Bible Study Every Man's Battle: Putting An End to the Battle.

[Tenchi]

Galatians 5:16-18
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of
the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to
each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.​

As happens very often around various human problems, an industry has developed around the problem of porn addiction. Especially within the sphere of Christendom, merchandising "cures" for sin is common - and lucrative. Books, video series and podcasts are produced constantly, ostensibly to help Christians conquer their many problems (lust, bad marriages, spiritual apathy, various neuroses, gluttony, bitterness, etc.), but actually to generate profit and notoriety for those who write the books and star in the video series. Certainly, concerning the matter of addiction to porn, the "sin-cure" industry has thrived.

But God, in His word, the Bible, offers a "way of escape" from all sin to any who want to take it. And He has laid out this way to victory over all sin very plainly in Scripture, though it has been well-obscured by the porn-addiction industry that wants to make merchandise of those bound in this sin (and inevitably in many other sins, too). Like the industry that's grown up around psychological distresses, the goal of the porn-addiction industry isn't really freedom, total and enduring, but mere "management" of this sin. The porn-addict who's freed of his sinful addiction ceases to be a source of revenue, so it's just bad business to relieve him fully of his addiction. No, he must see himself as permanently "ill," his brain chemistry powerfully disordered, his thinking severely twisted, so that he can't ever hope to be genuinely free of his addiction.

But God has no interest in keeping His children in perennial bondage to any sin, nor in making money off of them. If they are to enjoy Him fully, as He made them to do, and live in the protection, peace and blessing of holiness, they must be made increasingly free of sin. And so, God offers to His children a "way of escape" - not just from porn addiction - but from any and all sin. What is this "way of escape," exactly? Paul the apostle has described it in detail in his various letters to the Early Church, but in a "nutshell," here it is:

16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
​

Before explanation is made of what Paul wrote, here, it should be clarified that sin is just a symptom of something else, an effect called "sin," rather than the cause of itself. Sins are like sparks rising from a bonfire; they are the result of the bonfire, produced by it, they are not the bonfire itself. Too often, though, approaches to dealing with sin are occupied with the "sparks" rather than with the underlying "bonfire" that is producing them. Christian teachers will talk of "controlling one's eyes," and installing a supervisor over one's net activities, and thinking of the porn star as someone's daughter or sister, and using various distractions to occupy oneself. They'll orient upon these ways of stamping out a "spark" of sin, but never do anything about the "bonfire" of wickedness that's showering their life with such "sparks." There is no effective remedy from sin, however, no real liberty from it, without dealing with the Source of All Sin.

In the verse above, did the apostle Paul write of walking in the Spirit and thus not gratifying the will of the devil? No. He doesn't indicate that it's the devil who is the problem, but the "desires of the flesh." Many Christians, though, assign their sin-problem entirely to the devil, making him the ultimate cause of their wickedness. He tempted Eve, did he not? She would not have sinned, if he'd not enticed her to do so. It's the devil, then, who's at fault for our sin. Well, hang on. Did Satan force Eve to sin? Did he hold her down and stuff the Forbidden Fruit into her mouth? No. Instead, he appealed to something inside of Eve, to something in her very nature that was powerful enough to deny and defy the command of God Himself, whom Eve knew personally and directly. What was that something? Well, it was the same thing, at bottom, that had prompted the devil to rebel against his Maker: Self-will.

We have a problem with the desires of the flesh, these desires produce sin in us, only because we are living according to our own will and way rather than God's. It is from this selfish person, this self-centered, self-willed person, that we all require salvation; for it is this rebellious, self-oriented person who will take us straight into eternal hell, if God doesn't rescue us from his/her control. This self-willed person is irremediable, s/he cannot be improved, even by God, and is incorrigibly fixed upon itself and satisfying inordinately and destructively the impulses of the flesh.

Romans 8:5-8
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.
8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the sexual impulse, or the impulse to eat and drink, or the impulse to rest and to be entertained, or to delight in the many good things God has made. But when a person is not "walking in the Spirit," they are "living according to the flesh" and this always leads to an excessive and destructive - a sinful - pursuit of fleshly impulses. The obese pastor standing in the pulpit telling you how to live as a Christian is not walking in the Spirit; the Christian addicted to gambling, or porn, or drugs is not walking in the Spirit; the Christian eagerly filling their days with the World, binging on Netflix, or Amazon Prime t.v., or spending hours reading Twitter posts, or watching Tik Tok and YouTube videos, or playing the narcissist, posting a near-constant stream of video and pics of themselves to the 'net is not walking in the Spirit. Most of them have no idea what "walking the Spirit" is, or that it is basic and essential to the Christian life!

The consequence of so few believers knowing of, and understanding, what it is to "walk in the Spirit" is that the Church in the West, the Body of Believers in North America, is filled with the "leaven" of sin that only a little of which, the apostle Paul warned, would "leaven the whole lump" and make the entire community of believers spiritually corrupt and impotent, as the church at Corinth was (1 Corinthians 3, 5, 6, 11). But this "leavened" condition has been the case for so long now within the western Church, many believers so deeply-steeped in a carnal, self-centered version of Christian living and thinking, that they snarl and snap at any who point out the deeply unbiblical nature of their living.

In such circumstances, it's no surprise that various sinful addictions plague the Church. And it's no surprise that those desirous of making merchandise of the "flock of God" have crowded around the Church, offering myriad approaches, and methods, and systems to deal with these addictions. God's "way of escape," however, has not altered since it was delivered to the Church two millennia ago. And it remains as powerfully-effective now as when it was first described in the New Testament.

So, then, what is it, exactly, to "walk in the Spirit"? If, as Paul wrote, doing so prevents fulfilling the desires of the flesh in a sinful manner, it must be a vital aspect of Christian living! Well, Paul left a clue:

"But if you are led by the Spirit,"

​

"Led by the Spirit"? What's this mean? Does the Spirit direct everything I do, indicating to me what socks to wear, what toothpaste to use, how many peas to put on my dinner plate, what direction to take on my daily constitutional? Is this the leading of the Spirit? Well, before this question is addressed, it's necessary to consider what "being led" implies and requires.

Continued below.

