15 Spiritual Awareness

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Spiritual Awareness Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this? (John 11:2526, emphasis added). It is necessary to be spiritually aware of who and what we are, in Christ, so that we can relate more correctly to God, one another and the rest of creation. We need to have a good understanding of how life was in paradise; how we live our present lives as fallen creatures in a broken universe and the meaning of resurrection life to know better how to fulfill our destinies through faith in Christ. If we can come to an understanding of the truth concerning our past, present and future, we will see the path of life clearer. We will have to start at the beginning of man, look at the metamorphosis he underwent when he sinned and touch on eschatology to gain better understanding of who and what we are and what our future is in Christ. Our future that we see is the vision of our hope that empowers us with a focus of faith that leads us to the fulfillment of the dreams that God had deposited in our spirits. Enoch and Elijah saw their future and through faith live their future in the present. The upcoming generation of saints is called to live their lives just like these two mighty prophets of God lived theirs (Jude 14). I am just one of many that help preparing these Knights of the Cross of Christ to prepare for the last epic battle of this dispensation. The only preparation I can give them, and the only way I know, is to illustrate to them how to walk with God. It is all I know. My qualifications: “I am walking with God.”

God formed man of the dust of the ground and breath into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul (Greek: psuchë; 1 Corinthians 15:45). He created him in His image and likeness. This means his perfect soul, which is his mind and memory, seat of the emotions and desires, conscious and subconscious and his will, was alive to God and he was totally aware of Him, all the time. His soul was filled with God’s perfection, which is His life force. The members of his body were perfect because these were alive to God and were the servants of his perfect soul reflecting the glorious character and power of God made manifested in divine magnificence. His body responded in total harmony to everything that his perfect soul desired to do. Adam’s bodily senses were alive to God and he could observe his Creator with his natural senses, who is Spirit and dwells in heaven. All of his senses, his whole being, were aware of God. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day… (Genesis 3:8a). Adam was created the son of God (Luke 3:38). The Spirit of God led him. All of his senses were alive and divinely focused on God to please Him. As he was doing the will of God he delighted himself in his Creator simply by being aware of Him all the time. His delight in God was the reflection of godly light in him. Because Adam was in God and God was in Him, he knew God even as he was known. He knew Him as he is known because he was continuously aware of Him to constantly respond to His will. His whole life was a flow in the will of God because he was totally alive to Him and aware of Him. Because there was no sin in Eden there was no awareness of tears, or death, or sorrow, or crying, or any pain or sweat. When Adam transgressed the commandment of God, he died to God entirely, which are his spirit, soul and body. Just like a branch that is severed

from the Vine and gradually dies until it is only good for firewood, he gradually died until he gave up the ghost at the age of 930 years. Just like the ashes of firewood he returned to the soil whence he was taken from. Because Adam sinned all of his offspring sinned and is born dead to God. Man is born in sin and shaped in the unrighteousness of his apostate heart. Unless man turns from the consequences of the transgression unto Christ he will die in his sin and will suffer the torments of hell in eternal separation from God. Separation from God is death. Since the transgression man could no longer relate to God with his soul because Adam destroyed his perfect soul through sin. Adam brought man’s soul in enmity with God. Since that tragic day the carnal mind could not subject itself to the law of God, nor indeed can it be because the transgression took place in the heart of man. The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked (incurably sick); who can know it (Jeremiah 17:9). Neither can you relate to God with your body because it is dead to Him as a result of sin. The mortal body of man is the slave of his deceitful soul. Since the transgression, man cannot observe God with his natural senses. He cannot see Him with his natural eyes, hear him with his natural ears or touch him with his hands. The carnal flesh of man is the combination of the deceitful soul and the sinful mortal body of flesh. This situation will be changed with the resurrection from the dead. When the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead will indwell you He will give life to your mortal body through His Spirit that indwells you. Then you will be in the Spirit with your body because of the Spirit of God (Father) that indwells you (Romans 8:9-11). The Spirit of God will transform your natural body into a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15: 42-45). Then will come to pass that your whole spirit soul and body will be preserved blameless at the coming of the Lord.

