The Greatest Miracle Ever Performed: From Old to New

Embark on a soul-stirring expedition with me, jj, as we uncover the truest miracle of all: our spiritual rebirth in Christ Jesus. It's easy to fixate on the physical miracles that capture headlines, but in this episode, we center on the quiet revolution within—the seismic shift from our old selves to our new identities anchored in faith. We'll navigate the intrinsic value Jesus placed on our salvation, a joy far surpassing any earthly wonder, and remind ourselves that the greatest cause for celebration is having our names inscribed in the book of life.

As we journey together, I share the empowering influence of the Holy Ghost in turning our weaknesses into victories. We're not alone in our battles against temptation; indeed, there lies a promise that the burdens we bear will never exceed what we can endure. Tune in to hear how the Holy Ghost rekindles our desires and breathes new life into us, enabling us to stand firm against the threefold adversaries that challenge our spiritual walk. Discover the crucial balance between loving people and resisting the snares of worldly allure, all while maintaining the delicate equilibrium of being active in society without succumbing to its vices.

In our next session, we'll carry forward the conversation on the 'old man's works,' but for now, I leave you with a heartfelt appreciation for joining me on this path. To all our listeners, especially those joining us for the first time, your engagement means the world. Share the insights you've gained with others, and let's continue to be beacons of love and truth in a world rife with challenges. Until then, keep the faith and walk in the knowledge that through the Holy Ghost and the Word, we can successfully journey through this world without being of it.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:22

Hello everybody, welcome to today's episode of Walk With Me. I am your host, jj. It's been so good to catch up with you today. It's so good to have each and every one of you who listen to this podcast, who share this podcast. I really do appreciate it. Thank you so much for the sponsors of the program, chewbars and Lyrisis and its Quizzid creations. I know this is kind of we posted kind of late for the show, but he had some other things to take care of today, but thank God, that's all done. Thank God, it's a good outlook. Thank God for his healing power. So today we're going to just go ahead and jump right into our lesson that we're going to talk about. All right, we've seen them gotten that issue squared away, but so we're going to just go jump into our lesson today. Thank you so much for sharing this podcast, telling other people about it, people who are listening and sharing it. Thank you so much. I really do appreciate it. It's all to God be the glory. Anyway, it's not just about me on this microphone. This is about what God is wanting to tell us.

Speaker 1: 1:44

Today we're going to talk about some of the greatest miracles of God. Now, if you're like me, you've watched a lot of maybe documentaries, maybe videos, and you've been to a lot of church services. You've heard that. You've seen a lot. You hear a lot about, you know, people walking up and getting hands laid on them and being made whole and getting up out of wheelchairs and being cured of cancer. All of these things and yes, these things do happen. These things do happen. And if it doesn't happen for you, you're praying for a particular thing, and this miracle doesn't happen to you. It doesn't mean that God doesn't love you. He's just saying not yet, or maybe he's waiting. He's doing this for a bigger reason than what you're praying for. But the issue is, today we're talking about the biggest miracle that God ever did, and this miracle is going to be the same no matter who we talk to. And it ain't about part of the Red Sea, it's not about freeing the children of Israel from Egypt.

Speaker 1: 3:01

The biggest miracle that God can do today is the miracle of changing the old you into the new you, and this is why I generally, when you hear me talk about things, you don't really hear me use the term saved. That is what I say with normal people. To talk about being saved, I usually refer to as living for God because of that miracle of taking the old JJ and turning him into the new JJ. While I still remember the old JJ and he remembers the old JJ Everybody around me knows the old JJ, but the new JJ in Christ Jesus is the biggest miracle that can ever happen. Now… and we're talking about you know, once you get in the Holy Ghost and you're putting, you're putting down things and you hear a lot of people testify about this, a lot. Oh, I used to be a womanizer and oh, I used to be a drug addict and oh, I used to do this and do that and do the third, but God changed me. It's really exciting to witness that miracle that people will go through. And Jesus did warn his disciples and the reason why this is also very, very you know, sometimes we should be looking at that. Jesus warned his followers against miracle chasing Luke 10 and 20.

Speaker 1: 4:44

Or now, wait a minute, if you're new to this podcast, we have a rule here and I got a lot of new listeners, so, across all the platforms and people sharing it, we had a rule here If we give a, we go over a scripture. You read the verse or two above verse or two below, but preferably the whole chapter. Why? Because context is key and since I forgot to properly introduce the podcast, if you have any Bible questions or anything like that, feel free to send them to walk with me Bible study at gmailcom. Walk with me Bible study at gmailcom. And again, side note, yes, I got some of your follow up questions about faith that we were talking about for the last couple of weeks, but I will get to them probably next week, because there's just so many questions along the same lines. I did not want to cut and copy and, you know, just send out the same cookie cutter answers. A lot of these answers are nuanced, so we'll talk about them next week.

