PASTOR DARRYL BAKER

Romans 8:5
For those who identify with their old nature set their minds on the things of the old nature, but those who identify with the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit.

The moment you become born again you receive a new spirit man within. That new spirit man scripture teaches us is perfect, for that new spirit man has been made in the image and likeness of God Himself (Hebrews 12:23). Once this new life has been given, we now have two natures to deal with. We still have the old Adamic nature in our flesh, but we also now have this new God-like nature. It is this new God-like nature that is to rule our soul and body.

Our soul, which is made up of mind (reasoning), will (choices), and emotions (feelings), is now to become the servant to our spirit man within, the new God-like nature. The body is a slave being subject to our soul, based on what we will it to do. What determines which nature we now walk in. Here is a powerful saying that will answer that question. There are two natures within my breast. One is cursed and one is blessed. One I love, and one I hate, but the one I feed will dominate.

If you want to experience this new nature, the one who is made in the image and likeness of God, you must identify with the new man within you. If you feed on worldly things, you are setting your focus on the flesh. But if you feed on the Word of God, fellowshipping with the Lord, you are setting your mind (your soul) on spiritual things, identifying with the new nature, and when you do that new man will dominate.

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Isaiah 1:19
If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land.

Far to often people think that because of certain circumstances in their life, or because of what other people have done, this will affect their outcome. But the truth is your outcome in life is determined by the choices you make. The devil is the one who wants you to get caught up with what others do and focused on things in the natural. In doing so he has taken your focus off of what God has planned for your life.

The above verse in Isaiah is an absolute. The only conditions to getting the best God has waiting for you in this life is your willingness and obedience to Him. When you understand this, it should change what you are focused on. Your daily focus should be on walking in obedience to what God has for you to do. Look at Joshua and Caleb. They remained focused on what God had said about the promise land, and all the rest of those who rebelled against God did not keep them from their god-given destiny.

Stay focused on being obedient to God and doing whatever He desires of you with a willing heart. To be willing simply means you obey without argument, and you put your whole heart into it. If you focus on this, you will succeed. Stop allowing the devil to get you to focus on or to even think that people or problems can stop you. Just stay focused on what God has called you to do, and you are assured that what God has planned for your life which is good, will come to pass. Just be willing and obedient.

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Colossians 1:28
Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.

The word “perfect” means to be complete. It is not other people, things you own, nor your status in life that makes you complete. It is Jesus Christ and Him alone that makes your life complete, and that is why they preached Christ to everyone. Ever since the fall of man when Adam and Eve sinned and turned away from God, man has been incomplete without God and always will be. The Creator Himself who brought us into existence is the only One who can make us complete.

When we try to find our worth in life in what we do, what other people think of us, or in what we have in this world, we are always going to feel incomplete, because in doing so we are trying to find our worth in the creation and not our Creator. It is not a selfie you take that everyone likes, nor getting compliments on something you’ve accomplished that gives you value and worth. Trying to find your worth in anything other than Christ will lead to a self fulfilling and self defeating lifestyle.

Our value and worth come from the One who loves you and gave His life for you. Get your focus on Jesus by going to the Word and focusing on the New Testament scriptures that reveal who you now are in Christ Jesus. Get to know Jesus and you get to know yourself, the new you, one who has become a new creation, for you are one spirit with the Lord. You are complete in Him, because in Him you have all that you need.

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Acts 19:20
So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.

God’s Word will only help you to the degree that you hear, receive, and act upon it. God’s Word spoken brought into existence everything we see. Scripture reveals God’s Word is living and powerful. God’s Word is a prevailing force. The word prevail means to prove more powerful than any opposing force, to be victorious. God’s Word is that prevailing force for scripture reveals heaven and earth will pass away, but God’s Word will never pass away.

Think about how powerful God’s Word is. In the scripture above we see that the Word continued to grow mightily and prevail over whatever they came up against. This was a result of the disciples teaching the people what God’s Word said. The more that Word grew and came alive in the hearts of those who heard it, the more that Word prevailed in and through their lives.

To get God’s Word in our hearts we must hear it, speak it, meditate on it, and live it. For those who do, this prevailing force, the Word of God, will work in and through your life proving itself more powerful than any opposing force. It will help you to live a victorious life, for you shall know the truth, and that truth shall set you free.

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Philippians 3:13-14
13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,
14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

A key to moving forward into all God has for your life is to forget what is behind. If you hold on to your past you will remain there. In the Old Testament the first generation of the children of Israel once delivered out of Egypt kept looking back to Egypt, and they did not go forward into the promise land God had for them. Only Joshua and Caleb let go of the past and entered that promise.

Stop thinking about, talking about, and focusing on your past and what is behind you. Stop seeing the person you used to be and start seeing in scripture who God has made you to be. Leave the past, yours, and others where it belongs, behind you. Do not allow past hurts and failures to get your attention. Forgive everyone and release them from any wrong they may have done. Don’t beat yourself up for wrongs you have done, just repent, and move forward.

Paul knew this all to well, for his past life was one in which his faith was in his own righteousness and not God’s. He also had been a major player in persecuting the church until Jesus revealed Himself to Paul. If you hold on to the past, you will only hinder your ability to enter into what God has ahead for you. When you let go of the past you can then move forward by faith into all God has already prepared for you to walk in.

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… and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

Every believer has been seated together with Christ at the right hand of the Father. This is recognized as a position of authority over all the powers of darkness. It is the same position of authority Adam had before he sinned. Adam was given authority over all the earth and God told Adam to use that authority to walk in dominion upon the earth.

