When we are in the current of the Spirit, we do not speak from ourselves, but only as the Spirit gives us utterance. We no longer express who we are but who Christ is. “And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.” (Acts 2:3-4) When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, realize we speak, not from ourselves…but now the Spirit is speaking as it gives us His utterance.
The Spirit giving us expression is the most crucial and central aspect of why we are Christians. It touches the very core of why we are Christians. “For in Him we live and move and exist…” (Acts 17:28) It is in the Spirit, in Christ Himself, that we must live and move and exist. It is the basic reason of why we are called Christians. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:6) When we speak and the Spirit is not giving us utterance, we are speaking from our flesh, we are living and moving and existing only in our flesh and not the Spirit. Only when we are filled with the Spirit, we live and move and exist in the Spirit. “For in Him we live and move and exist…” (Acts 17:28)
For Christians who love God, realize deep within your spirit, His Spirit will show you that Christ has returned to us. ”So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.” (1 Pet. 1:19) The morning star has arisen within our hearts. Realize Christ has come back to us as the Spirit now living within our hearts. Let the one flow of His Spirit open your spiritual eyes to see the presence of His reality living now amount us growing into His spiritual house. We have not only “heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You.” (Job 42:5) “In my Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.” (John 14:2) By dying for us, He has prepared this place for us in our spirits, so His life-giving Spirit can now come into us, his many dwelling places to form the Father’s house. That is why “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:3) He has received us into Himself in the Spirit by placing His Spirit into our spirits to be one with us. That is why He is “…the way, the truth (reality) and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6) We are being built up into a spiritual house for God through Christ. “You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Pet. 2:5) No one can come to the Father by any other way except through Him. “For in Him we live and move and exist…” (Acts 17:28)
This is why “no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6) Christ has brought us into His kingdom, a realm that is holy, set apart for God, existing in His Spirit. He separates us from our fleshly nature so we are sanctified and can enter His kingdom where His divine nature is in the Spirit. Realize to be in His Spirit, means we are separated to holiness, to His distinct nature so we could be His counterpart. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:5-6) The defining element of being a Christian is to be born, not only of blood, but of water, to be born of His Spirit. The Spirit dwelling in our spirits, making a home in our hearts, defines us as Christians, distinctly separated unto God to be a people for His possession. Realize our righteousness can no longer come from the flesh, but must come from the Spirit for it is the Spirit that gives us utterance. “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Hisself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.” (Gal. 2:20-21) That is why God’s expectation of us is holiness, an attribute that is only of God Himself. That is why we are to “present [ourselves] as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” (Rom. 12:1)
Many Christians today have believed and have been baptized with water, “born of water” (John 3:5) but have poorly realized what it is to be “born of the Spirit.” (John 3:5) When we first believed, realize Christ has breathed Himself into us as the essential Spirit, making us alive in our spirits with His Spirit. “And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit,’” (John 20:22) making them alive and born of God having received the divine life in their spirits. Christians receive Christ Himself as He makes a mutual abode within them. But the disciples at that time were told to wait as they were not baptized with the Holy Spirit yet. They had received Christ as the divine life essentially so they were born again, but this divine life has not been realized and so is not matured in the Christians’ life. They have not realized what was living within them. They were not matured. They needed to be filled with the Spirit. That is why they were told to wait. “Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, ‘Which,’ He said, ‘you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’” (Acts 24-5) The baptism of the Holy Spirit is a most critical item in our lives. It is altogether not an external act, but an internal reality. It is not of the flesh, but of the Spirit. It confers Christians with the divine power to realize the kingdom of God and built His house. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) Realize when we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we will be witnesses, providing a testimony of God even to the remotest part of the earth.
