New Creation Realities – Part 3

 

Let’s look at 2 Peter 1:3-4

“³as His divine power has given to us all things pertaining to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, ⁴by which have been given to us exceeding great and precious promises that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” 

Now the word “Knowledge” is the word “experiential knowledge”.  So it is saying, “Through the experiential knowledge of Him who called us to glory and virtue.” How many of you believe you are called to glory and virtue?  Now how many of you know you are not called to glory and virtue when we all get to heaven only? You are called to glory and virtue right here and now, and that glory and virtue can be claimed by faith right here and now.  Now the Bible said that it was according to God’s divine power that He gave to us everything that we need regarding life and godliness. The Bible said, “Jesus said, ‘I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly (Jn 10:10).’” How many believe that life is for here?  Now what is that life?  Let me tell you what it isn’t.  A man’s life consists not of the abundance of things which he possesses. How many of you know that you can have things and you can be sad?  How many of you know that you can have possessions and be sad? But somebody will say, ‘that’s why I don’t want anything.” Well, you can be sad and not have anything too.  So it is not the possessions or lack of possessions that have made a person sad.  No, it is that they need the things that pertains to life, that pertain to abundant life in the spirit man. Now how do you get salvation? You got salvation by grace through faith (Eph 2:8).  It injected in your spirit a new nature that is different in quality. Now how will you receive things that pertain to life and godliness and how will you receive abundant life?  You will receive it by taking God’s Word and hiding it in your heart and then when it is in your spirit, it will fill your spirit with the experiential knowledge of Jesus that will provide you with abundant life.

So when people say, “I know why you are happy. It is because things are working out for you and you are prospering”, you can say, “No, I am prospering because I am blessed. My prosperity is just a blessing. My joy is not based upon my prosperity. My joy is based upon my identity. I have a new identity. I am born again.  I have a new quality and that is a quality capable of having 24 hours a day contact with everything that I need for life and godliness.”  Now once your prosperity is there, it is automatic for the natural realm to yield to you because you are going to begin to think not only as a child of God, but as an ambassador of God, as a king and priest, as a ruler, as someone  who reigns in life.  You are going to begin to think like that and when you think like that, the power of God that is in you to enforce that thing will be able to flow through you.

The Bible said, that “as a man thinks, so is he (Pro 23:7).” How many of you know that it doesn’t matter how powerful an athlete is, how capable an athlete is, or how physically in shape an athlete is, if mentally they don’t believe in themselves, if they don’t have what it takes to go the extra mile, they are never going to make it?  We have seen people with smaller frames and weaker bodies accomplish feats in athletics that were greater and of greater value and of greater magnitude than someone who had a bigger body.  I want you to just lay hands on yourself. I want you to say this: “I AM A NEW CREATION, NEW IN QUALITY, FREE FROM THE OLD, AND READY TO RECEIVE EVERYTHING RELATED TO THE NEW. SO I WILL NOT BE AFRAID OF THE REVELATION KNOWLEDGE THAT I WILL RECEIVE FROM THIS MOMENT ON.  IT WILL SHAKE MY LIFE AND TRANSFORM ME IN ORDER THAT I MIGHT MEET MY APPOINTMENT WITH DESTINY.”

So He gave us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the experiential knowledge of Him who called us to glory and to virtue.” Now notice verse 4, “whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these we might be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” Now the Kenneth Wuest says,

“Having escaped by flight the corruption which is in the world in the sphere of passionate cravings.” 

Now what does that mean? That means you are living in a world that has a dimension that is ruled by passionate cravings.  They hurl themselves upon the human soul.  They are nothing but satanic desires. How many of you know that sin is alive, just like righteousness is alive? And that sin was given right to enter planet earth by a man and that sin was broken and defeated by another man. Now God did not annihilate sin in the sense that it does not exist or it does not have influence. It still will influence whoever will yield to it and give it a bit of place.  You can just begin to think the wrong way and before you know it, wrong thoughts will be infused by supernatural power to bring about bondage in your life.

