Jesus Walked the Earth as a Man
(All Bible verses quoted are from the New King James Version)

Everything in creation belongs to Jesus, He is head over all. He has authority & dominion over all things. Col 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.

But He chose to put all this aside and live life on earth as a man, dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit and only capable of doing what He saw His Father doing. John 5:19 Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.

Often as children when we heard the story of Jesus and his disciples, we were asked to say which disciple we would like to be like when we grow up. Some would say they want to be like Peter because he had this or that quality, whilst others would say they want to be like John because of this or that reason, and so forth. But strictly speaking, this is almost an insult against the cross. Actually our position after we are born again is that our nature, our born again spirits, have exactly the same righteousness and virtue as Jesus. The following verse says that just as Jesus is, so are we in this world right now (and by method of deduction we can see that our bodies are not glorified yet and our minds have not been fully renewed yet, so it is talking about our born again spirit): 1 John 4:17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. The disciples did not receive the Holy Spirit until after Jesus was crucified. So we as Spirit filled believers have a great advantage over them (before they received the Holy Spirit) in that we have been given the authority and power of Jesus Christ (Luke 9:1).

Now if Jesus had come to earth as God, the miracles He did would still have been impressive. He did so many miracles in His 3 years of ministry that John wrote the following: John 21:25 And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen. And this was just the ministry of 1 person, fully yielded to the Spirit of God! Imagine the impact we could have if an entire generation of believers stood up in their rightful position of authority!!

Now since Jesus came to earth as a man (setting aside His divinity and all His authority as God) taking on human flesh, and modelling the normal Christian life, this should actually make me dissatisfied with my life, knowing that there is more, knowing that there are realms of God accessible to us as God’s children that will allow us to walk as Jesus did. Yes, Jesus actually lived the type of life that every normal Christian should live. His purpose was to model what it could be like to walk this earth as a person fully yielded to the control of the Holy Spirit, and doing only what we see our Father doing. The miracles and works Jesus did was not to show us how incompetent we are, but to show us what we are actually capable of doing when we fully rely on God!! As Adolph Hitler had said: “When you tell a lie long enough, people will start to believe it.” The counterfeit has been around in the church for so long, that people have come to believe that the counterfeit is the genuine, and that the normal Christian life as portrayed by Jesus, is a far fetched dream, a pie in the sky.

Now some would say “Well yes, Jesus came as a man, but He was still God”. Dear friend, let me tell you He put down ALL of His Godly divinity. He was FULLY man, but He simply lived completely surrendered to the Holy Spirit. Phil 2:5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Now if Jesus was still God, why did He cry “My God my God, why have you forsaken me?” on the cross?

You see, for too long has the church been accustomed to having weekly meetings void of the power of God. People are afraid to surrender control and make room for the Holy Spirit in their meetings, because it might disrupt their smart, well orchestrated programs. And when we see things happen in our meetings that we don’t understand, we become intimidated and form doctrines that try to explain them, instead of just telling our minds to take a holiday and accept that mystery is often just as glorious as revelation. God is sovereign and His ways are far above our ways.

When we realize just how much HE loves us, we would trust Him and know His thoughts towards us are always love, and we wouldn’t care to just… let go and let God.

Yours in Grace
Andre van der Merwe

Saved by Grace, But What Comes Next?
(All Bible verses quoted are from the New King James Version)

When we talk about GRACE, most people will say they know grace and that they have been saved by grace through faith (Eph 2:8-9). But that is only when you are saved, and from there on you have to move on to the more important aspects of the Christian life like sanctification, a “holy” lifestyle and becoming more effective for God. The churches of the Galatians did the same thing; let’s see what Paul wrote to them:

Gal 3:1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? 2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?

When Paul talks about grace to the Galatians he is not talking about being born again to non-believers, but he is talking to believers, people that have already been born again. He said they started well in grace, but now they had come under the pressure of people that preach law, that say they now have to perform & obey to receive the blessings of God. Here in Galatians 3 Paul says that we should continue in the grace of God (also Col 2:6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord (by simply believing, not striving), so walk in Him). God’s blessings, healing & prosperity does not come through striving, performing or through trying to live holy. It comes through being established in the gift of righteousness, the righteousness we first received as a gift when we came into Christ. You see we can never leave our foundation behind. The bigger we build the building, the more we have to strengthen the foundation, which is grace.

