When Christians speak of the liberty of Christ, it is often in the sense of what is promised and looked forward to, more than a daily living experience. Many believers today attest to feeling “out of sorts” spiritually, as the quest for self betterment shows the soul to be lacking the substance of life (Jesus) for which it craves.

It can be very disconcerting to still struggle with anger, jealousy, resentment and guilt despite a believer having made the choice to serve God. So let’s have a look at where the missing link manifests itself.

Many times, ministry leaders will point the finger at believers to say that they should count the cost before uttering the sinner’s prayer, but they fail to give instruction so that those who desire to enter into God’s kingdom could properly divide the things of the flesh from the things of God.

What does it mean to “count the cost”? Most ministers refer to the need to die to self to live unto God, but failing to differentiate the kingdom of the flesh from the kingdom of God, it is not possible for those who have made a commitment to Jesus to fulfill that commitment and they continue to struggle.

Ministers have failed to teach the deeper things of God’s new covenant in Jesus. That covenant instruction has to take place before a believer can rightly divide the things of the flesh from the spiritual things of God’s kingdom.

Lacking the ability to give instruction in Jesus’ covenant, ministers teach about what they know naturally, trying to speak to that which would be obvious to anyone still struggling with the flesh. Their teaching pivots on unilateral statements that reference man’s nature, not God’s plan. For example,

• It goes without saying that our desires should not be more important than submitting to God.
• It goes without saying that we are called to die to self to live unto God.
• It goes without saying that we should live our lives submitted to God.

What’s interesting about unilateral teaching is that it is one-sided. It comes from what a person knows about man’s fallen nature. God’s covenant through Jesus provides a two-way relationship with Him because He provides the knowledge, stewardship, priesthood, and spiritual tools to initiate our engagement with Him and He reciprocates for our increase in Him.

You’ll notice that when the gospel is one-sided, there’s a lot that goes without saying. In other words, ambiguous teaching stands in place of covenant instruction. The need to separate the flesh from the Spirit is obvious and well-noted. Still, because ministry leaders have been teaching the Bible from the perspective of man’s moral code instead of God’s covenant, the flesh has not been differentiated from Jesus’ covenant and the separation hasn’t happened.

The natural powers God set within the soul for our function in this dimension are mistaken as God’s spiritual blueprint for us; and instead of dying to self, ministry leaders use the design of man’s fleshly nature to dig into his appetite for change and betterment.

But we know that God did not sanctify the powers of the God-Code, moral code and signature of the soul to establish a connection with Him. He sanctified Jesus Christ and the spiritual tools of His covenant to equip and empower a two-sided relationship with Him that completes us in His will to be a fruit bearer in His kingdom.

If there’s one point that God continues to bring home, it is that our faith begins with instruction in the doctrine of Christ to learn what it means to serve God in this new covenant that He gave us in Jesus. What is spiritual life in Christ all about?

Without proper instruction, a person works toward building a more positive image of self, hoping to find God’s will, but is continually led back to examine his fleshly nature, where he will never find God’s will.

We can recognize that anger, jealousy, resentment, or guilt is contrary to God’s desire and our first instinct is to change that so we can be more understanding, kind, and loving towards our neighbor. We are naturally goal oriented and focus on the end game rather than the process. But God is focused on the process that He designed for the fruit bearing of the soul to take place His way, not our way.

It’s helpful to step back for a moment and look at what God brings out for our understanding regarding what He takes great delight in.

1 Peter 1:15-16
¹⁵ But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;
¹⁶ Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

Satan, the master of deception, redefined the meaning of holiness to mean “being without fault”. Here we can better understand why the temptation that is common or natural to man is to daily examine self to look for those faults, to see where correction can be made and to look for ways to make better choices. (1 Cor. 10:13)

Because it is easy to identify with our faults and we can easily identify with the desire to rise above them, most go no further than this self-examination. Most use the scriptures to point out God’s expectation for holiness, but not God’s process for the regeneration of the soul (fruit bearing) to take place. God is correcting this mindset and a shift in perception is taking place.

Satan’s deception is on the level of the fleshly kingdom where he remains hidden. Regardless of your social standing, education, gender or race, there is a natural drive to work towards being good, better, perfect in some way; which always ends in frustration when it is seen that these things cannot be achieved as the cycle of sin unto death just repeats itself.

Matthew 5:48
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

In these scriptures, we see that God uses the words “holy” and “perfect” to indicate His expectation, but what exactly does He mean by these words and how does that differ from the natural drive for self-betterment? God measures perfection and holiness to Himself – to the standard He provided in Jesus Christ as a bridge for us to attain Godliness that is equal to Himself, not the efforts of the flesh that are self-referencing.

Satan suggests that to please God, we must pursue perfection in the flesh (to strive to be without fault or to point out where faults may be hidden or how to give them over to Jesus). However, this game of chess with sin is not God’s desire for you.

There are so many today that are burdened with sin who are desperate to live by the power of God, but they don’t know how transformation takes place. Many have not made the choice of faith to serve God because they feel guilty about the fruits of iniquity which they daily stand in view of as they observe the challenges within themselves.

The problem is, the soul, in being separated from God because of the fall of Adam, is self-referencing. The soul needs to be restored to its former glory (to reflect the light of Jesus Christ), in order to be accepted by God. But without accessing the system God designed for such inner transformation (covenant faith), a believer continues to view himself according to the stains of sin.

