New Nature?

DO not have alot of time at the moment setfree but heres a post from a question answer page that may explain some of your questions You might also look to John 12:44Question: "What happened to those who believed in God before Jesus?"Answer: Since the fall of man, the basis of salvation has always been the death of Christ. No one, either prior to the cross or since the cross, would ever be saved without that one pivotal event in the history of the world. Christ's death paid the penalty for past sins of Old Testament saints and future sins of New Testament saints.The requirement for salvation has always been faith. The object of one's faith for salvation has always been God. The psalmist wrote, "Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him" (Psalm 2:12). Genesis 15:6 tells us that Abraham believed God and that was enough for God to account it to him for righteousness (see also Romans 4:3-8). The Old Testament sacrificial system did not take away sin, as Hebrews 9:1-10:4 clearly teaches. It did, however, point to the day when the Son of God would shed His blood for the sinful human race.What has changed through the ages is the content of a believer's faith. God's requirement of what must be believed is based on the amount of revelation He has given mankind up to that time. This is called progressive revelation. Adam believed the promise God gave in Genesis 3:15 that the Seed of the woman would conquer Satan. Adam believed Him, demonstrated by the name he gave Eve (v.20) and the Lord indicated His acceptance immediately by covering them with coats of skin (v.21). At that point that is all Adam knew, but he believed it.Abraham believed God according to the promises and new revelation God gave him in Genesis 12 and 15. Prior to Moses, no Scripture was written, but mankind was responsible for what God had revealed. Throughout the Old Testament, believers came to salvation because they believed that God would someday take care of their sin problem. Today, we look back, believing that He has already taken care of our sins on Calvary (John 3:16; Hebrews 9:28).What about believers in Christ's day, prior to the cross and resurrection, what did they believe? Did they understand the full picture of Christ dying on a cross for their sins? Late in his ministry, "Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day" (Matthew 16:21). What was the reaction of His disciples to this message? "Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, '‘Far be it from you, Lord; this shall not happen to you!'" (16:22). Peter, and the other disciples, did not know the full truth, yet they were saved because they believed that God would take care of their sin problem. They didn't exactly know how He would accomplish that, any more than Adam, Abraham, Moses, or David knew how, but they believed God.Today, we have more revelation than did people living before the resurrection of Christ, we know the full picture. "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son" (Hebrews 1:1-2). Our salvation is still based on the death of Christ, our faith is still the requirement for salvation, and the object of our faith is still God. Today for us the content of our faith is that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

