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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781490778228 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Trafford Publishing |
| Publication date: | 10/29/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 152 |
| File size: | 208 KB |
Read an Excerpt
Developing the Complete You
Spirit ... Soul ... Body
By Reginald Ezell
Trafford Publishing
Copyright © 2016 Reginald EzellAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4907-7821-1
CHAPTER 1
The Father — Developing the Spirit
A Relationship with the Father Develops Our Spirit
The primary responsibility of a pastor is to assist God in developing, growing, and maturing believers into the vessels that God wants them to be. In conjunction with that, God's people must be willing to be pliable, not to the pastor, but to God. Every child of God has to be ready to hear God's voice, understand what He is saying, and be willing to change as He directs. Change is a good thing, and it is necessary. You cannot stay the same or have the same mentality and perform a different action from your current thought process. Please understand that if your desire is to do something different, you have to become something different. Doing the same things and expecting different results is insanity, and that is why change is necessary.
Salvation is the constant process of change, and it is God's plan for us to be changed from the way we used to think. Unfortunately, as members of the body of Christ, we have not fully comprehended the whole master plan of God. Many have understood and grasped certain areas, but for the most part, we are not totally focused on what God is trying to do in our lives. We do not always comprehend as we should, so there is a need for us to learn and recognize God's plan of salvation for us.
Developing the Complete You was written for this very reason. Through this study, it is my prayer that God will help us understand how we get to the place that is necessary for us to fulfill God's will. Most people do understand that God is their source; however, there is an ultimate place that God wants us to be. Developing the Complete You is an attempt to get every believer who allows these words into their hearts to change them for the better, forever! So let us begin with how our relationship with our heavenly Father develops our spirit.
Created in His Image
1 Thessalonians 5:23–24 says, for us to be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it. According to these verses, we are supposed to be a certain way when Jesus comes, and God is able to help us reach that destination. Many Christians want to know and operate in God's perfect will; but when we do not understand how God develops us, His desires become difficult to accomplish. We need to learn who God is and how He does what He does in us.
God is a triune God, just as man is a triune being. God is also the God of divine order as well as divine purpose, and He does nothing by accident. God has also preordained and pre-established our lives. When God did what He did during creation, He had an exact picture in His mind of what He was doing, but it is not like that with many of us. We want to check if certain things are going to work before we take action. Unlike us, God already knows how things are going to work. We want to see if certain things are going to work. God already knows what is supposed to happen, and we can see this as He demonstrates the surety of His plan in the book of Genesis.
The story of the creation of mankind may be elementary to some, but I want you to get a full understanding of how man was created. For many, this will be a new level of ministry and a new level of the church, as you have understood. To get a better understanding of this, we will have to put away old ways, old thoughts, and old habits. It is vitally important that we start looking at the specifics of God's words and not just the generality of His words.
Many people have kept God in a general place in their lives and not in a specific place. Thus, we are not maximizing the full potential of who God is at the same time not maximizing the full potential of the Trinity of God. I thank God for Jesus. I thank God for the Holy Spirit. I thank God in everything. However, we will never understand the fullness of the benefits of Jesus or of the Holy Spirit until we know all the benefits of God the Father.
Genesis 1:26 says, And God, said let us make man in our image. Notice, He said "our" image. God is talking in the sense of "me, mine, and ours." In this verse, God has already acknowledged the Trinity of Himself. He said "let us" because the Trinity is real to Him. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are the "us" that made man in their image and after "their" likeness. It is not a coincidence that God is a triune being and that He made man a triune being. If God is going to make man in His own image and likeness, He had to make man like Himself. Understand that God is three persons in one, and all three make up the Godhead. This is just how we are: three entities in one (spirit, soul, and body), and this makes us like God.
Unfortunately, we sometimes generalize our creation. In the Old Testament, God was still unified in himself. There was not much clarity of the differences of God. The translators interchanged the words Lord and God; however, they were talking about all three. It did not matter whether one part was doing the work or not, they were still God. All three were three in one.
In the New Testament, we begin to see the distinction, separation, functions, and benefits of the three parts of God. Yet we still generalize it and put them in one. We still keep them grouped together even though they are separate in their workings, trying to bring the unity and oneness back. I remember teaching a message on the final level where I outlined how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit wanted to reunite again in you. The final level is when you connect all three of Him as one in you. It is when all of you and all of Him become one together.
