms of your life, after you're born again, will never exist again. You will have the life of God forever and the light of God in your spirit. So when Paul says you have died, he says that person in the condition filled with darkness and spiritual death, he doesn't exist anymore. He's gone. Now you're alive. Now the key is for you to understand it and you to draw on the power that's in your spirit. And if you do it, your emotions will eventually feel the impact of it. And that's called transformation. That's a way better way to live. We'll look at it in a few moments. Paul calls this in Romans, living according to your spirit or living according to a spirit orientation instead of a natural or a flesh orientation. We'll look at that in a few moments. But the point I want to focus on here in Colossians 3, verse 3, is that Paul agrees with Peter. He says, your life is hidden. That's the point I want to emphasize. Your life is hidden in Christ. It's hidden with Christ. That means your spirit, the riches in your spirit and the new remade, refashioned human spirit, the born again spirit, you can't see it with your eyes. But it's beautiful and it's powerful and it's filled with glory. So as we understand this, it awakens us to possibilities of living out of that riches and that treasure. And of course, that's the point of Romans 3 to 8, these six chapters that are so important to living in victory over sin and free from addictions and free from depression and these kinds of things. Now, to most people, their spirit is so remote, they never think about it. It never, ever comes into their mind when they consider how to live in victory over sin. They love Jesus and they don't like the negative emotions. They don't like yielding to lust. They don't like being captured by dark emotions and dark thoughts. But they never think about the truth of who they are in their spirit. They just grit their teeth. Hopefully, one day in a prayer line, everything will change. And things can happen in prayer lines. I mean, God really touches people in prayer lines, but that touch is like a catalytic touch. It's a jumpstart that only changes you for a short period of time. And eventually, you have to renew your mind to keep that change, to keep that catalytic jumpstart. When the spirit touches you, you go, wow, I feel the love of God. A month or two later, if you don't change the way you think and the way that you approach God, you will lose that sensation of the love of God and you'll have to get it back again. So don't ever think of a prayer line as a substitute for living day by day in these truths. But it's a mercy of God catalytic jumpstart and it's glorious. And we wanna constantly see more and more people touched by somebody praying for them, but we don't want to give them the impression that that's the normal way they'll live for the decades to follow. Every time they kind of get in a jam, just get somebody to pray for them, jumpstart them again for another month or two. And then when they get in a jam, get jumpstarted again for a month or two. That's not how the kingdom of God works. I love the jumpstarts, the catalytic boosts, but it's only to help clear the fog in our mind so we can begin to live by the word of God, because that's the way that God ordained it. We would live by his word and by his spirit, not just by one experience after the other in a prayer line. Okay, now the only reason we know we have a spirit, we only know one reason by one way, God tells us in his word. Without the word of God, you would never know you have a spirit. You know you have a soul. Again, mind, emotion, and will. You know you got a personality. You know you have a body. You don't need the word of God to convince you you have a personality and a physical body. But it was the word of God that revealed to us we have a spirit. And it's the word of God that reveals to us the miracle that took place in our spirit. And so we take the word of God at face value and we begin to draw on the word of God. We begin to confess the word of God. We begin to speak the truth of the word of God. And over time, that which is remote and that which we cannot discern over time, we begin to cultivate an awareness of our inward life to our spirit instead of an awareness primarily just to our natural experiences. Now, most people, they don't know who they are in their spirit. Now, we know, they know who they are in their soul and body. Most people know what it means to get training in their soul or body. I mean, the athlete is trained in body. The university student is trained in their soul. But who is training people in their spirit about the truth about their spirit? Well, I'm glad you asked. It's Romans 3 to 8. The book of Romans is the classic statement given to the human race. Romans 3 to 8. It is the statement from heaven, the manual from heaven giving insight into how the human spirit functions. Now, when you read it at a fast read, you might read Romans 3 to 8 and go, oh man, I didn't understand anything. I remember the first time I read it. I was completely unimpressed. It was worse than that. I was depressed because I heard a preacher say, Romans 3 to 8 will change your life. So I read Romans 3 to 8, didn't understand anything, and thought my life will never be changed. It's funny now, it wasn't funny then because I really believed that preacher. And so I went, wow. He said, Romans 