Speaker 1: 5:55

So, getting back to today's lesson, we're going to start in Luke, chapter 10, verse 20. Not withstanding in this, let me start over. Not withstanding in this, rejoice, not that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. So what is Jesus saying there? Don't rejoice because you can cast out devil's. Don't rejoice because you pray for somebody and they got cured of cancer. Don't rejoice because you pray for somebody and they got up out of a wheelchair, but rejoicing in the fact that when you die, all of us will, that your names are written in heaven, that you're going to heaven.

Speaker 1: 6:41

Jesus was so much more concerned with the miracle of salvation than he did the other miracles you even hear. If you really read the gospels, you really even see. Sometimes Jesus would bulk at doing the miracle, like when they had the. When they ran out of wine, jesus was like why do you let me make wine? Of course I can make wine, but I tell you what bring me the foot water and I'll make wine out of that.

Speaker 1: 7:10

Jesus was more concerned with the primary mission than the side missions of making wine, of making miracles or, you know, raising people from the dead. This is what Jesus was mainly concerned about. To that end, he gave us a big promise Now these works were to be done in the future. He was giving us a promise of things that he was going to do for us, and these promises were to come after Calvary. And that promise was pouring out this miracle to everyone who came to know him you, me, somebody, five days from now, five months from now, 50 years from now, the Lord Terry's.

Speaker 1: 7:55

What is that miracle? John 14 and 12. Verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, that workseth. I shall do, he shall do also, and greater works in these shall he do, because I go unto my Father and John 10 and 10, the thief cometh not to steal, to kill and to destroy. I am come that I may have life and that they may have it more abundantly. So this is exactly what the greatest miracle that Jesus had come for. And he said that if you believe on Jesus, if you believe on him, as the scriptures say it, not just people walking around saying I believe in the Lord, jesus Christ, but if you believe on Him, you are going to do greater works, greater miracles.

Speaker 1: 8:48

Because turning water into wine, while that being a super-duper miracle, uh-oh, while that being a and I just dropped the old mic on the floor but while that being a super-duper miracle and you know making, you know raising some, or making somebody who was sick, making them feel, while that is a great super-miracle, the biggest miracle is changing someone's life for the, for the good, and a permanent change in that life. And Jesus brings that change and everything that Jesus taught and all the love and the passion that he demonstrated that were designed to draw people's attention to that power, remember we talked about earlier what was His mission? His mission was to bring the joys of heaven and the life of God into the hearts and souls of humanity. His mission, his primary goal, was to teach us how to live for Him, and it it doesn't matter exactly. Uh, you know what are the peripheral things we got going on and you know, and we pray for a lot of stuff, and let's, let's slow it down a little bit we pray for a lot of stuff and we, we pray for money, we pray for you know our jobs, and we pray for health and we pray for you name it. You could fill in that gap, whatever that is, and Jesus will give you those things that you seek for. And and that's not I'm not taking, we're not really taken away from that.

Speaker 1: 10:31

The Bible doesn't take away from that. The Bible tells you to ask what you will. The Lord's Prayer says give us this day, our daily bread. But what does it say before that God, you know, just talks about the will of God in heaven, our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy will be done on heaven and on earth. And then it says give us this day. So we should sort of see that in how we're praying for things, we need to pray for God's will. And what is God's will? For us to go out and to have introduced people to Jesus and not that cookie cutter stuff you know. Believe on the Lord, jesus Christ. No, no, we're talking about repentance, baptism in Jesus' name and getting to the Holy Ghost.

Speaker 1: 11:23

Now, one of the things that Jesus also brought to us was the victory over our weaknesses and the struggles of life, the things that we struggle with, the things that that are kind of we are weaknesses to, and everybody got them. If you're sitting there saying to yourself, I don't have a weakness, you're not telling yourself to trouble. You have weakness. But the way to the reason why we have the Holy Ghost is to overcome that weakness, find ways to not allow that weakness to be sin. And by that I mean, let's just say and I'm being facetious here but let's just say, like, my weakness is Dixie Cream, well, why would I go as with Dixie Cream every day when I can go a different way? The Holy Ghost will allow me to go the different way of sinful weaknesses that I may have, so that I don't fall to temptation. We are still in the flesh, which means we are subject to being tempted, but the Bible says he would not bring more of on us, that we are able to appear, but would also provide for escape. So this is also a promise to us. Everything in here we're talking about is promise. Now, how was he able to have that promise? Because he paid the penalty of sin and removed the curse from of sin by giving his own life John 16 33.