There is this sphere of passionate cravings, a dimension where demonic spirits operate in order that they might bring people under subjection to them.  The Bible calls it “the flesh”.  It is not the meat on your body. It is not your physical body.  It is a flesh dimension that attacks people who are walking susceptible to, who are walking in agreement with error and doctrines of devils.  When you are walking in the realm of unbelief, you are open to that sphere of passionate cravings.  Now the only reasons why a Christian can walk there is because they don’t know any better, because they think they belong there, because they think they are a sinner and as a result, they immediately placed themselves in that realm where sin can begin to attack their life.  They say, “Well, we don’t have any power.” Immediately they have placed themselves in a place where symptoms of sickness and disease can begin to come and try to convince them that they are going to catch something.

So this is what the Bible said, “having escaped the corruption”.  We have escaped the corruption “which is in the world in the sphere of passionate cravings.” How many of you believe you have escaped? You are not going to escape.  The Bible says, “you have escaped by flight the corruption that is in that sphere of passionate cravings.” Now I will tell you something. If you walk in the Spirit, the Bible said “you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Gal 5:17)”. Now what does that mean to walk in the Spirit? It doesn’t mean that it is just your spirit man and that you are walking according to your spirit man therefore you are denying your body. No, what it means is, you are walking in the Spirit dimension of the Word of God, in agreement with your new identity or who you are in Christ.  You are looking at things from God’s perspective because He has given you everything that pertains to life and godliness. Because you are in that realm, the sphere of passionate cravings of the dimension that you only go into when you step out of faith, when you depart from the faith, when you get out of the agreement with God, that dimension cannot touch you.

Jesus said, “He keepeth himself and the wicked one does not touch him (1 Jn 5:18). Now how can the wicked one touch you not if the wicked one has already claimed your physical body as territory? No, your physical body is the holy temple of God (1 Cor 6:19) and we are going to look into that later in our studies, but the key is that you have to understand there are two realms.  Both can be journeyed into by thought. Now why would Jesus say, “take no anxious thought of what you will eat and of what you will put on (Mt 6:25)”?  Why is He saying that?  Because the moment you begin to take anxious thought about survival, you will begin to do something ungodly to try to make it happen. Have you seen people who are so nervous about, “well I got to take care of #1”? Do you know what they are saying? They are saying,  “I will kill you in order to survive.”  Now what got them over there? They took thought and by taking thought, they stepped into the dimension where passionate cravings and demon spirits have said there’s an invitation by an earthling and we can come in and we can capitalize off that invitation.  Now in your life, when you are thinking along the lines of the word of God, you are not in the passionate cravings realm. You have escaped by flight through the word of God and you are in the dimension of the Spirit. The Bible calls it the “kingdom of His dear Son (Col 1:13)”. The Bible calls it the “kingdom of light”. The Bible calls it ‘you’re planted in the garden of the Lord.” It is a different territory.

How many of you know that God’s kingdom and the devil’s kingdom do not occupy the same territory? It is not the same realm. God and the devil do not share the throne. So when you think along the lines of the Word, you are immediately free from every bit of those things. Now if someone is having trouble with that, it is someone who teeters.  They waiver. The Bible said, “a double-minded man (Jms 1:8): What is that? A double-minded man thinks himself over here and they are in the kingdom of God.  Then they think themselves over here and they are back at the passionate craving realm.  Now what did God say? “He gave us all things that pertain to life and godliness whereby are given to us exceeding great and precious promises that by these promises we become partakers of His divine nature (2 Pet 1:3-4).” So that means your new heavenly identity, your new creation reality is association with and a participation with an experiential knowledge of God’s divine nature.  Now how do you claim that?  You take thought about it. You find out He was made sin.  You meditate on “that I might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” You say, “Man, I am the righteousness of God through Jesus”.   All of a sudden, you are in another realm.  John G. Lake used to walk up to a mirror and talk to the guy in the mirror as if he was somebody else. He would say, “that guy over there wearing that suit, that guy is God’s man. Wherever that man goes, God goes.” So when you claim those things for your life, you become a partaker of those things.