Phil Rowlands

Hello, my friends!

This morning, I was reading in Ephesians about putting off the old man and putting on the new man. We have a new man that dwells within, a new creation, but sometimes, we don't naturally operate out of that new man, that new creation. Paul was instructing the church in Ephesus not to walk in the flesh but to walk in the spirit. His instruction was along the lines of, “If indeed you are a new man, a new creation, why put on the old dead man and operate as if you weren't new at all?”

If all of my thoughts were put on display and all my ways were known to everyone, I would be seen as a pretty wobbly Christian, a terrible one, needless to say. On occasion, I’m catching myself in thoughts that stink and therefore taking them captive, and I'm often chatting with the Lord about how I want to do less of the old man's ways and way more of my new man's ways. Considering where I came from some 23 years ago now, being an addict to everything, violent, anxious, depressed, and psychotic in some mini-seasons, where psychosis set in for a bit, I think I'm pretty clean-living in contrast, but the renewing of the mind is a continuum until we go home. We are training for reigning, and we become more Christlike as we age if we are open to that reality. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not wanting to be sin-conscious, as we are called to have a righteousness conscience, whereby the Holy Spirit is convicting us of righteousness and holiness 24/7, I just love that beautiful truth.

When we are walking in the flesh or intending on going down a road that brings glory neither to God the Father nor His life in us, the Holy Spirit is the One who convicts us of His righteousness, after all, we are His (Jesus’) righteousness. This is what the check in the spirit is; it's our Father in heaven saying, “Hey son, hey daughter, you are better than that, I have a better way for you, please choose My way, your new creation way, your new man way and not the way of the old man, not the way of the flesh.”

This is why we need to have our own independent relationship with God so that we are sensitive to His leading, sensitive to His instructions, and His directing of our steps. We have Christians wrapped around us everywhere when it comes to church communities, and even though it's great to be an example of walking in the spirit or putting on the new man to each other, we need to have our own discernment about how we want to live this wonderful life Christ died to give us. The word of God is obviously a great place to meditate to help us in drawing out what so wonderfully has been placed within. Nothing needs to be added; it's not “what would Jesus do” that you live in accordance with but “what did Jesus do”, or “has done” regarding His finished work that we live out of.

The problem with sheep is that they tend to blindly follow each other, but we weren't born of God to follow each other or put people up on pedestals; we were meant to always follow our shepherd, that is Christ Jesus. We don't follow men, like Pastors, or Teachers, or Prophets; they are there to point you to Jesus and help you understand who you are in Christ, and what your identity is. They are there to go into all the world in a sense and make disciples, so you can in turn use your giftings to do the same, and so on, the power of duplication. If you make a deity out of a human, you are on shaky ground, and Paul warns against that; we only have One Deity, and that is Jesus Christ crucified. Follow Him, look to Him, He is your Good Shepherd!

I may be a terrible Christian if you were to rifle through the sum of who I am in the natural, but God sees me, and sees you as sons and daughters, and He is 100% delighted in you. He gets it; Jesus withstood all the temptations that are common to man and walked according to His Father's will through the whole lot. And as mentioned previously, we don't look at that and be like, “I need to be like Jesus,” because if you frame it like that, you will just come under condemnation, as Jesus set you free from the bondage of the law, from the bondage of rules and regulations and placed you under grace, where you have the option of letting His life be made manifest and work its way out through the members of your body, through your soul and your thoughts among the days, as opposed to letting your flesh rule the roost and letting sin reign in the members of your body and your mind.

When you stop putting on the new man each day, when you distance yourself from God, when you dissolve your prayer life, when you push your brethren away, you can end up putting on the old man, which is dead by the way, instead of the new man each day. It's easy to get once again tangled in the things of this world, and even though you are free in Christ Jesus, we can end up bringing ourselves again under heaviness and condemnation. And this is such a travesty because there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus, and you can never not be in Christ Jesus; that is a given, but you can walk carnally in this world, and it's brutal out there; it's a place of darkness. The power of grace is in your eternal position, that cannot be undone, grace does not streamline or pacify or sanctify living and walking in the flesh. Does grace abound? Yes, it does, grace upon grace, and His mercies are new every morning, but worshiping the god of this world in all of its forms inhibits the outworking of His life in you; it’s just the way it is.

Some grace preachers use the stories of Abraham to conclude that God will just bless your boots off when you are disobedient, when you lie, when you live according to what you want to do rather than live according to His life that’s in you and His plan and purpose for you, but it's just not true. Do you really want to test God, and be like a rich young man who lives loose in every way expecting his rich Father to swoop in and clean up the mess and tragedy in his wake? Most Christians will know deep down that what I am explaining here is the reality of life as a son or daughter of God. He has a plan and a purpose for each of us, He has gifts set deep inside of everyone as well, and He has a “work” for you to “walk in” that was formulated with the very thought of you before the foundations of the world. The life we have in Christ is just such a beautiful gift, and when it's lived, it's a gift that just keeps on giving.

You may feel like I do sometimes, and think if people really knew the real earthly me, they would freak out, but it doesn't matter; your Father in heaven sees you as a precious son and daughter no matter how you travel along in your journey as a saint, but there are deeper things that many Christians don't experience because they are distracted by all the shiny things, or ugly things when you think about it, of this world and getting caught up in what will vaporize at the mercy seat rather than getting caught up in God each day, the former being a sorrowful way to walk out this life.

Be blessed, my precious friends who are much loved by our Heavenly Father. This is not a post about obedience; it’s a post about being so in love with Jesus, and so in tune with His life in you, and so clearly led by the leading of the Holy Spirit, that the straight paths that the Lord has laid out for you are indeed travelled upon by you, a wobble here and a wobble there, that’s just normal, two steps forward, one step back, that’s par for the course, you just keep on swimming, you just get up each day in the brand new day set before you and say, yes Lord and Amen. His love for you never stops loving, His care for you never stops caring, and His truth and life He has given you never stops being truthful and never stops living in you, so don't delay, look into the countenance of Jesus today, and seek after Him, walk according to the wonderful new creation spirit that so graciously you are.

Phil