Speaker 1: 12:59

These things have I spoken to you, that you might have peace in the world. You may have, you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. Yes, the world is going to bother you. The world is what it is. We can't change that. You and I cannot change that.

Speaker 1: 13:17

Now let me stop there. If God is telling you to go on a mission and hand stuff out to the poor, and if God is telling you to do that, that's fine. But your main goal, your main mission, is to reach the people and tell them about Jesus Christ. You're not changing the tribulation of the world. You will never, ever, ever feed every single person that's starving in Ethiopia right now and I'm only saying that because I remember growing up we had those Ethiopian commercials where everybody was starving. You'll never, ever, ever change that because you you're not going to change that. Let's just leave it like that. You are not going to change that. The only thing you can do is provide the gospel and help change individual lives.

Speaker 1: 14:12

John 5, 4 and 5. For whosoever is born of God overcome at the world, and this is the victory that overcome at the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcome at the world? But he that believe that Jesus is the Son of God. That in therein is our mission Telling people about Jesus overcoming the world in a spiritual sense. First, corinthians 15, 57, but thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Victory over what? Through victory over starvation, no. Victory over poverty, no Victory over sin, absolutely. Second, corinthians 5 and 17.

Speaker 1: 14:57

If any man being a Christ, he is a new creature. That right there, folks, it's the biggest, best miracle God has ever done. It trumps party in the Red Sea, it trumps the great flood, it trumps every spectacular Victory that he ever gave Joshua in the Old Testament. It trumps, you know, bringing that value of dry bones back to life, the mere fact that he can take you and I In the state that we are in and let's be honest, you all, we all, know that we Before, before God changes us, there were things that we knew we shouldn't be doing. But God changed us, made us a new creature.

Speaker 1: 15:52

Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are becoming new. Your desire to live for God is a new thing. Your, you putting down drugs and alcohol. That is the old part of you passing away. You chasing the opposite sex, that thing is. You put it down, it's so, it's gone. It's gone, it's dead, it's gone. And by that I'm not talking about people who were married, because you know people will take words and twist them how you want to twist them. Your Mary, you should love and want your mother half, but I'm talking about single people, talking about fornication and talking about other things that you know good and well as sin. All those things that you have done are passed away, all of you. Your slate is clean. You are brand new.

Speaker 1: 16:46

Now there are three enemies that we have to fight, and a lot of people just tend to talk about Two of them, but not all three. Now, what are these three things? One, the devil. We all know that. One. That was easy. Everybody knows we got to fight the devil. That's just how it is. If these cars are still killed and destroyed, we quote that scripture all the time. We say I rebuke you devil. We talk about that all the time. But number two is the world with ungodly lust. But what does that mean? Are we talking about Sexual lust? You know, not necessarily. I mean that could be included. But we're talking about People chasing money.

Speaker 1: 17:38

We're talking about putting things before God, people waking up in the morning. I have a game I like to play, me like we talked about it last week. I have a game that I play on my phone. But if I, if I put that before God, that's it. That is sin. If I put God first May not be a sin, unless God tells me to stop playing it and then I still keep playing it, then that's in rebellion, is sin. Thinking you know more than God, that's it. That's a world we lost. You know people there are a lot of people out there and I've seen it more and more these days and that people think that you know, they like that idea of being quote-unquote Self-sufficient.

Speaker 1: 18:25

And I'm not talking about, I'm talking about in the spiritual sense and I mean like, oh, the pastor can't tell me nothing, the Bible can't tell me nothing, god can't tell me nothing, and then they go right off into there is no God. That's where that must leads you. But here's the biggest one the flesh. Now, a lot of times you will see a situation where you won't just have, you won't just be fighting one or two. Lot of times you'll be fighting a combination of the two, or You'll be fighting all three.

Speaker 1: 19:02

Hebrews 2 and 14. For as much then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood. He also himself, likewise, took part of the same that through faith sorry, through death, he might destroy him. That had the power of death. That is the devil. The devil had the power of death at the time, but Jesus took that away. John 1st, john 2, 16.