Spiritual labels are put on this chess game and struggle against self in this one-sided relationship with God, and two of those labels are “spiritual warfare” and “deliverance ministry”. Under the guise of fighting against the devil and seeking deliverance, a believer does not see how he is still a prisoner of Satan’s false knowledge and he fails to understand why he can never go beyond the restrictions of the fleshly kingdom to which he is shackled.

Let’s look at the definition of the word sin in the Terms Glossary by Apostle Eric vonAnderseck (accessible online within the free IDCCST Course):

“Colossians 2:11, ‘In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:’

The god of this world (Satan) influences those in his kingdom of darkness through a system of inspiration, which expresses iniquity. This system is called ‘sin’, and the fruit of this system is called the ‘sins’ of the flesh. What man does with iniquity to build for himself is called sin. Hence, a ‘sinner’ is one who builds with the tools of iniquity in the kingdom of darkness. These fruits that are born in the soul because of sin is called iniquity. We who are in Christ Jesus are no longer in that system; we do not use the tools of Satan’s kingdom to express ourselves, but we do still carry the fruits of being in that system in the past.

It is the fruits of that system (sins of the flesh) that we are overcoming through the circumcision of Christ; it is the tools of that system that we have abandoned; it is the philosophy of that system that truth is cleansing us of every day.

Sin is defined as the system of contrariness to God that Satan promotes, and governs, and inspires by seducing spirits to express his own darkness. Because that system of darkness cannot comprehend the light of God’s grace, a sinner is called a ‘grace resistor’.

Sin is the kingdom of darkness that desires to rule us by our appetites to continue to defile the soul. Satan fathers and nurtures his fruit in his own children. Satan is called the ‘father of lies’ because he parents and nurtures that system which provides Adam with many false justifications through his principle to remain indifferent to God.”

Man can change his habits but only God can change the soul. If it were possible for us to change ourselves or bring healing to our own soul, then there wouldn’t have been a need for Jesus to die on the cross for the forgiveness of sins and to establish a covenant and royal priesthood for us – which has been divinely designed as the place of our service, healing and rest.

Let’s now go deeper. In order to see how instruction in the terms and function of Jesus’ covenant are crucial for us to be a part of the system God designed for divine inner transformation, let’s look at the word “rehabilitate”.

According to the dictionary, rehabilitation means “to restore (someone) to health or normal life by training and therapy after imprisonment, addiction, or illness.”

Taken to covenant, the soul, imprisoned by Satan’s darkened perception, having suffered long-term addiction to Satan’s false knowledge and misplaced expectations, and having suffered years under Satan’s abusive care, being overgrown with the fruits of iniquity – cannot undertake its own recovery. The normal Christian, Spirit-led life cannot be walked in apart from the training and therapy that God designed to take place for those who have entered into His new covenant.

Mark 2:17
When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

1Peter 2:9
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

Rehabilitation requires knowledge to direct effective recovery. Likewise, in God’s kingdom re-education in the knowledge of His covenant and function of Jesus’ spiritual priesthood is crucial for believers to leave behind the efforts of the flesh in favor of consent of faith. By this instruction, insight is gained in the inclinations of man (why we think and act the way we do) and how a labor with false knowledge has left the scars of iniquity upon the soul.

We are given instruction to understand the natural man’s appetite or addiction to rule by his principle, to project with his imagination and to pursue his aspiration to produce a self-image that is pleasing to self and others, in order to contrast this false journey to the true path of liberty in Christ.

Addiction, in the natural, in whatever form, is a very challenging thing to overcome and spiritually also, we see the need for the power of God in the tools of Christ to assist us labor with Him to overcome the appetites of the flesh. We daily overcome the draw of the flesh to look for peace and completion outside of Jesus Christ.

God has restored His spiritual government in this time of restoration in the church, to teach believers the importance of converting to His covenant wherein Jesus has provided for us a spiritual priesthood with our participation in mind for the washing and purging of regeneration, that we may take on the image and likeness of Christ.

Titus 3:5
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

The spiritual priesthood of Jesus Christ can be likened to a rehabilitation center for the soul, in that it has been fully equipped with everything we need to undergo the daily cleansing and healing process, whereby the hand of God removes the root and fruit of iniquity (fruit of sin) and births the fruit of Jesus Christ in us.

There is but one standard God is calling us to meet and that is the standard of righteousness He sealed in Jesus Christ. When faith functions with the things Jesus sanctified in His covenant, He is our covering to meet God’s commandments to be perfect and holy as He is. The walking out of your faith as you serve Him daily in the royal priesthood covers the soul in the robes of His righteousness. This is how we walk out our salvation with fear and trembling as good and faithful servants of God.

God is breaking the shackles of guilt whereby Satan has held believers captive to ignorance, by holding the evidence of man’s own fallen nature against him. Satan’s aim will always be toward pulling the wool over the eyes to not see Christ, and he does this by suggesting that you need to change yourself apart from the covenant, or that God won’t accept you because of all your perceived faults, or that quoting scripture can rehabilitate (renew) your mind apart from instruction in the doctrine of Christ (the teaching of the new way in Jesus).

God knows that before covenant, we were separated from Him because of the fall of Adam, but now He has given us hope – a daily living reality in His new covenant through Jesus. We are living out our salvation in a two-way relationship with God that is not built on sin, but on all He has provided for us His Son Jesus Christ to free us from the shackles of sin.