|
Principles of Birth
The Christmas story contains
six wonderful principles of birth. They are true guides whenever
God does a new thing. Luke 1 : 26 – 38 deserves our meditation because
the Holy spirit surrounds the Incarnation. The third person of the
trinity is intimately involved in everything God purposes on earth.
When God moves he highlights these six principles and brings a glorious
seventh, the inner witness, to prove that the new holy thing is of God.
1. God moves on the ground
of spiritual virginity
The intervention of the heavenly
messenger came to a virgin. Repentance unto the forgiveness of sins
remains the only route to spiritual virginity. Preachers today minimize
sin, diminish the word, and omit the severity of God. New things
filled with the glory of God cannot emerge upon the wreck of the old man.
Too often the new creation is grafted onto the old man which is still growing
corrupt even after the new birth. Note the tense in Ephesians 4 :
22 :
“…..that you
put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man, that GROWS CORRUPT
according to the deceitful lusts.”
According to = dominated or
conquered by. The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes contribute
to encourage the sin-spirit of the old man. We actively put off by
switching off TV, by walking away from gossip, by refusing to listen to
innuendo. This daily discipleship helps to preserve spiritual virginity.
The strong desire of lust can dominate the new creation and activate the
old man. Carnal Christianity does not have the inner power to bring
God’s new thing to birth. When we put on the new man and see the
new creation realities we are GOOD ENOUGH to stand in His holy presence
by the blood of Jesus Christ. Spiritual virginity means maintaining
our position of privilege that the blood has bought for us, by putting
on the new and stripping off the old man! All lies, fears, and all
the bombardment of the enemy must be driven off our minds. Renewal
of mind is the activity for believers who accept their virginity.
Righteousness by the blood of Jesus is the forever foundation of our position
in Christ. We work out what He worked in by continuing to renew our
mind by the word of God, and purify our hearts by the blood of Christ.
2. God works on the basis
of grace
“And having
come in, the angel said to her, ‘Rejoice, highly favoured one, the Lord
is with you;
blessed are you among women!’” (Luke 1 : 28)
The word ‘favour’ means grace.
God never saves, heals and delivers those who think they deserve it.
The mind of pride always produces the leprosy of sin. (Check Uzziah’s
story). Repentance comes before grace. God only lives in two
places : highest heaven and a broken, contrite heart. Grace
connects heaven with humility when we admit our spiritual bankruptcy.
Grace is never merely a cover-up job, but will teach us to deny ungodliness,
and worldly lusts. Be in a place to receive favour, the gospel of
the grace of the glory of God. God never gives you anything on a
plate. He chose Mary, a submissive, young virgin who knew the presence
of God. Grace blesses us with a power from on high to communicate
the gospel. The evidence of grace is the anointing of the Spirit.
When you are born again you are highly favoured and blessed with every
spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. What a position grace puts us
in! However, faith then determines how much grace we can draw on.
We are saved by grace through faith. Faith is not alone when we are
Christians – it has works. Grace is never the license to do what
I want to do, but the liberty to do what Jesus tells me to do. Grace
is God’s handshake form heaven wanting our hand of faith to slip into his!
Mary’s hand finally touched and gripped the grace of God when she obeyed
:
“Then Mary
said, ‘Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according
to your word.’” (Luke 1 : 38)
Consent. Submission of
heart. Yielded to the grace of the Holy Spirit’s operation.
3. God builds faith by
His proceeding word
“Then the
angel SAID TO HER, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour
with God.’” (Luke 1 : 30)
The personal, anointed word
to our hearts enlarges our capacity to believe for God’s new thing.
God enters our visible world with an invisible seed to eradicate the lies
we believe about ourselves. Don’t fear is found 365 times in the
Bible, everyday for a year. God wants you to have delivered brains,
saved thinking, a new core belief system. How a man thinks, so is
he. Christianity is not a mental religion, however, our thinking
and perceptions are based on revelation. We don’t live from the attics
of our minds, but the basement of our spirits. The seed of God impregnates
our spirits when the anointing sends it forth! Faith comes by the
anointed word. Churches move into stagnation when there is no anointing
on the teaching and preaching. The first sense of call in a God-sent
preacher remains total inadequacy for the task. The word preached
and taught must be alive to do spiritual surgery in dividing soul from
spirit. The listeners must be prepared to change their belief system,
form cold, critical intellectualism to the passion that revelation from
the heart alone produces. The angel spoke to Mary’s heart:
consoling fears and calling into being the prospect of carrying the Son
of God for nine months in her womb. God wants to speak great things
into your spirit, because now Christ is IN US! Deliverance brings
the Kingdom of God within. The word of deliverance precedes the prophetic
word! Without “do not fear” we cannot have yes to the years God has
planned for us.
When you listen to the anointed
word take a notebook, write those things down that the Spirit ministers
to you. Fix the revelation! Then pray it into your heart.
Soon you will be pregnant.
4. God underlines the
priority of “Jesus is Lord”
He will reign over the house
of Jacob forever. In the birthing of the supernatural power of God
Jesus must be Lord before He is Christ. (See Acts 2 : 36).
He REIGNS as LORD before He RAINS as the ANOINTED ONE.
