Bible Studies

JOURNEY TO WHOLENESS

by Luella Campbell
12/23/13
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JOURNEY TO WHOLENESS

"Jesus answered, 'Flesh give birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.'" John 3: 5-8 (NIV).

That's it! It's a mystery -- a secret finally revealed.

Every other religion has a set of beliefs and a set of rules to which its devotees subscribe. Their origin is in the mind of man and the outcome is the best or worst that man can produce. The only authority religion has is force applied from the outside or persuasion based on lies. It cannot produce life or change a human being's basic nature.

But Jesus, the Son of God, was sent from the Father to remove the barrier between Himself and His human offspring and to return the Holy Spirit to those who believe in Him and receive Him to restore what He intended us to be from the beginning.

This interaction between God and human beings through the Holy Spirit is very different from even the best of what religion or philosophy offers. Self-help is useless because it cannot provide the energy to effect anything but frustration and disappointment, or self-satisfaction if you think you’ve arrived!

Jesus explained to Nicodemus that the best that flesh can do is reproduce itself. What is "flesh"? It's the nature we were born with -- self-centred, selfish and self-seeking. I am the centre of my universe and everything revolves around me and is about me and for me. This attitude is the antithesis of everything that God is. It blocks my fellowship with Him and my understanding of Him and His ways.

I am caught up and locked into a way of thinking and a way of living that shuts me out of His felt presence and keeps me a prisoner to a life of greed, selfishness and self-destruction, and doomed to face God's justice as a firstborn son "in Adam". 'If you want to be free of that mind-set,' said Jesus, 'you need a power outside of yourself to release you and give you a new nature so that you can begin again.'

It takes something far greater that "Seven Easy Steps to a New Life". You can change your ways for a few days, or even weeks, but you will inevitably slip back into who you really are because you still have your unchanged, inborn, selfish nature that holds you in a vice-grip.

It was God's original intention for human beings to live in union with Him so that they would experience the love, joy and peace that are the essence of who He is. Adam lost that when he chose to go his own way, and dragged all his offspring into lives of misery and chaos. As long as the flesh rules, that can never change.

Nicodemus recognized that there was something so radically different about Jesus that he had to find out what it was. 'It's the Holy Spirit,' Jesus told him. When the Holy Spirit is welcomed by handing the reins back to God, He becomes fused to our spirit, bringing God into the picture once again. The old nature is still there but it is overshadowed by a new disposition, the very nature of God.

Change happens, not self-help change that lasts for a little while, but real, radical change because God, by His Spirit, is now in residence. 'It's as mysterious as the wind,' Jesus said. 'You can't see the Holy Spirit, but you can see what He does.' He changes the heart, the attitude, the disposition and the outcome is evident by the way we think and the way we treat people.

It happened wherever people responded to Jesus. Zaccheus is a good example. From a self-seeking and greedy tax-collector he became an honest and generous believer who put his money where his mouth was -- literally! Jesus response was, 'Today salvation has come to this house. Zaccheus has begun his journey to wholeness.'

Now that's real change! Have you started your journey?