This is a transcript from a tape by Frank Hunting.
I am in the process of typing this a bit each day.
I thought I would share what I have done so far.
Frank's teaching on the New Man is life changing if we claim it and practice it for ourselves.
Geoff Thompson
"Therefore if any man is in Christ,he is a new creation.
The old has passed away.
Behold the new has come."
If you were to read that in the J B Phillips translation,this would be the translation.
"For if any man be in Christ, he becomes a new person altogether.
The past is finished and gone,everything has become fresh and new. '
For thousands of Christians that is simply not true.
Very little, for them, has become new.
During the week I read that it is estimated that nearly 90% of all Christians never experience the abundant or victorious life.
And that includes (I've finished the quote, this is me)
Ministers!
leaders in our Churches!
teachers!
Elders!
Deacons!
whoever!
We shall never begin to understand why this unhappy state of affairs exists until we begin to ask the right questions and come up with the right answers..
Why are Christians not becoming new people?
New persons altogether as the scriptures say they will?
If they are in Christ!
Now there are various reasons for this.
There are scores of thousands of Christians who do not even know that they can become new people in Christ.
They simply have never heard of it!
Certainly vast numbers of Christians,if they have happened to have been told that they may
able to become a new person altogether,
have not been told how to become a new person in Christ.
By and large, we have prided ourselves as being Bible teaching Churches.
Yet there are people who have been 30,40, 50 years regularly coming to Church to worship,
every sunday morning,
and they have never been shown, how to become a new person in Jesus Christ.
Some of them have been told that they ought to be new people,in Christ,
indeed some of them,
some of us,
really need to become new people in Christ, but haven't been told.
Nobody has spelled it out.
Just how does a person become a new person in the Lord Jesus Christ?
So the first thing to notice is the most obvious, but it's strange how blind we can be to the obvious!
And it's this.
That if you and I are going to become new persons in Jesus Christ,
then the most obvious thing is,
that if that is going to happen,
we must bring to Jesus what we are!
We must bring to Him,
each one of us ,
the things to Him that need changing!
If we have been or are badly relating to someone,
If we have or are , being hard in our attitudes to someone,
If we have or are being critical,-it may never be spoken, but if that;s the attitude that we've got in
our minds, that is the way that we think about people or someone!
If we have fears!
If we have envy, or jealousy or guilt, these are the things that are wrong in us!
And these are the things that we ought to be taking to Jesus!
But right at this point we do something,so often, that effectively, prevents us from taking what we
are to Him,
He who is able to make people new.
And this is how we do it.
When we become conscious that we have some of those things I've just listed,
when we realise that that is a part of me, what am I prone to do?
I'm prone to justify that feeling!
I'm prone to justify that hard attitude!
prone to find some reason so I can excuse me from being that kind of a person!
Oh, I can always find a very good reason, why I am entitled to have that attitude!
To have that feeling!
to think that way!
about that person!
or about those people!
or about that situation!
So if I pretend it doesn't matter,
or I blame somebody else,
or something,
there's no chance of Jesus ever making me new!
And so we stay exactly as we've always been!
If we are a worrier, we stay a worrier!
If we are harsh in our criticisms, we stay harsh in our criticisms!
If we are an extrovert and we are dominating in our attitudes to people, we stay that way!
If we are full of fears, we stay crippled by our fears!
The reason being
we don't get them to Jesus!
If we are weak and wobbly as people, we stay weak and wobbly as Christians.
Nothing changes.
Why?
Because we are not getting the thing that needs to be changed to our Saviour.
So that leads me to say the next thing.
Often we are strangely blind to the very thing that most needs to be changed in our makeup.
We are strangely blind to that need.
And we are strangely blind to our need to get that to Jesus.
For instance if we happen to be a worrier we say "I am a worrier by nature!"
"I can't help it,
it's my nature to worry!"
"I always do it!
I'm stuck with it!"
Now doing this, we never see two things about our worrying.
Both of them totally wrong.
NO 1. Worry is one of the worst sins because it doubts God!
Oh, we wont face that one will we?
It says God is dead!
It says God is powerless!
It says God is useless!
The second thing that's wrong about worry is that it says that Jesus has no answer
to my worrying,
and that isn't true!
We may for instance be given to criticising.
Now we do it so often, it has in fact, over the years,become a deeply entrenched habit!
Indeed we are often doing it and we are not aware of it.
Again there are two things wrong with this.
It too is one of the worst sins.
Now you listen, I am talking to you good people and you and I are Christians!
That true?
And I'll tell you why this is one of the worst sins.
It's a terrible sin against Love.
And God is Love.
And we are sinning against Him.
When we have this in our lives.
In the 2nd place because we justify our criticising in various ways,
we never take it to Jesus so we stay stuck with it!
and we really become and are, unlovely people.
albeit we are Christians.
The same is true of fear, fear makes pygmies of us.
It makes us mice instead of men.
But fears can be very powerful, they may also become very frightening.
And it;s very easy
because of those two things
to think or feel that you can do nothing about them!
But Jesus has the answer to all our fears!
To every single one of them He has the answer!
If we learn, how to take them to Him.
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