You have been seated with Christ far above all principalities, powers, might, dominion, and every name that is named. Not a little above, FAR above! Through Christ we have been restored back to the place of dominion that God had given Adam. This authority means you have been given delegated power, God’s power. You exercise your authority over satan and all his works by faith in the name of Jesus, the name above all names.

We need to fully understand our position in Christ, the authority that has been given to us, and exercise that authority through a bold faith-filled declaration of the name of Jesus. We are to trample on all the power of the enemy as Jesus declared in Luke 10:19. Romans 5:17 tells us we are to reign in this life through Jesus Christ. So don’t allow the powers of darkness to rule over you. By faith from your position in Christ, use the name of Jesus and keep them under your feet where they belong.

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Hebrews 12:1-2
1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Here in Hebrews 12:1 it tells us about the great cloud of witnesses that are an example to our walk of faith, who many are listed in the previous chapter of Hebrews 11. Then we are told of several key things that will help us to follow the example they have set in our faith walk with God. Let’s examine them together.

The first one mentioned is to lay aside every weight. When you look at the meaning of this word it refers to what a runner would do when running a race. They would take of any extra clothing or items that would slow them down in running their race. We must lay aside anything that is hindering us from developing our faith in God and running our race with Him. For example, if we are feeding on worldly things on TV, social media, ungodly friendships, etc, these things are going to hinder our faith. If you spend your time on things that do not build your faith and keep your faith in God strong, they are hindering you from trusting in Him.

Then he mentions laying aside sin that so easily ensures us. Do not normalize sin in your life. Sin robs us of our confidence in God (1 John 3:21). So lay aside any sinful action and repent when you do sin. The third thing mentioned here is to look unto Jesus, which the wording refers to giving Him your undivided attention. Simply put, He is the Word made flesh, so stay in fellowship with Him through the Word, and choose to focus on what His Word says instead of anything seen in the natural realm. Do these three things and you like those who have gone before us can live a life of trust in our God.

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Acts 15:37-40
37 Now Barnabas was determined to take with them John called Mark.
38 But Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia, and had not gone with them to the work.
39 Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus;
40 but Paul chose Silas and departed, being commended by the brethren to the grace of God.

In the above set of scriptures, you sadly have an event that takes place all too often in the body of Christ. Paul and Barnabas whom God had called to work together to fulfill God’s purpose in preaching the gospel were preparing to go back to the churches they had already been to so they could check on them and see how they were doing. John Mark on that first journey at one point had left them and gone back to Jerusalem. It was dangerous work, and he had not stayed with them.

As they are preparing to go again, Barnabas wants to take John back with them, but Paul who had become the leader of the team did not want him to go. Good leadership is not going to allow someone who is not prepared to risk the mission that needs to be fulfilled, knowing also they may be affected. But Barnabas was determined to get his way, and this caused contention between him and Paul. Instead of staying with Paul whom God had called him to work with, he took John and went off on his own.

Paul chose Silas, and sadly you do not hear about Barnabas through the rest of the book of Acts, but you do read about Paul and Silas. Silas had come to where they were in Antioch, and you find out that the Holy Spirit had led Silas to remain when others had departed going back to Jerusalem because God knew He would need a replacement. Paul’s proof he had heard from God was the leaders in Antioch commended Paul. When you know God has connected you with the church body and the leadership He has for your life, stay where He planted you, for it is God who places us in the body where He has called us to fulfill our god-given purpose.

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Galatians 6:15
For neither is circumcision [now] of any importance, nor uncircumcision, but [only] a new creation [the result of a new birth and a new nature in Christ Jesus, the Messiah].

Circumcision was required of Abraham and all his men and was then to include all males on the eighth day after their birth. This cutting away of the flesh was a sign they had a covenant with God. Under the New Covenant, there were some who insisted that even though one was born again, they were still to be circumcised. As Paul reveals in the above verse it is no longer of any importance, for under this New Covenant it is the inward change of the new man, this new creation of the human spirit that matters.

This new birth of the human spirit is how one experiences the cutting away of the old fallen nature, and you enter into a covenant with God. Man has always tried to change the inward man through outward actions. But if that were possible, you would not have needed Jesus. God came to change us, and change the way we live our life, but that change comes from the inside out.

Colossians 2:11 – In him you were also circumcised. It was not a circumcision performed by human hands. But it was a removal of the corrupt nature in the circumcision performed by Christ.

Here we are told that the old fallen nature was cut away in Christ when our spirit was reborn. It is this new nature within, the new man that we are to now develop through the renewing of the mind that will change how we live on the outside. By the renewing of your mind through reading the New Testament of who you now are in Christ, you are transformed outwardly to no longer be conformed to the ways of the world.

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Galatians 5:6
…the only thing that matters is faith working through love.

It is true faith, a faith that believes, speaks, and acts; united with the knowledge of God’s love for you, compelling you to love, that means everything. Love, the God kind of love, is a choice. God’s love is not based on feelings, but on actions. God’s love is not lip service, but is revealed through our deeds, how we live. Never forget, for your faith in God’s Word to work for you, you must walk in love. If your faith is not working the first place you should check is your love walk.

If you have gotten out of love, said something you should not have said or done something you should not have done, go to that person and repent and get right back in love. Jesus gave us the formula for walking in the love of God. We are to treat others the same way we would want them to treat us, no matter how they treat us. So, when you think about how you are treating other people you should ask yourself, is this how I would want them to treat me. Are these the words, actions, and attitudes I would want from them.

It does not matter how others have treated you, for God’s love is unconditional. It does not place a condition on others to love you before you love them. On the cross Jesus gave us the greatest example of love, asking the Father to forgive those who had crucified Him. Looking to His example on the cross reminds us of how much He loves us. So, if you want your faith in God to work for you, choose to walk in love, for your faith depends on it.

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