​

 

[Hopeful 2]

Galatians 5:16-18
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of
the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to
each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.​

As happens very often around various human problems, an industry has developed around the problem of porn addiction. Especially within the sphere of Christendom, merchandising "cures" for sin is common - and lucrative. Books, video series and podcasts are produced constantly, ostensibly to help Christians conquer their many problems (lust, bad marriages, spiritual apathy, various neuroses, gluttony, bitterness, etc.), but actually to generate profit and notoriety for those who write the books and star in the video series. Certainly, concerning the matter of addiction to porn, the "sin-cure" industry has thrived.

But God, in His word, the Bible, offers a "way of escape" from all sin to any who want to take it. And He has laid out this way to victory over all sin very plainly in Scripture, though it has been well-obscured by the porn-addiction industry that wants to make merchandise of those bound in this sin (and inevitably in many other sins, too). Like the industry that's grown up around psychological distresses, the goal of the porn-addiction industry isn't really freedom, total and enduring, but mere "management" of this sin. The porn-addict who's freed of his sinful addiction ceases to be a source of revenue, so it's just bad business to relieve him fully of his addiction. No, he must see himself as permanently "ill," his brain chemistry powerfully disordered, his thinking severely twisted, so that he can't ever hope to be genuinely free of his addiction.

But God has no interest in keeping His children in perennial bondage to any sin, nor in making money off of them. If they are to enjoy Him fully, as He made them to do, and live in the protection, peace and blessing of holiness, they must be made increasingly free of sin. And so, God offers to His children a "way of escape" - not just from porn addiction - but from any and all sin. What is this "way of escape," exactly? Paul the apostle has described it in detail in his various letters to the Early Church, but in a "nutshell," here it is:

16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
​

Before explanation is made of what Paul wrote, here, it should be clarified that sin is just a symptom of something else, an effect called "sin," rather than the cause of itself. Sins are like sparks rising from a bonfire; they are the result of the bonfire, produced by it, they are not the bonfire itself. Too often, though, approaches to dealing with sin are occupied with the "sparks" rather than with the underlying "bonfire" that is producing them. Christian teachers will talk of "controlling one's eyes," and installing a supervisor over one's net activities, and thinking of the porn star as someone's daughter or sister, and using various distractions to occupy oneself. They'll orient upon these ways of stamping out a "spark" of sin, but never do anything about the "bonfire" of wickedness that's showering their life with such "sparks." There is no effective remedy from sin, however, no real liberty from it, without dealing with the Source of All Sin.

In the verse above, did the apostle Paul write of walking in the Spirit and thus not gratifying the will of the devil? No. He doesn't indicate that it's the devil who is the problem, but the "desires of the flesh." Many Christians, though, assign their sin-problem entirely to the devil, making him the ultimate cause of their wickedness. He tempted Eve, did he not? She would not have sinned, if he'd not enticed her to do so. It's the devil, then, who's at fault for our sin. Well, hang on. Did Satan force Eve to sin? Did he hold her down and stuff the Forbidden Fruit into her mouth? No. Instead, he appealed to something inside of Eve, to something in her very nature that was powerful enough to deny and defy the command of God Himself, whom Eve knew personally and directly. What was that something? Well, it was the same thing, at bottom, that had prompted the devil to rebel against his Maker: Self-will.

We have a problem with the desires of the flesh, these desires produce sin in us, only because we are living according to our own will and way rather than God's. It is from this selfish person, this self-centered, self-willed person, that we all require salvation; for it is this rebellious, self-oriented person who will take us straight into eternal hell, if God doesn't rescue us from his/her control. This self-willed person is irremediable, s/he cannot be improved, even by God, and is incorrigibly fixed upon itself and satisfying inordinately and destructively the impulses of the flesh.

Romans 8:5-8
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.
8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the sexual impulse, or the impulse to eat and drink, or the impulse to rest and to be entertained, or to delight in the many good things God has made. But when a person is not "walking in the Spirit," they are "living according to the flesh" and this always leads to an excessive and destructive - a sinful - pursuit of fleshly impulses. The obese pastor standing in the pulpit telling you how to live as a Christian is not walking in the Spirit; the Christian addicted to gambling, or porn, or drugs is not walking in the Spirit; the Christian eagerly filling their days with the World, binging on Netflix, or Amazon Prime t.v., or spending hours reading Twitter posts, or watching Tik Tok and YouTube videos, or playing the narcissist, posting a near-constant stream of video and pics of themselves to the 'net is not walking in the Spirit. Most of them have no idea what "walking the Spirit" is, or that it is basic and essential to the Christian life!

The consequence of so few believers knowing of, and understanding, what it is to "walk in the Spirit" is that the Church in the West, the Body of Believers in North America, is filled with the "leaven" of sin that only a little of which, the apostle Paul warned, would "leaven the whole lump" and make the entire community of believers spiritually corrupt and impotent, as the church at Corinth was (1 Corinthians 3, 5, 6, 11). But this "leavened" condition has been the case for so long now within the western Church, many believers so deeply-steeped in a carnal, self-centered version of Christian living and thinking, that they snarl and snap at any who point out the deeply unbiblical nature of their living.

In such circumstances, it's no surprise that various sinful addictions plague the Church. And it's no surprise that those desirous of making merchandise of the "flock of God" have crowded around the Church, offering myriad approaches, and methods, and systems to deal with these addictions. God's "way of escape," however, has not altered since it was delivered to the Church two millennia ago. And it remains as powerfully-effective now as when it was first described in the New Testament.

So, then, what is it, exactly, to "walk in the Spirit"? If, as Paul wrote, doing so prevents fulfilling the desires of the flesh in a sinful manner, it must be a vital aspect of Christian living! Well, Paul left a clue:

"But if you are led by the Spirit,"

​

"Led by the Spirit"? What's this mean? Does the Spirit direct everything I do, indicating to me what socks to wear, what toothpaste to use, how many peas to put on my dinner plate, what direction to take on my daily constitutional? Is this the leading of the Spirit? Well, before this question is addressed, it's necessary to consider what "being led" implies and requires. ontinued below.

​

I am glad you beleive we can live without sin.

