Lecture 2 | How Do You Know that You Have Received the New Life?

Lecture 2
How Do You Know that You Have Received the New Life?

From the first lecture, we have learned the importance of the believer receiving new life and nature, which testifies to the change and transformation that the Holy Spirit has accomplished in him. The question now is, what are the signs that show that you have received a new life? The first sign is that your heart, which is your will, is no longer directed towards sin but rejects it, and you long for Christ. The second sign is that you feel God's peace and the Holy Spirit's joy. You don’t have always feel the joy, but at least you feel God’s peace in your heart and the love for Christ and the brethren. Every believer must examine himself faithfully and make sure that any evil spirit does not bind him and need someone in prayer to exorcise the evil spirits that may hinder his spiritual life and growth in the new life.

Where do evil spirits come from? In short, they come from two things, a sin you have practiced continuously or from widespread acts of witchcraft. If you do not receive and accept the grace of the new nature given by Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit, you will become a believer who is one day good and another under the dominion of sin. So you will continue to sin, repent, and so on. This means the new life's power has not penetrated your deep being. As a true believer, you must receive a new life and be free from any shackles of evil spirits that bind you to be able to say like the Apostle Paul, “ I live, not me, but Jesus Christ lives in me.” ( Galatians 2:20). This requires that you confess sin, repent, and have a minister who prays with you to help you to get released from all the bondages.

Today’s lecture will start from the point when you accept and receive the new life. What does it mean that you received the new life? The new nature or the new life is the life of the Risen Christ. Why do I say the life of the Risen Christ and not only the life of Christ? Because the life of the Risen Christ is that which entered into a confrontation with the devil and his death and overcame him on the cross. The life of Christ is initially predominant to the devil and his death, but the entry into the test and the confrontation on the cross have proven it. You receive the life of Christ, who overcomes sin. Some believers imagine when they accept the new life, they become saints, and they forget that accepting the life of Jesus is the first step in a long journey of spiritual struggle. As St. Paul said, in his epistle to the Romans, chapter seven, verse nineteen and twenty, “ For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.“ (Romans 7:19-20).

You just received the seed and the flame of fire, and you have to watch over its growth and guard it until it grows and becomes a huge tree that bears fruit. If you leave the seed without watering it daily, it will dry out, and the worms will eat it. After accepting the life of Christ, you must be filled with unity with Him every day. You will become a son of God by adoption through your unity with the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ. So you must grow in the grace of union with the Holy Son to become a true son of Father God. This union with the Son will remove the sin that dwells in you. You took the flame of fire that will clean and renew the old nature with it.  You must strive to fill your vessel drop by drop with the oil of the Holy Spirit. What does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit? It means that the Holy Spirit reigns over your thoughts, emotions, and body. Everything deep in your soul is subject to Him, like your memories and experiences. All your actions and reactions, which are filled with old things inherited from parents, friends, and society, are submitted to him. This fullness is obtained by your obedience to the voice of the Holy Spirit and the commandments of Jesus Christ.

May our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ make us worthy to receive His holy presence.

Amen