Creflo Dollar - Victory Over Sinful Behavior - Part 2
The real you is your what, spirit, soul, or body? The real you is your spirit. Your spirit never desires to sin and will never sin. This is who we really are, but we treat that like, "Oh, well, that's just a fantasy. That ain't the truth," and you don't even know how true that is until you die. Because when you die, the only thing, you're gonna move out of the house, you are now gonna become aware of the real you. Death is gonna be so awesome because you won't even know it really happened. When you move, you're gonna step out the house and maybe he'll let you look back and see that's my body, but you're gonna literally... you gonna literally... move from one dimension to another dimension and you're gonna slip out of your physical dimension house into a spiritual house with your real you and everything now is more real than what you thought was real when you were in your physical body.
That's why you are not ever be scared of death. And that's what the devil will put on you, like, "Ah, wait a minute, whether here or there". Paul said it like this, he said, "To tell the truth, I don't know, at this point, whether it's gonna be more beneficial for me to stay here with y'all or go over here where I know about it," and then they start looking at the world and say, "Oh Jesus, I need to stay here". Alright, now watch this. Alright, so the real you... this is so amazing. The real you resembles your earth suit. It's kind of like the pattern for your earth suit came from the real you. I know you can't see it right now but I gotta say it. The pattern of this came from your real outfit.
When we see one another in heaven, we're gonna see one another at the best possible state of appearance that we have ever seen one another, maybe in your twenties. But you gonna look at one another like, "Francine, that's you"? You gonna say, "Girl, don't I look good"? And that's the pattern. I have evidence that just popped in my mind. The physical tabernacle is an exact duplicate of the heavenly tabernacle. The heavenly tabernacle doesn't look like the physical tabernacle. The physical tabernacle took its pattern from the heavenly tabernacle, just like your physical body got its pattern from your spiritual body. Hallelujah. We gotta be careful, boy, we going to be raptured up in here. You get to listen to this stuff, we go... Somebody said, "What happened"? That'd be so cool, if God gave us two seconds to just...whoa! Whoa! Do it again. Hey! Tear this church up, everybody be under...Hey!
Now, since we are still in our bodies and in this world we might still sin. There's really no might to it because 1 John 1 and 8...not that...see, here's the thing about it. You think you're gonna still sin the same sins. You got new creation in you, you are transforming. You're transforming out of certain things in your life into certain things you hadn't been in. So, when I say we still sin, I don't think you're still sinning like you used to sin. All right, how you used to sin was based on the nature that you had to sin, but since you've been born again, the sin has diminished in how it looks with somebody who perfect. Because the new creation is working on your desires. That's his way in.
"I'm working on taking away the old want-to's, giving you some new want-to's," and some of you can take a little look back and you can't even figure out, why is it that I don't want the thing I used to be addicted to? Why is it that I don't wanna even say the stuff I've always used to saying? Because you got the new creation releasing impulses and impacting your desire, the Bible says, to do what pleases God. The new creation wants you to do what pleases God. See, I gotta be careful because I got a generation that's looking for an excuse to wanna be saved and fleshy at the same time. Uh-uh, that ain't what they're saying. You know, they playing lawyer, they're looking down the contract to see if they can find a loophole. And if you understand what I'm preaching to you this morning, you don't need to find no loophole. You just need to have faith in the transformation.
Alright, so he says here, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us". Okay, so the fact of the matter is, yes, you're born again, and this may be hard for some people to hear. Yeah, you're born again and in this world you might still sin. You're going to have some behavior issues that are still in the process of transformation. That's why you don't wanna judge people so quick because you might be judging them in transformation. In other words, you're judging them based on what you knew about them in the past, but they're no longer there. As Christians, they have made several steps from that by the training of the new creation and it ain't even in them no more. Be careful how you look at people.
All right, look at 1 John 2:1 through 2. 1 John 2: 1, 2. He says, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that you sin not". All right, so he's saying, "Here's the best. I'm writing to you that you sin not". But then, watch this. He says, "And if any man sin," okay, "we have an advocate," someone who's going ahead of us and pleading for us, "we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous". So he says, "Okay, so I've made provisions for your sinning while you're being transformed". He says, "Here's what you do". "Remember that he is the propitiation for our sins". Remember that he is the ransom that has been paid for our sins.
In other words, remember that Jesus has already taken and paid for your sins, or better better yet, watch this. Remember that you are no longer, let me say it like this, remember that you no longer have the nature to sin. So it says, "If you're misbehaving, remind yourself, 'That's not my nature.'" Wow. Something happens, "That's not my nature". What happens if you spend the next five years saying, you know, something happens and you're like, "That's not my nature". You are realizing, I am no longer subject to the nature. The price has been paid for me to be free from the old man. The price has been paid for me to be free from the sin nature. The price has been paid for me to receive the new creation. I no longer have the nature to sin, so when I do sin, I remind myself that's not my nature. Say it out loud, "That's not my nature".
Somebody says, "Well, wait a minute, pastor. You mean, if I cuss her out, what do I do"? Well, first of all, you apologize and then you remind yourself and them, that's not my nature. "Well, if it ain't your nature, why'd you do it"? "I still need to continue to work on my software". And you know what you do, you be quick to forgive. "He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for our sins only," now, this is so awesome, "but also he's paid the price for the whole world," and he's paid the price for the whole world sin. Now, I don't know if the whole world gonna take advantage of it, but I know you and I who are born again, we have taken advantage of it. And so, if the whole world wants to take advantage of it, there is provision for the whole world to take advantage of it.