 

[Tenchi]

Romans 8:14
14 For all who are being led by the
Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

Galatians 5:18
18 But if you are led by the Spirit...

Matthew 4:1
1 Then Jesus was led up by
the Spirit into the wilderness...
​

What is necessary to my being "led of the Spirit"? Can I have my own plans, my own agenda, my own will and be led of the Spirit? How can he lead me when I'm pursuing my own will and way? Well, of course, he can't. Imagine being led by a wilderness guide through a forest. If you decide you want to make your own way through the vast expanse of trees and underbrush all around you and head off down an animal trail that you think is interesting, are you being led by the guide?

Being led of the Spirit, then, requires following his way rather than your own. But how does the person led of the Spirit know what the Spirit's way is? Well, the answer is that such knowledge is obtained from God's word, the Bible.

2 Timothy 3:16-17
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

Deuteronomy 8:6
6 "Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him.

1 Kings 2:3
3 "Keep the charge of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and His testimonies, according to what is written in the Law of Moses, that you may succeed in all that you do and wherever you turn,

Psalm 119:105
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.

Psalm 119:130
130 The unfolding of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.

There is no being led of the Spirit apart from a thorough knowledge of the will and way of God revealed in His word. Scripture is absolutely vital to knowing and following the leading of God, the Holy Spirit, which is always in accord with God's Truth laid out to us in the Bible. If the word of God is a light to one's path, it's absence will mean one's path will grow dark and difficult - if not impossible - to see.

Being led of the Spirit, then, requires knowing and then submitting to his will and way revealed in Scripture. Only in this circumstance is it possible to "walk in the Spirit" and so, not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Thus it is that, in the New Testament, the Christian is repeatedly commanded to put themselves under God's authority and control:

Romans 6:12-13
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,
13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

Romans 6:19
19 ...For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

Romans 12:1
1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

James 4:7-10
7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

1 Peter 5:5-6
5 ...Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,

Submission to God, then, is the essence, the core, of "walking in/by the Spirit," or "being led of the Spirit"; it is being always under the control of the Holy Spirit.

What happens, though, with many Christians is that they only give partial control to the Holy Spirit. For example, they find their porn addiction embarrassing, and destructive to relationships; it provokes in them much shame and shows them to be very weak; it deadens everything spiritually, making God seem a great way off. And so, they go to God for relief of their addiction, praying that He will take away their desire for porn. Of course, nothing happens. God is entirely unresponsive to their prayers.

Why? Because, as someone has said, "If God is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all." There are no half-measures with God, no partial control of His child; He will never be merely one's "co-pilot"; He will be only Lord of all in one's life. If a Christian person thinks, then, that they can negotiate with God, that they can determine the regions of control God will have over them, they badly misunderstand with whom they are dealing. God will only be who He is in their life: God Almighty, Ruler of Heaven and Earth. He dictates to His creatures when, and what, and how much He will alter in their lives, never the reverse.

And so, when a Christian chooses what area of their life they want God to transform, trying to dictate to Him when and what He should go to work on, yielding only bits and pieces of their life to Him as they see fit, they find God entirely unwilling to respond. They plead strenuously with God to help them with their porn addiction while they have no intention of giving over to Him control of their choice of entertainments, or relationships, or other addictions to, say, food, or gaming, or their cell phones. But God will only be who He is - Lord and Master - never sharing His authority with anyone or anything else.

Exodus 20:3
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

Romans 6:22
22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

Matthew 4:10
10 ...For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”

So, being "led of the Spirit" which is the key to winning free of the grip of the flesh (including porn addiction), requires two things:

1.) A thorough knowledge of the will and way of God revealed in His word, the Bible.

2.) Submission to God's constant, across-the-board control.

What is it like, though, to live in submission to God all the time? How does doing so overcome an addiction to porn, exactly?

Continued below.

 

[LeviR]

Galatians 5:16-18
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of
the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to
each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.​

As happens very often around various human problems, an industry has developed around the problem of porn addiction. Especially within the sphere of Christendom, merchandising "cures" for sin is common - and lucrative. Books, video series and podcasts are produced constantly, ostensibly to help Christians conquer their many problems (lust, bad marriages, spiritual apathy, various neuroses, gluttony, bitterness, etc.), but actually to generate profit and notoriety for those who write the books and star in the video series. Certainly, concerning the matter of addiction to porn, the "sin-cure" industry has thrived.

But God, in His word, the Bible, offers a "way of escape" from all sin to any who want to take it. And He has laid out this way to victory over all sin very plainly in Scripture, though it has been well-obscured by the porn-addiction industry that wants to make merchandise of those bound in this sin (and inevitably in many other sins, too). Like the industry that's grown up around psychological distresses, the goal of the porn-addiction industry isn't really freedom, total and enduring, but mere "management" of this sin. The porn-addict who's freed of his sinful addiction ceases to be a source of revenue, so it's just bad business to relieve him fully of his addiction. No, he must see himself as permanently "ill," his brain chemistry powerfully disordered, his thinking severely twisted, so that he can't ever hope to be genuinely free of his addiction.

But God has no interest in keeping His children in perennial bondage to any sin, nor in making money off of them. If they are to enjoy Him fully, as He made them to do, and live in the protection, peace and blessing of holiness, they must be made increasingly free of sin. And so, God offers to His children a "way of escape" - not just from porn addiction - but from any and all sin. What is this "way of escape," exactly? Paul the apostle has described it in detail in his various letters to the Early Church, but in a "nutshell," here it is:

16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
​

Before explanation is made of what Paul wrote, here, it should be clarified that sin is just a symptom of something else, an effect called "sin," rather than the cause of itself. Sins are like sparks rising from a bonfire; they are the result of the bonfire, produced by it, they are not the bonfire itself. Too often, though, approaches to dealing with sin are occupied with the "sparks" rather than with the underlying "bonfire" that is producing them. Christian teachers will talk of "controlling one's eyes," and installing a supervisor over one's net activities, and thinking of the porn star as someone's daughter or sister, and using various distractions to occupy oneself. They'll orient upon these ways of stamping out a "spark" of sin, but never do anything about the "bonfire" of wickedness that's showering their life with such "sparks." There is no effective remedy from sin, however, no real liberty from it, without dealing with the Source of All Sin.

