Programme 11: Knowing Positional Truth with the Help of the Holy Spirit - Part 2

In this Series we have been talking about how important it is to KNOW the TRUTH of who we are in Christ, for if we do not know what God has done for us and in us, we will not be able to walk in and enjoy the new-life that God has freely provided for us.  
 
 In John 8:31,32: “Jesus said to those who believed Him (and He says the same to us if we have believed on Him and been born-again) “If you abide in My Word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth(you know) shall make you free.” The truth we must know is what God has done for us in the New-Birth. “If the Son sets you free you shall be free indeed” (v36)
 
 Where is this truth to be found? Jesus said that we would find it in His Word, for it is those who continue in the Word who will discover and know the truth. But although the Truth is in the Word we can only truly know the Truth for ourselves if the Holy-Spirit who has been sent to help us reveals it to our heart: 
 
 1Corinthians 2:9,10,12: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world but (we have received) the Spirit who is from God, that we might KNOW the things that have been freely given to us by God
 
Ephesians 1:3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every SPIRITUAL blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” All the blessings of God (Who is Spirit) that God has freely given us in Christ are spiritual in origin and nature, and therefore must be revealed to our heart spiritually by the Spirit. Then as we believe and act on them they become manifest. 
 
 In John 14:16,17, Jesus described the Ministry of the Holy-Spirit to us “I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever - the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” 
 
 1. He will INDWELL us, live inside us FOREVER.
 
 2. He will be our HELPER (Para-kletos = one called alongside), translated Standby, Comforter, Advocate, Counsellor, Teacher.
Whatever we need: knowledge, wisdom, understanding, strength, 
He will come alongside us and help us, if we call upon His help.
The very nature of a Helper means that He waits on us to call upon Him to help us. He does not do it by Himself. We hold the initiative. We determine how much help He gives us, according to how much we call upon His help. He is limited in how much He can help us 
by how much we are aware of Him and His willingness and ability to help, and the confidence (faith) we have in Him to call upon Him.
 
 3. He is the Spirit of Truth. His ministry is to reveal the truth to us.
4. He is ANOTHER HELPER (just like Jesus) - meaning He is a Divine Person. One of the main ways Jesus helped His disciples was by teaching them. He helped them understand and know God’s Word.
They would call upon His help, asking Him questions and He would teach them and lead them into the truth. Likewise the Holy-Spirit is our Teacher, and He will lead us into the Truth if we call upon Him.
 
 We have the Helper, God’s Spirit, living IN US, ready to HELP us at any time (for He is always there in us as our Helper and never leaves us). He is our Teacher. He is here to help us know the truth of God’s Word. He is ready to guide us into all truth, but we must call on Him and ask Him to reveal and make God’s Word real to us and He will. We must lean on His knowledge and wisdom, trusting in Him to show us the truth rather than trusting in our own understanding. 
 
 John 16:13,14: “When the SPIRIT of TRUTH has come, He will GUIDE you into all TRUTH; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” We cannot know the truth without the help of the Spirit of Truth, whose ministry is to lead and guide us into all the Truth of God’s Word, including the truth of who we are in Christ. “He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” He will take whatever is Christ’s, whatever is in Christ and declare, reveal, impart the revelation and reality of it to us.

*Without the Spirit of God, the Word of God is like dehydrated, concentrated food (powder). We know it is full of goodness, but we can’t digest or receive it. It seems dull and uninteresting to us. But when we add the water of the Spirit to it, it comes alive and is exciting, enjoyable and full of power, so that even a simple verse made alive to us by His Holy-Spirit becomes life-changing! 
 
 We NEED the Holy-Spirit’s Ministry of revelation and illumination. Therefore as we look into the Word, we must develop an attitude of prayerful dependance on the Holy-Spirit. We must ask Him to reveal it and make it come alive to us. “Holy-Spirit, You are My Teacher and Guide, lead me into the truth I need to know today.”
 
 The Spirit of God not only performed our New-Birth, but now He is also revealing to our heart who we are now as sons of God through the New-Birth, so that we can live it out and express it in our lives. He takes the Word of God (which He wrote) and makes it come alive to us so that it is real to us and we know its truth in a personal way. We need this ministry where He writes the Word on our hearts, for otherwise the Word of God is able to change our lives.
 
