You Must Believe and Agree

Chapter Two

As I began to write this book I realized that my mind was being bombarded by the approved book writing protocol of our day. I found myself becoming nervous as to how I would present the message. But then I thought, “I have written over two hundred study guides and books that have been changing lives at Mary Banks Global Training Centers and Bible Teachers International Worship Centers for more than two decades. Now that we are introducing this Word to the Church at large, it is the same Word, presented in the same fashion that will perfect the Body.”

I want you to follow me as I take you on a journey to the eternal purpose of God; the spiritual perfection of His Sons. In order to make this trip, however, you must meet the criteria the Father has set before us. You must agree that the holy Word of God is the authority that will settle all controversy. You must also open your heart to receive truth that may in fact shatter your present belief system.

St. John 7:38

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water,

The living water Jesus speaks of here is the Holy Ghost. Jesus also said it is not that which goes into a man that defiles him, but that which comes forth out of him. The Lord implies that only those things pertaining to the Spirit of God will proceed from those who believe on Him according to the scriptures. This may seem very mundane to you, but I declare it is the number one problem in the Church today. Saints do not believe on Christ the way the scriptures have presented Him. Now your mind may go to His Coming or His crucifixion or maybe His return and you may say, “Oh, yes, I do believe.” I do not speak here though of those events, I speak of His sojourning in you. It is His indwelling in your flesh and what that has afforded you that are the issues here. It is of those things that I speak concerning your unbelief.

I know of no other way to bring you to the place you seek in Him except you believe as the Word has proclaimed. The only weapon you have against the workings of a fleshy mind that has not been influenced by the purity of God’s Word, is truth itself. It is that truth that will make you free from unlawful desires, mental anguish, hurts and sins of the flesh and mind.

Romans 12:1-2

1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Paul, the messenger of the Lord Jesus Christ and apostle to the church, infers here that the church at Rome can live in the presence of God and man without conforming to the way of the world. I am sure that you have heard these verses taught many times before. But what do they really mean? They imply that we are to be different in our ways and character.

There are many other scriptures that support this belief; passages such as: “…what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness?” (II Corinthians 6:14) or “...love not the world, nor the things in the world,” (I John 2:15) or even "ye are a peculiar people”(I Peter 2:9). These all refer to a creature totally oblivious to the ways and things of the world. This is certainly not true with regard to the Sons of God today.

The Body of Christ is confused. The mind of the church has been consistently assailed by the traditions, isms and schisms of men. In fact there are many false doctrines that have systematically poisoned the people of God. The deadliest of these are the “Faith and Prosperity” and “Dual Nature” doctrines. These doctrines and traditions have created mindsets that totally contradict the eternal purpose of God. To say the least, they have perpetuated a lust for the things of this world and sin. They have fashioned a creature that is not even a facsimile of a real Son of God.

There has been much “to-do” about mindsets in the preaching of the gospel. According to Webster’s dictionary, a “mindset” is a mental attitude or a fixed state of mind. Most of these discussions have done nothing more than confirm the great lie, which Satan has perpetrated in the church, “Nobody is Perfect.” This declaration is the most horrid affront to the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

As an apostle to the Body of Christ, it is my responsibility to identify and destroy any mindset that exalts itself above the knowledge of God. There are many such teachings in the Body of Christ concerning the disposition of the mind that have grossly undermined the work of the cross.

First of all, the mind is not an evil thing in your body. According to scripture, it is the mechanism by which you are to serve the Lord. So then, how did it become the enemy of the soul? I submit to you that it is false doctrines and the erroneous teaching of salvation itself that have created this mental albatross for the saints of God. I too, was guilty of teaching such ignorance. It was the grace and mercy of God that stopped me in my tracks and set my feet on the path of knowledge and wisdom that changed my life and my ministry forever.

Let us take a look at the big picture for a moment. Depression, frustration, unforgiveness, jealousy, evil imagination etc., are all dispositions of the mind. They are merely manifestations of how the mind operates. Christianity has established spiritual psychiatric wards to deal with these ills. Thus, we have Christian psychiatry designed to walk the Sons of God through their spiritual deficiencies. Our counseling appointments have become therapeutic sessions in which the clergy spends most of its time trying to heal or change mental dispositions.