In the verse above, did the apostle Paul write of walking in the Spirit and thus not gratifying the will of the devil? No. He doesn't indicate that it's the devil who is the problem, but the "desires of the flesh." Many Christians, though, assign their sin-problem entirely to the devil, making him the ultimate cause of their wickedness. He tempted Eve, did he not? She would not have sinned, if he'd not enticed her to do so. It's the devil, then, who's at fault for our sin. Well, hang on. Did Satan force Eve to sin? Did he hold her down and stuff the Forbidden Fruit into her mouth? No. Instead, he appealed to something inside of Eve, to something in her very nature that was powerful enough to deny and defy the command of God Himself, whom Eve knew personally and directly. What was that something? Well, it was the same thing, at bottom, that had prompted the devil to rebel against his Maker: Self-will.

We have a problem with the desires of the flesh, these desires produce sin in us, only because we are living according to our own will and way rather than God's. It is from this selfish person, this self-centered, self-willed person, that we all require salvation; for it is this rebellious, self-oriented person who will take us straight into eternal hell, if God doesn't rescue us from his/her control. This self-willed person is irremediable, s/he cannot be improved, even by God, and is incorrigibly fixed upon itself and satisfying inordinately and destructively the impulses of the flesh.

Romans 8:5-8
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.
8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the sexual impulse, or the impulse to eat and drink, or the impulse to rest and to be entertained, or to delight in the many good things God has made. But when a person is not "walking in the Spirit," they are "living according to the flesh" and this always leads to an excessive and destructive - a sinful - pursuit of fleshly impulses. The obese pastor standing in the pulpit telling you how to live as a Christian is not walking in the Spirit; the Christian addicted to gambling, or porn, or drugs is not walking in the Spirit; the Christian eagerly filling their days with the World, binging on Netflix, or Amazon Prime t.v., or spending hours reading Twitter posts, or watching Tik Tok and YouTube videos, or playing the narcissist, posting a near-constant stream of video and pics of themselves to the 'net is not walking in the Spirit. Most of them have no idea what "walking the Spirit" is, or that it is basic and essential to the Christian life!

The consequence of so few believers knowing of, and understanding, what it is to "walk in the Spirit" is that the Church in the West, the Body of Believers in North America, is filled with the "leaven" of sin that only a little of which, the apostle Paul warned, would "leaven the whole lump" and make the entire community of believers spiritually corrupt and impotent, as the church at Corinth was (1 Corinthians 3, 5, 6, 11). But this "leavened" condition has been the case for so long now within the western Church, many believers so deeply-steeped in a carnal, self-centered version of Christian living and thinking, that they snarl and snap at any who point out the deeply unbiblical nature of their living.

In such circumstances, it's no surprise that various sinful addictions plague the Church. And it's no surprise that those desirous of making merchandise of the "flock of God" have crowded around the Church, offering myriad approaches, and methods, and systems to deal with these addictions. God's "way of escape," however, has not altered since it was delivered to the Church two millennia ago. And it remains as powerfully-effective now as when it was first described in the New Testament.

So, then, what is it, exactly, to "walk in the Spirit"? If, as Paul wrote, doing so prevents fulfilling the desires of the flesh in a sinful manner, it must be a vital aspect of Christian living! Well, Paul left a clue:

"But if you are led by the Spirit,"

​

"Led by the Spirit"? What's this mean? Does the Spirit direct everything I do, indicating to me what socks to wear, what toothpaste to use, how many peas to put on my dinner plate, what direction to take on my daily constitutional? Is this the leading of the Spirit? Well, before this question is addressed, it's necessary to consider what "being led" implies and requires.

Continued below.

​

Certainly the serpent did not force Eve to sin, nor did it plant some “fallen angel” inside of Eve to possess her.
Eve desired the fruit because it was pleasant to her eyes, and good for food, and to make one wise.
The serpent merely inflamed what was already in man.
But the churches can’t see that. They say Adam’s nature changed after he sinned.

 

[Christ_empowered]

Helpful material…

 

[LeviR]

Helpful material…

Someone told me that the devil doesn’t want me to believe he is a personal powerful fallen Angel who can tempt me to sin. That he wants me to believe he doesn’t actually exist.

I told them that the devil wants man to blame someone outside themselves for sin.

 

[Christ_empowered]

I dunno
I understand that the evil one exists. I also think sin self and the world are huge factors in problems we face.

 

[Tenchi]

Galatians 5:22-25
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, self-control;
against such things there is no law.
24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have
crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 If we live by the Spirit, let
us also walk by the Spirit.​

A few years ago, I was discipling a young man who was having a bitter struggle with pornography. I had guessed this was the case and was glad when he finally admitted to me his addiction to porn. We talked together about God's "way of escape" (1 Corinthians 10:13) and the young man agreed to begin to consciously, explicitly, all throughout each day submit to God. We got together the following week and I asked him how his new spiritual practice had worked out. "It didn't work at all," he said. "When I was tempted, I submitted myself to God and nothing happened. The temptation came right back. It didn't work." He sighed, frustrated and unhappy, and added, "Is there anything else that I can do?"

I responded to the young man's experience with three questions:

- What do you mean by "It didn't work"?
- What are your expectations of God when you submit? Are those expectations biblical?
- What is the primary struggle, the Great Battle, in every moment of temptation?

"It didn't work."

What the young fellow who was addicted to porn meant by "It didn't work," was that the temptation didn't stop the moment he submitted himself to God. He was thinking of submission to God as a sort of "magic spell," an anti-temptation incantation, that he could rattle off whenever he was tempted that would instantly dissolve the temptation. His focus, you see, was upon dealing with the bothersome, shame-inducing issue of pornography, rather than upon the real purpose of submission to God, which is fellowship with Him.

2 Corinthians 13:14
14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.

1 John 1:3
3 ...our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

Revelation 3:20
20 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

The young man just wanted his moral/spiritual problem gone, not a deeper, more God-centered life. What he didn't understand was that victory over temptation, over sin, is the effect, the by-product, of fellowship with God, not an end in itself. It is through enjoying God in daily, intimate communion that the Christian escapes temptation. What else would one expect in relating with the Ground of All Reality, the Maker and Sustainer of Everything?

