By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 1 John 4:17.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Are you abiding in My great love for you so that you are at rest, living in shalom peace, and not trapped in the spirit of fear which fuels worry, anxiety, addictions, and a tormented life? Saints can enter and enjoy My rest, which is the life of the spirit and not the life of the flesh.
Let Me show you how to live in perfect peace, which is living in perfect love, which is living in the confidence of My favor upon you, which is entering My rest.
You will keep him in perfect peace (shalom shalom) whose mind (mind-set, thoughts, purpose) is stayed on You; because he trusts in You. Trust in the LORD forever; for in the LORD is the everlasting rock (Tzur Olamin). Isaiah 26:3-4.
Perfect peace comes from trust in Me, which comes from perfected love, which all come from your thoughts, which all comes from what you are feeding your mind, where your mind is stayed. It is a matter of where your attention is focused.
We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 1 John 4:16-17.
As Jesus is, so are you in this world. What does that mean? Look at Him, how is He? Resurrected in spirit, soul, and body, seated on the throne at My right hand. I describe Him as a life-giving spirit.
So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 1 Corinthians 15:45.
If you have received Jesus, if you have believed in your heart I raised Him from the dead (resurrection) with all your sins gone, and confessed with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you are a new creation in Christ, My child and My heir, a joint heir with Christ, then your spirit is born again and you have gone from death to life. Your spirit has been resurrected. But your body has not been yet because you still must live in the earth which requires an earthly body (earthen vessel) to house your spirit and your soul.
The night He gave you His body and blood and made covenant with all who would believe in His Name, Jesus explained for all who would believe in His Word as He prayed to Me for all of you who would follow Him: “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. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. John 17:13-19.
He did not ask for you to depart this life the minute you believed and your spirit was born again to eternal life, He asked that you stay in the world as its salt and light, to witness to all generations the truth of the gospel of your salvation and of the Kingdom. Just as I sent Him to seek out and save the lost and to undo the works of the devil, to bring light to a dark world, to bring My Word and My Spirit to a hungry, thirsty, and dying world. Ambassadors of reconciliation to bring all to the knowledge of My love and their forgiveness in Christ, the removal of sin.
You have a resurrected spirit in a perishable body and your soul is on the fence between the two, and how your life will be, how you will walk, and how effective you will be for My Kingdom and for your joy depends on whether your spirit or your flesh is ruling the thoughts of your mind.
What does it mean that you have a resurrected spirit? Let My apostle Paul, whom I anointed, appointed, and sent to Jews and Gentiles “to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.” Acts 26:18.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in Heaven in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7.
Obviously your physical body is still on earth, but though you are physically in the world, you are not of the world, for you have a different spirit. Your spirit has a new place from which to receive input, from Me, seated with Christ at My right hand in the spirit.
Your spirit now receives revelation knowledge from Me by My Spirit dwelling in you.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 1 Corinthians 2:12-13.
You have a resurrected spirit, which is the real you and your deepest part in which I share My thoughts, even My deepest ones, with you. My Spirit expresses (imparts) My thoughts and words, authority and power, to your spirit and then your spirit translates them to your mind. Your mind being in your soul, the soul consists of your mind, will, and emotions) which is the connection between your spirit and your body. In other words, your thoughts determine your words, which determine your actions. Your mind is the final determiner of how your earthly body is going to behave, whether an instrument for righteousness or a slave of sin and an instrument of evil. And that is what it means to walk in the spirit or to walk in the flesh.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. Romans 6:12-14.
By what you are choosing to make the primary source of input into your mind will determine your level of life, you can dumb yourself down to the flesh level by making it your primary source of input, or you can raise it up to the spiritual level of where you are seated in your resurrected spirit in Christ at My right hand. And it all has to do with where you are focusing your attention—on My Words or on the words of the world, the flesh and the devil, on the truth or on deceit, in the light or in the dark, on love or on hate, on peace or on worry and fear.
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Colossians 3:1.
It is very serious that you take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, for as He is, that is, a resurrected life-giving spirit, so are you in this world. He never gave place in thought and word initiation to His flesh but only to the Spirit of holiness by which I raised Him from the dead. He told you that He never spoke on His own initiative but only by the input of My Spirit in His spirit as a man like you.
“For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak. I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.” John 12:49-50.
You are in Christ and that means to walk by the spirit and not by the flesh in order to produce for yourself and others the wonderful life-giving and life enhancing fruit of the Spirit whether than the tormenting and life-destroying deeds of the flesh.
For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. Romans 8:5.
It is how and where you set your mind. If you set your mind by your resurrected spirit in which My Spirit inputs My thoughts and Words, and My Words are law, the perfect law of liberty that work the same for everyone who will apply them, you will have life and peace. But if you set your mind by your flesh, then that is lawlessness which is sin, and you will have death and torment.
For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Romans 8:6-7.
Your spirit is resurrected but your body is not, it is still in the world but because the eternal life is in spirit and not in the flesh, though you are in the world, you do not have to be of the world. You have a higher source of input for your mind that will give you light, life and peace in a dark, dying, and tormented world. Thus your body and your spirit are in enmity against one another for control UNTIL your mind accepts My implanted Word, which can save your souls, and you are no longer conformed to this world, that is, the default mode of your mind receiving input from your flesh (which was all it could do before your spirit was born again from death to life) but is transformed (metamorphosis) by the renewal of your mind according to My Words, which are spirit and life. Then all three work together, that is, your spirit, your soul, and your body in doing the beautiful things I prepared for you in advance that you might enjoy your life in perfect peace.
Those who love Your law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble. Psalm 119:165.
And that is the key to a life of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit—love. When you fall in love with Me, you fall in love with My Word, and it is the perfect law of liberty. For if you continue in My Word, you are truly My children, and then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free of all fear, torment, depression, offense, bitterness, anxiety, pain, shame, guilt, addiction, and blame.
We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 1 John 4:16-17.
It is a matter of whether your spirit or your flesh wins. In the parable My Son told of the sower of the seed of My Word, the ones whose hearts were hard, shallow, or bound up in the cares and lusts of the word, which is deception, kept walking in the flesh, but those whose hearts were wide open and received My Word renewed their minds, abided therein and bore much fruit, in other words, they walked in the spirit and not in the flesh.
In that parable of the sower and the seed of My Word, you also see that the devil goes after the Word so he can keep your mind focused on the flesh, which is the arena in which he crawls and eats and he wants to keep you feeding in the dirt as well. But My Word, which is living and working, will keep speaking to you as well to implant the truth in your mind. And it depends on what your allow into and feed your mind with—the perfect law of liberty that sets you free to be the you I made you to be or lawlessness with imprisons you in sin and brings you to the dust of death.
The driving force of the life of a believer must be the spirit and not the flesh if you want to live truly free and filled with joy. And if the driving force is the Spirit witnessing with your spirit you will have power over your flesh and all the devil throws up in your way.
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13.
If you let the flesh, with its input from only the physical, the word, and the devil you will shipwreck your life.
How can you avoid that? Let My Spirit take the helm of your life and pull with your spirit so that your boat (flesh) will always go in right paths and never shipwreck in a storm.
In the same way the Spirit also joins to help us (sunantilambanomai (συναντιλαμβάνομαι): to take hold with at the side, hence to take a share in, generally to help) in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:26-17.
I love you. Let Me help you walk in the spirit and not in the flesh by My Spirit which I have poured in your hearts and anointed you with in Christ Jesus. As He is, so are you in this world. Resurrection power and resurrection joy is in you, get it into your mind and into your flesh, I am present as your helper. But you must be willing to put aside your old ways of thinking and walk with Me in newness of life.
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass. 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24.