This is heresy! Listen to me carefully. When we the leaders in the Body of Christ, entreat depression, unforgiveness, hurts from offenses, evil imaginations and such dispositions as common defects in the children of God, we dishonor God and bring Christ to an open shame. I hope you will open your heart to hear what the Spirit is about to say to you.

Consider the following passages:

James 3:10-12

10 Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.

11 Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?

12 Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.

Look at the impossibilities here. A fig tree cannot produce olives, nor does a fountain send forth salt and fresh water. You must accept the principle here. If olives are found on a tree it is because the tree is an olive tree. If a fountain produces salt water, it is because the source of the fountain is salt water.

The same is true of our walk in God. God created each Son whole and complete, not emotionally crippled and wanton. If we walk after the flesh we will mind the things of the flesh. Likewise, we will produce the character and emotions associated with the flesh. If we walk after the Spirit however, we will mind the things of the Spirit and engender the attributes and emotions of the Spirit of God. The bottom line is, it is impossible to walk after the Spirit and produce the character and emotions of the flesh.

Deep emotional pains, spiritual deficiencies, iniquity and wantonness are not attributes of the Spirit of God. In fact there is no captivity of the mind that is characteristic of a born-again believer who walks after the Spirit. It is impossible for the fig tree to produce olives.

What is the mindset here? Leadership in the Body has accepted the great lie. They believe that these “ills” will always exist in the Body of Christ and that there will always be defects in the born-again believer.

God is not an impotent God. He is mighty in all that He does and salvation is no exception. It is the mighty hand of God in the salvation of the Sons that is on trial here. Every time leaders in the Body entreat sin and emotional disorders such as depression, frustration, offenses and unforgiveness as conditions that the Father has raised up spiritual psychiatrists to deal with, they help to validate Satan’s inference that God is an impotent God unable to keep that which He saved out of the world. If the Sons of God are victims of the same captivities as unbelievers then where is the power of their God?

I submit to you, it is the erroneous doctrines and perspectives regarding the born-again experience that is at the root of this controversy. In all the years that I have been a member of the Body of Christ, which are more than thirty, I have never really heard the gospel of Jesus Christ preached in its entirety. I have heard the message of a suffering servant and redeemer. I have read many books about the plight, the disposition and position of the Sons even as you have. We’ve heard many preachers proclaim the day of the manifested Sons of God. We marched through the Christian theatrics and fads; “name it and claim it”, “the king’s kids”, “step on the head of the devil”, and the most hilarious of them all, “money…cometh”. We were even privileged to hear sermons exemplifying the fact that we can do all things through Christ.

But what was the bottom line? When the rubber met the road, we were still crippled by emotional pains, suppressing true desires and struggling to maintain righteous character on a daily basis. We went to conventions and conferences looking for the magic formula. We wanted to hear something that would end the struggle and cause us to walk in the power of the Holy Ghost. We knew enough to know that we were missing something, but because we didn’t know what it was that we lacked, we continued to hunger and search for the knowledge or the prophecy or the laying on of hands that would finally catapult us into that long sought after place of power.

Most of us wanted to work ministry. So after long years of missing the mark and waiting for a “power miracle,” we left our seats of boredom and embarked on the trail of ministry that had been blazed by many who had the same frustrations. I had never heard the truth about His indwelling in us until the Lord revealed this awesome reality. Do you really believe it is the heart and mind of God for His people to journey through life day after day trying to chart their path through a maze of false doctrines that promise but never really deliver? What about inner healing counseling that can only place bandages on our wounds, and sermons void of the power to perfect character? No wonder there is such hopelessness in the people of God. There have been so many messages of false hope delivered to them over the years, until the declaration that there are new voices with a new revelation coming to the forefront does very little to excite them. They have seen and heard too much. That is why the wisdom of God demanded that I remain at home with the flock until I produced the evidence of the truth I am sent to carry to the Body. If I am not successful in making you understand the monumental principles, which are at the very core of your salvation, the writing of this book will have the same effect as putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. You will have learned a few more truths without the power to execute them.

