A set of eyes and ears to live by in the one Lord and Body of Christ

[JustMe]

@Aunty Jane (AJ as I see you have been called), as I do not have privileges in that forum /thread you established for this subject, for me to respond to, I have set this same subject up here.

It is a subject that should affect any believer in Christ during their lives. It can test one's faith and walk to know if they are truly walking in the Spirit or not.

Here's the OP and post you first established as a response to my initial post, to you.

What Does it Mean…..?

Those with reborn spiritual senses and not just physical and mental senses: ears to hear and understand in spirit, and eyes to see and know and experience in spirit. @JustMe made this post on another thread and some deemed the subject to be worthy of a thread of its own…. So in answer to...

www.christianityboard.com

I will begin to unwrap this huge subject in subsequent posts.

This subject is a challenging monster and usually not addressed in most religious circles because of obvious reasons that should be exposed in this thread, by anyone who wishes to add to it.

If one is a genuine believer possessed by the Spirit of God, with spiritual eyes to see and experience and ears to hear and discern, living in the same Body of Christ, then why do we have so many variants and a wide range of belief in the same Body of what is called the truth of God in his Kingdom - displayed in terms of a wide range of denominations, doctrines and in the many ways scripture is being interpreted?

One thing that I can say right out of the gate, what we have today, it is not what the Spirit of God desires for us in our lives, in this one common Body of Christ, of one Spirit, and of one Baptism.

Ephesians 4:4-6
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.…

 

[JustMe]

A major contributing factor(s) as to why the Body of Christ is not well today and never was, since the 2nd century AD...IMO

Even a true believer, possessing the Spirit of God, since childhood, or even before reaching adulthood is already filled with deceptive ideas presented by the world about religion, philosophies, its truth in life, how to think about it, and thus what to believe in. And then if not attended to, using concerted efforts, arrested, by getting advice through spiritual eyes and ears, through and of the spirit of Christ and God, and filtered out by the age of 30 or so, it becomes much more difficult to fight off these 'deadly' worldly ideas of life that can harm the Body of Christ and the truth in life. It just gets worse if not contained. Unfortunately, many just acquiesce, out of blindness, ignorance, in favor of their club denominational views, considered the truth in life, their personal lives for salvation. I've have learned over the years that this latter view is a lie.

As both imaginative and real as I can be, what I 'see' and 'hear' spiritually of the world is the offer to live in an artificial matrix of life, artificial living that imposes itself as the real truth in living. And most buy into it and never leave it, even genuine believers. It's much easier to stay and cooperate than fight the system, as they say. And most do not even see it as a fight to even be won. It is the way God intended believers to live, in their own denominational view and bubble, cooperating with the world system of religions.

We are taught or certainly trained or persuaded what to believe in by our parents or significant others. We are told to go to 'church' the church that 'we' go to. And many unsuspecting believers do as they are told and rely on these churches, their leaders/elders and pastor and priests for the truth in life, and many are of the matrix, listening to and believing in false teachers and prophets that Jesus warned us about.

These false ones do not even have to be convincing, or erratic in presentation or personality. They 'come in' as normal peaceable souls, as the world and people around us tell us these teachers are good, civil, believe in God (a god at least) and preach the truth. Do they belong or are they a part of the true Body of Christ? I wonder, and so should others.

So are all genuine believers possessing the Spirit of Christ and the Father living today in the true Body of Christ, of our Lord? Of course not, most believers are lukewarm, cuddled up next to the warmth of matrix worldly living. They are blind to see and deaf to hear the things of the Spirit, by choice when its truly scrutinized and analyzed.

This gives a strong hint as to why we have a wide and varied view amongst believers concerning what is the true church, what is true scriptural doctrine, and what is the true or best human interpretation of scripture. Some show more loyalty to their denominational creeds over what the Father and his Son said and did.

Not all who say they are Christ's are of Christ. There is one true Body of Christ, although there are many religious bodies of Christ today.

Many on this site as well, and they call themselves 'Christian.'

 

[JustMe]

@Aunty Jane AJ, so what does it mean to have spiritual ears and eyes. Well it means nothing if we do not use them, and every believer has them to use as part of their daily living. In fact, like others tools of communications in life, if we do not use them, or it, and maintain proficiency, we will also lose it in life and it will depart from us, as our choice. As the same with this spiritual unique tool of communications with God. If not used or reacquired early, It's like letting your second language fade away, as we become uninterested in it. It becomes inconvenient, or for other reasons, useless in our lives.

In order to ensures we are in the Body of Christ and in the Kingdom we must use our spiritual senses, daily.