3 to 8 will be the most dynamic passage of scripture to get victory over sin and a transformation. And I determined right there on the spot. It was my favorite passage in the scripture. I'd never read it, but it was my favorite. I'd say that's my favorite passage. Lord knows I need transformation. I went home so excited, telling people on the way out, my favorite is Romans 3 to 8. I was about 18 years old. You ever read Romans 3 to 8? I don't remember, but it's my favorite. I went home and read it that day. I was so depressed, I didn't understand one word, not even one phrase. I said, forget it. Well, I didn't. I decided to, you know, I was depressed and gave up and gave in for a minute. And then I decided, you know what? I'm gonna attack Romans 3 to 8. I'm gonna go after this. If it's the last thing I do, I'm gonna learn these six chapters. And over time, it began to make sense. But these six chapters are like the manual, the owner's manual to how the human spirit works. And some of the phrases are a little bit awkward for us and even challenging at first. But once the puzzle comes together, you get a few key ideas clear. The whole thing connects. And so that's part of what we're doing in these months right now is just laying out fundamental principles from this owner's manual of how the human spirit works, Romans 3 to 8. Roman numeral two. A, Ezekiel or Ezekiel 36. Here's what Ezekiel prophesies. This is 500 years BC plus. 2,500 years ago, 500 years before Christ, Ezekiel prophesies. Thus says the Lord. God's going to give you a new spirit. God's going to do a miracle through the new covenant. In other words, when the Messiah comes 500 years later, again, this is 500 years before Jesus. In essence, when the Messiah comes and establishes a new covenant at the very core of this new covenant, God's going to remake your human spirit. He's gonna give you a new one. Jesus called it being born again. Our spirit becomes born again. Paul called it a new creation. Ezekiel called it a new spirit. Well, they're all different ways to look at the same diamond of grace, a different facet into the same truth. Paragraph B, now at the new birth, our spirit man was made anew. But the word that Paul uses is the word created. I mean, it's a dramatic word because our spirit existed before we were born again. It was just filled with darkness. It was filled with darkness and it was by nature sinful. And so we're in bondage to sin, meaning we have no ability to resist sin at the emotional level, at the heart level. We just have to ride out the storms of sin when they hit us. We can resist externally doing things, but internally we had no power over our emotions. We were slaves. Paul called that being a slave to sin, meaning even if you use positive thinking and said, I feel better, I feel better, I feel better, you didn't. There's nothing you could do. There was no answer. You just had to endure those storms of emotion that came at negative emotion that came across kind of, you know, and touched your heart. Now, the Holy Spirit came to live in us. Now, and look at this verse in Ephesians four. This is, these are great passages here. These three, I have three passages here on the handout. Ephesians four, this is your story. This has your name on it. And you wanna know these three passages. These are critical to know. You know, if you've been in the kingdom 10 or 20 years and you go, yeah, I never really thought much about that verse. Say to yourself, you know what? I'm gonna change that starting today. It's critical that we know these truths because this is the beginning point of emotional transformation. It takes a while to unfold. Paul said this, put on the new man, which was created in righteousness. Wow, true righteousness. This new spirit man happened the day you're born again. It's not just that the sin nature of your spirit was broken. It's not just the darkness was gone. It's not just that you are no longer devoid of God's life. You receive light and power and God himself came to live in you and your spirit became righteous. That's what it says. Well, it has to be righteous. Well, I mean, Paul said it's righteous. That's good enough, but even logically, because if your spirit was not righteous, the Holy Spirit could not live in you. He couldn't dwell inside you. Spirit was totally made righteous, a new nature in our spirit. Now, Paul says, put on that new man. Now, when he says, put on the new man, he's saying two things. He's saying, know the constitution of the new man. Know the makeup of this new man. Know that God lives in you and things are different. So the first thing when he says, put on the new man, it begins by knowing the truth of what the new man looks like in the grace of God. And secondly, putting on the new man means making decisions for righteousness since righteousness was given to you as a gift. So to put on the new man, first of all, means know the truth about your new man in Christ. In other words, your spirit man. Know the truth, you're forgiven. Know the truth, the light of God, the Holy Spirit power, which is the same thing. And righteousness was put in your spirit. So that's what it means to put on the new man. First, to know that. And secondly, to make righteous decisions in the light of this great miracle that happened in your spirit. So it's to know the new man, know the truth about the new man, and then to make