Different Parts Develop Different Functions
Each part of God develops a different part of man. Each part of God must be targeted toward the right part of man, or you will never get all the benefits or the fullness of any part. The order is very specific. It is just like eating. If I eat physical food, it is going to benefit my physical body. However, eating the physical food will not benefit my spirit until I start eating spiritual food (the word of God). In other words, my physical body will be benefiting and receiving from the physical food, but not all three parts of me. My mind does not fully grow by physical food alone. I do realize some foods are called "brain" foods, but I do not know if that makes you smart or not. Nevertheless, the primary benefit of food is specifically for the body, more than anything else.
The primary part of man that God wants to develop and establish is our spirit man, which is the main part of us. The Holy Spirit does not develop the primary part of our spirit man; however, the Holy Spirit can help. Neither is our spirit man primarily developed by Jesus the word, even though Jesus can help. Our spirit man is developed primarily by our intimate, personal one-on-one relationship with the Father. There is no getting around the fact that there is no substitute for your personal relationship with God. This is something that nobody can do for you, stand in proxy for you, intercede on your behalf, or be an alternate for you. It is between you and God alone.
Being Whole
The entirety of 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says, 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. Peace in this verse means shalom, and peace means more than just calmness. The Hebrew word for peace (shalom) means nothing missing, nothing broken, and nothing lacking. This peace signifies that God is fullness and He is the very God of wholeness.
Our heavenly Father is the very God of peace, who will sanctify you, set you apart, separate, isolate, and cover you. Think of it as being similar to a caterpillar inside a chrysalis before it transforms into a butterfly, or like a yolk in an egg before it becomes a baby chick. Shalom (God's peace) is that protection; it is that covering, that wholeness. When a caterpillar is inside a chrysalis, it does not have to worry about anything because everything it needs is there inside the covering. The yolk in the egg does not have to worry about air, food, or anything else for that matter. Everything the yolk needs is self-contained inside the egg's shell.
Likewise, everything we need today is self-contained in God. We must understand who God is and accept His words and His wisdom. God wants to be the very God of peace who will sanctify us completely. He wants to sanctify wholly our spirit, soul, and body because man is a triune being. Man is a spirit who possesses a soul and lives in a body. The fullness of man is wholeness in spirit, soul, and body.
You are not all spirit, all soul, or all body, but the three together complete you. You can have a body lying on a bed, but if it does not have a soul or mind with brain waves, you are considered brain-dead. So it is the fullness of who you are that God wants to mature, thereby making your life complete.
The True Worshiper
The books of the Gospel – (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) is primarily the same account of the life of Jesus, with some differences in views and perceptions. Yet John had a revelation that the others did not have. He perceived the Father's love. John wrote,
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. (John 4:21–23)
Jesus mentioned the word "now," but when is now and why did He mention it? Now always starts immediately. It is not yesterday, and it is not going to be tomorrow. Your now is now. The hour has come and "now is", was a statement of great importance then and is still significant today. Now is the hour and right after this statement Jesus ties it in with the true worshippers. This is an indication that there were other worshippers, but they were not true worshippers.
Many people have been worshipping God, but the true worshippers are going to worship the Father. The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. So, the developing of your spirit is based upon your relationship and worship with the Father.
This fact brings us to the importance of prayer. This time of worship is precious, and when it comes down to spending time with God in prayer, please do not waste your time praying with problems on your mind. Also, do not waste your time in prayer concerning yourself with the devil. You will never benefit from all that God has, unless you are spending intimate time with Him free of distractions.
Let's compare this to spending quiet time with your spouse. You may have kids around you all of the time, or you may be facing various types of personal issues, but eventually you will finally get some quiet time with your spouse. Unfortunately, many people choose to spend that quiet time talking about problems instead of taking advantage of it. I understand that there may be things going on that require your attention, but do not make that same mistake with God. For example, while you are on your job, you think about your job, but when you go to pray, it should be an intimate time spent with God; you should not bring your job or your problems into your prayer time. You should not even bring in the trouble that the devil is trying to inflict on you. Forget him. The devil is not the issue. The issue is the lack of your personal relationship with God the Father. When you know Him, the devil is not a problem.