 *BIBLE PRAYERS. Since our transformation depends on us KNOWING the truth, and knowing the truth depends on the revelationary ministry of the Spirit we urgently need to pray for the Holy-Spirit to give us revelation of our Positional Truth, as well as for the power to put it into practice. In fact Paul continually prayed this kind of prayer for himself and others, and recorded them in the Bible as examples for us to pray the same prayers. These prayers are inspired by the Holy-Spirit and so God will surely hear and answer them. Pray these prayers for yourself. We find 2 of them in Ephesians: 
 
 PRAYER: Ephesians 1:16-21: 
We need the Holy-Spirit to reveal our Positional Truth to us, and so we must open ourselves up pray for His ministry of revelation to us: 
 
 “I do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my PRAYERS: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the SPIRIT of WISDOM and REVELATION in the KNOWLEDGE of Him, the eyes of your understanding being ENLIGHTENED (flooded with light) that you may KNOW (the Truth).” 
 
 Revelation means the pulling back of a veil or curtain to see an object that was already there, but was hidden behind it. It is like pulling back the curtains to let in the light of the day, so that the room is flooded with light. God wants to pull back the veil of unbelief and ignorance, so that our heart can be filled and flooded with the light of spiritual revelation (truth). God is described here as ‘the Father of Glory’ - He wants to fill our lives with His glory, but first He must remove the veil from our heart and open the eyes of our spiritual understanding, so that we can see His glories in Christ, and believe we receive them, and base our lives upon them. 

Thus we are to pray that God would give us: ‘the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him’, causing the light of His truth to flood our heart, so that we can truly know and understand His Word. Clearly the key to this is the Person and Work of the Spirit. Thus, as we meditate on God’s Word, we need to pray for the Holy-Spirit to move upon us, pulling back the veil over our understanding, and shining the light of His truth into our hearts and minds, so that we can see clearly and know accurately who we are in Christ. This is a supernatural process, and it will not happen without the help of the Holy-Spirit, which He will always give us when we ask Him. 
 
 Notice, He is the Spirit (1) of Revelation and (2) of Wisdom. That is, He will (1) reveal the truth to us and (2) show us how to express it (act on it), so that it is manifested effectively in our lives. 
 
 What are the areas of TRUTH we need the Spirit to reveal to us?
 
 3 Areas of Truth: “(1) that you may KNOW: what is the hope (vision) of His calling. When you were born-again God put a calling on your life. You have a purpose, a mission, and a destiny, and He has given you gifts and abilities to fulfil it. He has a plan for your life and that is all part of His unchangeable PT for you. We need to ask God to reveal to us the vision He has for our life, for if we do not know it, how can we walk in it and fulfil it. The Spirit will search the depths of God and reveal it for us to walk in, if we ask Him.
 
(2) “(that you may KNOW): what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. We have a glorious inheritance in Christ. He has given us every spiritual blessing and all His promises are yes and amen in Christ. But we need the Spirit to reveal these riches to us that God has freely given us in Christ, otherwise how can we enjoy them? Notice the riches are: “in the saints.” They are IN US. They are already in our reborn spirits, but we need the Spirit to open the eyes of our faith to see them so that we can live in the reality of them.
 
 The 3rd Area of Truth that we need the Spirit of God to reveal to us is His mighty Power that is working within us by His Spirit, transforming us, and manifesting the reality of who we are in Christ and what we have in Him, for if we don’t know the power of His might within us, we will not be strong in that power, we will not tap into that power, and release it in our lives as we should:
 
 (3) “and (that you may KNOW): “what is the exceeding greatness of His Power toward us (freely available to us) who believe.” To help us get a revelation of the greatness and efectiveness of this power, Paul tells us that it is the very same power that raised Christ up from the dead. In other words what that power did for Christ, it will also do for us: “what is the exceeding greatness of His Power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come, and has put all things under His feet.” 
 
 We need a revelation of what this power of God’s Spirit is doing in us. It achieved 3 things in Christ: (1) It released and imparted LIFE to Him. He was in death, spirit, soul and body, but then by the power of the Spirit He was made alive, and filled with God’s life and glory. That same power is now working in us, releasing the life of God in us renewing our lives, and transforming us from glory to glory.
 
 (2) That power also raised Him up above all powers, giving Him total VICTORY over all sin, curse and forces of darknesss. Likewise that same power is now working in us, setting us free from sin, satan and the curse. If we know about it we can take hold of it and walk in it.
 
 (3) That power also enthroned Him, imparting total DOMINION and authority to Him so that all things are now under His feet. Likewise that same power is now working in us, causing us to reign in life over our circumstances, and exercise dominion over all the power of the enemy. 
 
 We need the Holy-Spirit to reveal all the truth (PT) about us:
(1) The Father’s Plan and Purpose for our life, 
(2) All that we have and are now in Christ, the Son, and 
(3) The mighty power of the Holy-Spirit within us to reveal and manifest God’s life, nature, victory, dominion and glory in our lives. 
 
