Does God Improve Our Old Self Or Make Us New?

Does God Improve Our Old Self Or Make Us New?

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I was praying one day and thinking about two differing Christian theories. One theory is the idea that with salvation our old self is replaced with a new self. The other theory is that our old self is gradually improved over time into a new self. So, I asked God about these theories.

Below is what the Lord told me.

Q. Lord, what about this replacement theory rather than the self-improvement theory?

Well, Mark, it is true that I am replacing you, not trying to improve the self-conscious you. However, what am I replacing you with? It is with a Christ-conscious you, a new you, a you who lives out of the vine, a you who lives out of divine flow. So there is still a you living, just a new you. Not an improved version of the self-conscious you, but a divinely enabled Christ-conscious you. It is you replaced with Me. It is separation replaced with union. It is self-effort replaced with divine effort. It is selfs wisdom replaced with Christs wisdom. It is self-initiative replaced with divine initiative. It is an isolated dying branch, re-grafted back into the tree that it was cut from. That is what replacement is all about. And that does bring an improvement to you, but not to the self-conscious you, but to a restored Christ-conscious you.

The self-conscious you is what is done away with. And it is replaced with a Christ-conscious you. Self-initiative, which flows out of the self-conscious you, is replaced with divine initiative. This happens because conscious union has been restored between you and God.

On one hand, I have never gone away. You have gone away. You have left the place of abiding. You have gone from divine flow to I can reason on my own. So you have descended from your destined place as an extension of Me to thinking you can live and reason on your own. And thus you have gone from life unto death. In experiencing salvation, you have been restored from death unto life.

For truly the man who reasons on his own has reasoned faultily, for man was never designed to reason on his own, or to talk on his own, or to work on his own, or to do anything on his own but rather to live out of Me, to let Me experientially live through him.

Man fell from divine initiative to self-initiative. Jesus did nothing of His own initiative, but only what He heard and saw. He lived out of divine flow. That is why Jesus would not claim goodness as something He was, because Jesus knew what they meant. They meant that He Himself had become good, and He knew that all goodness flowed from the God that lived within and Who lived in heaven. So He would not accept their acclaim that He was good, even though He was good. He was living out of divine flow, so He could have claimed it, but He chose instead not to, as He wanted to teach them a lesson.

So what is replaced is self consciousness. It is replaced with divine consciousness. You step from self initiated action to divinely initiated action. What dies is self consciousness. What comes alive is the restoration of divine consciousness -- not as a theory but as a reality, as one tunes to My voice and My vision and My strength which flows from My river within. It is called abiding in Christ, abiding in the vine, living Christ conscious. It is living out of Me rather than living out of you. It is a step back to the original position man had in the Garden of Eden.

My flow is effortlessly there within you at all times. It never goes away. You just need to be tuned to it. You tune away from your own self-confidence, and to a divine self-confidence.

Thank You, Lord.

In Christ we are a new creation. This is not an act of ourselves, but a reality through the work of Christ. I encourage you to live in the truth, abiding in the vine, the living Christ concious.

About the Author:
Mark Virkler is with Christian Leadership University. CLU is a Christian University and Online Bible College offering Christian education including Christian counseling and Christian theology seminaries and offers certificates, undergrad, Masters, and Doctorates in the various Christian colleges of CLU.



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


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