College is going well. I got 100% for my assignment in for a unit called "New Creation Realities". The funny thing is, I really didn't like this unit at the start because it seemed way too heavy and I really didn't feel it was something that I could grasp well, so I was pleasantly surprised to see my grade. Just for the record, here's what i wrote....
New Creation Realities Assignment
1) - What the spirit, soul and body consist of and how they affect your growth.
The spirit (i.e. "heart" of man, hidden man and inward man) deals with the spiritual realm. Prior to salvation, a person is in the process of dying spiritually. However, after they make the decision to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, a miracle takes place and spiritual death is driven out of them and their spirit is recreated to enable them to communicate and have fellowship with God. They become a new creation, old aspects of their life pass away, and all things become new (John 4:24, Romans 2:28-29, 1 Peter 3:4, 2 Corinthians 4:16 and 5:17).
The soul deals with the mental realm and is comprised of the mind (reasons and thinks), the will (makes decisions) and emotions. It receives information from the physical realm through the five senses of tasting, touching, seeing, hearing and smelling. Prior to salvation, a person's soul is unable to understand things of the spirit and is a servant to the body (1 Corinthians 2:14). However, it was created by God to be a servant to the spirit. After salvation, it undergoes a process of transformation by the renewing of the mind, restoration and purification through meditating on God's Word (Romans 12:2, Psalm 19:7 and Kenyon, 2000).
The body deals with the physical realm (through which it makes contact using the five senses mentioned above) and is effectively a temporary, fragile home in which the spirit lives, prior to dying on earth (2 Corinthians 5:1). Because the body was derived “of the flesh”, it is flesh, meaning that it is a slave to sin (John 3:6). Without Jesus, a person dies spiritually, and in parallel their body physically perishes as they surrender to cravings, lusts, evil passions and wickedness (Genesis 2:17 and Romans 6:11-14).
When a person makes the decision to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior and to serve Him, their fleshly desires are nailed to the cross and crucified and, in the case of those who decide to invite the Holy Spirit to live inside them, their body is transformed into a temple in which the Holy Spirit resides (Galatians 5:24-25 and 1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
We (Christians) are not instantly cured of our sinful nature. Therefore, we need to make a conscious decision to present our bodies as living sacrifices to God and to resist temptations to embrace acts of sin, i.e. things which dishonor God and separate us from Him (Romans 12:1). We need to discipline our bodies by maintaining an active prayer life, reading, meditating and declaring God’s Word and being selective in what we listen to, and with whom we have fellowship (1 Corinthians 9:27 and 15:33 and Mark 4:24-25).
Kenyon (2000) tells us that when a person has the Holy Spirit inside them, it acts as a Teacher bringing revelation about the Word of God and developing God-like attributes inside them, which causes them to be a blessing to those that they come in contact with. The Holy Spirit helps them in their weaknesses by giving them the strength to overcome obstacles (including temptations) and by guiding them and directing them into a life of victory (Galatians 5:16-17). The spirit and soul work in agreement to overpower the flesh and produce a change in the natural realm. When the Word lives in them and they live in the Word, they become the Word made flesh (John 1:14 and 15:7). Their flesh reflects the life within them. For example, the Word on healing will result in their body being redeemed from all sickness (Galatians 3:13) and being filled with strength and vigor (Kenyon, 2000). The Word on peace and love will result in their hearts and minds being free from anxiety and fear (Philippians 4:6-7 and 2 Timothy 1:7).
2) - Explain the effects on the fall of man and how this has impacted your life.Prior to the fall of man, man was flawless and without sin. As the first inhabitants of the earth, Adam and Eve were created in the image of God with authority over all the earth and its inhabitants. They were subject to God, blessed, fearless and acutely aware of the spiritual realm. Their spirits were in control and they had no awareness of their bodies, nor did they have any knowledge of good and evil (i.e. they were not conscious of sin and had no condemnation). They had the freedom to make their own choices - to obey or disobey God (Genesis 1-2).