decisions of righteousness that are appropriate, that are in unity with that new spirit man that God gave you the day you were born again. Look at Colossians 3. He says it again. Put on the new man. This new man is according to the image of God, which means he's righteous. This new man is filled with love. He's according to the image of God. The spirit man is after the image of God. It's filled with the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Because if God the Holy Spirit lives in your spirit, if God the Holy Spirit comes to live in you, which he does at the new birth, he comes with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The nine fruit of the spirit come with him. That's what Paul's talking about. He says this new man is created in the image of God, meaning all the fruit of love and power, the very power of God himself is at the very constitution of your new man, the very foundation of it, the remaking of your spirit. And Paul uses the word again, created. He said, God created this new spirit man inside of you. He created it. Again, we say, well, I don't feel anything. And that's because our spirit man is spirit. And your five senses can't measure your spirit. Your five senses can't detect your spirit or discern it. But Paul says, put it on anyway by understanding the truth of the miracle that happened in your spirit. That's number one, understand the truth of what your spirit looks like to God. And then number two, make decisions that are in unity with this miracle that happened in your spirit. That's how you put the new man on. You know he's there, which most believers don't. And then we make decisions that are in unity with our spirit man. Okay, so I have paragraph C. Our new man is actually the combination of two components. It's the coming together of two components, the new man. It's the reborn spirit in righteousness, but it's also the renewed mind. So it's true to say the new man is instantly given to us because our spirit is made new instantly. But the new man is also described by Paul as being renewing the new man. How do you renew the new man if he was given us instantly, fully in one moment? In your spirit, the spirit dimension of your new man was instantaneously. But there's a second dimension to your new man. It's your renewed mind. It's your mind coming in unity with the truth of what's in your spirit. Now you might say, I don't get into this. And what I would say is just stay with it. Is just stay with it. Just take these notes. We've got about six or eight of sessions on the internet so far. I mean, on the website of these notes. And if it's all new to you, educate yourself concerning your spirit. And in a short amount of time, the fog will lift because the ideas are not that complex. If they're all new to you, the very first time you've ever put them together, maybe five or six new ideas, the five or six of them together, you kind of, I can't make sense of it. Stay with it and the fog will lift and it will, these concepts are pretty straightforward once you get familiar with them. But the new man consists of two components. It's the combination of our reborn spirit and our renewed mind. Both of them are essential parts of the new man. Okay, paragraph D. I've said this, but I'm gonna say it again. In terms of the new creation, our spirit was powerless. Our spirit was powerless. We were enslaved to sin at the emotional level, at the heart level. Again, when anger hit us, bitterness hit us, jealousy hit us, fear hit us, whatever hit us, we just grit our teeth and let it pass. We'd had no power to rise up and challenge it and say no with something to back up our claim no. Now there's positive thinking religions where they can say no to sin, but there's no Holy Spirit living in their spirit to back up the claim. I'm not talking about positive thinking. It is positive and it is thinking, but it's more than that. It's positive and it's an agreement, the word, but the spirit lives in your spirit to back it up. That's the difference. But the problem, it takes time to reorient our life to a spirit orientation as our primary orientation because we're so used to a flesh orientation. And when I mean a flesh orientation, I don't mean just perversion. When people hear the word flesh, they go perversion. He's in the flesh, he's perversion. Flesh just means natural. It means people that live in the flesh doesn't just mean they live in perverted things. It means they just live by what their natural experiences are. Whatever they think and see with their five senses, whatever they feel in their emotions, that's what they go by. That's what it means to live according to the flesh. Now, you can add more to it and they can live perverse and in all kinds of ways, but the fundamental definition of living by the flesh is just by living by the natural information and by our natural experiences with no regard for the truth of God's word about our spirit. So living according to the flesh first means a disregard of the truth of what our spirit is about. That means most believers live in the flesh. They might have a moment of inspiration here or there, but they rarely ever live consciously cultivating the truth of what their spirit looks like. They don't draw on it. They don't speak into it. They don't take a stand to live by it. That's how we live according to the spirit. It's more than having a healing here or