Angelic Conflict part 212: Human history (the Church) – Rom 12:1-21; 1Co 2:10-12; Psa 116:12-13; Joh 3:27, 34; 15:5; Luk 16:10.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 212: Human history (the Church) - ROM 12:1-21; 1CO 2:10-12; PSA 116:12-13; JOH 3:27, 34; 15:5; LUK 16:10.

 

ROM 12:1 I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies [contact with world] a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable [well-pleasing] to God, which is your spiritual [reasonable based on your position in Christ] service of worship.

 

ROM 12:2And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

 

When you believed in Christ you were completely transformed into a child of God, a child of light, and a brand new power became available to you.

 

If we are not living the transformed life, it is simply because we do not wish to avail ourselves of the power that is present within us when we had received Christ as Savior. We are not learning in order to become something different but to think something different that is in accordance with what creature we have been transformed into at salvation.

 

The Spirit renewed us at salvation, TIT 3:5 and it is the same Spirit that renews our minds, ROM 12:2.

 

1CO 2:10-12; ROM 12:1-2; ROM 8:16; and HEB 4:12 therefore show us that the mind and the heart and the divine new spirit and the Holy Spirit and the body are all in the works in a believer who is positive, willing, and yielding to the will of God.

 

So that's the whole you, nothing is excluded except the sin nature which is dead anyway.

 

1CO 2:10-12

 For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God

 

This is the "functioning" church as God has desired her to be. Satan has and will attack every part of this whole picture.

 

So if the Spirit changed us at salvation it is stated here and several other places in the NT that it is His ministry to change our thinking, our minds, which are linked to our new divine spirit given at salvation, so that what we think is in harmony with who we are.

 

[Prairie chicken, Napoleon]. For the new creature to live as the old creature is to go back to the chickens or the infantry after being delivered and promoted.

 

The Spirit is the teacher and the power, and the word of God is the master key that fits all locks. The scripture, studied and understood in wisdom and not just a superficial knowledge, unlocks the flood gates of grace and power and they, the word and the Spirit, transform the believer's mind just as water can carve and entirely new landscape over time.

 

And from this flows service that is acceptable or well-pleasing to God.

 

God demands that we fulfill a perfect plan, and since do not possess perfection, He must give it to us.

 

PSA 116:12-13

What shall I render to the Lord

For all His benefits toward me?

I shall lift up the cup of salvation,

And call upon the name of the Lord.

 

He answers verse 12 in the negative without needing to state it. What shall I render to the Lord? Nothing. I shall lift up the cup of salvation. What do you lift up a cup for? You honor someone, toast someone, and then freely drink of it. I shall call upon the name of the Lord without offering Him anything, for there is nothing I could offer Him.

 

If we have not learned that His will is good and well-pleasing and perfect in the small things, we may have a struggle in times of great disappointment (a sick child, a sudden death of a loved one, loss of a job, loss of personal health, etc.)

 

God wants you to learn, not from the experience of others, but from your own experience. You are to prove this text in your own life - that God's will is good, well pleasing, and perfect.

 

You are to prove this text in your life. You are to take your life as it is today, stop whining about it, and believe God to make good His promises.

 

In fact ask Him in prayer to encourage that faith in you, to reveal that faith to you, and to reveal the importance and benefits of the reality of this text in your life.

 

"prove" - dokima,zw [dokimazo] = to prove the quality and purity of a thing through testing. The will of God is good, well-pleasing, and perfect.

 

I can say it is, but that is not what is going to ultimately reveal that it is in each believer's life. Testing, pressure, adversity, and prosperity are going to put the believer to the test. His faith and deep understanding of his position in Christ and the essence of God will transform into service in his ministry that was sovereignly given by God the Holy Spirit and that work of service will shine in the midst of the pressure that arises from adversity and prosperity.  

 

There are no circumstances that are beyond God's power, and nothing is so trivial that it is beyond His love.

 

And so now comes the fellowship of believers in the micro-organization known as the local assembly. The principles thus related are each going to be intensely attacked by satan and his organization of bad guys.

 

ROM 12:3For through the grace given to me [revealing his own status - not from Paul but from the Lord] I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.

 

This verse proves that the old Adamic nature and its estimate of itself carries over into the Christian way of life.

 

There are twelve Greek verbs that could be used to convey the various shades of meaning in the field of thinking, reasoning, concluding, reckoning, and so on, the HS has chosen one of them here and that verb is phroneo = to think, to be mindful, to reflect, or to estimate in the sense of forming an opinion.

 

"think more highly" - huperphroneo = high estimation

"to think, to think" - phroneo = estimation

"sound judgment" - sophroneo = sensible estimate

 

We need to consider our acceptance by faith of God's estimation concerning us and also to recognize what we are in Christ. We are nothing and anything we have of any value is from Christ, imputed to us at salvation. All flesh is like grass which withers. No man should be glorified, in his own mind or in the minds of others, only Christ should be glorified.

 

Christ gave a good estimate of us without Him:

 

JOH 15:5

"I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.

 

Any believer who does not completely accept this is the biggest nothing. A believer who does completely accept this will be useful to the Master.

 

The measure of faith is not a different measure for each believer but the measure given to each believer which is the entirety of what is recorded in the holy Scriptures. Each of us have been given a measure of the infinite mind of Christ in the pages of Scripture and from that measure we should reach a sensible and sober estimate of ourselves and we should enter by faith into the outworking of who we are in Christ.

 

The word of God has covers, in other words, its pages are finite and so there is a measure of scripture.

 

But of the Spirit of God there is no measure: