Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. 1 Corinthians 14:1.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Unless you grow beyond the limits of the flesh you will stay locked in toil, torment, and pain. You must go up a level. The Spirit level. But how do you get there? It is all about where you set your mind, that is, your thoughts.
When you receive and confess Jesus as Lord, you have died with Him to sin, that is, to being controlled by the lusts of the flesh, and I have raised you up with Christ by My Spirit so that there is new life, divine life, residing in your spirit. You are no longer under sin but under grace so that sin is no longer master over you. Do not return to slavery a second time.
In order for you to have joy and receive divine revelation, your mind, that is, what you think upon and say, must be trained to step up to newness of life. So now you must put your sight higher and keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at My right hand and you with Him in the Spirit.
Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in Me and when Christ, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Colossians 3:1-2.
If you remain in Me and My Words remain in you, Satan and his demons cannot touch you. There is no snatching out of My hand. Stay in the secret place of the Most High. I am El Elyon, God the most high.
Never lose heart, though your flesh may be getting older, your inner man is being renewed day by day. Do not focus all your attention on the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Heavenly realities never change, My promises are forever.
My Word is established forever in Heaven and My Word gives and sustains life. Gossip, words of fear, bitter complaining about others, and godless chatter about things you really know nothing about from the inside out, simply feed the flesh.
You grow above the flesh level by hearing, meditating upon, reading, speaking, and doing My Word. This takes you up to see things as I do. Such as healing where there is sickness and provision where there appears to be only lack, like no bread in that large crowd on the hillside. The disciples saw nothing but lack which could not be filled but Jesus saw provision in just five loaves and two fish. “And when He lifted them up to Me and put them in the Kingdom, they were more than enough.
My Word should be the first place you look to begin your day and the first place you look during the day for the answer to any trial, storm, craving, depression, offense, or doubt. You should speak My Words as you arise, as you go out and come in, as you walk about, and as you lay down at night. Deuteronomy 11:18-23.
A caterpillar has to eat until he bursts out of his creeping, crawling, nearsighted body, shedding his prior skin five times as he enlarges, until he is so full that he rolls himself up in his secret place and dies to his old self and reforms into a new creature and is born again as an amazing butterfly. And this is metamorphosis, which is the word I use that you translate as “transformed” by renewing your mind to the truth of My Word and who you are in Christ.
You have to release yourself from the chains and limits of your flesh to go into your Promised Land. A goldfish will grow if you take it out of the bowl. And so will you. Stop the worry, malice and fretting, stop the limited thinking. But without changing where you look by what you feed on, you will not be able to overcome because the flesh will keep controlling your mind.
So, to have true joy you must get above the flesh level and live in the Spirit level.
To do this let us consider two Scriptures I have given you for insight into this.
When Paul was in Miletus on his way to Rome, he called for the elders of the church in Ephesus to come and meet with him, because he knew he was nearing the completion of the work I gave him to do on this earth. When they had come, he told them this, “And now I entrust you to God and to the Word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” Acts 20:32. The Word is the answer to taking you up to the level of your heavenly inheritance in Christ.
And likewise, Jesus at the Passover meal that night before He died, after confirming that He had finished the work I gave Him to do and would be returning to Me, He prayed to Me as the disciples listened, “But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. I have given them Your Word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your Word is truth.” John 17:13-17.
Both Jesus and My apostle Paul, who was taught by revelation from Jesus, entrust you to Me by the gift of My Word which builds you up and sanctifies you, that is, sets you apart from the flesh level to the nobility of the spirit level.
By the washing of your mind with My Word, you will not be in the dirt of the worldly from whom the devil steals the Word. They are feeding on the dirt that he eats. But My Word will put you in higher realms of the Spirit, which are pure and filled with light.
Just talk with people and after a very short time you will know what level they are functioning at. If their conversation is coarse (rude, crude, or vulgar), malicious, bitter, grumbling and complaining, angry, or depressed, you will know they are of the flesh.
