Are you a Christian that is being buffeted by the cares of this life?
Are you feeling overwhelmed with worries, bills and the challenges of life?
What if I told you that you had no real problem.
What if I told you that you had no other problem, but a consciousness problem?!
What if I could prove it to you – right here, right now?
Introduction
In what has to be one of the saddest statements of Jesus ever recorded in the Bible, He said,
“…for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light” (Luke 16:8).
As believers, we are the children of Light – but Jesus laments over us because the children of this world are living much better than we are.
This shouldn’t be so.
The very word ‘Christian’ means that we are like Christ!
It means that we are ‘little’ Christs.
Do you really think that if Jesus was physically present on earth today, He would be overwhelmed with bills, illness, worries and challenges of life?
Of course not!
Jesus knew who He was.
He knew where He was from and He knew where He was going. He knew the essence of who He was!
So, why is the experience of many believers so different from that of our Model – Jesus Christ?
It’s really simple!
We do not not know who we are.
When you possess an understanding of your identity, it influences the kinds of thoughts you have; which in turn influences the kind of words you speak; which in turn influences the kind of actions you take; which in turn would ultimately influence your character and the results you get out of life.
Understand this: Until we can get a fuller picture of who we are, as believers, we would keep on having challenges in this side of reality.
So, who are we then?
First, let’s practice some First-Principles Thinking.
This is how the Bible describes our Heavenly Father:
God is Spirit, and all who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24)
If God is Spirit and we are made in His Image and Likeness, what does that make us?
We are spirits too!
1 Thessalonians 5:23 says, ‘I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’
Man is a tripartite being – He is a spirit, possessing a soul and living in a body.
Efforts have been made to try to explain this mystery in other fields.
For instance, in psychoanalysis, the tripartite nature of man is expressed as superego, ego and id.
In quantum physics, it is expressed as matter, energy, and antimatter
In terms of space, it is referred to as here, there, and the space within
In terms of streams of consciousness, we have: conscious, unconscious and subconscious.
Nowadays, the term ‘subconscious mind’ is being thrown around with careless abandon.
But we know what it means.
The subconscious mind is the real you.
The real you is what is created in the likeness of God.
Your subconscious mind is your spirit!!!
Your spirit is the real you.
God’s Plan for Your Spirit
To understand the import of this reality, we need to take a trip back to where it all began.
When God created man, man was created to be in God’s class of being.
Man was made in the image and likeness of God.
To make man, God had to breathe out a portion of Himself into man.
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7)
As in, He took off His very Essence and Being – the very Nature that made Him God.
God took that and inflated man with it.
Consequently, Man became a bundle of God’s raw, fresh and Divine Inspiration.
Man was made to be like God.
He could think like God.
He operated like God, manifesting the very wisdom of God.
What’s more, God gave man absolute and total dominion over everything that was on earth.
Little wonder the Bible says in Psalms 82:6,
‘I have said, ye are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High…’
And to show you that the above statement was not a mistake, Jesus repeated the same words again,
‘…ye are gods…’ (John 10:34)
Man was created to be god on earth.
He was created to exercise dominion and authority here on earth.
Genesis 1:28 says, ‘And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion…’
If you look at the trend of things, despite being in a fallen state, man has somehow been able to exercise his God-given mandate to rule and dominate.
Man has been able to make wonderful innovations and inventions.
He has been able to create beautiful works of art and cure previously incurable illnesses.
Man has been able to dig deep into the heart of the earth and find mineral resources to improve the quality of his life.
Man has also been able to extend his influence beyond the earth through space exploration.
Man was created to have dominion and not to be dominated.
Yet so many believers are living mediocre lives, being dominated instead of exercising dominion.
Many believers are living far below what God had in mind when He created them.
Little wonder God would say we ‘…all have…come short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23)
Things go downhill for man
After the Fall, man’s spirit became degenerate. In other words, his spirit was cut off and totally separated from God’s life. In short, man’s spirit man was dead!
Today, the fallen man’s spirit is still there, but it’s as good as it’s no longer there because it cannot function the way God had designed it to function.
Because of all these, mankind learned to become sensual, carnal – living solely through his five senses. He was totally unable to contact the depths of the spiritual realm.
The spiritual realm is the causal realm from which all things are created.