Paul devoted the entire 1 Corinthians 15 to resurrection. Verses 1 to 19 are an account of the resurrection appearances of Christ and Paul also presented a positive argument supporting the resurrection. Verse 20 says, But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. This does not mean that before Christ, no one was raised from the dead. The prophets Elijah and Elisha raised people from the dead. Both Enoch and Elijah experienced, before the appointed time, resurrection and were translated not to experience death. The death of their mortal bodies was swallowed up in victory. Their whole triune natures were made alive in Christ Jesus and God took them. God had to change them because flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. They saw through the Spirit of Christ who was in them beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow (1 Peter 1:11). They believed God, their faith defied time, which said they had to wait until the last trumpet before they can be translated. They lived their future in the present through faith. They received a testimony that they were pleasing to God because of their faith, the Spirit of God translated them, and God took them. This is the kind of faith that makes God to sing and shout for joy. Christ was the firstfruits, the first one to come forth from the dead in resurrection life. He brought back to life, the widow’s son, the daughter of Jairus, and Lazarus, but this was not resurrection in the final sense. They represent three excursions of Christ entering into the realms of death to bring forth and reanimate, but they lived and apparently died again. Jesus was the firstfruits of those who fallen asleep. He was raised up in so much power that the graves opened up and many bodies of saints who tasted corruption in the grave were raised with Him in power not to die again. Many saw Jesus after His resurrection. Those who were resurrected with Him

appeared too many in the holy city. And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many (Matthew 27:52-53, emphasis added). The Book of Revelation, chapter 11, indicates that one man (probably Elijah) who was translated without seeing death must return again in human form and suffer death. There is no Scriptural foundation for the belief that every man has to die. Hebrews 9:27 says, … it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment; but in Christ there is the opposite promise… and whosoever lives and believes in Me, shall never die. Do you believe this? (John 11:9). Enoch and Elijah is proof that we need not to die if we believe God for resurrection life. Eventually we must come into the experience known as resurrection. Resurrection is not coming back to life only; it is coming into a heavenly body, not made from dust but a spiritual one that is from heaven. It is eternal and functions in a different manner. There is a natural (Greek: soulish) body that we live in now. There is also a spiritual body, which we will receive in resurrection. The miracle of resurrection is far more than reanimation. A person will not be reanimated to perpetuate his old life and functions as in this life. There may be certain similarities in appearance, but all of the corruption of the aging process, limitations and blemishes as it exists now in the natural or soulish body will be removed in the spiritual body. But some will say, “How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? Foolish, one what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain – perhaps wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to

each seed its own body (1 Corinthians 15:35-38). When a seed is planted, part of it dies. The same principal applies to this body. Just like a seed that is planted and the plant that proceeds from that seed differs in glory of appearance to the seed, so will it be when the soulish body will be transformed into a spiritual body. The body will be resurrected into a specific form or glory, because inherent within each human spirit is the prediction or prophecy of what the body will be. As certainly as a plant seed, when planted, brings forth after its own kind so the spiritual body will take on the shape of the human spirit. What we have attained in our spirits, when they go to God and our bodies are laid to rest, predetermines what kind of bodies we shall have. There will be many different bodies in the resurrection. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of celestial bodies is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:3942a). No two stars have the same glory, so is the resurrection experience. The glory that the spirit attained, in Christ, predetermines the glory or resurrection form that the body will receive during the resurrection. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection (Hebrews 12:35b). Suffering produces perfection of spirit (). Why must we have a body? Though we are created in the image of God we are also called to conform to the image of Christ, which include our spirit, soul and body and through eternity we shall be a triune being like Him, namely, spirit, soul and body. Jesus is the first of many brothers and as He is, so we are.

To be complete in Christ we must be spirit, soul and body. In this complete new man the greatest divine force will be released in us to manifest Christ. The saints that will come with Christ to earth will enter into the perfect resurrection body that is essential for them to function on whatever plane their spirit laid hold of Christ before they died. Paul indicates that as the glory of the stars differ one from another, so will there be a great deal of difference in individuals in the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being (Greek: psuche or soul). The last Adam became a life-giving spirit (1 Corinthians 15:42b-45). Every descendent of Adam has a body, which is mainly dominated by the soul, not by the spirit. When resurrected in Christ you will have a body that will directly respond to your spirit, just as the body now responds to your soul. There is a soulish body (natural body) and there is also a spiritual body. The soulish body responds and reacts on the emotional and mental level. It is limited in time, space, and ability to move from one place to another. The spirit body is unlimited and is able to move to any distance or planet instantly, and is able to tune into anyone, anyplace with its senses. Jesus appeared suddenly in the midst of the disciples. The doors were locked for fear of the Jews, but no walls could hold Him out. They were mistaken Him for a spirit. And He said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your heart? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.” When He had said this, He showed them His hands and feet.