Adam and Eve made a detrimental decision to disobey God, which enabled satan to gain a foothold in their lives. Consequently, after the fall, they lost their awareness of the spiritual realm and their spirits were separated from God. They became more aware of their bodies, fearful, conscious of sin and cursed. This was reflected in Adam’s attempt to hide from God – he no longer felt free to enter into God’s presence. Adam and Eves’ disobedience has had significant repercussions on the entire human race because the curse of sin was passed on to all mankind (Genesis 3).
This impacted my life because prior to accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I too was under the curse of sin (Psalm 51:5). My life was without hope, I was powerless to overcome my inward condition and unable to discern spiritual truths (Ephesians 2:12-13 and 1 Corinthians 2:14). I had negative thought patterns and embraced destructive behaviour because I was a slave to sin (Ephesians 2:2-3). This had a negative effect on my physical, emotional and spiritual well-being as an unsaved teenager. I was spiritually perishing.
Now, having accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I can recognise thoughts and behaviour that are reflective of the sinful nature. Consequently, among other things, I put on God's armor, take evil thoughts captive and ask the Holy Spirit to help me to overcome areas of weakness to prevent the devil gaining a foothold in my life (Ephesians 6:11-13 and 2 Corinthians 10:5).
3) - Explain the spiritual significance of the new birth and how this understanding affects personal growth.Jesus came to reconcile us to our Father God. He did this by being born through human flesh into the world and then shedding His own blood as a living sacrifice for our forgiveness and justification. When we confess with our mouths that Jesus is our Lord and Savior and believe that God raised Him from the dead, we are “reborn” or “born of the spirit”, which means we are, in a way, resuscitated from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive (Romans 10:9).
We become a miraculous new creation because we are recreated from a state of being sinful, corrupted and alienated from God, to one in which we are righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21). We are given a new heart and spirit and become alive to God and filled with desire to do His will and to serve Him, just like Adam prior to the fall (Colossians 3:10). We are unable to habitually practice sin because we are born of God and are His children. In contrast, those who do habitually practice sin reflect the nature of the devil and are his children (1 John 3:8-10).
Having this understanding affects personal growth because it causes one to measure their own thoughts, words and actions against God’s standards to ensure they comply with His standards. As children of the Most High God, we are delivered from the authority of darkness and have authority to bind and loose things on earth as in Heaven (Colossians 1:13, Acts 26:18 and Matthew 16:19). We are also able to identify whether those around us are serving God or the devil and to show discernment in witnessing to unbelievers.
4) - Explain how you become the righteousness of God and what this means to your self development.Kenyon (2000) tells us that righteousness is the ability to stand in the presence of God without a sense of guilt, condemnation or inferiority, as if sin never existed. From another perspective, he says righteousness is an ability to stand before satan and his works without a sense of timidity, fear, or a sense of inferiority. Essentially it is becoming superior to satan. If we are not right with God, we will not be able to have faith in Him to fulfill what we ask of Him. This is the key to authority in the spiritual realm.
In Hosea 4:6, we are told that God’s people are destroyed through lack of knowledge. Some Christians are held in bondage by their lack of understanding of righteousness. Righteousness cannot be earned. It is not the product of good works, nor can it be gained by obeying the law, reading the Bible, praying, fasting, attending church, etc… and neither is it something we become gradually. Rather, righteousness is a position in Christ, a state of being, which we receive as a free gift in its entirety.
In order to become righteous, a person needs to firstly confess with their mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in their heart that God raised Him from the dead. Then, they need to simply believe in their heart that they are righteous (Romans 10:9-10). Righteousness comes through faith in Jesus (Romans 3:22).
It is important to understand righteousness and grow in our understanding of it to improve our self development. In order to maintain righteousness, we need to: be quick to repent of our sins, walk in love and renew our minds to the Word of God (1 John 1:9, John 15:12 and Romans 12:2). In doing so, we will produce a Godly lifestyle and live a victorious life where we experience peace and fellowship with God, confidence in ourselves and our ability to minister to others, spiritual strength and maturity and answered prayer (Romans 5:1-2, Proverbs 28:1, Hebrews 5:12-14 and James 5:16). We will reign in life and have victory over religious legalism, feelings of guilt and unworthiness (Romans 6:17 and Colossians 2:9-10).