there or a breakout of glory here or there or even being used to lead someone to the Lord. Those are exciting parts of living according to the spirit, but at the very core reality, to live according to the spirit means we live according to the truths of God's word about what we look like, and we live in dialogue and communication with the Holy Spirit. And then out of that, all kinds of great things happen, but it's this fundamental communication with the spirit on the inside, which I'll get to in a moment. I've mentioned it the last several weeks, but I'll keep mentioning it in a few moments here. Okay, let's go to E. I want to make another point. Romans 611. Now, this is the first key exhortation of living in victory over sin. Here's where it starts. Victory begins by seeing yourself and seeing your spirit differently. Paul said, I mean, Romans 611 is the actual first exhortation in terms of living in victory. He gives several exhortations, but here's the first one. He goes, reckon yourself alive to God. What? Reckon means to see yourself. Now, some translations use the word see yourself. Others use the word consider yourself. Paul, I mean, the new King James uses the word reckon. It's an accounting term, actually. See yourself as alive to God. Victory over sin begins by seeing yourself differently. By seeing who you are in your spirit. Victory over sin does not begin by just more fierce determination not to fail. That is important to determine that we're gonna obey. But to recommit, to re-ratchet up our determination, that is not the first place. I mean, we do have to decide to obey. Nobody can do that for us. But even before Paul tells them to obey, which he does in the verses following, he says, before I even tell you to obey, I'm gonna tell you to see differently. See yourself as alive to God. See yourself as having the spirit live in your spirit. See yourself as having a righteous, remade, reborn human spirit. See yourself as having a new resource on the inside that can actually challenge sin with substance behind it. Again, it's more than positive thinking. The spirit lives in you. See yourself differently. See your spirit differently. This is where victory begins. Right here, this is where it begins. Okay, top of page three. Now, after we see ourselves differently, that's what we're talking about the whole time here, paragraph F, we're born again. Our spirit is reborn. It's refashioned. Paul called it created. Our spirit is recreated in that sense. We still have sinful desires, but the sinful desires are in our body. But now we have a resource in our spirit to challenge those desires in our body. We also have, I'm gonna give you five places where sinful desires are stirred up. Paragraph F here, top of page three. First, they're in our body. Paul called it, I skipped the verse here in Romans six, verse six. He called it the body of sin because the reason our body's called the body of sin, our physical body is where sinful desires are lodged in our physical body. And we will have sinful desires until we have a resurrected body. Now, the good thing is that we can have dominance over them instead of them dominating us. But it is a war and it does take an intentional battle. But we draw on the life in our spirit because the body of sin, Paul called it, sinful desires reside in our physical body. They actually reside in it. And without the Holy Spirit or without living in contact with the Spirit, we're a slave to those desires. Now, don't think of physical desires as only immorality. There can be all kinds of physical desires and impulses besides that, because some people think, well, what other kinds of bad physical desires are there? And there's other ones involved from, I don't wanna go into that right now. We'll do that at another time. But sinful desires are in our body, but also sinful desires are lodged in our memory of things we've done and things we've seen. Our memory is a place that stirs sinful desires. So when we cleanse our mind, when we renew our mind, that helps there. But also sinful desires are awakened and aroused by going to places we should not go. Circumstances can excite the passions, negative sinful desires. Even being in wrong relationships, being with people who value the ungodliness and who are giving themselves to it. Now, you can be with them to reach them, to win them, but when you're with them and you're too intimidated to tell the truth about who you are in God, where they know you're a Christian, but as long as it doesn't really matter, then you're not holding the line on the confession of who you are before God, meaning you're silenced in it, you're socializing with them regularly, and they're doing ungodly things, and that peer pressure will end up leading you to sin. 99% of the time, I don't know that's the exact number, but it's real close. And then there's the demonic attacks. Now, none of the sin comes from our spirit. It comes from these places here, and we'll look at these more in the weeks to come. Now, the goal is is that we develop an awareness of who we are in our spirit and awareness of the Holy Spirit living in us. Let's go to Roman numeral three. We are transformed, Scripture says, by renewing our mind. Romans 12, verse two, this is the classic passage. Here we are still in the book of Romans, and of course, in Romans 12, two, Paul's looking back over the great chapters of Romans