If their conversation is edifying, encouraging, pure, clear, positive, kind, well stated, full of life, and refined you will know they are of the spirit. If someone is a combination of both, he is double minded and straddling the fence, keeping one foot in the spirit and one foot in the flesh. This not ought to be so in My children.
An unbridled tongue will build one minute and tear down the next minute. With it you bless Me, your Lord and Father, and with it you curse men, who have been made in My likeness. From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My children, these things ought not to be this way. Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? Can a fig tree produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can saltwater produce fresh. James 3:9-12.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. My Word is truth, so the Spirit of My Word. My Words are Spirit and Life. The Word for Spirit in both Hebrew and Greek is also translated as “breath” and “wind.”
And My Spirit offers to raise you up to a new level of living even now by giving you gifts of grace endowments, which are impartations from My Spirit into your spirit of divine wisdom, knowledge, faith, discernment, spirit language, interpretation, healings, miracles, and discernment. These gifts are for each one for the benefit of all. They are manifestations of the Spirit that bring not only spiritual but physical results, as My Word does.
These gifts are very important to you and others in your life. So important that I tell you I do not want you to be unaware of them, 1 Corinthians 12:1, and that you are to desire them earnestly in your pursuit of love. 1 Corinthians 14:1.
For to each one in the Body of Christ, the church, is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit. This is a word about something that will happen in the future in your life or the life of another that otherwise you could not know. And to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit. This is knowing a fact about someone or something that you could not otherwise know, like Jesus knowing the Samaritan woman had had five husbands and was currently living with a man that was not her husband. To another faith by the same Spirit. This is not your normal faith, this is My faith kicking in with yours to make you certain of the result. Like David facing Goliath and Moses parting the Red Sea.
And to another gifts of healings by the one Spirit. This is not just the healing power open to all who are indwelt by My Spirit, but an anointing that kicks in that goes to work on various kinds of healings. And to another the effecting of miracles. Moses was often operating in this gift as later was Joshua. And to another prophecy. This is speaking My Word so as to edify, encourage and exhort another and is different from the Word of wisdom or the Word of knowledge.
And to another the distinguishing of spirits, which is so important today when the doctrines of demons, showing immorality and perversion, murder and rebellion as good and calling them deceptive names implying freedom but are really enslavement to carry out the devil’s will in the earth. To another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. These are like the tongues on Pentecost that the crowd understood but you each have a private prayer language of tongues as well that is in your own control of whether you want to speak and sing in tongues or not.
But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.
Not by human power or might, trusting in the flesh, but by My Holy Spirit working in you and on you by My Word will put the enemy to flight.
As long as you stay in the flesh arena and do not go to the spirit arena you will never have perfect unending joy. I have raised you up in Christ to newness of life so that you can walk in heavenly realms while on the earth, and you will so long as you put your mind above on everlasting love.
Seated in Christ you can be partakers even now of heavenly light, of revelation, and of the gifts of impartation that come to you in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Earnestly desire them in your pursuit of love, for these will benefit you and your neighbors and beyond.
These gifts enlarge your view and raise you to a new level of spiritual insight. No longer held captive by the flesh.
Yield to the Spirit and not to the flesh by keeping your mind above. The mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, but the mind set on the flesh is death. Remember, the flesh has a death sentence on it and it will try to grab all it can now before it has to face the dust. But you, the real you of the spirit, will step out of the body and when the time comes, you will receive a glorious heavenly body to clothe your spirit and soul. A new set of garments but this time one of eternal glory and majesty that will never grow old or die for it is of the Spirit.
I love you. Keep yourself in the spirit arena at all times, day and night, and you will always have joy for you will always see the Kingdom at hand and everything you need is in the Kingdom. Make it your source of supply. Unless you are born again of water and the Spirit you cannot even see the Kingdom, let alone enter it. And earnestly desire the gifts of the Spirit, stay mindful of them, as you pursue love.