Setfree I found this study you might enjoySPIRITUAL EYESIGHTWe need to be able to see God with the eyes of the Spirit to truly know Him. One of our major problems in fellowshipping with the Lord is that we do not know Him as He really is. Therefore, we are not able to serve Him in the way we would like. To be a victorious, overcoming Christian, we need to actually have three revelations: (1) "To know who God is."(2) "To know who we are."(3) "To know who we are in Him" or rather "To know who He is in us." First, we must know Who God Is. Some people say that no man can see God and live because a portion of Scripture in Exodus 33:20 that says, And he (the Lord) said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. Yet we see that Isaiah ...saw the Lord... (Isaiah 6:1). Looking at these two verses, there appears to be a contradiction. However, if we ask the Holy Spirit to give us revelation concerning these Scriptures, we discover that they are really not in opposition after all. We only need to view them in the proper perspective and context. This is particularly true of these Scriptures. Doctrinal error emerges when people take a few Scriptures and build a doctrine on them. Because they are taken out of context, or out of balance, they don t interpret them to mean what the Bible is really portraying. The proper way to deal with Scripture is to view each portion of the Scripture as a part of the whole. In II Corinthians 3:6, we find this verse, Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. An able minister will not take the letter of the law and make a doctrine, but will allow the Spirit to reveal each portion of the Scripture as a part of the whole. Perhaps a better way for us to understand this would be to see that if we took one letter out of a word, we wouldn't have a complete word; or if we took one word out of a sentence, we wouldn't understand the sentence. The same is true of the Word of God. We should study it in its totality and not isolate one portion of Scripture if we are to get the whole meaning. To do this we must remember that the great theme and whole message of the Bible is that God loved us and sent a Saviour, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins that we might have life through Him. He came to save us and give us abundant life. If we lose this message in any of our Scriptures, we lose the true identity and knowledge of God. We cannot love, worship and serve a God we cannot know. We must study other portions of God's word that deal with the same subject if we are to get complete light. Keeping this principle in mind, let us look at our verses in Exodus and Isaiah again. The former verse says, No man can see God and live, and the latter, "... I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple" . He goes on to say in Isaiah 6:5, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts". If we spiritually understand this, we will know that any man that really sees God will die. The old creature will die and the new creature will be born again. If we ever really get a glimpse of God and see Him for who He really is, we will die. Just as Isaiah here had the experience of seeing God, suddenly something else happened; he saw himself. He saw what he looked like and knew who he was -- a man with unclean lips. We need this same revelation of who we are today. When we come to know the Lord, we find that there is nothing good in us; ...there is none righteous, no, not one (Romans 3:10). We see our sin in the light of His holiness. We see our unworthiness, our shame, our guilt; we see our need for the Saviour. Sometimes we try to gain favor with God by our works, thinking if we do enough good things we can please Him. It is not our works that will attain a position in God, it's our relationship. Our works come as an overflow of our being with Jesus. As we fellowship with our Father, we begin to take on His nature. We desire that nature when we have seen the beauty of the Father. I caught a glimpse of that beauty and that is what I wanted, even though I thought, I am so weak, I could never be like Him. How could I ever attain anything in God, knowing all my faults and failures? It will be too hard; I will be doing good just to get to heaven. The Lord revealed to me these were thoughts the devil was bringing to my mind, and that it was possible to overcome and walk in victory. Though I was weak, He was strong. I needed that revelation of "Who I was in Christ " or rather "Who He was in me". He wanted me to know, Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he (the Holy Spirit) that is in you, than he (the devil) that is in the world (I John 4:4). All He asks us to do is to yield ourselves completely to Him, and He will do the overcoming. He desires us to commit our lives totally, and He will do the changing and the molding. He changes our old natures to His new nature; old desires pass away and we have new desires. Some people are afraid that if they yield everything to God they will lose their will and their personality. This is not true. He simply changes our will and our desires and brings our personalities to bloom. We really cannot become all that He intends until we give Him the right to begin that work. He creates within us a new nature. We sometimes think that walking with God is hard when, in actuality, it is easy. We are the ones that make it hard. We often struggle and try so hard to please God with our good works and attempts to change our old nature, while His way is not difficult at all. Matthew 11:29-30 says, Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. By this verse we can see if we are yoked with Him and have ceased to be rebellious to the will of God, we will have an easy walk with Him. The oxen represents a broken or tamed animal. We, in our old nature are untamed, but as we yield to the Lord, we will learn brokenness. We are so concerned many times that if we go left instead of right, the Lord will be so angry with us and strike us with a big stick for missing Him. Our ideas of God are so warped. He is a beautiful Person and when we are truly trying to please Him, He is not angry with us. If we think He is a harsh taskmaster, we miss the beauty of loving Him and fellowshipping with Him. If we allow Him to work in our lives, we find that we can overcome all obstacles and every problem the enemy uses to discourage us. In Him, we can do all things. Philippians 4:13 says, I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. If I know who God is, that is, His nature, His power and His love, and if I know that in me there is no good thing (so that I am not tempted to be lifted in pride and take credit for things that should be credited to Jesus), then I also must know that in Him I have all of His power and authority to overcome anything. Praise God for this beautiful truth! We do not need to lead defeated Christian lives, but can walk in victory every day! It is essential to have these revelations in the proper order, too. If we discover Who God is without the other two revelations, we may have an abnormal view of God. If we find out who we are without the knowledge of God, we will not be able to bear it. That is why so many commit suicide. They see themselves and can find no answers within, and therefore see no way out of their problems but to kill themselves. If we discover who we are in Christ or who Christ is in us before we get a glimpse of ourselves, we become lifted in pride, soon forgetting that it is not us accomplishing the works of God, but it is the name of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. So we need to make our discovery of God first, ourselves second, and then ourselves in Christ third. With these three revelations we truly can be overcomers