So, thank God you and I have taken advantage of it, amen. But our new creation, even what I just said, even what we just read, our new creation will never sin. So, let the new creation dominate your whole body. Let the new creation dominate your soul so you can live according to who you really are. You will never live in this physical life according to who you really are, which is your new nature, which is your righteous new creation. See, I like to break this down because I wanna know how. I'm always like, "All you telling me to do is how," and then I find that out, "Okay, how"? "Well, what I meant..." "Well, how"?
The new creation is trying to impart and impact you, trying to impact your body. The new creation is working all the time to try to infiltrate that software. You gotta understand now. The key is, what are we gonna do about this software, our soul, our mind, our will, and our emotions that have gotten so used to the dictates of the old nature? If we don't do nothing with this, even though we are now perfect, if we don't do nothing with this in this life, similar behaviors and sin continues. Oh, y'all got to hear me now. So you start hearing what's wrong with the church. Somebody said, "Ain't no problem with me going to whatever this church, this church, because all churches are the same".
See, that's where you're missing it. Because churches were supposed to take on this task that I'm describing to you right now, this. You know what the Bible calls this? The flesh. That wrong way of thinking, that software influenced by the old nature. You know what your issue is, you know what my issue is, you know what the issue of the whole world is? When you stop renewing your mind. Something that needed to be taken care of has never been taken care of because you have not done a complete wipe of that old software from that old sinful nature. So, how do I let the new creation dominate me? By renewing your mind. How do I get to a place where I'm not being dominated by the old nature? The old nature is gone, but the residue of that old nature resides here.
Look at Colossians 3:9 and 10. The residue resides here. And so, if we're coming to church and we're not learning and we're getting a bunch of tomfoolery and we like what we feel in our body and we like to jump and scream and hop and holler, and you're not renewing your mind to think differently, then the struggle continues between the new nature in you and your behavior outside of you. Colossians 3:9 and 10. "Lie not," not, lie down not, but quit lying. "Lie not one to another, seeing," now, notice what he said, "seeing that you put off the old man". What is he saying? The old nature, lying is a result of the old nature. We have the nature to lie. "Lie not one to another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds". The old man, he's saying lying, here, is one of the deeds of your old nature.
Verse 10, "And have put on the new man," that new creation, "which is renewed in the knowledge, is renewed after the image of him that created him". We are never going to see what some are convicting you of if we don't rightly divide the Word of truth and renew our mind with this gospel of grace, it won't happen. And I will preach this. If everybody leaves, it won't happen. Somehow, coming to church has got to be a wipe session, where each time you come, we ought to be wiping something else from your soul that was influenced by that old nature because you don't have that nature no more, but you still have the behavior. Why? It's a soul wipe. Like, I use the cell phone. It's time for a update. You can't get... we keep trying to use the same software for a new laptop and expecting a new output, won't happen.
Even though it's brand new, you still gonna get the same output. It's not like this is the first time I've talked about this. It is that every time I talk about it, Satan figures out a way to belittle and cause us to be subtle, where we get to focus in on all of the religious stuff and we don't stick to the facts. Taffi and I were counseling somebody yesterday and we said, "Don't let the emotions get in the way, write it down, stick with the facts". Because you know how it is, you start arguing about something, and then you'll leave the facts and then talking about, "Oh, I always. Oh, I always. What about the time I did that," and that ain't even got nothing to do with that. Stick with the facts. And we don't do that at church. We come to church and just see how I'm gonna feel today. "Oh, I feel it real good, oh, I really feel good today. Oh, I know God gonna answer my prayer today because I felt like praying this morning".
Anything the devil can do to keep you out of renewing your mind with the Word of God, which means you need to post yourself up somewhere where your mind is being renewed properly with the right information in the software. You know what happened? We got born again and start renewing our mind with the wrong stuff. We started renewing our minds with rules and not renewing our mind with the Savior. And so, we care more about keeping rules than we do about loving people. And sometimes, "If you didn't keep the rules, I ain't gonna love you". "Did you pray this morning? How much did you sin this week? Uh-oh, can't feed you, the Bible says touch not the unclean, you look like you real dirty today". That ain't right.
Now you have a religious software that is based on your self-performance, your self-effort, and Jesus ain't nowhere. It's based on your law-keeping and Jesus ain't nowhere. So, you have him in you You know something wrong because even when you do that, talking about "touch not the unclean," the impulses of the new creation's, like, saying, "No, that ain't right, that ain't right". And you know what you have to do? You start going and try to find more scriptures and rules to make you feel better about what you did while you completely ignore and harden your hearing to the impulses of the new creation on the inside of you that says, "Something ain't right about what I just did".
So, who wants to come to church and learn stuff? I ain't talking about y'all, stop. Romans 12, verse 1 and 2 in the NLT. Romans 12:1 and 2 in the NLT. "And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God". Now I get it. You know what he's talking about? This God that's on the inside of you. "Give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you," he's paid the price, was the propitiation for your sins, moved into you, gave you a new creation, a new nature, a nature to live righteously.
"Let them be a living and a holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him". Verse two, "Don't copy the behavior and the customs of the world, but let God," let God, "transform you into a new person by changing the way you think". Then, as you allow him to change the way you think, software issue, "Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is gonna be good and pleasing and perfect". I can't tell you the number of people who are still asking, "God, show me your will". And you know what he's saying? "I want to, but you won't swipe and update the software. You can't hear me, you can't know me, because you're trying to hear and know me with the thinking that has come from your old nature".