Again, prayer is important and there is a proper way of praying. Jesus said not to ask Him anything, but to go to the Father in His name. What He wants you to do is get to know who the Father is and make sure you are secure in who you are. When you develop in this it is not going to matter what is going on around you. John 4:24 says, God is a spirit, and they that worship must worship Him in spirit and in truth. John 4:23 also says, For the father seeketh such to worship Him. Notice what the Father is seeking. Is God seeking someone who wants to complain to Him and tell Him all of their problems? No, He is seeking someone who wants to worship.
Spend Your Prayer Time Wisely
Think about this concept in an earthly sense. Suppose you have a great relationship with your natural father; when you spend time together, will you talk to him about all the things you need, or will you just simply enjoy his presence?
How do you spend time with God? Do you spend time with God only when you go to Him for the things you need, or do you simply take advantage of His presence? When you spend time with God, are you talking about all the things that have gone wrong in your life, or are you developing and cultivating a relationship with Him? Once you cultivate that relationship, you are going to realize that everything that concerns you concerns Him. His love is so great for you that there is nothing He will not do for you. There is nothing that He will restrain from you that you do not even have to ask Him for. Before you ask, He already knows you have need of these things (Matthew 6:8, 32; Luke 12:32). Still, the word will not have full effect until you develop a relationship with Him.
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are (Matthew 6:5). Another issue for some believers is that the time in prayer is not about the relationship; it is about being seen. It is not about the cultivation. Some are doing it for show and for form. The only time they communicate with God is when they come in front of everybody else so that they can look like everybody else. That is hypocrisy.
Do not be like that. Your prayer time is just you and Him, Matthew 6:5 says,
For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
In the Amplified Bible, it says when you pray go into your most private room. You see, the closet is the place you do not bring your entire problem, your in-laws, your ex, your stepchildren — you do not bring any of that. Your closet is your most private room where it is just you and Him. Your problems have to be left outside, because there is no room for it. All of your relatives have to be left outside, because there is only room for you and the Father.
When you get there, everything else is going to be dealt with because when you rub on Him, He rubs on you. When you love Him, He loves you. Everything seems to just work out. When you leave, you are not the same person you were when you came in, and you do not pick up what you laid down.
Remember, God is seeking true worshippers to do so in spirit and in truth.. Allow me to illustrate how I approach the Father when I go into my closet. Before I go in, I am going to lay my problems down; I am going to empty out of me anything that will distract me from receiving in His presence. When I get in there, that empty space that was filled by that problem is going to be filled by Him. When I leave there, I do not have faith for the problem anymore. It cannot even come into my life anymore. Why? I have replaced that problem with Him. However, if you bring the problems inside the room, you will not have space for Him, so leave it outside. He is going to replace the problem with the solution. He is going to replace the lack with the provision. You cannot bring the lack in the room. What are you going to do with it when you get there? God cannot pour into a cup that is already full.
In the Old Testament, when the veil was still there, they would not go behind the veil unclean. That was why they got rid of everything before they got there. They could not take any unclean and unwanted thing in. They had to leave it outside. We do not need to come to him like that today, but we should leave everything outside and go to the Lord. In the Old Testament, they cleaned and washed their hands, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrifices before going behind the veil. (Before they went in, they tied a rope and a bell to their feet. Therefore, if the person went in unclean, they would fall out. The others would hear the bell and as long as the bells could be heard, the others would know that they were still alive and had been accepted by God. They would not go in to get the person for fear of being unclean and having the same fate.)
If you have any unclean issues with you leave that mess outside. It is not like God the Father does not know or is not concerned, He cannot give you the answer when you are focused on the problem. Unless you do not want to hear the answer. Maybe you just want to talk about the problem. I suggest if you want to be a true worshiper and develop a relationship with God, that you leave your dilemma outside. Do not get in that place, the closet, and waste your time.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Developing the Complete You by Reginald Ezell. Copyright © 2016 Reginald Ezell. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Chapter 1 The Father — Developing the Spirit, 1,Chapter 2 The Son Jesus — Developing the Mind, 40,
Chapter 3 The Son Jesus — Renewing the Mind, 60,
Chapter 4 The Son Jesus — Proving the Word, 80,
Chapter 5 The Holy Spirit — Developing the Body; Who You Yield Your Member To, 93,
Chapter 6 The Holy Spirit — Developing the Body; Endowed with Power, 103,
Chapter 7 The Final Level, 119,
Chapter 8 Fire and Love, 129,