Romans 11:36
36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

Acts 17:28
28 for in Him we live and move and exist...

Colossians 1:16-17
16 ...by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.
17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

God will not be anything less than He is when He relates with us. Just as God is Lord and Master of the universe, He will be only our Lord and Master, too. Our fellowship with Him, then, is necessarily shaped by this fact. If we intend to walk with God, who He is demands our submission. It turns out, however, that yielding to God has many benefits, one of which is increasing holiness.

Romans 6:19
19 ...For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

It is as the believer's holiness expands and they are more and more set apart unto God in their thinking, desires and conduct that sinful temptation has less and less power over them.

However, the young man who desired to be free of his porn addiction had no interest in a life that was a "living sacrifice" to his Maker. No, he just wanted "spot removal," not an entire overhaul of his living. And so, the young man's "submission" to God was an instrumental act, a mere mechanical ritual, that he hoped would "activate" God to eradicate his porn problem but leave the rest of his untouched. But, since God is a Person, not a tool for removing sin, trying to use Him as a tool always yields a bad result.

As you can imagine, God doesn't much like being reduced to a spiritual "vending machine," where pushing the "button" of submission yields the "chip bag" of victory over sinful temptation. No, all that God intends to be in, and for, His children is obtained only within fellowship with Him as servant to Master, creature to Creator, sheep to Shepherd, inferior to Superior. He only lifts up those who go low - and stay low - before Him.

1 Peter 5:6
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,

James 4:10
10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

It is in submitted fellowship with God that one "walks in/by the Spirit" rather than merely "lives in the Spirit." Through faith in Christ as Savior, a lost sinner comes into relationship with God as His adopted child. They are, in other words, "living in/by the Spirit" who has washed them clean of the stain of their sin, and given them spiritual life in himself.

Titus 3:5
5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,

1 John 4:13
13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.

Romans 8:9
9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

But having the Spirit within does not guarantee fellowship with God, or "walking in/by the Spirit." Like the Prodigal Son to his earthly father (Luke 15:11-32), one can be related to their heavenly Father (through the indwelling Holy Spirit), but not enjoying direct, personal communion with Him. And so, Paul urged the believers in the province of Galatia not merely to be "living in/by the Spirit" - to be born-again - but to be "walking in/by the Spirit," too. It is fellowship with God - "walking in/by the Spirit" that is actually the purpose of being born-again, of coming to "live in/by the Spirit."

If submission to God, then, is to have the effect of dissolving an addiction to porn, if it's going to "work" in this way, fellowship with God must be the aim, not mere eradication of a struggle with a particular sin.

Have you been thinking about being a "living sacrifice to God," about being His bond-servant, about living in submission to Him, in the instrumental way the young man addicted to porn had been doing? Hopefully, if you have, you can see now the mistake in doing so and will consider the greater good of submitting to God, which is daily fellowship with Him, not mere victory over sin. Holiness is never an end in itself but merely the doorway to communion with the Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth. Don't settle for anything less than fellowship with Him! It's what He made you for.

Psalm 36:7-9
7 How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.
8 They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; And You give them to drink of the river of Your delights.
9 For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light.

Psalm 16:11
11 You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.

Continued below.

 

[Tenchi]

Unbiblical expectations of a life of submission to God.

The young man I mentioned, hoping to rid himself of a porn addiction, had expected an instant cessation of temptation when he submitted to God. But he had thought to deal only with a single region of his life that he didn't like, not yield himself wholesale as a "living sacrifice" to God. He had wanted a "quick fix" of his sin, not fellowship with his Maker. He had also expected that, having submitted to God, the temptation would cease immediately and never return. He had heard of "victory over sin" and had assumed that this meant instant and permanent freedom from a sinful temptation. This was what he was expecting when he had submitted to God.

It didn't happen. Though he had submitted himself to God - or, at least, he'd spoken words of submission to God - the temptation continued, unabated. His conclusion was that submitting to God had not been the "way of escape" from sin that I'd showed him from God's word that it was. Does God anywhere in His word promise to instantly remove all temptation and testing the moment His child submits? No. I pointed this out to the young man and then took him in Scripture to the example of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane where Christ famously declared, "Not my will but yours be done."

Luke 22:41-44
41 And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed,
42 saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
43 And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him.
44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Though he was the God-Man, Jesus still consciously, explicitly submitted himself to the will and way of God, the Father. Doing so was not an instant remedy for the terrible struggle he was enduring within his humanness that looked with horror on the terrible, brutal sacrifice of himself he was about to make. When he had prayed as he did in the passage above, Jesus wasn't instantly filled with supernatural power so that he leapt to his feet radiant and indomitable, thumping his chest and yelling, "Bring it!" No, instead, he continued in an agony of prayer, "sweating great drops of blood."

God's answer to Christ's awful need for strength to endure, for the courage to resist his human instinct to flee his approaching death, wasn't to remove Christ's inner struggle, or fill him to bursting with fearlessness, or change his external circumstance, but to offer him angelic encouragement and the strength to take one step, and then the next, and the next until his atoning sacrifice was completed. Can we expect more? Ought our submission to God move Him to a greater response than He gave to His Son's submission?

You can be sure that at every step of Jesus's cruel journey toward the fatal misery of the cross, being fully man, he was resisting the intense, natural human impulses for self-preservation and the relief of his suffering. But, if he had yielded to those impulses, in the moment that he did, he would have stepped out of God the Father's will and way. Jesus's battle, then, all throughout his "Passion" was to remain submitted to God's will, no matter what. As he did, Jesus remained in the flow of the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:15, 4:1, 14; Romans 8:11), and was thus able to "endure the cross, despising the shame," and is now seated at God's right hand in his former divine glory and power (Luke 22:69; Acts 7:55; Romans 8:34).

In this, the Great Battle of the Christian life is demonstrated. It isn't a battle to defeat ourselves by self-effort, to use Self to put itself to death. No, the Great Battle is to stay submitted to God and as we do, we are enabled by the "rivers of living water" within us (the Person of the Holy Spirit - John 7:38-39) to work out the will and way of God in our daily living, just as Jesus did.