It is vey hard for a believer to exist and thrive in these modern days of high sophisticated technologies, manufacturing, entertainment and communications. We are not in the in-crowd if we do not do selfies, gratify out faces with exotic foods, massage our egos on online sites as in Facebook, Instagram, twitter and chat rooms such as this one. We are taught to show human defensive pride in our work and in our leisure time of play to show our worth and assertiveness, that God abhors.

I spoke of not holding on to our denominations views in our lives. This has been a handicap as well in my life, in growing as a believer in the Kingdom and trying to use spiritual senses that we usually misplace as we hug onto our worldly false teachings in the main. We are then still living as carnal beings with only our physical senses as our backdrop, to guide us in our lives. What a pity.

What I did many years ago when I realized as a relatively new believer, that even Christian religions were a major frictional element in my growth and in my communications with God, was to completely reset! Stop going to these so-called churches, and take time out to know the spiritual senses I had, to use, to survive and walk in the Spirit. There was no other way for me.

And the second major area that I needed attention was to know what it was like to be as Jesus in this modern world; to be a true servant to my God first, and to be the same to others in life, especially loved ones. To humble oneself and work in gratitude and joy even though my conditions were barely survivable at times in this modern credit-ridden sophisticated life. To gain and secure the mind of Christ was my first goal and I set out to be this unique human mind and true expression of God.

And for the decades since those time of understanding, with the Spirit and the word of God teaching me, today I can easily say I hear my Father and his Son in my life. I have come to that special place of being proficient in the use of my spiritual ears and eyes. I use this language more that my physical human English language today -truly and honestly. I thank God for swaying me over the years, to draw me away from the world's seemingly innocent innocuous and harmless entrapments that kept me away from living full time in the Body of Christ.

I believe there are only a fraction of God's people living in the Body of Christ today. Most are lukewarm at best, and are part-timers.

For me, to be a believer is to be full-time working fruits of the spirit in the Body. These are the true and faithful ones who truly believe in the Kingdom today, and live as one of its citizens.

So how do we start again on this journey if not yet begun? Pray, possess a humble and joyous loving attitude and heart within oneself for God and others. One day you will know God is speaking to you and he replies to you in his time. The Son usually speaks more to me and this is more fitting, as my lord and my brother of the same one God, our one Father.

 

[Aunty Jane]

Sorry @JustMe I didn’t realize that you were listed as “other faith”.
Thank you for the detailed response….I was waiting to see if you wanted to add more….

2 Cor 5:14-21 is a passage of scripture that explains a lot about “reconciliation”…..and why we need it….we do not hear this word often, nor contemplate its important meaning in the outworking of Jehovah’s will.

”For the love the Christ has compels us, because this is what we have concluded, that one man died for all; so, then, all had died. 15 And he died for all so that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised up.
16 So from now on we know no man from a fleshly viewpoint. Even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, we certainly no longer know him in that way. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in union with Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; look! new things have come into existence. 18 But all things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of the reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was by means of Christ reconciling a world to himself, not counting their offenses against them, and he entrusted to us the message of the reconciliation.
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors substituting for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us. As substitutes for Christ, we beg: “Become reconciled to God.” 21 The one who did not know sin, he made to be sin for us, so that by means of him we might become God’s righteousness.”

So, first of all, what caused the need for reconciliation with God in the first place?…..how did the human race become estranged from their Creator? We all know the story……but do we really? What we lost back in the garden of Eden, is what Jesus came to get back for us.…so why do so many people imagine that they will go to heaven? Was that ever in God’s plan for the human race? Was Adam ever told about going to heaven? And what was the only cause of death mentioned to him?

The devil plotted a way to gain worship for himself, but first he had to separate the humans from God……he couldn’t force them to do it, but he figured out a way to get to the man, through his wife. It is the man who is blamed for bringing sin into the world….not the woman. (Rom 5:12) She was just the bait. New and inexperienced, she was in the process of being educated by her husband. if the devil had gone straight to Adam, it may have resulted in a very different outcome.

Temptations were the only way he could get humans to do his bidding, and now that sin was inherent, it was so much easier for him to temp them to keep sinning….he had to, as his recruits would all die. How successful has he been?

1 John 5:19-20….
”We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” (NASB)

Do we know why God sent his son to die “for” us?…or “instead” of us? He is called a “redeemer”….but what does redemption mean? Because this understanding too, is missing from Christendom’s divided “church” system. They have a vague notion, but do not fully understand the details, which are important.

With this in mind, I will continue….

 

[Aunty Jane]

One thing that I can say right out of the gate, what we have today, it is not what the Spirit of God desires for us in our lives, in this one common Body of Christ, of one Spirit, and of one Baptism.

