IntroductionToday, I would like to talk about a very exciting topic and of much interest among Christians and that is, how to hear God’s voice. In spite of an abundance of Christian materials and sermons available today, many believers still struggle to hear God’s voice and have a genuine desire to know how God speaks to His people in the New Testament. In our discussion today, I will try to provide answers to 5 questions: „Why Do We Need to Hear God? Does God speak today to all born-again believers or only to certain people who are more holy or chosen by Him? How does God speak? How can we discern God’s voice from all the other voices and What can we do to learn faster to hear God’s voice?” Why Do We Need to Hear God?Some believers may wonder why they should ever hear God’s voice in their lives. How would it help them? Is hearing God’s voice something of vital importance that deserves our attention, time, and effort, or is it just a good skill to have in any event? Well, there are many great benefits to hearing God’s voice. First, it will protect you from many harmful decisions, situations, people, or things that might try to come into your life. Second, it will help you see many opportunities and open doors for you to be blessed and be a blessing for other people. Third, it will direct your steps to your destiny and calling on this earth, so that you will fulfill as much as possible of what God has planned for you and your life. Fourth, it will encourage you and strengthen you in your spirit and your faith in those moments when you will feel weak or discouraged. Hearing God is vital to a life of continuous glory, victory, success, peace, joy, health, well-being, and prosperity here on earth. To Whom Does God Speak?In the New Testament, God wants to speak and speaks to all born-again believers. This is different from the Old Testament, where God spoke only to certain people chosen by Him. You may ask, Why is that? Things are this way because in the Old Testament all people were under the authority of darkness. Jesus had not died yet on the cross and the Holy Spirit was not yet dwelling in human beings in a permanent way. The Holy Spirit was given from time to time to certain people for specific and temporary tasks and in partial measures. In other words, the Holy Spirit would come and go. However, in the New Testament, the Spirit of God has been sent on the

The Power of the Lord’s SupperIntroductionLet’s first read the famous passage on the Lord’s Supper from 1 Corinthians 11:17-34: 1 Corinthians 11:17–34 (NKJV) 17 Now in giving these instructions I don’t praise you, since you come together not for the better but for the worse. 18 For first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. 19 For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you. 20 Therefore when you come together in one place, it’s not to eat the Lord’s Supper. 21 For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and another is drunk. 22 What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I don’t praise you. 23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the New Covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes. 27 Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. 30 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. 31 For if we wou

Objections to One-Time ConfessionSome might say, “But what about what Isaiah said in chapter 59 verse 2 that our sins put a separation wall between us and God, that they hide His face from us and that He will not hear us? Doesn’t that mean that we come out of fellowship with God and that we need to confess our sins to Him in order for Him to hear us again?” No, it doesn’t. Isaiah lived before the cross, Jesus had not paid for his sins yet, and Isaiah was not a new creation in Christ. Indeed, during his time and during the Old Covenant period, people’s sins created a separation wall between them and God, and God didn’t hear them until they humbled themselves before God, and brought the animal sacrifices for atonement. However, Christ is our eternal sacrifice that has cleansed us from all sin once and for all. So, in the New Testament, our sinful deeds don’t put a separation wall between us and God anymore. God doesn’t hide His face from us, and He always hears us, no matter what we did wrong.  ”But what about Proverbs 28:13, where King Solomon says: Proverbs 28:13 (NKJV) 13 He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.”? The same explanation given for Isaiah’s case is relevant here as well. King Solomon needed the mercy of God and his prosperity depended on his obedience to the Law, because he was walking in darkness. His sins had not been removed yet. All the people of the Old Testament relied on the mercy of God for their blessing and prosperity. Until Christ would come, God overlooked temporarily their sins when they obeyed the Law or brought the animal sacrifices. However, in the New Testament, the new creation has become prosperity (2 Corinthians 8:9) without any qualification, because of Christ’s righteousness, and believers have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3). Believers in Christ don’t have sins to cover or confess anymore, because they were all taken away at the cross.  “But what about King David when he lamented in Psalm 32:1-5 and Psalm 38:18 about his sins and confessed them? Shouldn’t we follow his example?” Let’s read those passages.  Psalm 32:1–5 (NKJV) 1 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is c

