Why walk as mere man when God is in you?

Obituaries
BY DOUG MAMVURA One of the saddest facts that we have to face today is that the Sons of God, men with God in them, men with the very nature of God, are walking “as mere men of the world.” I am reminded of Ecclesiastes 10:7, “I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking like servants […]

BY DOUG MAMVURA

One of the saddest facts that we have to face today is that the Sons of God, men with God in them, men with the very nature of God, are walking “as mere men of the world.”

I am reminded of Ecclesiastes 10:7, “I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking like servants upon the earth”. We are a chosen generation created to show forth His glory.

First Corinthians 3:1-4 says: “And as for myself, brethren, I found it impossible to speak to you as spiritual men. It had to be as to worldlings-mere babes in Christ. “I fed you with milk and not with solid food, since for this you were not yet strong enough. And even now you are not strong enough, you are still unspiritual. “For so long as jealousy and strife continue among you, can it be denied that you are unspiritual and are living and acting like mere men of the world?

Paul found it impossible to write about the deeply spiritual aspect of Christ’s Substitution. He found it impossible to write to them about the New Creation because they lived in the realm of the senses. They had never renewed their minds.

Every born- again believer, has a measure of Faith and has also a measure of Love. However, unless he grows in Grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, he remains unspiritual.

His unrenewed mind is never cultivated, never developed. You can develop your mind, as you can develop your physical muscles. The average believer has never renewed his mind (Romans 12:1- 2). Consequently, his Faith is weak, his Love is weak; and his Knowledge is often mixed with error. You must remember that Love does not come from the reasoning faculties; neither does Faith. Faith and Love are both born in the recreated human spirit.

The reason Jesus said in Matthew. 4:4: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” was not to cultivate man’s intellectual and reasoning faculties, but to cultivate his spirit. In Ephesians. 1 :17- 18, Paul had prayed that the “Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; having the eyes of your heart enlightened.” The heart is called in Romans 7:22, “The inward man.” In 1 Peter 3:4 it is “The hidden man of the heart.”

Man is a spirit being and the part of him that is spiritually dead is his spirit. After he is recreated, then his mind must be renewed, trained and developed. As he grows strong and vigorous in the Word, faith becomes strong and love becomes like the master’s love. As long as we walk in the senses and follow the inclinations of the senses, the spirit is not developed and we are walking as mere men. We walk as though we had never received Eternal Life. The believer has limitless possibilities in this Divine Life.

Ephesians 1:3 gives us a picture of the developed recreated spirit. It says, “Who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies.” If we have those blessings, then the unsearchable riches of Christ really belong to us. In Ephesians 3:8, Paul says he preached unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. In Ephesians 3:12 he says, “In whom we have boldness and access in confidence through our faith in him.”

There is no limit to this New Life. He says in Ephesians 4:7, “Unto each one of us was the grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ.” And in Ephesians 4:1 he said, “I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling wherewith ye were called.”

We are to walk in Love; to walk in the fullness of His fellowship. We are to grow in Grace and in the knowledge of it “till we all attain to the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full- grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). He doesn’t want us to be “any longer children tossed to and fro and tossed about by every wind of doctrine.”

He wants us to grow up into the full stature of the Jesus Life. It belongs to us. You can understand that you have become a partaker of the very Nature of the Father, and that everything Jesus purchased for you in His Redemptive work is available to you. There is no ground for a man to be weak. There is no ground for a man to be always talking about his lack of faith and lack of this or that, “for of His fullness have we all received, and grace upon grace.”

In the mind of the Father you are complete in Him, who is the Head of all principality and power. You are complete in-His completeness. Ephesians 1 :22-23 demonstrates our victory over Satan- “And he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.”

We are the Body; we are the feet of Christ. We are the part of the Body that is running errands for the Master, and He has put all the forces of darkness under our feet. One of us could chase a thousand, and two could put ten thousand to flight. The ability of God that is within us is utterly limitless. What are we going to do with a Scripture like 2 Corinthians 3:4- 5:  “And such confidence have we through Christ to Godward; not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God.”

“Who made us sufficient as ministers of a New Covenant.” That doesn’t mean preachers only; that means everyone of us. We have His sufficiency; we have His ability. How it staggers one when we get the right translation of Luke 24:49, “But tarry in the city, until ye be clothed with power from on high.”

This was Jesus’ message to the disciples before He ascended. He wanted them clothed with power. The correct word for power means “ability.” Now He says, “I want you clothed with ability from on high,” the Father’s ability. You can hear Him say, “Now you will be able to understand the messages that I have given to you. “You will have ability to know what the New Creation means. “You will have ability to enter into the fullness of this Divine Life. “You will have ability to be my witness, to heal the sick, to cast out demons, and to use my Name against all the forces of darkness.” You will know what Mark 16:17 means where He says, “In my name ye shall cast out demons.” Also, John 16:23 “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” You see, until our hearts take in these truths, we are going to walk “as mere men.” You remember Samson, that mighty Covenant man. There never was a man like him, and yet when he ignored his Covenant rights, the Philistines captured him and put out his eyes and made a slave of him.

The eyes of the heart of most believers are like Samson’s eyes. They have lost their ability to enjoy the fullness of their rights in Christ. John 10:29, has never meant anything to many of them – “My Father, who bath given them unto me, is greater than all ; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

They have never learned to say, My Father is greater than all; My Father is greater than all the challenges I may face in my life. They have never realized they have a Father. He has only been God to them. The Father has never been able to make Himself real to their hearts because sense knowledge has so completely governed them. He is a Father God and He Loves you and there is no reason you should walk as a mere man when He lives inside of you.

  •  Dr Doug Mamvura is a graduate of Charis Bible School. Feedback: [email protected] or Twitter @dougmam