In the modern day church there exists a dangerous misconception that God initially accepts you unconditionally on the basis of grace, but once you are saved you now suddenly have to perform at a certain level for God to continue to accept and bless you. The Bible talks about 2 types of righteousness: The righteousness of God (receiving salvation, God’s approval and blessings by faith) and self righteousness (going back under the law & trying to receive all the above by trying to earn them through good works). But prevailing in most churches today is a 3rd type of righteousness, one that is mentioned nowhere in the Bible: Once you are saved, you leave behind grace and the righteousness of God as a gift, and try to become more righteous by your own good works.

The only way to get free from this trap is by becoming more established in the righteousness of God as a gift. Once we realise that we can never add to the righteousness that was given to us as a gift, and that our best efforts are like dirty rags (Isaiah 64:6 But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags) we will see that only by trusting in the perfect obedience of the One Man, Jesus Christ, can we have confidence before God.

Some preachers start well, preaching grace and unconditional love to get people saved. But then when they see the people’s lives change because of the grace of God, they start seeing this as a fruit of their own teaching, and they begin to emphasise holy living at the cost of grace.

How do we know that we have been established in the grace of God? If we can say immediately after we have sinned (made a mistake) that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 5:21) and that nothing we ever do can change that!! We need that innocence of a child restored to us, feeling as though we have never sinned (because God has forgiven all our sins past present & future – Heb 10:17 Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more) and also feeling like nobody has ever sinned against us. When we reach that place of boldly approaching the throne of grace, we can say we have been established in the gift of righteousness. God doesn’t us to feel guilty about any sins, because why should we be reminded of our mistakes if God doesn’t remember them anymore?

Heb 10:19 Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and having a High Priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Yours in Grace
Andre van der Merwe

Can Christians be Demon Possessed?
(All Bible verses quoted are from the New King James Version)

Without a doubt this is the wrong question. It’s not about whether demons can influence or attack Christians, the correct question is: Where do demons get their power from? I have seen believing, Holy Spirit filled Christians frothing at the mouth, screaming and convulsing when the demons leave them. How can this be? Were they not truly converted (born again)? Or is there more to it?

Amazingly some ministries wilfully and purposely set out to engage the enemy, Satan. They actually go out and look for him, constantly trying to rebuke and defeat Satan on all territories and fronts. However, this is merely one of the many ways that Satan uses to distract Christians from their true purpose, which is to have a relationship with the Father.

Satan and his demons were defeated at the cross, and God made a public spectacle of them by marching them in front of all their enemies in a victorious parade (Col 2:15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it). They were completely DISARMED. So where do they now get their weapons from? How can they attack believing Christians? Note that a demon cannot possess a Christian, because the Holy Spirit lives inside us, and is one with our spirit (1 Cor 6:17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him). And a demon can not co-exist in the same place as the Holy Spirit.

But demons attach themselves to our minds and our bodies and bring about destruction in our minds by influencing our thoughts with depression, sinicism, unbelief, self pity, etc. and they also bring about destruction in our bodies by infirmities & diseases. Christians “re-arm” these defeated demons by submitting to the law. The power of the law is sin (1 Cor 15:56  The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law). When Christians go back under the yoke of slavery, namely The Law (see Gal 5), they empower a defeated foe. They allow condemnation, depression, guilt and heaviness to come back on them, all the things Christ died to set us free from! When Christ died on the cross, the law (including the 10 commandments) with all its requirements were nailed to the cross with Jesus (Col 2:14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross). There is now no more law, and where there is no law, there is no transgression of the law (Rom 4:15 because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression).

If there is no more law then, it means that sin has no more power over us (see 1 Cor 15:56 above again). The law points out our mistakes, it shows us we are not worthy of God’s grace and it makes us feel incompetent, which is exactly what it was designed to do! We would not have known what sin was if it were not for the law. Rom 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

So when a believer (that has been freed from the law by simply believing in Christ) now puts himself/herself again under this yoke of bondage, how can they expect anything else than to feel condemned, depressed, incompetent, guilt ridden, unworthy and burdened? If we try to do the very thing which Christ died to set us free from (observing the law), how can we expect anything else than to be attacked by the enemy and his army of demons? We put the weapons right into their hands!!

The most effective way to cast out these unclean spirits from a believer is by simply ministering to the person the message of grace. Prove to the person from God’s Word they have been made completely righteous (2 Cor 5:21) and have been freed from the requirements of the law (Rom 7:1-6). And you will watch those cowardly, defeated spirits go!!!

Yours in Grace
Andre van der Merwe