The key to power is the knowledge of God. It is the sure Word, pure and full of the purpose of God. It is not produced by doctrines devised as a result of the failure of men to walk in the righteousness of God. I know that your struggle to live holy and to be free from lingering hurts can be over if I can cause you to know the truth about the things God has freely given to His children. Stop for a moment and pray that clarity will come to your heart as you embark on this journey to the heart and mind of the Father.

THINGS WE MUST KNOW AND BELIEVE…

The scriptures insist that the Lord has given us things that can only be discerned by the Holy Ghost. It behooves us therefore to investigate these things that have been given to us freely by the Father who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ…and that we should be holy and without blame (Eph. 1:3,4).

We are a spiritual people, born of God and we have received a spiritual inheritance. The things the Father has given to us are in Christ. Christ is that unction, which John talked about in his epistle it, is the anointing. It is the Spirit of God that upholds all things and embodies all creation. Christ is a heavenly place. It is the omnipresence of God. Though it is profitable for us to believe that the Father created us holy, strangely enough, this is the very truth the church has denied. The blessings He gave us that have been established to be spiritual blessings are simply the attributes of dwelling in Him.

The Father, has predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved (Eph. 1:5-6). Here Paul begins to explain the operation of redemption. He declares that we were to be more than beneficiaries of the atonement of Jesus Christ (as Israel benefited from the sacrifices of Moses). Instead we were elected and selected to become the children of God through Jesus Christ. We must take this in the literal sense, we are the offspring of God.

We have been placed in the royal family; we are the begotten of God. I remember the Lord saying in the book of St. John that Jesus was His beloved Son in whom He was well pleased. We have now been placed inside of that beloved Son. We are in Him and He is in us, even as Christ was in the Father and the Father was in Christ. The problem here is that the church does not believe this literally. The church cannot believe and accept that we are the same creature possessing the same nature as Jesus Christ. Somehow we see Him as totally different . Many have not believed the report. They cannot believe that salvation allows us to be created in the likeness of the man Jesus Christ. Instead, they choose to camp out at the next verse. We have redemption through his blood, and the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace (Eph. 1:7). The riches of God’s grace establish His influence, which is the Holy Ghost within us. This placing of the Holy Spirit within, initiated a process of regeneration that transformed us into a New Creature.

Ephesians 3:3-5

3 How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, 4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)

5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;

This is the mystery that was hid in God: the crucifixion of the old man; the creation of the New Creature; the begetting of Sons; and Christ in us, the hope of glory. These are the spiritual things that cannot be discerned by natural men because they are foolishness to them. The problem is the church has taken the same position as the natural man too, and does not believe. Even after having received the Spirit of Truth, the church continues to walk in denial of its inheritance.

I am convinced we have had only a partial revelation of the faith. Therefore, we have only had a partial revelation of our salvation. The church did not understand the dispensation of faith. Instead it packaged and commercialized faith as a commodity that guarantees a life of wealth and earthly power. Consequently, the Body has erred and strayed from the purpose of God. Therefore, neither the death of Christ, His resurrection, the forgiveness of sins, nor salvation for regeneration will have any effect on those who have become nonbelievers.

We must believe in the finished work of Christ. We must believe we are that which God has made us. If we do not believe that we are the Sons of God created in the image of Christ, there will be no evidence of the power of our salvation. We will never manifest Christ in these earthen bodies. This also means we will never walk in the character of Christ. Belief is essential to our development. The New Creature must believe in who He is. We must believe that God has created us new. These are the things that the Holy Spirit has exposed, that we might know what the Father has done in us. This truth will remain ineffectual if we do not believe and accept it. The Father will deal with us no other way; we must simply believe that which the Holy Ghost teaches. At some point in this study, you must accept the fact that the true meaning of sonship is a perfect, sinless identity. If not, you will never expect to live a life that is pleasing to the Father. You will always vacillate in and out of righteousness. You must believe on Christ the way that scripture has said. There are many that have grown up in the Lord with me and we are the proof that you can live in this world free from sin and the crippling emotions Satan uses to ensnare the Sons. Continue to read and I will show you how to walk in the sinless perfection of our Lord Jesus Christ.