2 Corinthians 4:18 says,
‘While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal’
The only way you can look at something that cannot be physically seen is through the spirit.
Unfortunately, the fallen man’s spirit was dead, and he could only catch glimpses of the spiritual realm via trial and error as he yielded himself to God. This explains how inventions, works of art and some form of creativity could still be exhibited by man in the fallen state. By trial and error, man could draw out of the spiritual realm and reproduce imperfect versions in the physical realm.
Then Jesus entered the picture…
Here’s what Jesus came to do on earth:
He came to restore mankind back to the life of God.
Consider Ephesians 2:1-6,
‘And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus’
If you are a believer in Christ, your spirit man (or subconscious mind) has been quickened, regenerated and renewed!
It has already been restored back to the state Adam’s spirit was before the fall!
Your spirit man is just like Jesus (check out Ephesians 4:24).
Isn’t that awesome?
So, while unbelievers look at the state of man before the fall and start having wishful thinking about how bad things have gone since the original sin; you as a believer, can look back at the state of man before the fall and start to thank God for the state that Jesus Christ has restored you to!
Glory to God!!!
But there’s still another problem
Why is it that despite the fact that we have been restored back to the life of God in our spirits, we still seem to live the kind of ordinary, mediocre lives?
Why is it that we are still existing in far below the glory that God has bestowed upon us, when it is a fact that, right now, we are exactly like Jesus?!
Wow! Now, a lot of eyes are rolling at that question.
Perhaps you are thinking: Me? Like, Jesus? Seriously?
I don’t have time for arguments.
1 John 4:17 says,
‘Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment: because, as He is, so are we in this world’
That is very profound.
The Bible did not say, ‘as He was while on this earth, so are we in this world’
You know, it would surely have been awesome and quite fulfilling for many of us to find out that we can live the same way that Jesus lived while He was on earth. After all, He raised the dead, healed the sick, made the maimed whole, preached the gospel far and wide…
But that isn’t what 1 John 4:17 is saying.
Look again,
‘…as He is, so are we in this world’
That is in the present continuous tense!
It means that as Jesus Christ is right now, that is the same way that we – as believers – are in this world.
So, the question now is this: How is Jesus Christ right now?
For one, Colossians 1:15 says that Jesus is the Image of the Invisible God. So, by inference, we also are the image of the invisible God!
Why?
‘…as He is, so are we in this world’
This truth has the potential to revolutionize your life.
And I’m not even started!
You know, when Philip asked Jesus to show Him the Father, do you remember Jesus’ answer?
‘…he that hath seen me, hath seen the Father’ (John 14:9)
Jesus was saying in essence that if one looked at His words, His actions, His deeds, He clearly mirrored the Father.
Little wonder 2 Corinthians 3:5 tells us that we ‘are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ’
This simply means that if any unbeliever has any doubts about how Jesus is, such a person should just look at me!
Why?
‘…as He is, so are we in this world’
See, the truth is that as a born again believer with the Holy Spirit resident within you, you are like-for-like, ounce-for-ounce, pound-for-pound exactly like Jesus Christ.
You have the mind of Christ (1Corinthians 2:16, Philippians 2:5)
You have His Spirit, and you’re One Spirit with Him (Galatians 4:6, 1 Corinthians 6:17)
You have His Nature (2 Peter 1:4)
You are joint-heirs with Him, having the same access to the Father that Christ has (Romans 8:17, 29)
You have His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21)
All these are your real reality!!!
So, if that’s your real reality in the realm of the spirit, why are you still having problems living from the wealth embedded within your very being?
You are not looking in the mirror
The reason you still live the same kind of ordinary life you lived before you got saved is because you have an identity problem!
You see, after spending so long living from the soul (i.e., your five senses, your will, your emotions, and intellect) before we came to know Christ, we had already been so used to having the soul in the driver’s seat of our lives. As a result, even when we now have quickened spirits reconnected to the life and nature of God, we still do not know how to live from the wealth in our spirits.
Take note that the problem has changed from being separated from God to being ignorant of the wealth within us.
And there is only one reason why you are ignorant of who you are in the spirit: You are not looking into the mirror.
Look at 2 Corinthians 4:18,
‘But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord’
The glass/the mirror reflects the image that is standing before it!