In Luke 1 Zacharias had
to come to obedience (verse 63) by writing down his son’s name should be
John. Then he was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied (verse
67 – 79). Lordship comes before the anointing. The Pharisees
would not have this Man rule over them. (Luke 19 : 27). All
religious people seek to execute their own will and use God’s word to back
up their rebellion. The typical example is King Saul who ended up
with Satan as his Lord. Even in ministries today that appear charismatic
may be operating in a wrong spirit that refuses the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
“Not everyone
who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he
who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to me in
that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons
in your name…” (Matthew 7 : 21,22)
The Lord Jesus replies He NEVER
knew them. The Jewish exorcists in Acts 19 fulfil this stern warning
– they used the right Jesus and the right name, but did not have the power
of the Holy Spirit. There are wolves in charismatic sheep’s clothing
today. When we do signs in His name the key to being true servants
is, “the Lord working with them.” (Mark 16:20). This signifies fellowship
of inner knowing.
If Jesus is to be Lord over
our broken Jacob-like lives we have to first draw up lines of communication
with an indwelling Lord. Are we led by the Spirit into fellowship
with Jesus? Do we obey revelation? Objectively, the Lordship
of Jesus relates to the omnipotent sovereignty of God. He is Lord
of all in heaven and earth. Only as we are healed within are we able
to trust his rulership in and over our lives. It will take the millenium
for Jesus to be deeply, truly Lord of our lives. Even in the thousand
year reign of Christ some refuse His Lordship and join the satanic rebellion,
at the very end. Here and now, the more Jesus is practically Lord,
the deeper and greater new thing God will work through us.
5. The Holy Spirit is
God’s ‘How He does it.’
God’s “How He does the new
thing” is the Holy Spirit (Luke 1 : 35). The Holy Spirit intercession
links the Lordship of God in the world to the Lordship of Jesus Christ
within the believer. The third person of the trinity comes together
with us AGAINST the lack of insight and lack of foresight that as humans
we so often display. In Romans 8 : 26 – 28 the connection is between
this holy activity within the Spirit-filled believer and all things working
together for good for those who love Jesus and are called to the Father’s
purpose. Intercession encourages sensitivity to the sovereignty of
God.
The word of God will return
to us void without our active involvement in faith and intercession.
The vitality of the Holy Spirit makes the word of God a creative force
for those who believe. Evangelicals who tend to live out of the attic
of their minds cannot believe for the reality of the creative word that
is Spirit-born as a divine seed into the heart. The Spirit of God
creates an environment for the spoken word to be creative. We see
this principle in Genesis 1: 2,3. He incubates, prepares a climate
for the seed of the word of God to create instantly. In Luke 2: 25
– 27 we see three operations of the spirit in creative prophetic power.
a) invocation of
clothing (v.25) ;
b) inspiration of revealing
(v.26) ;
c) intuition of leading
(v.27) ;
What are we believing and knowing
God will allow us to do for him before the return of our Lord Jesus Christ?
Have you revelation in the Spirit concerning His purposes? The Holy
Spirit is God’s “How?” but He cannot reveal and clothe and lead if sin
and self continue to have their way in our lives. The quenching and
grieving of the Spirit kills the new things God desires for you.
If we go on sowing to the flesh corruption follows. How many individuals
and churches are in a rut of following dry routine and fail to go on sowing
to the Spirit so they live life to the maximum?
6. God looks for the obedient,
submissive heart
“Let it be
to me, according to your word.” (Luke 1 : 38)
According to means dominated
by, and conquered by. The word of Gabriel was Lord of her young heart.
In the moment of obedience there was the holy conception. When the
servants at the wedding feast at Cana obeyed the words of Jesus, the water
supernaturally became wine – Our obedience completes His miracle.
Let it be to me as I am dominated by the words of the new covenant.
The word of the Lord is YES (it’s true) and AMEN (a creative force) to
the submissive heart. God loved David because he unquestioningly
obeyed. Saul kept using the word of God to back up his own agenda,
and so his heart ultimately strayed into the occult. Listen again
to Simeon’s prophecy to Mary in Luke 2 : 34, 35 :
“Behold this
child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a
sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your
own heart also), that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.”
The issue of obedience goes
down to the basement of our heart condition. People fall by disobedience
or rise through obedience in relation to the words of Jesus. The
obedient life will be spoken against because persecution is against the
word itself (see Mark 4 : 17). The word reveals our inner thoughts.
(Hebrews 4 : 12). The word will finally judge our lives. (John
12 : 48). A life of obedience brings unfettered blessings to most
who come into contact with us. As Saul, we will play the fool if
disobedience marks our walk.
The six principles of birth
lead to the wonder of the inner witness. Mary had gone up to the
hill country to enjoy sweet fellowship with her cousin. John the
Baptist leaped in Elizabeth’s womb at the greeting of Mary. There
should be this inner witness when true believers meet in His name and under
the precious anointing of the Spirit. When God is birthing a new
thing the inner registration of the Spirit becomes an essential accompaniment.
Without it, we should not move forward. Without it, there is no blessing
from the Lord.
When Jesus came into the
world, the Father spoke to his spirit in Hebrews 1 : 5 :
“You
are my Son,
Today I have
begotten you.”
And in Hebrews 10 : 5 the son
spoke back : -
“Sacrifice
and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for Me.”
We, too, must live in the internal
regions of our human spirit, where the Holy Spirit lives in us.
Give yourself the Lord Jesus.
Surrender and abandon your desires to His Lordship. Travail in the Holy
Spirit given prayers. Become addicted to the word of God and prayer
like the apostles of old. Only then can God take us out of the stagnant
rut of observances into the elixir of eternal life and into His gracious
new designs.
As soon as Zion (the church)
travailed (did the work of prayer), she gave birth to her children.
Download
this page as a pdf file
|