three to eight, this blueprint of how the human spirit works, and Paul says, here's in one sentence, here it is, you're changed in your emotions, you're changed in your behavior by renewing the way you think. Now, some people think that to renew their mind means mostly they don't fill their mind with dirty movies. They think, hey, to renew my mind means mostly avoid bad things, and that's important, to avoid putting filth in your mind. But the renewing of the mind isn't mostly focused on avoiding the bad things, that's a given. I mean, Paul assumes a believer will avoid the bad things. What he means here, he means to aggressively retrain our thinking according to the truth, the positive things that are true about us, taking time to learn who our spirit is, and renewing our mind and living by those truths. To renew our mind is mostly an exhortation to fill our mind with the truth about who we are and not to neglect that truth. Most believers neglect the truth of who they are. They might technically know it, but they never ever draw on it. You know, they could say, well, I remember 10 years ago I read that one book about who you are in Christ, and I technically know it. That isn't the issue. Do you draw on it on a regular basis? Because if you don't draw on it, your mind's not renewed, even though you might technically know the information. Sincerity is not enough. Loving Jesus is not enough. We must renew our thinking. We must re-educate our mind to the truth of what our spirit looks like and who we are to God. That's critical. That's what Paul's talking about. Paragraph B, John 8. Jesus said, you shall know the truth. John 8, verse 32. You shall know the truth. It's the knowing of truth that frees the heart. There is no freedom of the heart that is not rooted in knowing these truths. Some people want to skip the know the truth part, and they just want freedom. And it's the truth of who Jesus is and who we are in Him. It's the truths of Romans 3 to 8 that we must know. And if we know these truths, these redemptive truths, the truth about Jesus and the truth of what we look like to Him, our heart will be liberated over time, our emotions and our behavior. We will be free in our behavior and our emotions. Ephesians 4, verse 23. Paul calls it being renewed in the spirit of our mind, changing the whole atmosphere of our internal thinking, changing the whole orientation of our internal thought life and emotional processes. That's what the spirit of the mind means. To change the spirit of our mind, to be renewed in the spirit of our mind is more than just having one or two key Bible facts in place. You know, even a few of the things I've said here, it's more than just having a couple of these things in place in your mind. To be renewed in the spirit of your mind means your thought process and your emotional processes are being slowly, but changed to pattern the truth of who you are in Christ. That's what it means, the spirit of your mind. It's the whole of your thought processes. That's how we're renewed. So it's not an issue of just getting one or two truths down, underline them in your Bible, confess them a couple of times, then you've got that one taken care of. No, no. To renew in the spirit of our mind is a lifelong reality. And you could be renewed in the spirit of your mind in one season and then go backwards in the season following. It's a present tense reality of living in the truth of the Word of God and by communicating with the Holy Spirit. Roman numeral four, paragraph A, absolutely critical. Romans 10, Romans 10, verse eight to 10. Absolutely critical to renewing the mind is the confession of our faith. The speaking of our faith with our mouth. It's not enough to think it, you actually have to say it. Not to other people, but you have to say it to God. It's a biblical principle. Many believers aren't even aware of this principle. It's called the confession of our faith, the confession of the Word. And we speak this, we speak the truth of who we are, we actually say it with our mouth. You might whisper it, you might mutter it, but it needs to be said. It's not enough to think it, it must be said. Here's why. Because what you say with your mouth, your mind will follow it. And secondly, your inward life, the orientation of your inner life will follow the confession of your mouth. The orientation of your inner life from a flesh orientation to a spirit orientation, that shift will follow the confession of your mouth. Now everybody makes confession of their faith. Most of the time it's a negative confession, but it is a confession of their faith. I'm real mad, I don't like what's happening. I don't know what's going on, nothing's working. That's a confession of your faith, it honestly is. Now we don't think of it as a confession of our faith because we don't actually use the word faith. But it's a declaration of how we see the reality of our life. And the Word of God says those things aren't true. The truth is you're not hopeless, you're not forgotten, it's not for nothing, none of that's true. You're living according to a fleshly orientation, you're living by an orientation of your flesh. So everybody has a confession of their mouth, everybody does a confession of their faith. It's mostly a negative one, a wrong one. It's the Bible doesn't agree with what we say with our mouth more times than not. Paul says here, Romans