So, if you are seeing the glory of God in the glass, it’s because YOU are then glory of God standing in front of the glass!
What then is the mirror? You may ask.
Let’s check out James 1:23-25,
‘For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightaway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh unto the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man is blessed in his deed’
Many of us look into a physical mirror for so long in the morning. And any little chance we have to pass by any reflective glass, we step by it to assess our looks, our dressing, our accessories, and all. Now if any chance comes and we are asked to describe how we look, it is not difficult for us to do so, despite the fact that we are not seeing ourselves at the moment?
Why?
Simple. We have gazed at so many reflections of ourselves all day long and we know how we look.
The same thing applies in the spiritual realm.
The spiritual mirror is the Word of God.
The text we just read tells us that if a man hears the word and does not do it, such person is like an individual who has gazed at himself in a mirror and then forgotten what he looked like.
The thing is that many people have heard or read about these things that I’m sharing with you now. But they do not see the manifestation of it in their lives because they refuse to believe in the mirror of the Word that they have just heard. These people have gazed at the Mirror of the Word only briefly and have forgotten the kind of person that they are.
For instance, do you know that since you are born of God, you can never run out of options and be stranded in life?
Try telling that to a carnally minded believer.
But it is a basic truth of the Word!
1 John 2:20 says,
‘But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.’
We are born of God and we have an unction from the Holy Spirit. The verse did not say, ‘you know some things’. No! It says, ‘you know ALL things’. You don’t have the ability to be confused, stranded or at a loss. It is no longer in real your nature to do so.
That is so profound.
Now, when you tell a believer such truth, he is gazing at the Mirror of the Word at that moment, and he is excited at the truth that he cannot be stranded.
But just give the typical believer a day or two, and you’d find him battling with the same challenges he or she should be triumphing over.
You know why?
Such believer has forgotten the manner of man that he was!
This is because he has refused to check himself in the Mirror of the Word to see who he really is in the God’s sight.
You need to remember who you are, by gazing into the Mirror of God.
Remember who you are…
The word ‘remember’ comes from two root words, ‘re-’ and ‘-member’.
So, when you are ‘re-membering’, you are in essence reassembling and reconjuring every member that constitutes you into your mainstream of consciousness!
You have to look into the mirror of the Word of God and have the faith that the description you find is accurate. You need to experience yourself as who you are in Christ – in God!
God’s Words are infallible. You’ve got to produce and manifest what God has declared the real you to be in the mirror of the Word
When you look at a physical mirror, do you disagree with the image you see reflected because you don’t feel that’s the way you should look?
Of course not! You have absolute faith that the mirror is showing you the accurate description of who you are in the physical. The same applies in the spirit!
You have to have the absolute faith that the mirror of the Word is the accurate description of who you are in the spiritual realm.
The more you gaze at the mirror of the Word, the more you see yourself in the light of who you have been created to be.
When you gaze into the mirror of the word continually, you find out that you were designed to walk over sin, sicknesses, temptations, precarious circumstances, challenges of life and yes – the devil!
Once you constantly gaze upon the mirror of the Word, you’d realize that the way you think starts to change.
Romans 12:2 says,
‘…be transformed by the renewing of your mind’
Many are not living at the highest versions of themselves possible.
It is impossible for this to be so when you have not elevated your perception of reality from just what you can sense with your five senses.
It is until you change the way you think in the light of who you are in Christ that you would find your actions and deeds the following suit to conform to your spiritual reality.
Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 3:18 again,
‘But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord’
Note the phrase, ‘…are changed into the same image from glory to glory…’
I have said it before, and I am saying it again. You do not have any other problem but an identity and consciousness problem!
The more you gaze at the mirror of the Word of God, the more the way you think changes.
The more the way you think changes to conform to the realities of your spirit man as described by the Word of God, the more you manifest the glory of God – which is who you are in the Spirit.
The more you manifest the glory of God physically, the more victory you would experience over sin, sickness, poverty, lack and whatever the devil throws at your path.
So, stop living unconsciously.
Get this: It’s man’s second nature to live unconsciously; but it is his first nature to be spiritually conscious!
You have now been armed with the tools that would set you on the path to the best days of your life yet.
Speak, think and act as the God on your inside!!!
