davidbowerkingwood

The New Birth Changed You Forever!

Although your body has remained unchanged, incredible things happened to your spirit when you were born-again. As a descendant of Adam, you were born spiritually dead and there was nothing you could ever do, on your own, to change that fact.

Just as Lazarus was helpless in death, until called out of the tomb by the Lord Jesus Christ, so your spirit was helpless in death until called out of its tomb by the Holy Spirit.

While Adam died spiritually in the Garden of Eden, he would not die physically for many years after he had been expelled from the Garden of Eden.

Your situation follows a similar pattern in reverse; while your spirit has been resurrected by the Holy Spirit, there remains an unknown number of years before your body is resurrected at the Rapture of the Church. At that time body and spirit will be joined together in a new heavenly body, not made by human hands. In 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 it is written:

“5 For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. ² We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. ³ For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies. ⁴ While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. ⁵ God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.”

As an extra measure of security, God, the Holy Spirit has joined your resurrected spirit in an eternal, unbreakable union; you have become a Temple of God, the Holy Spirit now and forever! This is beautifully expressed in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 where it is written:

“¹⁹ Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, ²⁰ for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.”

This is your new reality; you have been-born again into a new family, Adam is no longer your spiritual father, you are no longer under the Adamic curse, you have been made a child in the family of God, God is your spiritual Father and with Jesus Christ, you have been made heirs of God’s glory! In Romans 8:15-30 it is written:

“¹⁵ So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” ¹⁶ For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. ¹⁷ And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

The Future Glory

¹⁸ Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. ¹⁹ For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. ²⁰ Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, ²¹ the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. ²² For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³ And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. ²⁴ We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. ²⁵ But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)

²⁶ And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. ²⁷ And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. ²⁸ And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. ²⁹ For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ³⁰ And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.”

It is important that you know how precious you are to God, to know how greatly loved you are by your Heavenly Father. In Romans 8:38-39 this is gloriously summarized:

³⁸ And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. ³⁹ No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”