Acts 1:8
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you...

Ephesians 3:16
16 ... strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,

Ephesians 5:18
18 ...be filled with the Spirit,

Romans 8:13
13 ...if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

2 Corinthians 3:18
18 ...beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Lord, the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace...

Not understanding this, when the young man with the porn addiction had submitted to God and found no immediate relief from the temptation to look at porn, he assumed that God's "way of escape" (1 Corinthians 10:13) hadn't worked. I pointed out to him that if the right response to temptation is always to submit to God, which it is, it is the right response to temptation no matter how many times the temptation occurs. This is the real battle of Christian living: remaining consciously, explicitly under the control of the Holy Spirit, remaining yielded to the will and way of God.

Not being relieved immediately of his temptation to look at porn, the young man had cast about for help from other things - Bible reading, prayer, exercise, gaming, movie watching, etc.. But these things don't properly answer the invitation of every sin to step out from under the Spirit's control and follow one's own will and way. Only the power of God can enable one to take up one's cross and journey into death to Self (Matthew 16:24-25) and come out the other side into the glory and freedom of the crucified life. And that power only works in tandem with our being persistently and consistently under the control of the Holy Spirit. This submission to the Spirit, to God, is the only right answer to the invitation to rebellion within every sinful temptation.

Continued below.

 

[Tenchi]

The Great Battle of Christian Living.

Like so many Christians, the young man with the porn addiction whom I was discipling had a...cockeyed view of what Christian Living was and how it all worked. In the matter of overcoming sin, in particular, his thinking was badly tangled - and very unbiblical. Three false notions had rooted in his mind that were keeping him perennially in the sin-confession-sin-confession cycle:

1.) I can achieve a godly end by fleshly means.
2.) I must do for God.
3.) God intends to improve me.


I can achieve a godly end by fleshly means.

No, in fact, this is impossible. Like begets like. A cat begets a cat, a dog begets a dog, a duck begets a duck, and so on. You, too, can only beget "in kind," which is to say, you can only beget more of yourself. Anyone who desires to be godly must "tap into" God; for only God can beget godliness.

What happens when a Christian attempts to produce godliness by means of fleshly, human effort?

Galatians 6:7-8
7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption...

Romans 8:6-8
6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.
8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Romans 7:18-19
18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Fleshly effort can generate a superficially "spiritual" result, appearing externally to be godly, by which is meant, "nice," or "pleasant," or "kind." Fleshly "spirituality" checks all the boxes of popular thinking on what it is to live "godly in Christ Jesus": attending church on Sunday, praying, participating in a Bible study, singing or playing an instrument on the Worship Team, giving to the church and charities, etc. These are all external things, however, and in the majority of professing Christians run in tandem with addictions, bitterness and resentment, secret sins, worship of other "gods" (career, family, hobbies, wealth, notoriety, etc.), various neuroses (depression, anxiety, obsessiveness, perversion) and so on. This is nothing like the life God produces in those in whom He is truly working.

https://jonathanhay.substack.com/p/conduits-not-copyists

But the life only God can "beget" begins within the inner person, transforming core desires, altering fundamental beliefs and patterns of thinking, engendering in the born-again person holiness, and a hunger for God's Truth, and a deep, self-sacrificing love of the brethren (1 Peter 2:2; Jeremiah 15:16; 1 John 3:14; 1 John 4:7-11). Life in, and by, the Holy Spirit is supernatural, enabling a person to truly love their enemies, to do good to those who use them despitefully, to go the extra mile regardless of the cost and to do so joyfully (Matthew 5:38-48); to separate more and more from the World, the Flesh and the devil unto God as a "vessel sanctified and prepared for every good work" (2 Timothy 2:21; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18; Ephesians 5:1-13); to endure suffering for the sake of Christ with equanimity and even contentment (Matthew 5:10-11), knowing that the "sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us" (Romans 8:17).


I must do for God.

No, God must do for you. If He doesn't, if you try to do what only God can do, the result will ultimately be the corruption and sin the flesh always produces. Instead, the way things actually work spiritually is summarized well by the apostle Paul:

Philippians 2:12-13
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

The fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, etc - is the fruit of THE SPIRIT, not of you. Without Christ, without the Spirit of Christ working in you (Romans 8:9-13), you can do NOTHING to produce the spiritual "fruit" of the Vine (John 15:4-5). You can only work out what God, by His Spirit, has first worked into you.

But so many Christians don't believe this! And, worse, they are taught not to believe it. They are told to "try their hardest," to "labor diligently," to "just do it," to "really work at it," and to "be disciplined." Christians are instructed to exert themselves, their fleshly power, their human determination to the utmost until these things fail (as they must), and then they should turn to God for aid. "God helps those who help themselves," right? Wrong.

Galatians 3:3
3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Colossians 2:20-23
23... asceticism and severity to the body... are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

Galatians 5:22-23
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is ...
23 ...self-control...

Romans 8:13
13 ...if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Continued below.

 

[Tenchi]

When the Christian ceases to do for God and, by faith, in love and submission, waits upon God, upon His Spirit, to enable the life God has commanded of all of His children, they don't encounter strain, and labor, and exhaustion but the exact opposite:

Isaiah 40:28-31
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;
31 but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Psalm 84:5-7
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
6 As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion.

The naturalness and effortlessness with which the believer walking in the power of the Spirit lives a godly life is always astonishing to them because it is entirely opposite what they are told to expect in their life as a believer and what they've experienced as they've tried in their weak humanness, in their fleshly power, to do for God.

The Great Battle isn't, you see, to make yourself live the life God wants you to live, to produce for Him your best version of a godly life, but to submit to Him, in love and faith waiting upon Him to form in you the life only He can beget in you. And as He does, you will find yourself simply going His way, doing His will easily and joyfully, going from strength to strength, not into regular moral collapse and spiritual exhaustion.


God intends to improve me.

No, He intends to put you to death and install in you a new life entirely. There is nothing in you apart from God, there is nothing in the old Self, the person that you were prior to being saved, that can be improved. The old Self is thoroughly rotten, incorrigibly rebellious and sinful, and cannot be remediated.

