servent101 said:
Clete
...not that I do not believe you, but what are the Biblical facts, as you did not quote your source of what you said.
Well where would I start? This is basically the gospel according to Paul. Read Romans is I suppose the first thing I would have you do and then just keep reading on through Titus, and then read Romans again. I'm not kidding or making light of your question here, it's just I think you've asked a bigger question than perhaps you realized when you were asking it. For me to quote the material you need to understand to gain the victory your groping for in books like "Bondage Breakers" would literally be tantamount to quoting the collective works of the apostle Paul.
All in all there is still that which Paul says, that it is not he who sins, that it is the sin that is within him, and Paul also says that one who claims to be without sin, is a liar.
Notice though that Paul does not identify himself with his sin. This is key. You are identified in Him (Jesus, not Paul), you must maintain your focus on this, not on your flesh (i.e on your sin).
What exactly is sin? - from the Greek word - I understand that the word we translate as sin is the same word a person who misses the target, for instance when shooting an arrow would use... so to fall short of hitting the target is sin, some say to fall short of perfection is to sin.
So if sin is not doing something we are trying to do, perfectly - to me I have posted on this many times, that sin is not trying to do certain acts... for when we try to be of pure motive, we no longer are trying simply to not be deceivers, or if we try to be chaste, we no longer just try to shut off the lustful thoughts, when we sin, we clearly are falling short or missing the mark of perfection.
You're missing it here by a mile! (The point, not the mark.)
The whole point is that in Him you can no longer miss the mark because He has already hit the perfect bull's eye and His marksmanship has been credited to your account. What you do no longer matters as far as your relationship with God is concerned.
The concept of faith is good, but in reality, if we have any self remembering, the process of hitting the mark, or becoming chaste, or of pure motive, etc. most often entails work.
Destruction! You just drove right off the cliff, crashed and burned to smithereens. Your work is filth. Your work is blazing with Hell's fire before you complete it. Stop wasting your time and rest in His finished work; rest in Him! That's all there is for you to do, everything else is a waste of your energy and counter productive.
For example if we have a problem of lust, we simply cannot shut off our mind, the opposite needs to be done, when we see a member of the opposite sex, we need to look for the attributes of a godly person, and cherish these in our hearts - often this is simply work - we have to work at being "set apart" from the world.
Impossible! You cannot do it and even if you can, you will have received your reward in full if you are the one who accomplished it and there will be another sinful something or other that you do that is equally as problematic that you haven't begun to address. I'm telling you, STOP TRYING! You're wasting your time, you can't do it anyhow, so why bother? Besides, why would you want to do that which has been done for you by God? How presumptuous is that?
At any rate the concept that God will help us, God will open the doors to the knowledge that will keep us from being destroyed - for God does say that his children are often destroyed for lack of knowledge.
You are being destroyed, or at least your Christian walk is being destroyed by your lack of knowledge alright!
Listen to this and listen real close! (Okay, I know you're reading but you know what I mean
) If you're not careful, you'll miss the point here.
GOD WILL NOT HELP YOU!!!
Here, let me say that again...
GOD WILL NOT
HELP YOU!!!
Gal. 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
This is God's show not yours. You have been summarily executed in Him and no longer have any input. God will do it by Himself or it will not be done, period.
This "God help me" trap is the killer of most Christian's daily walks. God is not about helping you live a righteous life, He's about living His life through you without your help. As soon as you begin trying to help, God sits back and watches you fail so as to teach you to keep your filthy little grubby hands out of it.
Faith is important, and I believe the shield of faith is so important, that yes we are saved, no matter how entangled we are in imperfection - but this does not mean that we are to simply believe we are pure and holy, and have no need of effort to change our thinking patterns around... to gain the knowledge of what is pure, and what is proper thought.
Well you hit on the golden three there, didn't you? Faith, hope and knowledge!
Oh wait, that's not it, is it! It's faith, hope and love, right?
You got the importance of faith down and you assurance of salvation is the very definition of hope, where you've missed it here is in the love department. Now, don't take my methods of communicating this too personally, I know that this isn't what you were aiming at when you said this. I'm just using the opportunity you unwittingly handed me to drive home the point.
Love is the great secret. Love is the only motivation which will gain you any progress in the Christian life. To love is the very definition of what it means to have Christ living through you. Love God, that's it. That's all the knowledge you need, the rest is window dressing.
Hopefully we do not differ too much on this issue, to think that there is no process of intelligent thought that we need to know, not only what not to do - as seems to be the rule, do not do these things - so what do we do? - for if we know what to do, this will consume the imperfection in our lives.