chapter 10, verse eight. I mean, he says, the Word is near you. It's actually in your mouth. It's the Word of faith. He's talking about this is the Word of faith that I'm teaching right now. With the mouth, confession is made to salvation. Now some people have limited this verse to mean they confess with their mouth and then they're born again one day and now their confession is over. No, salvation is much more than just the day you're born again. With your mouth, you make confession unto salvation. Salvation means victory. I make confession of my faith, I've never counted, but 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 times a day. I mean, I don't really know the number. But throughout the day, I speak the Word of God, I speak to the Holy Spirit living in my spirit. Sometimes I speak it to the father on the throne, but more times than not, I speak it directly to the spirit living in my spirit. And I tell him what he says in his word about me. I tell him what's true about me. Like I could say very simply, I am alive to God. And I say that to the Holy Spirit, I am alive to you. Teach me what it means. You live in me, teach me, touch me. The power of God is in me, thank you for peace. When anger rises up in my heart, instead of just venting the anger, I mean, sometimes I do, I yield to the flesh, but many times I will talk to the spirit, not asking for peace, I thank him for peace that's already in my spirit. I say, thank you, Holy Spirit. Thank you, and I talk to him as that burning bush, a kind of glory of God living in my spirit, God in my spirit. And if you make confession, I mean, we're talking about all the days of your life, you will experience victory, or you could put the word salvation there. The problem with the word salvation is people think they make confession the day they're born again, maybe one more time the day they're baptized, then their confession days are over. No, you make declaration of your faith to God many times throughout the rest of your life, and that's what activates, that's what appropriates the presence of God in your life. Reason a lot of people don't ever feel the presence of God, they never actually talk to the spirit. And if they talk to the spirit, they don't talk to him according to the truth. They may complain to the spirit, and I mean, that's better than nothing, at least you're talking to him. He'll get in the middle of that dialogue and change your way of thinking, so just start talking to him. But when we talk to him according to the spirit, we begin to feel the presence of the power of God. I mean, it really will make a difference, but most people never ever do that. I mean, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, they still are as neglectful of it 20 years later as they were the day they were born again. They've made no progress in this arena. My point, and to make you feel bad, my point is to stir up a determination to change this in your life. The other page four, look what it says in Revelation 12, verse 11, we'll look at verse 11 just because I want to finish this and get right to the end here. It says, they overcame him, they overcame him, that's the devil, by the blood of the lamb, that's what the work of Jesus, but also by their testimony, you could put the word there, by their confession. We overcome the devil by the confession of the word in our mouth to God. Now, we can confess it to other people as well, but it's the confession of our mouth to God that activates the presence of God in our inner life. And if you never do it, that's the reason why you're not conscious of this reality in you. And if you do that over weeks and months and years, the orientation of your life begins to move from a flesh orientation to a spirit orientation. The primary orientation of your inward life shifts over time, and the mood and the perspective of your inward life shifts, and it's supernatural. That though you can't get a handful of spirit, it will shift the mood on the inside of you if you stay with this, it really will. And you will begin to have a positive outlook and a happy spirit, and you'll have confidence before God, and things will look, the bad things, they don't necessarily look good, but they don't look fatal, they just look different. They look a lot different when the environment of your inner man has been shifted. It takes time to do that. Look what Paul, Hebrews says, Hebrews 10. Hold fast the confession of your faith. Hold it fast, don't neglect it. Hold it fast, don't do it one day and then you're done. Stay with it, hold it fast, stay with it. Hebrews 4, hold fast your confession. Don't neglect it, stay with it all the days of your life. 1 Timothy 6, the way that you fight the good fight of faith, the way that you fight the fight of faith is by the confession. How do you activate the presence of God in your life? How do you take a stand? How do you shift the orientation of your life to a new way? By the fight of faith is by the confession, by speaking the word to the Holy Spirit in your spirit. E, now what's remarkable is that Jesus here in Matthew 4, he said, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. He's describing how the human spirit works. We live by the words of God, that's how we live. But the remarkable thing is who he's telling this to. He's telling this to the devil. In Matthew 4, the devil comes to Jesus. Now Jesus is the living