Romans 7:18-19
18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Romans 8:6-8
6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.
8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Jeremiah 17:9
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Titus 3:3
3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

And so, God isn't interested in improving you. Instead, He puts to death your old Self and replaces it with new life in Jesus Christ, the life of the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9; Philippians 1:19):

2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

Colossians 3:3
3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Romans 6:6
6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;

Galatians 2:20
20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and 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 up for me.

The born-again person who thinks God is in the business of their Self-improvement, of making over the sinful, rebellious person they were before being saved, of polishing up the old Self and making it shine, has not understood at all what the true nature of the Christian life is! No, their old, unsaved Self must DIE so that their new life in Jesus might manifest in them by the work of the Holy Spirit. He does this, though, as has already been explained in earlier posts in this thread, only as the born-again person is walking in daily conscious, explicit submission to his control.

And so, the Great Battle of the Christian life isn't to make our own best version of a Christ-like life but to submit to the Spirit producing in us his life, the life of Jesus Christ, and in his infinite power and wisdom making us who he wants us to be.

Romans 8:29
29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;

Philippians 1:6
6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.

2 Corinthians 3:18
18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

Have you been misunderstanding the basics of Christian living, as the porn-addicted young man I was discipling had done? Until these misunderstandings are corrected and a proper, biblical conception of walking with God is taken up, God's "way of escape" is not available. In the end, His goal is not merely that the Christian come free of some particular sin but that they move into ever-deepening fellowship with Himself. This is, then, at its core, God's "way of escape": Knowing and enjoying Himself. Is this what you want in overcoming your sin?

 

[Tenchi]

Galatians 5:16
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you
will not carry out the desire of the flesh.​

So, what does it look like when "walking in the Spirit," when a life of daily, conscious, explicit submission to God, is maintained? Does this life really result in "not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh"? Does God's "way of escape" found in fellowship with Himself truly free a person from sinful addiction?

Sadly, I think many Christians are afraid to find out. Not because they don't want to be free of their sinful addiction(s), not because they believe God can't free them from their sinful addictions (at least, in theory), but because they are afraid to test the truth of God's word, the power of His promises, and find them impotent.

The Israelites at the borders of Canaan (Numbers 13-14), were afraid to step out in faith into the land of plenty and peace that God had promised, putting themselves at risk of hostile giants, and great cities filled with enemy nations. What if they couldn't take the land? What if in the attempt to possess what God had said was theirs, they failed and were defeated and humiliated? What if they died trying? What use in believing God's promise if death is the consequence? And so, all but a handful of Israelites refused to go into the land promised to them by God. For the rest of their lives they wandered in a literal wilderness of dust, and scrub brush, and difficulty.

Christians today make the same choice as the Israelites at the border of Canaan, for various reasons (most of them foolish and evil) refusing to "walk in/by the Spirit" and thereby win free of sin, enjoying, more and more, the spiritual Promised Land of fellowship with God.

The Homeless Millionaire

Living, by faith, as a joint-heir in Christ.

jonathanhay.substack.com

But what happens when they do step out in faith upon God's promises? Does God "come through" for them? Or am I speaking entirely theoretically in what I've laid out from God's word?

Well, let me describe what has happened to me as I've learned (and am still learning) to "walk in/by the Spirit." First, the idea of trying to make myself, by the power of Self - the ultimate source of all my sin - live "godly in Christ Jesus" has grown ridiculous in my thinking. This is no small thing, since, for decades, I operated on this Self-centered, fleshly basis in my Christian living. Despite what God's word says about my utter impotence spiritually, I spent many years trying to control myself, trying to crowd myself into a corner, to suppress, and confine my fleshly impulses. Though I would always eventually collapse, exhausted, into sin, I continued at the project of controlling myself, encouraging myself with the thought that I would do better next time, that I just had to keep at it and I would - somehow - get a different, better result.

I shake my head at this thinking now, intensely glad to have been delivered from it by God. Over time, He has worked to demonstrate to me - mostly through painful, humiliating and frustrating failure - the utter futility of trying to stop the sinful effects of my old Self by way of the power of my old Self. This is to make a fox the guard of the henhouse; to make an alcoholic the keeper of the key to the booze cabinet; to make a poison its own cure. It doesn't work. It can't work. Like begets like. Self only ever produces itself, however much on the surface of things it appears to be "pious" and "godly." But, for a long time, I believed that I could do for God rather than waiting by faith, in submission and love, on Him to do for me, as He'd promised to do. Thanks be to God that He has delivered me from this foolish and unbiblical thinking!

And what a difference it makes to "wait upon the Lord" and be "renewed in strength" by His Spirit, "mounting up on wings as an eagle," "running the race" without the usual, regular, inevitable exhaustion and collapse of Self-effort! Instead, after years now of learning to "walk in the Spirit," I continue to be astonished by how the Holy Spirit moves me on from a crossroad of temptation with such effortlessness and subtlety. Many times I am hours beyond a moment of temptation before I realize I am, carried along the Narrow Way toward God without any of the past torturous wrestling with myself. At other times, I am very aware of an abrupt, supernatural cooling of sinful desire - always in response to my conscious, explicit submission to God's control - that still surprises me. So long as I continue to agree to the Holy Spirit acting upon me as he wants by remaining yielded to whatever he wishes to do in me, my desire for things that once were powerful instigators of sin in my life have steadily shrunk to proper, God-intended proportion or have dissolved entirely. In their place, God has instilled in me new, godly desires or enlarged formerly shrunken ones.

Perhaps the hardest thing for me to do is to wait upon the Holy Spirit to act in response to my submission and deliver me from temptation. Oh, how hard it can be to just stay submitted and wait for God's deliverance from temptation! I must do something! I must act to control myself! The old, well-established impulse to do as I do in every other instance of personal development is strong! If I want to grow physically strong, I must go to the gym and workout; if I want to learn to play the piano well, I must play the piano; if I wish to be a masterful painter, I must paint, and so on. Outside of the spiritual realm, if I want to do or become something, I must act to make it happen. This was, for me anyway, a big part of why it was very difficult to "let go and let God."