 Having given the resurrection of Christ as the first demonstration of the mighty power of the Spirit now working in our lives, Paul then gave a second demonstration of what this power can do, for this power has already been fully released in our spirits in the New-Birth. 
 
 He continues to describe this mighty power in us in Ephesians 2:1 by saying: “And you He made alive.” He is saying that not only has this power worked (been fully released) in Christ raising Him from the dead, but it has also worked (been fully released) in us, that is in our spirit when we were born again (Ephesians 2:5,6): 
 
 “when we were dead in trespasses, 
(1) He made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and 
(2) raised us up together with Christ, and 
(3) made us sit 
together with Christ in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
 
 Just as there were 3 operations of God’s power at the resurrection which (1) made Christ come alive (Resurrection) and (2) raised Him far above (Ascension), and (3) seated Him at God’s right hand (Session), so the very same 3 operations of God’s power were also accomplished in our spirit in the New Birth:
  
 (1) He made us alive together with Christ” The Spirit removed all death from our spirit and made our dead spirits come alive with Him. The first operation imparted LIFE.
 (2) He raised us up together with Christ. He raised our spirit up, far above all sin, curse, death and demonic force, imparting His VICTORY to it, making us victorious, so that sin and death has no more dominion over our spirit! So our spirit now consists of the eternal, indestructible, victorious resurrection life of Christ which has already conquered death and sin! It is victorious over sin and satan.
 
 (3) He made us sit together with Christ. He made our spirits to sit with Christ far above, enthroning them. That is He imparted His DOMINION to our spirit giving it full authority over the enemy. 
 
 The summary of this is: “by grace you have been saved.” Our spirits have been saved by grace (the power of God). They have been made alive and raised up and enthroned with Christ. Notice the past tense of all these verbs. These things have already been fully accomplished. If they have happened they must have happened in our spirit when it was regenerated and recreated making us a new creation in Christ. These 3 things happened instantaneously when we were born-again. Thus the same operation of God’s power that was released in raising up Christ was also released in raising up our spirits in the New Birth. The same power that raised up Christ was also applied to our spirits raising then up with Him into total life, victory and dominion. This is confirmed by the repeating phrase: “together with Christ.” 
 
 He summarises this all in v8: “For by grace you have been saved through faith (your spirit has already been saved by God’s power!), and that (salvation) is not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we (our reborn spirits) are His workmanship (His masterpiece), created in Christ Jesus (designed, equipped, empowered) for good (excellent) works,which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
 
 *We need to pray for a revelation of the mighty power of His Holy-Spirit that Has been fully released in Christ raising Him up from the dead, imparting to His humanity all glory, victory and dominion. This will show us the greatness of the mighty power at work in us and what has done, what it is doing and what it will do in us. 
 
 *We need to pray for a revelation of what this mighty power has already done in our spirits - that the power of His Spirit has already been released in our spirits imparting Christ’s LIFE, VICTORY and DOMINION to them. Then we will know who we are in Christ.
 
 *We need to pray for a revelation of how this same mighty power of the Spirit is working in our lives now to manifest Christ’s LIFE, VICTORY and DOMINION in and through us. 
 
 *If that power of the Spirit changed our spirit from death to life, it can transform our souls, situations and relationships from death to life. 
*If that power raised our spirit from conquered to conqueror, it can also give us victory in our daily life over sin, habits, sickness and demonic forces. 
*If that power seated our spirit with Christ over all, then it can also manifest that authority and dominion over the power of the enemy in our life. 
If we have a revelation of the mighty Power of the Spirit that is in us and freely available to us, then by faith we can call upon the Holy-Spirit, and activate His Power and release it in our lives. In this way we will: 
“be strong in the Lord and in the Power of His might” (Ephesians 6:10)
 *Let me pray for you. Pray the Ephesians Prayer for them:
 “I PRAY for for everyone listening that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to them the SPIRITof WISDOM and REVELATION in the KNOWLEDGE of Him,the eyes of their understanding being ENLIGHTENED that they may KNOW what is the hope of their calling (your vision, plan and purpose for their life), and that they may KNOW the riches of the glory of His inheritance that is already in them through the New Birth and that they may KNOW what is the exceeding greatness of His Power toward them who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come, and has put all things under His feet. 
 
 Yes, I pray that they will know the greatness of the power of God’s Spirit that is now freely available to them to work in their life to manifest all His glorious promises in their life, the very same power that was released fully in their spirit when they were born again causing their spirit to be made alive together with Christ and raised with Christ above all the power of sin, satan and death, and seated with Christ with all things under foot. Give them a revelation of this Power of the Spirit that’s available to them now and able to give them LIFE, VICTORY and DOMINION in their lives, if they call on Him.