Confession of Sins in 1 John 1:91 John 1:5–2:1 (NKJV) 5 This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and don’t practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we haven’t sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. 1 My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.   The question we should ask ourselves about 1 John 1:9 is this: Is this verse addressing believers or unbelievers? In the context of everything we have seen so far, this passage cannot be addressed to believers in Christ because, it it refers to believers, then it undermines the whole Gospel. If all our past, present, and future sins have been forgiven, there is nothing else to forgive. If we became righteous at the moment of salvation, then there is no more unrighteousness to be cleansed of. We cannot say that we have been cleansed of all sin and that we are still being cleansed, both in the same time. When Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, He said to Peter in John 13:10: John 13:10 (NKJV) 10 Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.”  Based on this verse, many Christians wrongly conclude that, as born-again believers, they are completely washed and clean in a sense, but they still need to wash “their feet” by asking for forgiveness for the sins they do. Such a conclusion is inconsistent with what Jesus did on the cross, an

Confession of SinsRomans 8:1 says this: Romans 8:1 (NKJV) 1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.  Many Christians read the above passage and again they add in their mind, without even realizing, the following: “Yes, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus [as long as they don’t have any unconfessed sins in their lives].” However, that is not true. As we will see from the Bible, confession of sins doesn’t constitute the basis, or the condition of MAINTAINING salvation. Once believers are justified by faith, they have peace with God forever: Romans 5:1 (NKJV) 1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  If maintaining justification or salvation depends on believers’ confession of sins (either of all sins or even only the known sins), then the most loving thing that God, the Father, can do for believers is to take them to heaven immediately after they are saved. This way believers are not in danger of ever losing their salvation by missing even one unconfessed sin. When believers confess their sins, can they be sure they confessed everything? Do they have enough time to confess everything?  For Martin Luther, confession of sins was a daily discipline. Sometimes, he confessed for as long as six hours at a time! He took it to the highest extreme. Luther was asked on one occasion, “Do you love God?” to which he answered, “Do I love God? Sometimes I hate Him.” How could someone say such a thing? Only someone tormented by his sin could come to such a conclusion. Luther confessed for hours. He would review regularly the Ten Commandments and the seven deadly sins and the greatest Scriptural fear he had was breaking the First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3). He would also review often the Sermon on the Mount and question whether he could faithfully live according to its principles. The scenes of judgment in the Book of Revelation haunted him as well. R.C. Sproul explains with more details what used to happen in those times i

BELIEVERS CANNOT SIN (1 JOHN 3:9)1 John 3:9 (NKJV) 9 Whoever has been born of God doesn’t sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.  Many people struggle to understand this passage because its context clearly shows that Christians still sin: 1 John 1:8 (NKJV) 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  1 John 1:10 (NKJV) 10 If we say that we haven’t sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.  1 John 2:1 (NKJV) 1 My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous.  These are three instances from the same letter where the writer, the apostle John, talks about sinning. The first two passages communicate that, “If you say you haven’t sinned, you are a liar.” Then, in the third passage, John adds this, “I am writing to you so that you will not sin (future tense). But if you do sin, you have an Advocate with the Father.” Then, in 1 John 3:9 he declares, “If you are born of God, you cannot sin.” That sounds very contradictory, isn’t it? Both Scripture and experience reveal that Christians can sin and still sin. Even the entire context of the book of 1 John shows that it’s possible for a born-again believer to do something that is sin. Yet, 1 John 3:9 clearly says that if you are born of God, you cannot sin. How can this be? Some people take 1 John 3:9 to mean you cannot “habitually” sin. Several Bible translations now even render it this way. People who think along this line preach something like this: “If you were a drunk before you were saved, you might get drunk once or twice, but if you are truly saved, you will not habitually sin. Eventually, you will see victory in that area, or you were not truly born again.” However, in order to embrace this view, you have to categorize sin – which God doesn’t. To Him, there are no “big” sins and “little” sins. By His definition, we all habitually sin. We all habitually fail to study God’s Word as much as we should. We all h