Unfortunately, there are many Christians that have only been baptized by water according to John’s teaching. They have not realized and depended on the Spirit. They do not know what the current of the Spirit is and where it is flowing. They are not one with the Spirit yet and live within their minds. That is why Apollos could be fervent in his own spirit, accurately teaching and instructing people in the ways of the Lord, yet his disciples were only acquainted with the baptism of John, with the baptism of water. “This man (Apollos) had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in spirit (note the small ‘s’), he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John.” (Acts 18:25) He could even powerfully refute the Jews in public, demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. In rhetoric, Apollos was a powerful man so he created many followers who had believed through grace (Acts 18:27), yet realize they were without power. They were born of the Spirit, but depended on their own strength to try to be divine. They depended on the instructions and disciplining of the flesh to be divine. They depended on the flesh to reach and enter the kingdom of God.
When we do things, no matter how righteous and proper they are, when we set rules and regulations and simply follow them, when we take things that are spiritual and make rules out of them, we no longer depend on the Spirit, but we depend on the flesh. We are no longer crucified in our flesh, so we live, and not the Christ dwelling within us lives. We are telling God “I don’t need your Spirit, I can be righteous and holy myself.” This behaviour is a consequence of us taking the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Realize when we took of this tree, we were given only the knowledge of good and evil , but not the ability to do it. “For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” (Rom. 7:18) We were given the knowledge of good and evil , but not the reality of what good is. We lack holiness, which is an attribute only of God. So God sent us His Son, to die for us, shedding His blood to deal with all the evil that we have and will commit, and releasing His life-giving Spirit to us to bring the reality of goodness, of holiness, into us. “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth (reality), whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, for He dwells with you [in the person of Jesus] and will be in you [as the Holy Spirit}.” (John 14:16:17) These two aspects, solving the problem of our sins by dying for us, and solving the problem of our inability to do the good by living in us as the reality of holiness, is why Christ came.
When we say to God, “I don’t need your Spirit, I can be righteous and holy myself” then Christ has died for nothing. “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly.” (Gal. 2:21) Following the law gives us that false sense that we could be holy in ourselves. The law sets up rules for man to follow so they think they could be holy by simply following a set of rules, even rules given by God in the Old Testament. “For if the first covenant had been faultless, there would be no occasion to look for a second.” (Heb. 8:2) That is why following the law, as in the Old Testament, is in the flesh and never pleased God. “Nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.” (Gal. 2:16) Anything that we do, in our flesh without the Spirit, that we think justifies us, is an expression of ourselves and not of God. Even “going to church on Sundays” can become a rule to us in the flesh. When we attend, out of duty and without the reality of the Spirit within giving us the expression (utterance), realize we are no longer faithful to Christ and what He has done for us. Instead of relying on the Spirit, we rely on the Law. When we do something based on tradition or habit because it has always been done that way, when we live and move and exist in ourselves apart from the Spirit, realize we have found another husband other than Christ. We have been foolish. “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:4) “For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you a pure virgin. But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of Christ.” (2 Cor. 11:2-3) When we follow the law and use our flesh, we have lost the simplicity and purity of Christ…of following the Spirit. “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” (Gal. 5:25) The reason why Christ died for us and resurrected to indwell us so we could receive His life-giving Spirit to transform us, making us holy, becomes void, if we think we could be holy by the works of our flesh to reach God and be holy. “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:4) By believing in Christ, He comes to make a home in our hearts (John 14:23), bringing God’s divine nature into us so we are one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17), to be his bride. That is why when we follow the law, relying on the flesh, we have ‘another husband’…we have committed spiritual fornication (Lev. 20:5-6; Hosea 4:12). We have been unfaithful to the Spirit as our one husband. We have one husband who is Christ, and we are presented to Him as a pure virgin. That is why Numbers 5, a passage on infidelity, follows immediately after chapters on our priestly service.
