Endued with power transforming from a stud to an extension cord in the spirit realm

Welcome to episode 182, In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 182. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome back. We are still talking about Endued with Power, and in this episode I want to give you my picture of what salvation looks like. And I can't remember if I've ever told y'all, if on this podcast— now if you know me personally, you probably already know what I have, how I have salvation pictured. But when I was teaching in the church and I went to a youth— was asked to share my idea or my picture of salvation to the youth group. And what I did is I took a 2x4 up with me because I love using props. I told the youth— and, and we're talking, I think it was middle school to high school, college— and I told them, when I was your age, I thought I was a stud. And I showed them this 2x4. And, and in all honesty, I was based on the word of God. I was a stud, and I used the analogy that my spirit man was dead. And I want to go to Ephesians 2:1: And you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. And I had to read the whole thing. I really was done after about the third verse, but I wanted to read Ephesians 2:8. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourself; it is a gift of God. I don't think you and I can hear that too many times, that we are saved by grace through faith. But I want to get back to my story. I told everybody that I was a stud. I was dead in my spirit man, I— but because of my trespasses and sin. And if you can imagine a piece of wood conducting power, it is dead to do that. You cannot conduct electricity or power through a piece of wood. And so when I became saved, when I was saved by grace through faith, my spirit man came alive and I was changed. I became a new creation. Let's go to that in 2 Corinthians 5:17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. And we've talked about that our spirit man becomes just like Jesus. That is the thing that became a new creation. Your body did not become new when you got saved. Your mind, will, and emotion, although that probably knew something was different, it did not change immediately once you became saved. It was your spirit man that became the new creation. So I want you to picture this 2x4 going to an extension cord. And I want you to picture inside that extension cord is wiring, and it is wiring to conduct the power of God. And I believe that wiring is humility, or being humble. If you come at God with pride and arrogance, you're going to fall. But if you come at him with humility, he pours out his grace. And I know you probably don't believe me, so we're going to have to read it in scripture. Proverbs 3:34. Surely he the scornful but gives grace to the humble. And James 4:6, but he gives more grace. Therefore he says, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. And when God resists, he don't just kind of push back, he actively fights against the proud. So if you're coming to God proud or with pride, God is gonna actively fight against you. And if you can picture, and I've used this analogy before, but if you can picture a football field and and you've got God blocking for you, if you're on God's team and he's in front of you and he's clearing the way and you're just running it, you know, God is leading the way and he's blocking out all the opposition. Well then when you tell God after a little bit, hey, I've got this, God, I don't need your help. Well, that's kind of entering into pride and he doesn't just walk off the field. No, God gets on the other side of the ball And God then says, oh, you want to do it now? You want to be prideful? Well, then he starts resisting you, and now God, instead of blocking for you, now starts fighting against the proud. So we're not wanting to be proud, God, but God gives grace to the humble. And so that is why these scriptures, humility in general, if you just think about lessons on humility and the humble spirit and all of that stuff. If you start doing a deep dive into humility and humble, I believe you will see that that is what conducts the power of God. And that's why in this extension cord, this spiritual extension cord, this new creation that you become when you accept Jesus, it is wired with humility and being humble. If you can just stay humble and you just know that it's not your power but God's power then we're not gonna have any problem conducting the power of God and tying into the power of God. And now that you got a picture of being a stud and having a dead spirit, and then when you come alive to Christ, your spirit man comes alive, and it's not all that sexy. You go from a 2x4 to an extension cord, but what changes is your ability to conduct the power of God. And when God starts talking about being endued with power, I believe that at salvation, I really honestly believe we become a new creation and we are wired to conduct the power of God, but we do not necessarily conduct the power of God. Now our spirit man has been changed, we're a new creation, but there's a couple of things that have to happen, and that's where I want to go to next is I want to talk about— and why I created extension cord as an analogy or the new creation is because there are two ends to every extension cord that you buy. One of them has a, a male end that plugs into the outlet, and the other one has the female end that either plugs in to a separate appliance. And we'll get to that end later, but I want to talk and concentrate on the male end that plugs into the power outlet. Now I'm going to make an assumption, and I'm going to talk about my house right now and my business. Is I have a meter on my house that shows how much power I'm using from the power company. And here in Louisiana where I'm at, it's SWEPCO, Southwestern Electric Power Company, or something, or AEP, I don't know. But it is— SWEPCO is what I'm going to call it. They are the power source. They create the power and supply it to my house. It comes on a wire, they conduct the power, they, they make the power, and they get it to my house. Now once it gets to my house, then I control how I use the power. And this is important, and I want you to understand this, because if I have an extension cord and it's not plugged in but it's hanging on the wall and it's all wrapped up and it's all kind of in a figure-eight pattern— if you've ever seen some of those to where, you know, you get it, it's even in its original packaging when it comes to the store. That extension cord really is useless. I mean, you could use it as a paperweight, or you could use it as a decorative piece if you want. It has absolutely no value until it is plugged in to the power source. And that is where I'm talking about the endued with power. And that's why I want you to kind of dump your glass out, and I want you to I want you guys to picture this. If you have been saved and you have become a new creation, I believe you are going to make heaven. I'm, I'm confident that if you've declared Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior and you've repented from all of the problem, all the past, all of that mess, and you've died to self and declared Jesus as your Lord, you have become a new creation. But here's where I think I may differ from some of the quote Western teachings is I don't think you get it all at salvation. Now you get changed and you get your ticket punched. If you're all you're trying to do is get your ticket punched to heaven, I think you got it. I think it's salvation. I'm pretty sure it's salvation. You are baptized into the body of Christ and you become a new creation. So you're not going to get any kind of argument from me with that. It's where Jesus told his disciples to tarry. Or to wait until they've been endued with power, and then they will be witnesses. Then they would have the power to stand up to the enemy. They'll have the power to defeat the enemy, and they'll have the power of the Holy Spirit to do all kinds of wonderful things in Jesus' name. And I think that is what I'm talking about. And I just need you to picture this analogy. I don't want to go any further with this. I just want you to think about this over the weekend. Tomorrow is Saturday. I'm going to do my biblical worldview and current events for Saturday, and we'll pick this teaching up next week. But I just want you to think about when you were lost and without Christ, you were a stud. You had absolutely no way to conduct the power of God. You couldn't be good enough. You couldn't get to heaven based on your own efforts. But then you humbled yourself, you repented, and then you declared Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior. Now You're an extension cord. Now you're a new creation. You've humbled yourself. Humility is what conducts the power, is gives you the ability to conduct the power of God. You have been wired to conduct the power of God. Now we've got to figure out how to get attached to the power supply. And it's— I'm just going to give you a little hint: it's not my power, it's not your power. We do not generate our own power. This is not our kingdom we're building. We are conducting the power of God. It is absolutely nothing to do with you or I. We are just an extension cord, and we'll pick that up on the next episode. God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for your Holy Spirit. Jesus, thank you for walking a perfect life here on earth and dying for my sin. And God, I thank you that you died for this listener's sin as well. And I pray in Jesus' name that they accept what you did on the cross for themselves. God, I thank you for everything that you've done for me, and I look forward to what you're going to do for me and with me tomorrow. God, we thank you, we love you, we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode.

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