Free of CondemnationAnother way your conscience is cleansed of the consciousness of sins is by realizing and acknowledging in your mind and heart that, even when you sinned, you still remain free of condemnation. Let’s read the most famous passage on freedom of condemnation found in Romans 8:1-2: Romans 8:1–2 (NKJV) 1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.  Who is Paul referring to in the above passage? He addresses those who are in Christ, meaning the invisible church (which is the true church), and not the visible one. Now, what does it mean for you to be in Christ? It means that you are a born-again believer and a new creation. It means also that you are saved, justified, that you have eternal life, and have the Holy Spirit in you. These are all equivalent phrases about being in Christ. So, this passage is addressed to believers that still commit sinful actions. In the physical and natural realm, when can a court of law condemn you? You are condemned when you break the law of the country you live in. In the spiritual realm, being condemned before God means that you are a sinner. What does “no condemnation” mean before God? It means justification, or having the “justified” legal status declared by God on you as a believer; it’s right standing with God. That means you are “unblammable,” as if you’ve never sinned. Justification is more than forgiveness of sins. In our inter-human relationships, forgiveness means that the wrong done to someone remains still unpaid, but the wronged party chooses to overlook it or forget about it. The phrase “forgiveness of sins” in relation to God can be used only in the sense that believers didn’t pay themselves directly for their sins because of His mercy. But Someone paid. Christ is the One Who paid for them and in their stead, and they paid in Him. God didn’t just overlook or forget their sins without any payment. Christ paid for them. Justification means that believers paid in full for their sins in Christ, and that they have been reborn into a new justified creation that has never sinned. If you received Jesus Christ into your heart as your Savior, then you became

The Great Exchange2 Corinthians 5:21 says the following: 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NKJV) 21 For He (God, the Father) made Him (Jesus Christ) Who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  Question: In what way was Jesus Christ made sin on the cross? Was He made sin only legally OR was He made sin vitally in His nature as well, meaning in His spirit? Then, in what way were believers made righteousness? We have already seen and proved earlier that believers had to be made righteousness both legally and vitally in their nature. Here we will focus on how was Jesus made sin on the cross and on what kind of death He experienced as a result of being made sin. Did His spirit experience spiritual death and complete separation from God together with His physical death? These are very important and complex questions that we will attempt to answer. When I talk about nature throughout this section, I will refer to the spirit of a human being, respectively to the spirit of Jesus Christ.  There are two prevalent perspectives concerning the answer to the above questions. The first perspective is that Jesus was not made sin vitally in His nature, but sin was only legally or judicially imputed to Him. By the same token, born-again believers remain sinners in their nature and righteousness is imputed to them just legally as well. The second perspective is that Jesus was made sin both legally and vitally in His nature, and He took on the nature of Satan on the cross. By the same token, born-again believers become righteousness both legally and vitally in their nature. Both these perspectives have difficulties. The problem with the first perspective is that it makes believers in Christ only legally righteous. The issue with the second perspective is that Jesus takes on the nature of Satan. The viewpoint that I will present and explain in this book is a third alternative: that born-again believers were made righteousness both legally and vitally as I have already proved earlier, but Jesus was made sin only legally, and not vitally in His spirit as well. Moreover, I will advocate that Jesus experienced only soulish death and physical death, but not spiritual death in His spirit. Why do I believe that sin was only imputed legally to Jesus? There are abou