But while they still did not believe for joy, and marveled, He said to them, “Have you any food here?” So they gave Him a piece of broiled fish and some honeycomb, And He took it and ate it in their presence (Luke 24:36-43). Jesus had a body, but it was surprisingly not limited, like our present bodies. In this mortal body we groan earnestly within ourselves to be clothed with the body from heaven, and not to be disembodied spirits. We ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our bodies. This is the full manifestation of sonship (Romans 8: 22-25). We cannot clothe our spirits with a body of spirit apart from entering into the process of death, as we have known it. For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. “To be found naked” means a spirit without a body. We do not want to be naked in that sense. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:1-7). When at home in this body, you are absent from the Lord. Your fleshly nature, which is enmity with God, which is your deceitful soul and body of death, do not have excess to the Lord. So you are absent from the Lord because you cannot observe him with the senses of your fallen fleshly nature or get

in contact with him through the natural body. The natural body responds to the emotional and mental impulses of the deceitful soul that has its input from this broken natural realm of the earth. However, we walk by faith and not by sight or by feeling. You cannot relate to God with faith that is generated by the desires of your own deceptive soul because you will pursue something different than the will of God. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures (James 4:3). Faith from your own resources is only as strong as your own will power is, which is legalism, and will not stand the ultimate test of spiritual endurances. Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts (Zechariah 4:6b). When faith flows forth from your own redeemed spirit it is in the power of the Spirit of Christ because He is one spirit with your spirit. The redeemed human spirit responds only to the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. It is that part in you where the seed of God is, which is the Word of God (Jesus), that cannot sin. It is your inner man that has strength through God’s Spirit that is filled with the faith of obedience and that cannot believe amiss. However, when you will put on your spiritual body you shall see Him as He is with that body’s eyes because you will be like Him. The eyes of the spiritual body will see heavenly things just as your spirit sees heavenly things now and just as your natural (soulish) body sees natural things now. With your spiritual body you shall live in the realm of spirit, just as you live now with your natural (soulish) body in this natural realm that is broken, as you know it. Adam came first and afterward the Lord from heaven. And so it is written, “The first man (of the earth) Adam became a living being (soul). The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural (the natural or soulish came first), and afterward the spiritual (the spiritual body comes later). The first man was of

the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man (2 Corinthians 15:45-49). The natural (soulish) body has been conformed to the earth. Man is earth-born and responds and acts in that way. The spiritual body will be from heaven that will be as the glorious body of God’s beloved Son. If a natural man cheers on his football team, you hear it with your natural ears if you are in the vicinity; it is an earthly thing. If angels rejoice over one sinner that repents, you cannot hear them rejoice in this soulish body of death. In the resurrection we will be made alive to another existence in the realm of heaven, just as we, fallen men, are now alive to this world. Some people argue that they do not believe in God or in angels, for they cannot see God or the angels. They are not supposed to see them. A soulish body is alive to the things that belong to the natural world and its senses can observe the things in the natural realm. However, the soulish body cannot observe the things that pertain to the kingdom of God, which is in the realm of Spirit. The body of death (soulish body) is dead to the realm of Spirit and therefore has no excess to it. When we will come into the spiritual body, we will be alive to the realm of the Spirit. On the natural realm everything is deceptive illusionary; the scene passes and we do not know whether it was real or not because we observe everything through a heart of stone that is filled with deception. The heart of stone is incurable sick. However, if you walk in the Spirit you observe things through a heart of flesh, which is the spirit of your mind.

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed – in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed (1 Corinthians 15:50-52). The bodies of people that will be alive at the last trumpet will undergo an instant metamorphosis from mortality into immortality. Those that have gone on to be with the Lord will be raised incorruptible. When the resurrection takes place it will be a new day. When the Lord gives the command at the last trump all who are prepared in their spirits will come alive to God, in their bodies. As they have had soulish bodies, they will have spiritual bodies. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not vain in the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:50-58). The early church had a different perception and attitude toward life and death. They understood that they were trapped in soulish bodies and thus had no instinct for self-preservation. They lived with all the courage and perseverance they had because they had the hope of a better resurrection. As mortals they did the will of the Lord and serve Him with all their hearts until their work was done. They ran the race; they kept the faith until their work was completed.

A hundred and forty years ago, at the end of the pioneer era, when life was tough in the United States, people had another attitude. At the old camp meetings they were singing songs about going to heaven because their lives were miserable. They worked hard to take care of their large families and looked at heaven as a welcome escape. They were not wrong. They searched the Scriptures to take care of their needs. The people of today have an entire different view than those of the early church and those old pioneers. People today do not want to face death. When someone dies the word death is substituted for another word. The hairdresser and makeup artist change the appearance of the corpse to make it look as if it is still alive, busy to sleep. The corpse is dead! Why trying to make it look alive? The carcass of the natural (soulish) body has started its corruption or decomposing process – ashes to ashes and dust to dust. The spirit of that person, if he or she is born of God, is waiting in heaven to be clothed with a spiritual body at the last trumpet. The glory of a spiritual body, which is awaiting us, is exceedingly better than the limitations and death that we experience now in this soulish body. No sorrow, no death, no suffering, aches and pains are present in the resurrection or spiritual body. Our bodies will respond to everything that our spirits wish to do. Its existence and functioning is identical as Jesus’ resurrection or spiritual body. Imagine Jesus appears to His disciples coming as He did through the walls. The stone of His sepulcher was not rolled away to let Jesus out – He was already out! It was to let the women in to see an empty tomb. We have this hope that we will attain to the resurrection from the dead and be perfected. How will we live? Like Enoch, Elijah and Paul did – the life, which we now live in this soulish body we live