Ephesians 4:4-6
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.…

Yes, as it has always been from the beginning of man’s life in the world that satan and his dupes created for us, through no fault on our part….God has always been “one”…..with “one truth” and “one way“ to God through the agency of his precious son. All roads do not lead to the kingdom of God.

A major contributing factor(s) as to why the Body of Christ is not well today and never was, since the 2nd century AD...IMO

Even a true believer, possessing the Spirit of God, since childhood, or even before reaching adulthood is already filled with deceptive ideas presented by the world about religion, philosophies, its truth in life, how to think about it, and thus what to believe in. And then if not attended to, using concerted efforts, arrested, by getting advice through spiritual eyes and ears, through and of the spirit of Christ and God, and filtered out by the age of 30 or so, it becomes much more difficult to fight off these 'deadly' worldly ideas of life that can harm the Body of Christ and the truth in life. It just gets worse if not contained. Unfortunately, many just acquiesce, out of blindness, ignorance, in favor of their club denominational views, considered the truth in life, their personal lives for salvation. I've have learned over the years that this latter view is a lie

This is a really good explanation of what happens to us as we grow to maturity….some of us grow spiritually as well as physically, but others can age in body, whilst remaining spiritual babes…some never get past drinking the milk. (Heb 5:12-14)

We are taught or certainly trained or persuaded what to believe in by our parents or significant others. We are told to go to 'church' the church that 'we' go to. And many unsuspecting believers do as they are told and rely on these churches, their leaders/elders and pastor and priests for the truth in life, and many are of the matrix, listening to and believing in false teachers and prophets that Jesus warned us about.

These false ones do not even have to be convincing, or erratic in presentation or personality. They 'come in' as normal peaceable souls, as the world and people around us tell us these teachers are good, civil, believe in God (a god at least) and preach the truth. Do they belong or are they a part of the true Body of Christ? I wonder, and so should others.

And God allows this to take place…..but why? What is he determining by his allowance of the devil’s domination of the human race? What is he seeing by the way we judge the things we “see and hear”?

Our hearts are responding in ways that, at times, we cannot fathom. What make something “truth” to one person, but a satanic fabrication to others? Why are we individually drawn to those who teach God’s word, whether in a denomination or individually by “shopping” in the “great celestial supermarket”…putting beliefs in our ‘trolley’, and ending up with our very own religion?

In the end, as Jesus says…there are only “sheep and goats”…..God doesn’t see denominations, he sees the hearts of individuals and their response to the message that Christ’s disciples were going to preach “in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations” before he brings the curtain down on the whole show? (Matt 24:14)

In order for that witness to be given, only one group will be actively doing it in an organized fashion in all those nations…..this is logical, and the way God has always organized his people…..he is an organized God, so it’s not something haphazard.
There is one message of salvation but satan has made sure that the ‘diamond’ is buried under a huge pile of ‘broken glass’.
Will we know the real thing, when we see it? In an imperfect world filled with imperfect people, only God can lead us to the one who teaches his truth…..(John 6:44: 65) We will be “drawn” to it and it will resonate with us like nothing else….this is the way to life, through Jesus Christ….and only God is in control of who is invited to become a disciple of his son.
If we are ‘deluded’ then God allows us to run with that. Paul gives us the reason. (2 Thess 2:9-12)

So are all genuine believers possessing the Spirit of Christ and the Father living today in the true Body of Christ, of our Lord? Of course not, most believers are lukewarm, cuddled up next to the warmth of matrix worldly living. They are blind to see and deaf to hear the things of the Spirit, by choice when its truly scrutinized and analyzed.

This gives a strong hint as to why we have a wide and varied view amongst believers concerning what is the true church, what is true scriptural doctrine, and what is the true or best human interpretation of scripture. Some show more loyalty to their denominational creeds over what the Father and his Son said and did.

Since the body is not dismembered…..it is not found scattered among the disunited mess that is Christendom….it is found in the same kind of gathering that existed in the first century, when Jesus made his first appearance. They were individually gathered into one group, with one truth that was in disagreement to all those who chose to remain with the comfortable religious system in which they had grown up, not knowing how completely corrupted it had become….(Matt 15:7-9)
The Christians became objects of scorn and persecution for daring to tell a different “truth” to the one that had been accepted for centuries. Jesus warned that it would not be an easy path. (John 15:18-21)

History is repeating right under everyone’s nose….Christendom is a mirror image of first century Judaism….but they cannot see it.

Not all who say they are Christ's are of Christ. There is one true Body of Christ, although there are many religious bodies of Christ today.

Many on this site as well, and they call themselves 'Christian.'

It’s one thing to call yourself a “Christian” but another thing entirely to BE one.