What Is Sin?Now that we defined righteousness, we are in a better position to define sin, by comparison with righteousness, in a more holistic way. We said earlier that righteousness is the nature of God that defines His character and His ways of doing all things. 2 Peter 1:2-4 says that those who are in Christ have also become partakers of God’s divine nature and righteousness: 2 Peter 1:2–4 (NKJV) 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.  Just by looking at the definition of righteousness, we can deduct two things about sin. First, sin is also a nature the same way righteousness is a nature. In fact, the Bible shows that all human beings are born on this earth with a sin nature in their spirit, that was inherited from the first man, Adam. Second, sin is everything that God is not. Sin is the complete opposite to righteousness, to God’s character, and to His ways of doing things. We can see this contrast illustrated in many passages of the Bible. Let’s read just a few of them: Romans 6:18 (NKJV) 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.  Romans 6:20 (NKJV) 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.  2 Corinthians 5:21 (NKJV) 21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  Similar to righteousness, there is positional sin and practical sin or, better said, inherited sin and manifested sin. Inherited sin or inherited righteousness decide your eternal destiny and have to do mainly with eternal damnation and eternal salvation

What Is Righteousness?We’ve been talking so much about righteousness and about the fact that our new spirit has become the righteousness of God in Christ. But what is righteousness really? You may or may not have asked yourself that question before. Righteousness is that nature of God that defines His character and His ways of doing all things. It’s the character of God to always be right and perfect in everything. It’s about who He is. How He thinks is always right. What He says is always right. What He does is always right, because He is God. We can also call it the quality of rightness. It’s the rightness of God. He is never wrong. He is always right no matter what any other being might say. He could never be wrong. When it comes to the things of this world, if God says to a flower “You’re a tree,” that flower will have no choice but turn into a tree, because God can never lie and He has to be always right. When God said in Genesis: “Light be!,” light came into existence. When Jesus cursed the fig tree in Mark 11 and decreed over it: “May no one ever eat fruit from you again,” the fig tree had no choice but to comply and wither away. That is power. He creates and curses with His words. He imposes His reality into things and circumstances. However, when it comes to people, God’s righteous words will never infringe people’s free will and authority. God’s words referring to people need to be first freely accepted by them through faith before they come to pass in their lives. In other words, people have the choice and they decide whether a righteous word from God will come to pass in their lives or not. When God said to Abraham in Genesis 17:5 “I have made you a father of many nations” and He even changed his name from Abram to Abraham to reflect that reality, what God said eventually came to pass, but not without Abraham’s cooperation of faith. When God said to believers in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that they have become His righteousness in Christ when they received Christ into their lives by faith, what God said came into being. When God said to believers in 1 Peter 2:24 that they were healed, that righteous word comes to pass in their lives, only when they freely choose to accept it by faith. When this righteousness of God is imparted into our spirit at the new birth, it gives us right standing with God, because there is a legal side to righteousness as well. However, first and foremost,

The Mirror PrincipleLet’s read James 1:21-25: James 1:21–25 (NKJV) 21 Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty (namely the Gospel) and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.  Most Christians read this passage and interpret the mirror as being the moral Law of God, in which you have to look continually to see your flaws and sins. In other words, you see what you need to change and then go try changing it, without forgetting the moral flaws that you saw in the mirror, until those issues are removed out of your life. Only THEN will you be blessed in what you do.  There are multiple problems with this interpretation. First, the mirror is the perfect law of liberty, and not the moral Law or the Ten Commandments. What is the perfect law of liberty? The perfect law of liberty is the Gospel or the Word of His grace. The perfect law of liberty is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2). That law stipulates that we are dead to sin (Romans 6:11) and no longer under sin’s dominion (Romans 6:14), that God loves us (John 16:27), that we are joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), that all possible blessings are already established and granted to us in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3), that even when we sin we are not condemned anymore (Romans 8:1), that we have power to live in holiness (1 Corinthians 10:13, Philippians 4:13), that we have been healed (1 Peter 2:24), that we are a success (Psalm 1:3), that we are prosperous (2 Corinthians 8:9), victorious (Romans 8:37), above failure, and protected. This is the Gospel and the perfect law of liberty that we need to be doers of, meaning believing these