I'm sorry my friend but I'm afraid we couldn't differ much more than we do on this point. Basically everything you said here is wrong. It isn't about rules; do this and that; don't do this and certainly don't do that. It's just not about that at all!
Col. 2: 20 Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations-- 21 "Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle," 22 which all concern things which perish with the using--according to the commandments and doctrines of men? 23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body,but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
You are free to do what you want! The key is allowing God to change what you want.
Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself also in (i.e. Love) the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Granted yes, by the laying on of hands - but often as Jesus said, when the demon is released, he comes back and finds the house empty? Why? Because the house is not full of love for the Lord. Yet is the process of the work necessary - and yes it can be a work of love, is the work of filling our house full of Godliness - is this not also a way to reach the mark of perfection?
Absolutely NOT! You are not a Jew! You are not a member of the nation of Israel. You are not a member of the Circumcision. You are not under the law. You are a member of, and only of, the Body of Christ! You are to have nothing to do with the flesh! Jesus did not teach what you need during His earthly ministry, Paul did. (Please don't freak out and take that last sentence to mean more than it says, okay?)
Don't take my emphatic tone as anger, just passion. I understand where you're coming from on this really. There was a time when I had read Bondage Breakers and several other books like it and thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread. But I urge you to believe me when I say it doesn't work; it too is a dead end. Trust me, I've been down that road and you will find nothing there but frustration and guilt. I seriously recommend throwing that book in the trash; it is quite worthless if what you want is to find out how to live the Christian life.
All in all there is a tendency in today’s church to feed off of other people, to maintain a mindset that is able to keep from doing certain things – usually the things that are easily articulated. Love is not easy to articulate, nor greed, nor any of the weightier matters of the Law – but these are the ones that contradict the putting of stigma on people who are falling short in more easily articulated ways – and it is apparent to me that unless one is of the high and mighty self righteous attitude against such easily articulated sins – they die of loneliness at the local church, there is no fellowship for them there.
I have attended exactly two churches in my lifetime that even come close to understanding how to live a truly victorious Christian life. One is pastored by Bob Hill, the other by Bob Enyart. That's not to say that they're the only two churches that exist but only that they are exceedingly rare. Chances are if you ever get a hold of this teaching you'll catch yourself almost wishing you hadn't, until you remember the benefits of course. The point being that holding to the truth isn't usually easy and never in the mainstream.
This is very hard to articulate and understand – the mindset – that people have concerning sin – that the easily articulated sins – one’s condemnation of them is the key to fellowship in the church – but this is simply in itself falling short of learning how to bring one’s brother and sister back to the right path – the Path that leads to life. You may disagree, and probably do – but really, how well is your church doing in reaching out to the lost and helping people overcome their shortfalls?
Well, like I said, practically no church in existence knows how to teach people such things. They don't have a clue about much of anything except how to get saved and put people under the law. After that, they turn to handing people books like Bondage Breaker's and T.D. Jakes' worthless crap. The churches that do the best are those who send people to the books of Paul but even most of them do so for utterly incorrect reasons and only end up helping their membership in spite of themselves.
I personally attend a Baptist church which, as churches go, is a pretty good one but they don't get it either really; not in regards to this issue anyway. If you asked them how to stop sinning they would tell you to read the Bible every day and pray. Beyond that they would tell you to avoid temptation and resist the devil and he will flee from you and by the way follow the ten commandments. And if you pressed much further, you'd be handed some book pertaining to some specific sin or problem, or else you'd be sent to a Christian counselor who would then give you a book pertaining to some specific sin or problem. It's pathetic really. I just can't believe that I used to be one of those Christian counselors! :doh:
Okay, now that I've ragged on books and people who lean on them too heavily, let me recommend a book to you. This book is different though. It is one of a very few extra biblical books that deals exclusively with this issue that I have ever seen and it does a terrific job a establishing this whole idea Biblically, as you asked about at the beginning of this post.
It seems that perhaps I've recommended this book to you before but I may have you confused with someone else so just in case here's a link to a online copy of...
Principles of Spiritual Growth by Miles J. Stanford.
You might also try to contact Pastor Hill at
www.biblicalanswers.com and request of copy of his booklet entitled "You Cannot Live the Christian Life". What a brilliant little booklet!
Well, if you can't tell by the length of this post, this is my very favoritest subject to talk about. I'll answer all the questions you might have, just keep 'em comin'.
Resting in Him,
Clete
