Behold the new you

Religion Zone
BY DOUG MAMVURA The world’s greatest giants are spiritual giants. These are giants in the realm of faith. They belong to the new order and this is you and I as believers. We are in this world but are not of this world. We have been brought from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom […]

BY DOUG MAMVURA

The world’s greatest giants are spiritual giants. These are giants in the realm of faith.

They belong to the new order and this is you and I as believers. We are in this world but are not of this world. We have been brought from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of the Son of His love. We have been born of God by the Spirit and have been born into the Family of God. We have been forgiven of everything that we ever did in our past lives. We have been made New Creations, created in Christ Jesus. It is our spirit our real self, the hidden man of heart, that has been recreated. We have become a new Spirit, a New Self, a New Creation.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away, behold all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Unfortunately, most of us ministers of the Gospel have never understood that this new creation is more than just forgiveness of sins. We just focus on the forgiveness of sins and end there.

Did you notice that word, “Behold”, in the above scripture? That is an exclamation of surprise and wonder. Have you taken it in? Something has happened in us. We have become partakers of the Divine Nature, and we no longer have a past.

We are New Creation people. In the first creation (recorded in the first chapter of Genesis), it took six days to make the first creation. It took three days and three nights to perfect the New Creation.

Way’s translation of Colosians1: 9-12 is so striking and literally true:

“For this reason, I too, ever since the day I heard of you, have not ceased to pray for you. I ask God that you may have in full measure that perfect knowledge of His will which is an essential of all true wisdom, of all spiritual intelligence. I ask Him that you may pass through life in a manner worthy of our Lord, so as to please Him entirely. I ask that in every good work you may, as trees of His planting, still be bearing fruit, still growing higher, in the perfect knowledge of God. I ask Him that with all His strength you may be strengthened, even to the measure of the might of His divine majesty, till you attain to all-enduring patience and forbearance, which exults under suffering, I ask that you may ever render thanksgiving to the Father, who has made us fit to have a share in the inheritance of His consecrated ones who walk in light.”

The Spirit knew that some of the New Creation folk would doubt the reality of the New Creation, and so through Paul’s lips He prays this remarkable prayer, that we New Creation people may be filled with the exact perfect knowledge of His will, and it was to be in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Knowledge is gained through study and observation, but wisdom is a thing that only God can give to us; it comes with Eternal Life. It is part of the equipment, or accessories, of the Divine Life.

We would never know how to use the ability that belongs to us, nor enter into our inheritance, or enjoy the riches of His grace, without special wisdom. Therefore, he says these remarkable words: “He has given us the ability to enjoy all that belongs to us in that remarkable redemptive work.” Now with joy I realise that I am delivered out of the authority of Satan as Israel was delivered out of Egypt. I have been born out of Satan’s family into God’s family. I am as much a child of the Father as was Jesus during His earth walk. I have the nature of the Father, I have the love that dominated the life of the Master, and I have the wisdom of God in Christ. He is now the strength of my life. He has given to me His own ability. I have a legal right to the use of the Name of Jesus, and all authority in Heaven and on earth is in that Name. I am fully equipped. The living Word is on my lips and in my heart. He is now building Himself into me through the living Word. A confession like this instantly separates you from the old life of failure and weakness. When I have been thoroughly instructed that the old things have passed away, and I can now walk in the reality of the New Creation life; when I am made to know that I am a branch of the Vine, and that the very Vine Life of Jesus is flowing through me, and that I possess certain rights and privileges in Christ, then I will rise to the level of it.

If I have only been taught that my sins are forgiven, and that I have been justified, and that I will only remain justified if I walk carefully, and have never been taught that I have the nature and substance of God in my spirit, and that I am actually a New Self, a New Creation, then sin and Satan will continue to reign over me. In Philippians 1:1, Paul was unveiling himself to that little group of believers at Philipi. Way’s translation is striking.

He says that “he has the heart cry of his Messiah”. He says, “this is my prayer, that your love may rise higher and higher to its fullest development in the recognition of the truth and in comprehensive grasp of its application, thus furnishing you with a sure test of what is true excellence, so that you may remain untainted by error, unstumbling amidst obstacles till the Day of Messiah’s Appearing, hearing the while a full harvest of righteousness attained through Jesus our Messiah”.

How few of us have ever really realised what Righteousness has meant to us. The word “Righteousness” means the ability to stand in the Father’s presence without the sense of guilt or condemnation, to be able to stand in the presence of Satan and his works without the sense of inferiority or fear. Romans 3:26 shows us that God Himself becomes the Righteousness of the man who has faith in Jesus.

In 1 Corinthians 1:30, Jesus is made unto us Righteousness. In 2 Corinthians 5:21, “Him who knew no sin God made to become sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” In the 17th and 20th verses he shows us how we have become the righteousness of God in Him. It is by receiving the nature of God.

All the attributes of that wonderful nature of love and grace have been imparted to us in the New Birth. Is it any wonder that he says, “Of his fullness have we all received and grace upon grace.” In Colossians 2: 9, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” “In Him are ye made full (or complete).” This New Man is no ordinary product of modern educational facilities or of modern civilisation. He comes out of the womb of God. He is born of God. He is a New Creation created in Christ Jesus. But that is not all.

As soon as he is Born Again, Recreated, and becomes a New Creation, he may become indwelt by the great mighty Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. 1 Corinthians 6:19,20: “Or know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own; for ye were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body.” We have a legal right to invite Him to come and take possession of us.

Remember that Jesus said in Luke 11:13: “How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” You see, it is His children to whom the promise is made. It is His children who will ask the Holy Spirit to come into their bodies. We are born of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit has imparted to us the nature and life of the Father, which makes us New Creations, gives us a New Self. Then we are indwelt when we invite Him to come into our bodies, and make His permanent home there.

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