The Mind Renewal ProcessIn Romans 12:1-2, it says: Romans 12:1–2 (NKJV) 1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.  Verse 2 says not to be conformed to the world. The word “conformed” means “to be poured into a mold.” In other words, there will always be pressure from the world, from the devil, from unbelievers and from circumstances to make you conform to them. You cannot go through life without being pressured and melted one way or another, but you can choose what mold to fit in. You don’t have to be bitter like the world, and you don’t have to experience the defeat this world offers you either. Don’t be conformed and poured into the mold of this world, but be transformed. The word “transformed” in Greek is metamorphoo, from where we have the word “metamorphosis,” which is the transformation of a worm from a cocoon into a butterfly. If you want that kind of transformation where you are changed in your physical and emotional realm from a bitter and hurtful person into a loving and joyful one, from a sick person into a healed one, from a defeated person into the victorious person God wants you to be, then you need to renew your mind. Your spirit is perfect. The body just goes with the flow and it goes along for the ride. But what you think with your mind determines whether you experience the life of God or death and defeat in the natural realm. The renewing of your mind changes all that. The renewing of your mind produces your transformation and that transformation approves and confirms the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God in your life. How does this happen? The good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God for you—revealed in the Gospel— is that you would have life in abundance, peace, joy, health, prosperity, and victory over sin. All these things, that represent the will of God for you, are already present in your born-again spirit. The moment you begin to be transformed outwardly and when what is inside of you becomes visible on the outside, you prove t

Cleansing the Conscience of SinsWho Are You in the Spirit?The diagram of three rings in a row like a chain also illustrates the lack of a direct link between the spirit and the body. That’s why everything that comes out from your spirit into your body must go through your mental-emotional part.  With the pipes diagram below, one side of the pipe represents your spirit and the other your body. Your soul acts as a valve in between the two. When you open the valve, what’s in your spirit can flow through your soul to your body. Depending upon how open it is, the flow of life can be just a trickle, a small stream, or rivers (John 7:38). When the valve is closed, the flow from spirit to body shuts off. That’s a great illustration of how a born-again believer functions!The spirit is encapsulated inside the soul and it doesn’t have direct access to the physical body. It has to go through the soul. Romans 8:11 says that the same Spirit and the same power that raised Jesus from the dead already indwells every born-again believer. But if your mind is closed to this truth and it doesn’t embrace it, that resurrection life cannot flow through you. If what you see in the spiritual mirror doesn’t become more real to your mind than what you see in the physical realm, then it’s possible for this resurrection life that is in your spirit to be completely shut off and made of no effect, just like you would shut the valve to a pipe. You can get to a point where you are totally dominated by what you feel and you say: “But I feel sick, my body hurts. The doctor says I am dying. Here is my medical record.” And if those things dominate you, then even though you have the raising-from-the-dead life of God in your spirit, your soul can shut off that power, so that not one drop of God’s life-giving power ever touches your physical body. And you can die sick having the resurrection life of God on the inside of you. It would be like dying of thirst while leaning against a well full of life-giving water! And of course you can apply that to every area of your life. You can have depression, you can have anger and bitterness in you when the whole time in your spirit there is love, joy, and peace. So the critical part in releasing the resurrection life is your soul.  Your spirit is always for God, always like God, and it has everything in it that God has. Your body is really neither good nor bad;