by faith in the Son of God! We press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. We are living in the day of the resurrection. The first one mentioned in the Scriptures may take place within a decade. The end-time events dictate that the resurrection will follow in sequences - each one in his own order (1 Corinthians 15:23). We are right in it! What if some of us are killed serving God? It is not important if we die but of importance is what we attain in our spirits, in Christ. We believe God to enter into resurrection life without tasting physical death. We are to loose our lives for Christ sake to find it. What we sow is not made alive unless it dies. We need not to die physically because the Lord laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all. So, in Him, the death penalty is removed. Paul said, “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10-11, emphasis added). Paul did not refer to physical death but dying to self. If we persevere to the end we will be translated like Enoch (without the law) and Elijah (under the law) and God will take us! (Revelation 12). What should the attitude of your spirit be? You do not need to become spiritual. The Holy Spirit birthed you a spiritual being, one Spirit with our Lord, a life-giving spirit. However, the problem is the flesh lusts against the spirit, who is one with the Spirit of Christ, and the spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things you wish (Ephesians 5:17). You only need to believe God to be what He created you to be in Christ, a life-giving spirit. If you focus on it you will become aware of it. Awareness gives birth to faith. You just accept it through faith. You need not to work for it, because it is done! This is the grace of God that you accept His full provision through faith. Do you

know how simple is faith? Faith is expressed all the time in thoughts, attitudes, words, works and your daily walk. Your whole existence is expressions of faith. Some expressions of faith are vanity (faith not expressed in God or unbelief or also called negative faith), which is sin, and others lead to eternal life. If you live according to the flesh you will surely die but to live according to the spirit is eternal life and peace (rest of God). To believe to attain to the resurrection from the dead and perfection without tasting death, without a dedication to live in the spirit, is wishful religious thinking. If we sincerely set our hearts to walk with the Lord and fall, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world (1 John 2:1-2). To live this life in the flesh you need to present your soulish body to God as if it is a spiritual body. To live forever you need to inhale the air of heaven, which is His presence. To do so, you see your body as a spiritual body in an atmosphere where heaven and earth has come together. You live than the life, which you believe you should live in a spiritual body. It is easy. Just share Jesus’ live totally with Him then it takes the pressure of you to do anything. You just flow with Him all the time, sharing his faith, hope and love. Use your imagination and visualize it. The more you meditate on it and you give yourself to it the easier it become. It is too lonely to struggle with an imperfect prayer life of your own. Share His exciting prayer life with Him. Your imperfect relationships you should abandon and share all of His perfect relationships. Can you see how easy it becomes now? Just remember this faith life is exciting but not comfortable for the flesh. If you are faithful in this you will discover what I mean.

Now that you flowing in His faith you create with Him substance in the realm of spirit. Now you share Jesus’ life with Him and you live no longer but He lives in you. Not that you have already attained, or already being made perfect but in hope that you may attain to the resurrection from the dead in the same manner as Enoch and Elijah. Paul did it. He said that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, which is in the realm of Spirit. To illustrate: we know that Peter, James and John witnessed Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain. That experience they could not see with their soulish bodies because flesh cannot see in the realm of Spirit but it is limited to the natural realm. They witnessed Jesus’ transfiguration with their spirits in a vision. Now as they came down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, “Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead” (Matthew 17:9, emphasis added). How then did Paul testify about him being caught into the third heavens not knowing if he was in heaven with his spirit or with his body? If he knew flesh and blood cannot enter into heaven or see heavenly things why did he deem it not strange for his body to be caught up into heaven. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago – whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows – such a one was caught up to the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12:2, emphasis added). In the realm of Spirit where the faith of Christ is expressed it violates the laws of time and space. Paul presented his body continuously a living sacrifice to God as if he has attained to resurrection life and be perfected in his soul in hope that the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead will quicken his mortal body. He brought every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ that he may be renewed in the spirit of his mind in hope that when his obedience is fulfilled all disobedience in him will be punished. He was determined that his carnal mind or emotions will not govern his body but his spirit, which rule it from

the spirit of his mind. That is the part of him where the light of the glory of the Word of God is seated, which is the seed of God that cannot sin. It is easy if you share Jesus’ life because He has already attained to resurrection life and was perfected trough His sufferings. He died for you that you might share all of His life with Him, which is divine perfection. Enjoy Him!