Speaker 1: 19:28

If all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life we were just talking about that People that will rather go to work than go to church, your church is Lacking in some way, then that's a whole different subject that we got to talk about, because that is the case. But if you, if you were willing to put something before God, and that you know God is telling you to do a thing. You rather do something else, and that's the pride of life, friend, that's a lust of the flesh, evens 415, for we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our liberties, but was in all points tempted, like we are, yet without sin. And that's where the flesh comes in. We are all tempted. I, I have come to accept the fact that pastor, deacon, bishop, overseer, apostle, whatever title you want to have, that person is just as tempted as you, and maybe even more so, because the Bible talks about when much is given and much is required. I don't know the scripture offhand, but the Bible talks about that. So, that being said, when you think about all of these people who betray ourselves as being ultra spiritual, we are still tempted, the same way you're tempted. The only difference is is how we deal with it, and I have no idea about all these other people and how they deal with it. The only thing I could tell you is what I do and what happens when I'm tempted. Now, two of these enemies we'll talk about that later but two of these enemies are outside the body, just to put everything back in perspective the devil and the world, but the greatest enemy, the greatest problem, the greatest fight you will have against your flesh Mark 7 and 21,. From within, out of the heart of man, receive evil thoughts adulteries, fornications, murders, theft, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile man.

Speaker 1: 22:05

I believe the verse above that is said that it's not what touches you that defiles you, it's what comes out of you that defiles you. So we have to be very careful of the. We have to guard our own selves. We cannot stop and I'm going to go back to Dixie Cream we cannot stop the delicious smell that comes out of Dixie Cream. We just can't. We can't make Dixie Cream taste bad. I can tell you right now on this, where the stack of vials that I have prayed, that I have prayed that Dixie Cream don't taste good anymore. However, it will they always do. And no, I'm not getting paid by Dixie Cream by saying it. I'm just telling you it's not, it's really me saying well, you know, when I start justifying this thing, that's a sin. That's where I start defiling myself. That's when things become a problem. But the Holy Ghost helps us conquer this nature.

Speaker 1: 23:20

James 4 and 4 says the adulterous. And adulterous is no, you not that the friendship of the world is an enmity with God. In other words, what we talked about before having a friendly, having a friendship with the world is that is against what God is saying. Now let me stop right there. Some people take this scripture out of context. Let me finish reading it first, please. Whoever and therefore is a friend of the world is an enemy of God. Let me, let me just stop, because people will take that scripture out of context and say well, that's probably why people who live for God are or sorry, they don't say that, they say the same people are so evil and so wicked because there are enemies.

Speaker 1: 24:06

No, no, if you're living for God, you're supposed to have love, but you can have love for your fellow man without loving the sin that they are in, and this is very important. This is key. This is key. You don't have to love the. You know the, some of the weird things that come out of people's mouths. You don't have to love that. That's the worldly thing that they got going on. You don't have to love the music. You're out there, Love the shows. You don't have to. You don't have to love anything. All you are required to do is go, love the person.

Speaker 1: 24:51

And if we wanted God to separate us from our sin, we shouldn't practice in that, separating the people from their sin. You can disagree with someone and still love them, right? Same concept you can still be in the world, but not of the world, and you don't have to go off and live in a commune. That's not what we're talking about. God wants us to be out, reaching people, showing people example. How are we going to be an example to the man next to you If you live off in the woods somewhere in a commune? So a lot of people will take that scripture out of context and people who detract the Bible will take that scripture out of context and say something completely off the off. So, that being said, love the world, love people in the world, but not love the world. And we're going to talk more about the Holy Ghost, overcoming this freshly nature, because we are out of time.

Speaker 1: 25:53

Wow, this time this session was so fast, but real quick. Romans eight and seven, because the corner of mine is eminent against God, but it's not subject to the law of God. Neither, indeed, can be if he's just to 16, that he might reconcile both unto God and in one body by the cross. Having explained that enmity, there, only three scriptures are talking about how you, the world, the way the world thinks and I don't want to get into politics or anything, but we could talk about how the world is pushing that particular agenda and how that is it really contradicts and it busts up against the word of God. And then they find a way to sort of twist the word of God to fit their agenda or they just reject God outright. But if you love God more than you love the world, then you're going to take the word of God and let it supersede and judge what people are saying to you and keep that out of your life.

Speaker 1: 27:04

And let's just say, for instance, now I'm not going to get into that because we're out of time, but we'll talk more about this because we're going to be talking about next week. But next week I got to answer the question, but then, when we feel it, when we catch back up, I already have started the next session. We were talking about the works of the blessed the old man. So thank you so much for joining us today, thank you so much for liking and sharing it to those who are new listeners. Thank you so much for liking and sharing. Thank you so much we. I love you, appreciate you and if you like this spark, as it's your first time, share it with somebody. I love you all. Have a good one bye.