Cleansing the Conscience of SinsAs I mentioned briefly earlier, the conscience can be cleansed or it can remain clean by not violating it in the first place. However, when you sin and violate it, the conscience can be cleansed of the guilt of that sin by remembering, meditating, believing, and even speaking out loud four things: (1) you were made righteous in your spirit’s nature forever at the moment of your salvation; (2) you are free of condemnation forever even when you still do sinful deeds; (3) your past, present, and future sins have been completely removed at the moment of your salvation; (4) in the reality of the spirit, if you were truly born again, you cannot even commit another sin ever again.  Spirit, Soul, and BodyA good understanding about the spirit, soul, and body of the human being, and about their particular roles, is of vital importance in the process of cleansing our conscience, and in growing spiritually. This teaching has revolutionized my personal life and eliminated some of the frustrations and confusion that I experienced when I read and studied the Word of God. It provided a firm foundation for everything else that the Lord revealed to me along the years about righteousness, conscience, confession of sins, eternal security of salvation, and sanctification. It also helped me get rid of a lot of wrong thinking in my life. I pray that it will do the same for you while reading this book.  I would like to begin this section by reading 1 Thessalonians 5:23 that clearly illustrates the three parts of a human being. People are spirits that have a soul and live in a body. There are many Scriptures that reveal the trichotomy of the human being, but 1 Thessalonians 5:23 is the most clear passage in that direction that doesn’t need any other proof: 1 Thessalonians 5:23 (NKJV) 23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  This is so obvious that I don’t think there can be any credible argument against the fact that we, humans, are made up of a spirit, soul, and body. This is very important because there are some theologies that actually believe man is only made up of two parts, which is body a

The Consciousness of Sins and of Dead WorksNow that we have come to the Lord and we were born again, God doesn’t want us to have an evil conscience anymore, but a good and perfect conscience. He doesn’t want us to be conscience-ruled. He wants us to purge and cleanse ourselves from an evil conscience. There is a better way to relate to the Lord.  Now, let’s see how our conscience in conjunction with our behavior can generate two types of consciousness that are both detrimental to us: a consciousness of dead works and a consciousness of sin. As we already know, our conscience announces us when we did something wrong. When the conscience is quiet for a longer period of time because maybe we do some good works, we are moral, or maybe we don’t violate most of God’s commands, we may begin to think and feel, without even realizing, that we have become worthy of God’s favor and entitled to His blessings and power because of our works. In that moment, we have formed a consciousness or an awareness of our good works. The Bible calls that the consciousness of dead works and I will explain better in a moment what dead works are. Likewise, when the conscience tells us repeatedly for a longer period of time (and we allow it to do so) that we did wrong, that we sinned before God, and that we failed, it makes us feel condemned and unworthy of God’s favor, blessings, and power. In that moment, we have formed a consciousness and an awareness of sin, a mentality that we are still sinners. Neither of these two types of consciousness are good. A perfect conscience is a conscience that we don’t allow it to rely on good works for approval before God, neither to condemn us because of sin. The book of Hebrews covers both of these cases in chapters 9 and 10. Let’s read first the passage in chapter 9: Hebrews 9:9–14 (NKJV) 9 It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience— 10 concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation. 11 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. 12

The Conscience and the Law of MosesHere we arrive to a major point that can change your relationship with God in a significant way if you understand this concept properly. The reason why God gave the Law was to bring your conscience back to a proper place, to the way that God intended it to function; back to the standard of God. The Law was an attempt to ”reset” and recalibrate the conscience. This was the purpose of the Law, namely The Ten Commandments. However, religion has missed the point and has propagated the idea that the reason God said “you shall not do this and that,” was because He wanted you to fulfill and obey all these commands, in order for you to be right with Him. But nobody can keep the Law. Nobody has ever kept the Law. That might be a radical statement to many people. Some of you may still think that God gave the Law to people so that they would keep it. It’s not true. You can never keep the Law. The Law was not given for you to keep. The Law was given to show you God’s standard of morality and perfection. If you yield to it, instantly it will cause your conscience to start functioning right, it would calibrate and tune your “internal moral monitoring system.”  Imagine yourself for a moment as standing in quicksand and sinking and having everybody else around you in the same quicksand. If everybody is sinking at the same rate, most of those people will not notice it and the sinking rate will be relative, because everybody compares themselves with the others. However, if you have a pillar on solid ground with markers on it, even though everybody is sinking at the same rate, you can look at that pole and realize: “I am sinking, this is getting serious.” In this case, you have a fixed and immovable reference point. In the same way, the Law with the Ten Commandments was God’s immovable standard of right and wrong, and the reason God gave it was to re-activate your conscience and bring you back to where you would not have a dull, evil, and defiled conscience anymore, or a conscience that has been skewed by comparing yourself with other people.  The Law was given to show you right and wrong, and to condemn you. The Law was not given to set you free, but to condemn you.  2 Corinthians 3:7–9 (NKJV) 7 But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that th