SETFREE, it seems you already know the answers, and understand them clearly.Jesus got water baptized only because He is our example to follow. The Holy Spirit came down LIKE a dove. Gentle, pure, innocent. 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit (capital ‘S’ means the Spirit of God) says to the churches.'(Body of Christ, Believers, Christians)'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him, and will dine with him, and he with Me.' Rev. 20 & 22 Read the whole chapter of course. But, remember, it’s the Spirit of God talking to believers, those who have accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior already. However, they still are not baptized with the Holy Spirit yet.Acts 19:1-6 And it came about that while Apollos was at Carinth, Paul having passed through the upper country came to Ephesus, and found some disciples,And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said to him, “No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.” (old testament ways) And Paul asked, “Into what then were you baptized?” And they replied, “Into John’s baptism.” And Paul said “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus. And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of Jusus. And then Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came into them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.” These men were saved and followers of Christ, still they did not have the Holy Spirit within them. However, they received the Holy Spirit by faith. The same faith it took to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savor. Matthew 3:11 John the Baptist said “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but, He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Now with that being said:Jesus said “Nor do men put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out, and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”This is the reason we must be born againbefore we can receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God will not come in and dwell in a filthy house. Our body is the flesh and blood. Our Soul is our Thoughts, emotions, & feelings. Our spirit is the real you, you are spirit! We are made in the image of God! God is Spirit, therefore, we are spirit, we live in a body, and we have a soul, we must learn to control. Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit,…(it's not referring to the Holy Spirit here) We are spirit, this is us, we are born again, and this is where the Holy Spirit will stays once we receive Him by faith. This is what Paul was referring to when he said in 1 Corinthians 14:14 ‘For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. (The Holy Spirit prays to the Father, a perfect prayer, through my spirit) If a simple minded human (compared to God) can understand the prayer, then so can satan. Then satan could interfere with the prayer, and it would no longer be perfect. We must learn to allow our spirit man, which is the real you, to be stronger then our soul. For example, before you were a Christian, you had a bad habit of coursing; you must now try to not give into that urge. Be on guard, and overcome this habit and you are making you spirit stronger then your emotions, thoughts, or soul. The word said renew your mind daily, for a reason. This is one of them. This is the prayer I pray with not only non-believers, but, everyone I pray with, just in case. I have them repeat it after me, only if they believe.‘Father God, Just as I receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior by faith, I now receive your baptism with your Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues by faith, and I thank you Father God in the name of Jesus I now speak in tongues.’ Then I start to pray in the spirit out loud so they can hear. And I ask them to do the same. Gods ways are above our ways, you’re not going to comprehend, or understand it. But, if you are truly seeking God, He will correct you and let you know if you’re wrong. If you’re just waiting for someone else to tell you what to believe, and you’re taking other peoples thoughts as your own, then you will be led astray. The word says Study to show yourself approved. You seek, You knock, You pray and ask, and You will find.God Bless!

Whe Jesus was baptized, He was already born by the Spirit....so what does the dove represent on Him if it is not power for the ministry He was born for.It was power for the ninistry, notice Jesus did no mighty works, or miracles BEFORE the Holy Spirit came down like a dove. Jesus is our example to follow, we must receive the Holy Spirit before we can do the same works that Jesus did. Jesus said, The works that I do, you will do also.I'm not saing God will not work through you without the baptizm of the Holy Spirit. I'm saing God gave US dominion over the earth, and authority over satan and all his powers. He wants us to learn to use it, by faith. 2 Peter 1:3 'Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everhting pertaining to life and godliness,.....Mark 16:17-18 "And these signs will follow those who believed, in My name they will cast out demons, (authority over satan and all his powers) they will speak with new tongues, (evidence of the Baptizm of the Holy Spirit) they will pick up serpents, (Paul had a serpent strike him, Paul grabbed it, and slung it aside,... it didn't hurt him did it?) and if they drink any deadly poison, it shall not harm them,(if someone tried to kill you because of the hatred satan placed in thier heart, or you drank it by mistake, it shall not harm you) they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."Remember Jesus said over and over and over again "Be it unto you according to your faith" , "It is your faith that made you well," "When I return will I find any faith?" It's all about faith in our Lord and Savoir Jesus, love Him, trust Him, believe in Him!!!Wow! I think it's time for me to shutup now! :blessyou:

(setfree;56930)
I believe in the physical protection of God as what happened to the apostle Paul when he picked up a snake but, I have come to understand the spiritual side of this....It is talking about believers having discernment on what is true and what are lies(poison). The believer will defeat the devil (snake) by the word of God. This again comes from the Power of the Holy Spirit.Please do not shut up....I am enjoying and what you are saying, it is confirming what the Holy Spirit is in the process of teaching me.
Remember that a conversation is never meant to be trusted...as the Devil is a master of twisting scriptures and a deceiver of the world.

Yes! Always....Always let every matter be established by two or more witnesses!!!John 8:17 "Even in your law it has been written, that the testimony of two men is true." (John is one witness to what Jesus said)Matthew 18:16 "But if he doesn't listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSED EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED."(Matthew is a second witness)2 Corinthians 13:1 "I am coming to you again, EVERY FACT IS TO BE CONFIRMED BY THE TESTIMONY OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSED." (Here we have Paul saying the same thing, there is a third witness, to confirm what Jesus said)