There is still only one “body of Christ”, and these will maintain belief in “one truth” no matter what country they find themselves residing in (1 Cor 1:10)…..they are called by God and he knows them, and identifies them with a token or pledge of their calling. (Heb 3:1) Many claim such a calling…but in the end, it will be revealed who were the members of the real “body of Christ” and who were those who were convinced by other deceptive means….God does not interfere with the devil’s rulership of the human race because God was the one who handed it over to him, for a purpose. (Luke 4:5-7)

The devil is being used to “sift” and test the human race….(Luke 22:31-32) with a view to separating out of them those who will be worthy citizens of his Kingdom, as either heavenly rulers or earthly subjects……we look then to the outworking of God’s purpose for us humans and see that he will take the ones he has “drawn” and invited, back to Eden…..to the paradise that God first intended to be our permanent home……all of that got lost when everyone volunteered themselves to go to heaven, without a clue as to what they would do there….it is a vain hope, without foundation.

The “new heavens and new earth” have nothing to do with the physical universe…..it’s a new earthly society of God’s choosing, ruled over by a new heavenly government that will bring peace and lasting security to all of earth’s redeemed inhabitants. (Rev 21:2-4)

 

[JustMe]

Sorry @JustMe I didn’t realize that you were listed as “other faith”.
Thank you for the detailed response….I was waiting to see if you wanted to add more….

2 Cor 5:14-21 is a passage of scripture that explains a lot about “reconciliation”…..and why we need it….we do not hear this word often, nor contemplate its important meaning in the outworking of Jehovah’s will.

”For the love the Christ has compels us, because this is what we have concluded, that one man died for all; so, then, all had died. 15 And he died for all so that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised up.
16 So from now on we know no man from a fleshly viewpoint. Even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, we certainly no longer know him in that way. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in union with Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; look! new things have come into existence. 18 But all things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of the reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was by means of Christ reconciling a world to himself, not counting their offenses against them, and he entrusted to us the message of the reconciliation.
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors substituting for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us. As substitutes for Christ, we beg: “Become reconciled to God.” 21 The one who did not know sin, he made to be sin for us, so that by means of him we might become God’s righteousness.”

So, first of all, what caused the need for reconciliation with God in the first place?…..how did the human race become estranged from their Creator? We all know the story……but do we really? What we lost back in the garden of Eden, is what Jesus came to get back for us.…so why do so many people imagine that they will go to heaven? Was that ever in God’s plan for the human race? Was Adam ever told about going to heaven? And what was the only cause of death mentioned to him?

The devil plotted a way to gain worship for himself, but first he had to separate the humans from God……he couldn’t force them to do it, but he figured out a way to get to the man, through his wife. It is the man who is blamed for bringing sin into the world….not the woman. (Rom 5:12) She was just the bait. New and inexperienced, she was in the process of being educated by her husband. if the devil had gone straight to Adam, it may have resulted in a very different outcome.

Temptations were the only way he could get humans to do his bidding, and now that sin was inherent, it was so much easier for him to temp them to keep sinning….he had to, as his recruits would all die. How successful has he been?

1 John 5:19-20….
”We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” (NASB)

Do we know why God sent his son to die “for” us?…or “instead” of us? He is called a “redeemer”….but what does redemption mean? Because this understanding too, is missing from Christendom’s divided “church” system. They have a vague notion, but do not fully understand the details, which are important.

With this in mind, I will continue….

Let me add to the area of redemption and couch it with the thread title.

The concept of redemption in the context of spiritual eyes and ears is a core concept of possessing spiritual perception to understand and embrace God's redemptive plan. Scripture says we must have spiritual eyes and ears, essential for recognizing the need for redemption and understanding the role of Jesus Christ and his Father in this process.

It allows one to recognize their spiritual blindness and the necessity of Jesus' redemptive work. For instance, John 9 states that Jesus came to bring sight to the blind and to make those who see blind, highlighting the transformative power of spiritual perception. Similarly, the ability to hear with spiritual ears is crucial, as it allows individuals to understand and respond to God's Word, which is the means through which redemption is made possible.4

It must also be said that scripture speaks to spiritual eyes and ears as gifts from God, granted to those who are chosen and saved. This is evident in the verse "The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them" , which underscores that the ability to perceive spiritually is a divine gift. This gift is essential for understanding the deeper truths of God's Word and for experiencing the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.

Finally as a second take, redemption in the context of spiritual eyes and ears involves recognizing one's spiritual need, understanding the redemptive role of Jesus, and responding to God's call through spiritual perception. This process is facilitated by the divine gift of spiritual eyes and ears, which enable believers to see and hear the truths of God's Word and to embrace the redemptive plan offered through Jesus Christ and all planned by the Father.

We, as true believers, live as redeemed souls with the assured hope of salvation promised by God, by faith, every day.