The Human ConscienceThe Purpose and the Effects of ConscienceIn Romans 1:18-20, we are shown that every person has a conscience. It’s impossible for you not to have a conscience.  Romans 1:18–20 (NKJV) 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them (not to them), for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen (not vague), being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Some people believe that there are human beings that don’t have a conscience, don’t have any conviction over sin, and that it’s only religion that imposed this knowledge of right and wrong upon people. Some say that all things would be so much better if there weren’t any religious people telling everybody what is right and what is wrong. However, this passage indicates that this knowledge is placed by God in everybody. It’s like a homing device telling you constantly that you are failing. Even though this is painful and none of us like it, it’s necessary for us. In order to receive salvation, you must first be aware of your need for salvation.  A question might arise here in some people’s minds concerning Jesus and the conscience. Since Adam received the conscience after he sinned, and Jesus was born without sin, did Jesus have a conscience? Did He need one, since He never sinned? Of course, He had a conscience. First, He had a conscience because He had to retain all the attributes of humanity, except the sin nature. He had to be a man in all aspects, so that His sacrifice would be meaningful, and that humanity would be able to identify with Him in His death, as a payment for its sins. Second, having a conscience does not make one sinful. The conscience is holy, because it reflects God’s nature and moral standard. Jesus had a conscience because He was human, but He never violated it.  The inquiring minds might go further with the questions and this is a very good thing. I always encourage questions from the Word of God. The next possible question is this: “Sin

IntroductionDo believers in Christ need to confess their sins? If yes, how should it be done and what is the importance of it? If they don’t need to confess their sins, why not? Can genuine born-again believers ever lose their salvation? In this series, we will have an extended discussion about the practice of confession of sins, conscience, righteousness, eternal security, and about overcoming temptations and living in holiness. Now, I have to admit and provide a little warning to my listeners that some of the things that I am going to share here are usually challenging and difficult to accept for a vast majority of Christians. However, I still encourage you to listen to the end and as you listen, put aside the things that you don’t understand temporarily, or things that you are not ready to accept yet. The Holy Spirit will teach you all things (John 14:26), He will guide you into all truth (John 16:13), and He will give you peace. The challenges of these topics don’t derive from the fact that I am looking to share something new, out of the ordinary, and shocking. The challenges come from the fact that these topics are quite different from the way they have been approached and practiced by the mainstream Christianity in general, especially when it comes to confession of sins, righteousness, and eternal security. However, they are things that I was convinced of by the Holy Spirit from the Word of God, and about which I cannot stay silent.  What is presented in this book is what the Holy Spirit has revealed directly to my wife and I, ‘precept upon precept,’ over a period of about thirteen years. These revelations were also shaped, refined, and confirmed by the teachings of various pastors and teachers from the body of Christ like Joseph Prince, Chris Oyakhilome, Curry Blake, Andrew Wommack, and Ryan Rufus. I am eternally grateful and thankful for these people through which God has worked so mightily in our lives and brought so much revelation, freedom, and peace. I want to give God and them the credit they so much deserve, as well as to attempt to pass on to others this powerful message of grace and righteousness to the best of my ability. As a general principle, a lie does not become truth just because it has been propagated for hundreds of years throughout history, or because the majority of people has accepted it as truth. From time to time, people of God need to re-evaluate some of the existing doct

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