Riches or Poverty?

If you have ever heard someone speak of their conversion, you have heard of the "moment of decision".  This is that moment in eternity when a person chooses to accept Jesus Christ and the offer of surrender to the Life He provides.  In that moment life is chosen over death.  The covenants of God with this realm and with man are His provision for all that is needed for a person to enter into, and successfully travel on, the path that leads to an eternity spent in the light and joy of dwelling in the presence of God.  But that decision is not the only decision one must make.  All along that path there are major decisions to accept God's provision.  Why?  Jeremiah 17:9  The heart is deceitful and desperately sick...  The decisions are made out of the human (adamic) nature or by listening to the Spirit of God.   When the decision is made it always involves surrender to God's covenant provision.  My father used to say to me, "repentance is the first line of defense when we have a conflict of interest."  What is that conflict?  God's riches offered in Christ Jesus or the poverty of our own adamic nature.  It is a "civil war" going on within.  Our way or God's way!

A person asked me recently why I spoke of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as a present decision and what it means to us.  Actually, the same thing it meant to Adam.  Adam, with his lack of covenant response to God, took the control of knowledge out of God's hand and put it in his own.  From that moment, man became the arbiter of what was "good" and what was "evil".  Mankind has sought what was considered good and, regardless of the outcome, went for his own coveted "good."  But the human nature is limited in all ways and is nothing but poverty.
Romans 11:33 (NASB) ³³ Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
Ephesians 1:18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
Ephesians 2:7  so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 3:8 ⁸ To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ,
Ephesians 3:16-20 ¹⁶ that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.   ²⁰ Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,

Those are just a few of the Scriptures that speak of the vast riches that are in Jesus to be released to us as we learn to accept them.  What we call the "fruit of the Spirit" is actually the Nature of God waiting for us to make the decision to allow our nature to die so the Holy Spirit can implant His Nature in us.  All the works that Jesus did and the works that God yet wants to do in this realm by His mighty power are waiting on the decision to be made that we are available for the Holy Spirit to move through us. 

It comes down to this, it is your decision to make.  His riches or the poverty of your own nature.