“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Command the people of Israel that they put out of the camp everyone who is leprous or has a discharge and everyone who is unclean through contact with the dead. You shall put out both male and female, putting them outside the camp, that they may not defile their camp, in the midst of which I dwell.’” (Num. 5:1-3) Any expression of the flesh makes us unclean (See previous blogs) in the presence of God. When we love, something or someone, in our flesh other than Christ, our one husband, we have join ourselves to a prostitute (Num. 5:11-31). “Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.” (1 Cor. 6:16-17)
When we teach others to live righteously according to the efforts in their flesh, we are joining them to a prostitute (Rev. 17-18) and not our one husband Christ. The Spirit of Jesus living and operative in us as the Word (Heb. 4:12), willing and working in us for His good pleasure (Php. 2:13), is our one husband (and not the flesh). We must be faithful to Him. We have to trust in the Spirit to make us holy and not in our efforts in our flesh. “So then, brethren, we are not the children of the bondwoman, but of the free woman.” (Gal. 4:31)
That is why when Paul passed through Ephesus, he realized this most critical deficiency in the disciples that Apollos was leading. “It happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus, and found some disciples. He said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ And they said to him, ‘No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.’ Paul said, ‘John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.’ When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” (Acts 19:5) Realize Christians can receive a gospel with the baptism of repentance, yet be devoid of the reality of the Spirit. When we are baptized by the Spirit, notice that this is not a physical baptism, but a spiritual baptism as “they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus”. When we have the realization of a baptism into the name of the Lord Jesus, the Spirit has descended upon us as tongues of fire, and we begin to speak not with our own tongues but with other tongues, as the Spirit now gives us the utterance. (Act2 2:3-4) “And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying.” (Acts 19:6) Only when the Spirit of reality (truth) descends upon us as tongues of fire, do we speak as the Spirit gives us utterance…and live and move and exist in Him.
When we speak as the Spirit gives us utterance, realize Christ is wielding His sword through us. It is “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God,” (Eph. 6:17) that comes out of our mouths. It is no longer our flesh, our own ideas, our own thoughts, but that of Christ. We have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). We have been joined to Him in one Spirit so we are His oracles. “Whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” (1 Pet. 4:11) “For in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’” (Acts 17:28) Realize every expression from us must be in Him. We live and move and exist only in Him.
When the Spirit takes over our being, we are living sacrifices, dead in our soul-lives but alive in our spirits by His Spirit, now truly holy and acceptable to God (Rom. 12:2) to be His counterpart, his bride. We have become joined to Him in one spirit with Him. We have made ourselves ready, dress in fine linen, white and clean. “…His bride has made herself ready. It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.” (Rev. 19:7-8) “…These are the true words of God.” (Rev. 19:18) These Christians now “…hold the testimony of Jesus…” (Rev. 19:10)
When we ride with Him in victory over the flesh, over sin and over Satan, He is the reality of the testimony within us. He is the “…Faithful and True…called The Word of God…” (Rev. 19:11-13) We as His body, form the army. “And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations…” (Rev. 19:14-15) His army is dressed the same as the bride. His bride is His army because it has defeated the flesh, sin, and Satan, and been clothed with Christ. The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Eph. 6:17), giving us His testimony so we speak as He gives us utterance (Acts 2:4), has finally defeated all flesh. So “’Come assemble for the great supper of God, so that you may eat of the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great.” (Rev. 19:17-18) When the flesh is defeated, meaning not only the sins we commit in our flesh, but our reliance on our knowledge of good and evil in the flesh, we will only rely on the Spirit and Christ will be all and in all. The war will be over. We will be relying only on the tree of life, the Spirit to give us expression. Christ, and only Christ our one husband, will have His expression through us. He will be the Head and we will be the body. So the Father, the Son and the Spirit will reign in God’s eternal kingdom, established and built by Christ, and made real in this physical world by His Spirit of reality dwelling in our spirits, forming His bride the New Jerusalem.
“And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.” (Rev. 21:2)
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:5)
Be filled with the Spirit, and speak, not with your own tongue, but only as the Spirit gives you utterance. Then Christ will be the Head and we will be His body expressing only Him. “Making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite [to head up] all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Eph. 1:9-10)
Why? The Divine Revelation 