word. I mean, he is the living word. But when the devil came to him, he quoted the written word. He confessed the written word to withstand the devil. I mean, if any man didn't need to confess the word, it would be Jesus. I mean, he is the living word. He could just like look at the devil maybe and just flex a muscle and say, you know who I am, go. He didn't. On three temptations, he quoted, he confessed the word of God to the devil. Now, if the living word does it, where do you and I come off not ever doing this? We can't live with the spirit orientation if we don't confess the word. But in that confession, we have a fantastic instruction. Jesus is giving us insight. We live by the word. When we speak the word to the spirit in our spirit, we live, our spirit gets strong. Our inward atmosphere of our life starts changing. We do that a week, a month, a year, two years, five years, 10 years. The internal atmosphere of your soul, the mood shifts. You begin to love the things of God more and more and more. You don't know when it happened, but little by little, it permeates your thought processes and it permeates your emotional makeup over time. It's like the leaven in the loaf, so to speak. It permeates everything. Romans eight, verse one to six. Romans eight, verse one to six, and I'm gonna end with this. I won't even read it all, the six verses here, but here's the point I'm making. Three times in these six verses, Paul talks about people who live according to the flesh. And three times, he contrasts it by people who live according to the spirit. And he's talking about believers, by the way. He's talking about believers. Many believers, they're born again, but they never ever draw on the power by confessing the truths about what's in their spirit. They live according to the flesh. I don't mean that they're, again, watching perverse movies all day. That's not what I mean. They live by whatever their experience tells them. That's the information that shapes their emotions. Whatever's happening, that's mostly their orientation to life. That's called living according to the flesh. When Paul talked about carnal believers, he wasn't saying they were fake. He wasn't saying they were fake believers, carnal believers. He meant they were getting most of their signals and their orientation of life from the carnal, the natural world. They were living mostly by what they experienced, and they were not living by the truths of who they were. That's what a carnal believer was. They lived mostly by just their natural observation of how things were. He didn't say they were fake believers. I've, over years, people said, oh, you know, that guy there, he's a carnal guy, meaning he gets drunk all the time. He's a carnal guy, and the rest of us are spiritual. No, we're only living an orientation of the spirit if we're living by the truths of God's Word about who we are. We can love God and continue living in this wrong way, I mean, with an orientation, and it's powerless. We just live as a slave to the emotions that come over and strike against us. But these are the two different orientations, and I'm gonna end with that, and we'll pick this up more in the days to come. Let's end with this. Amen. Let's stand. I looked at the clock, and I was running real late, and I went, whoop, better end. So now I've got you all oriented to the clock. Let's just wait on the Lord for a moment. What I'm asking is that we would make a determination, we're gonna change the way, the primary orientation of our life. The most common thing is we live according to our natural experiences, the flesh. And we say we wanna live according to the truths of the Word. We wanna begin to confess the Word in a new way. Again, when you speak the Word, speak it to the spirit, that bonfire, that living flame of love that lives inside you. Speak right to that Shekinah glory on the inside. You don't have to feel it. You will in time. You'll feel the presence. You stay with it, you'll feel it. If you take a few weeks, a few months, I don't know, but you will feel it, trust me, if you stay with it. Lord, we just come before you. We say that we wanna live by your spirit. We wanna live more than just sincere. We wanna live in the power of the spirit on the inside. Lord, we wanna live more. I want you to say that just in your own whisper to the Lord in your own way. I wanna be more than sincere. I wanna live by the power of the spirit on the inside. I wanna live by that. It's mine. I wanna experience it. I'm gonna begin to confess the truth of who I am in my spirit to you, Holy Spirit. I mean, I love sincerity. Sincerity is very important, but it's not enough. It won't be enough to get you free. Holy Spirit, here we are. Just gonna wait for a moment. Holy Spirit, just come and touch us. Lord, release your glory right now in this room. I ask you to release the wind and the fire and the wine of your spirit right now. We say yes to you, Holy Spirit. More. Release your spirit. Release your manifest glory right now, Lord. Just gonna wait a few more moments. Release your fire. Release your joy. Release your wind right now, your creative power, your wind. I wanna pray for people that are sick in your body. If you have lower back pain right now, Lord wants to highlight that. If you have lower back pain, you're actually feeling it right now, I want you to raise your hand if you'd like prayer. Particularly