TRIALS OF OUR FAITH

The purpose that God has in the life of the Believer that He wants to accomplish through the trials of our faith and even suffering is that each Believer would come into a personal inward realization of Jesus Christ. So when we come to Jesus by faith and are joined to the LORD and made one spirit with Him that is the "new creation." Paul tell us, "But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." (1 Corinthians 6:17) Joined to the LORD with one spirit does not make one physical body nor are we made one soul man or natural man with Christ. Our physical body and the soul man remain outside of our spiritual resurrection union with Jesus Christ. The natural man is made up of three parts. The first part you can see your physical body and the second and third part you cannot see and that is the soul and spirit of man. Paul again tells us, "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and [I pray God] your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thessalonians 5:23) These three parts are our spirit - pneuma, our soul - psuche, and our body - soma. All corrupt by a natural birth into the Adamic race where we experience physical sickness, aging, and death. We must understand being joined to the LORD does not eradicate, annihilate, cause to cease or exist any part of our soul man or any part of our natural make up. Some teach and are unbelievably deluded that the Believer does not continue to have a sin nature, but now we have two natures one being of the earth (flesh birthed from the earth) and the other being of the heavenly (spirit birthed from above). These two dynamics are in each Believer and war -- flesh against spirit and visa versa. God wants us to walk in Christ governed by Him as LORD. He no longer wants us to be governed by our Adamic corrupt fallen nature. When talking about being governed we think what we do or don’t do works. Thus if this thing that I am doing is holy and in keeping with God’s law we say that’s walking in the Spirit. But if I am somehow sinning and doing something not acceptable to God, we say we’re walking in the flesh. Oh no my friend it goes far deeper than the outward. And even deeper than in the inward man even to the thoughts and intents of our heart. The real issue here is our faith and to whom we belong by virtue of the spiritual union. God wants us to come to the place not governed by natural man. HE wants us to be governed by Christ out from knowing and loving Him. If we can just come to know and love Him our attitudes, character, and life style will be adjusted and fall into place. If coming into an inward realization of Him our mind will be renewed according to the truth and our thoughts and concepts will align with God. Gather all of this up you can see a necessity for the trials of our faith and even suffering; the work of the cross. The trial of our faith and even suffering is intended to break and put to death as far as the governing power, to break the control over the soul and the flesh. The way the control is broken is not by taking a club pounding the old nature over the head nor by slapping the old nature with rules, laws, and principles (religion) that God demands we follow, but by God showing us the truth about our old nature in the light of Jesus Christ. If God does not show us the truth about our old nature and the greatness of Jesus Christ then we will never be free from our flesh no matter what we do for Him, preach, sing or dance, even give our bodies to be burned. We must take our faith off of our self and what we "do" or have done for the LORD and put it more and more on Jesus Christ which will result in living out from Him. We will never get free of sins that are rooted in that old life until we surrender that old life under the work of the cross to Jesus Christ. God has to undercut all of these things in us we think constitutes that old life and He must get at the root of it itself. At the heart of the root is unbelief, self-ownership, and deception. The trial of our faith is intended to expose our old nature for what it is, but at the same time if we allow God, He will bring us into a realization of who Jesus Christ is. A sense of adding while subtracting God's idea of math. And as He does and we surrender to Him then little by little the light will dawn and we will more and more be able to live our life out from Christ. Now this doesn’t happen in ten minutes or ten years it is a life-long process God uses to accomplish building the nature of Christ in us. The condition God finds us in is not simply void of life, but also in bondage to darkness and our entire nature is corrupt. You and I will know nothing if God leaves us to ourselves. Our life will be out from our self-rulership, fear, torment. God in Christ called individuals to Himself who are corrupt and deceived and in darkness. Who know nothing but the old nature If we come to Christ at that point we are joined to the Lord and made one spirit with Him but that old nature remains. What God will do then is put us through a series of (His dealings and judgments) experiences many of them dealing with that old nature so that we can come into the reality with the Christ in whom we are joined. God has to break us! Only the broken are useful to God! He has to expose the truth about our sin nature so that He can bring us to the place where we will know and see Jesus Christ. God wants to bring us to the place where we are able to say to Him, "LORD I didn’t know you, but now I see You. Because I thought who I was was the answer, but now that I see you God I understand you are the only answer." We have to come to the place that we can say LORD, "now that I see You I see everything else is a lie and I need more of You." Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;" (2 Corinthians 5:17-18) If any man is in Christ he is a new creation If you are in Christ joined to Him you are a new creation. It is the union of the human spirit with Christ through the Spirit of God. If any man is in Christ that person is a new creature we might even say that person is a different kind of human being than the one born in Adam. Now the Greek says, "old things are passed over" as it pertains to this spiritual union. You and I are not united to Christ in the soul man and in the body. These old things are passed over as it pertains to the spiritual resurrection in Christ, My body, soul man are still here. The same for you, nothing passed away not any of it, but right now if any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are passed over in other words. The old nature none of it is incorporated into the new creation in Jesus Christ. Old things are passed over, behold all things in that spiritual union with Christ are become new and all things are out from God. But none of the new creation is out from us. Can we see that the separation of the new and the old here is utter and total. That we are united with Christ in spirit and all things that are of God are out from Him or of His life. All of it comes out from Christ we are the source of nothing. This is the way God needs to put us through experiences whereby our natural man is broken, whereby we can be free to experience all that is coming out from Christ. It all begins in 2 Corinthians 4:7, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." (2 Corinthians 4:7) It is a description between soul and spirit in each Believer. Verse six says, "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:6) The effect of it in other words, an excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. Just as we read in 2 Corinthians 5:17 we are in Christ and old things are passed over and now all things are out from God that the excellency of the power may be out from Christ with whom we are one and not out from us. So the necessity of the trial of our faith and even suffering happens so that the old man may be crucified that we may be set free from its power and recognize it so that we can walk in the excellency of the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. You know we are going to have seasons as did Job where we are perplexed and just do not have any answers. And God is not giving them. We are going to be persecuted (systematic vexation) if not by other people then the enemy. We are going to be forsaken it would seem forsaken certainly by people, but never by God. We must believe this. You will notice in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, Paul gives us these possibilities that will cause suffering. Paul writes, "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;" (2 Corinthians 4:8-9) But none of these are stated to destroy a person if they are in Christ.
While in a trial, while the suffering continues God makes a way of escape, but that way of escape is not out of the trial that way of escape is into Christ while still in the trial so that we might be able to bear it without ill effects to our faith and it is the only way that it can be for us to overcome, for us to have victory is for us to realize Christ and to be set free.
If God delivered us from out of trials we would never be set free from our old nature. Do you know nowhere in the Bible did God just deliver anyone? In 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, Paul rehearses these trials in verses 8-9 and he says in verse 10 on the heels of these possibilities of Trials and sufferings, "Always bearing about in the body;" that’s the natural man that is not united with Christ." Always bearing about in that part of our makeup in our flesh.
That is where we bear in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. This is a process that is ongoing despite the fact that we are crucified with Christ and planted into His death. God wants to bring us to where the cross of Jesus Christ actually has an impact of death upon that old man that is not united with Christ. We have to by faith lose our life to Him as these trials and sufferings unfold. If we will do that and bare about in those dimensions of our make up the dying of the LORD Jesus then the life of Jesus is going to be released in us.
We are going to see Jesus we are going to know Him. Our mind will be renewed and it is going to filter down through out from Jesus to the point where our knowledge and realization of Him begins to govern our natural man. We are never going to be perfect in this life We are always going to be in a process of coming to know Him, but the inward realization of Jesus and it is out from Him as the source into us by the Spirit. It is going to affect our whole man one way or the other Keep in mind that Christ is the source of all that is of God. He is the source of life and truth and it is only as we grow to know Him and know that God has put all things in Him for the Believer that all things are out from God FOR the Believer.