3. OLD THINGS HAVE PASSED AWAY
Our past, the way we lived and thought is the old thing; the old man.
Ephesians 4:22
“That you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.”
1 John 3:9
‘No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God’
Our old man or the flesh loved SELF:
Self pity, self preservation, self pleasure or satisfaction, self-righteousness, self-promotion, self-justification, attention to me my and mine
Ephesians 2:3
‘Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind’
Romans 6:6
‘We know that our old self was crucified with Him(Jesus) in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin’
We say we are dead to sin and our old man has been nailed to the cross. If so, we need to forget the past. It should have no hold on us; no cultural influence from ancestors or past generations, no DNA and so you are diseased even before birth, no genetics that is suppose to shape us, no parental influence, no traditions, no ancestral curses, no personal declarations about death and future. Instead we need to declare as a child of God reborn by His will that we are:
1 Peter 2: 9-10
‘But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.’
Our father is God and in Him we have value because we are His born again children. We have His nature in us.
What is His nature?
The question becomes if we have His nature who are we really?
Have you laid the right foundation in your life that you can boldly say ‘I am a child of God. His Spirit lives in me’?
Derek Prince says there is only 1 foundation that is adequate and all sufficient. It is the person of Jesus Christ.
Do we have a personal relationship and knowledge of Jesus that makes us able to relate closely to Him? Are we walking in His light?
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