on your right side. I mean, just back pain, but on your right side specifically. If you have that, go ahead and come up here real quick. Lower back pain right here, and then a little on your right side as well. Let's just wait some more. Holy Spirit. I wanna pray for people that are, that have a problem in their right elbow. Anybody have a problem in your right elbow? Go ahead and come on up. A bunch of you would come up and pray for folks right now. About 50 of you. Anyone in the room. If you love Jesus, you're qualified. Come on up. You have the Holy Spirit living in your spirit, I can tell you for a fact. So you're qualified. Come on up. I wanna pray for, we're gonna wait for a few moments before we even move on. I wanna pray for these right now. When you pray for people, stand in front of them. It's better if you stand in front of them. That way you can talk to them. That way you can see their responses. And you're far more engaged with them when you pray for them when you stand in front. We're gonna ask the Holy Spirit to come and put his hand on them right now. Those with the right elbow, raise your hand if you would. Okay, right here. There's more than that. Okay, over here, a few more of you. Lord, I just speak right now to that elbow in the name of Jesus. I just command the power of it right now to be broken. Now, Lord, release your healing power. We speak to backs. Back pain. Holy Spirit, release the healing power of Jesus. Let the fire of the Holy Spirit come and rest on their back. Release fire right now. Release the fire of the Holy Spirit on the back. More, Lord. If you've got something you want prayer for, physical healing for anything, go ahead and come on up. Those are just the two that were highlighted to start with. If you want prayer for healing, go ahead and come on up, stand on these lines. We're gonna take a few minutes and pray for you. Now, Lord, release the fire of God right now. Right now. Healing in the name of Jesus. Back pain be gone now. Now. Back pain go in the name of Jesus. More. More. Now, just move your back a little bit and see if you can sense any difference. I just, I command back pain to leave right now. Alignment, alignment, vertebraes. Alignment right now of muscles. Just however it works. Lord, you know how it works. Touch spines right now. Some people have pinched nerves. They have pain with pinched nerves. Jesus' name, I just speak to it. If you have a pinched nerve, go ahead and raise your hand real quick. Okay. If you have a pinched nerve, tell them that. Several of you just, I'm gonna focus on that right now. In Jesus' name, Lord, release healing. More, Lord. Show yourself as the God who heals. Release healing power right now. You have migraine headaches. If you'd like prayer, raise your hand. Anywhere in the auditorium, migraine headaches. Those that have their hand, let's go ahead and lay hands on them. Just look around. We got a few over there in the aisle. Migraine headaches, right. The Lord wants to touch some people right now, today, with that. Let's lay hands on them. In Jesus' name, I take authority over these headaches. Some of them are caused by natural, some of them are caused by natural, some of them by demonic torment. In Jesus' name, I ask you, Lord, release your healing hand. Drive out demonic influence and correct the natural problems. I just speak the name of Jesus over their, right now, their headaches. Go, go in Jesus' name. Release your glory, Lord. Feel free to move around and pray for a few people. You don't have to stay up here real long, but maybe pray for one more. Move around as you feel, as you desire. Release your glory right now, Holy Spirit. Release your glory. I take authority over migraine headaches right now. Anyone having tormenting dreams, raise your hand right now. I'm gonna pray against tormenting dreams, Spirit of fear that comes in the night, raise your hand real quick. In Jesus' name I take authority over torment in the night. I cancel the assignment of the evil one. In the name of Jesus, demonic power, I cancel your assignment. I cancel your assignment right now. Release their mind. Release them right now. They got their hand up. You see them. Tormenting dreams, raise your hand. Let's make sure somebody is praying for us. Right now, I break the power. Break the power. Be gone. Tormenting spirit, go in Jesus' name. Go in Jesus' name. The whole time. The whole time. Now release prophetic revelation, Lord, upon those with dreams, tormenting dreams. Replace the negative with the new ones. Give them dreams of the glory of God. Let them see into the realm of the Spirit. The whole time. Lord, touch backs. Release your glory. Release your power on backs. The light of your child, child of your faith. Your manifest presence, release it now. Now. Lord, I speak to those right elbows. I speak to them now. Heal them right now, today. Release testimony of victory today. Today. We release your glory by the spoken word. We release your glory by the word of faith. Right now. Shine, Lord, shine. The light of your faith. Come like wind. Come like rain. Come like fire. Come like oil. Come like wind. Come like rain. Come like fire. Come like oil. Come like wind. Come like fire. Come like oil. Come like rain. Come like wind. Come like fire. Come like the sun. Lord, shine. The light of your faith. Send your glory, Lord, send it on down, Lord, send it on down.