How long it took for me to see that submission and waiting upon God is not puppet-like passivity. It is the most vital, active and necessary thing I can do in resisting temptation; it is, actually, the Real Battle of Christian living.

https://jonathanhay.substack.com/p/conduits-not-copyists

God has taught me that when He doesn't immediately act to relieve me of some temptation, He is not ignoring me but giving me opportunity to "train" my spiritual "muscles" and reflexes, to form and/or reinforce a spiritual habit of submission to Him. It took me some time, though, to realize that when I asked God to mature me spiritually and deepen my fellowship with Him, to make me more like Jesus, God's response would be to put me in a situation where I could "train" my submission reflex (James 4:7; Romans 12:1), exercise my faith "muscle" (2 Corinthians 5:7), and evaluate (and correct) my motive for walking with and serving Him (Matthew 22:36-38). Most importantly, these times of "training" always prompted me to keep God "in focus," to remember, and live in, the truth that being a Christian was about fellowship with Him, not about a creating a "spiritual lifestyle."

Continued below.

 

[Tenchi]

So, then, to the nitty-gritty of submission to God. When I'm tempted, what, exactly, is my reaction? Well, first off, if I don't recognize the temptation for what it is, I'm just going to go with it. So, a life of submission is crucially-connected to a knowledge of God's Truth, His will and way revealed in His word. You can't know when you're diverging from God's will if you don't know what His will is, right? There is, then, no "walking in the Spirit" while remaining ignorant of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16-17; Matthew 4:4).

When I'm aware that my attitude, thinking, desire, or action is not of God, I do as Christ did in Gethsemane and consciously, explicitly choose God's will and way over mine. Often, this happens only after I've asked myself the question, "Who is this?" If the answer is "Me," it's time to submit again to my Maker. When I do, I say something like, "Heavenly Father, I submit myself to you. Please control my thoughts, desires and actions. Not my will but yours be done." This isn't some rattled-off incantation, a babble of words that I'm not attending to carefully, as it can become after a time. Always, God is responding to my heart, not merely my words, and if my words have become empty ritual, issuing from a heart distracted from Him, He will respond accordingly. In any case, sometimes the temptation to sin continues, unabated. When this is so, I simply submit again, and again, and again - as often as the invitation of every sinful temptation to follow my own will and way into rebellion and sin persists.

At times, the battle to stay submitted is short-lived, the Holy Spirit acting rapidly to move my inner man into God's will and way; at other times, though, I'm put in the "gym" of spiritual exercise, to develop the habit of submission to God and persistent focus upon Him. In both cases, however, God always fulfills His promise to conform my inner man to His will and way, liberating me from the power of the old Self, which is the ultimate source of all my sin.

In tandem with submission, it's also really helpful to remember who I am in Jesus Christ, to recall to mind what God says is true about me as one of His own. Along with following my own will rather than God's, every sin also always invites me to live in contradiction to my spiritual identity as a "new creature in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:17) and so, along with yielding myself to God, standing by faith on who God says I am as His child is also very important (Romans 6:11).

As the general character of my life has been what I've described above, spiritual growth has happened but in a way that is often undetectable to me. God has changed my desires, but not just in areas I consider "crisis points." I find, for example, a desire to share Christ with others that is natural and bold rather than the contrived, mechanical way it often was in the past. I find myself increasingly repelled by modern, secular culture, not because of intellectual, philsophical or moral commitments, but in the "fiber of my being." This inner transformation of me by God reveals itself to me in surprising ways. For instance, I went to watch a blu-ray dvd of an old Jackie Chan movie the other day and, though I'd found it quite entertaining in the past, I had to pop it out of the player only ten minutes in, disturbed by elements of the movie I'd never noticed before. I find myself acting in ways I never would have twenty years ago in circumstances I would have avoided like the plague back then. Not because I've set out consciously to do so, developing my leadership skills, honing my public-speaking ability, psychologially strengthening the "weak areas" of my personality. No, it's been a work of the Spirit that, again, is so subtle, natural and effortless, that I am sometimes shocked by what he's done in me.

I dont describe any of this to brag. Not at all. It's all of God and none of me. My intention is to give testimony to the truth of God, to the power of His promises to His children in His word. God is doing in my life what He has said He will do as I walk in His will and way! Sin is not dominating me as it once did. God is not some distant, shadowy, threatening figure a million miles away, but one with whom I'm enjoying greater personal communion as each day passes. And so, to you I can say as I did to the young man struggling with a porn addiction, "It works! God's "way of escape" works!" But it turns out that they way of escape from sin is found in escape into fellowship with one's holy Maker.

Is this what you want?

It's what you were made for.

Matthew 11:28-30
28 Come to me, all who labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I
am gentle and lowly in heart, and
you will find rest for your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”​

 

[Tenchi]

Bump.

 

[Tenchi]

Romans 11:33-36 - 12:1
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and
knowledge of God! How unsearchable are
his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of
the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift
to him that he might be repaid?”
36 For from him and through him and to him
are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of
God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy
and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ​

"I just don't want to."

Many times in talking with men in discipleship about "walking in the Spirit," this has been their response. They don't have any desire to submit to God; they enjoy the life they're living, though it is in rebellion to God. In most cases, they've been in this sort of life for a long time, and so, have grown cold and hard toward God, their conscience long ago blunted so that it reacts not at all to things that should prick it sharply. The "god" of Self sits on the throne of their hearts and orders their desires. In this condition, it is impossible for these men to muster up any serious interest in walking with God as a "living sacrifice" to Him.

On a gut-level, I think these guys knew that they would simply follow their strongest desires. It's how God has made us all to be; we pursue pleasure and flee pain, as much as we can. The things that give to us the greatest pleasure, gratification and satisfaction we pursue with the greatest ardour. Likewise, that which causes us the most pain we do all we can to avoid. So, if a person has come to find intense enjoyment in sin, they will migrate toward it with increasing frequency and desire, forming a habit of sin, a pattern of selfish and God-defying thought and action that slowly builds momentum, becoming, in time, so powerful the person is just swept along by it. Typically, it was from such a state that the guys I've discipled would tell me that they just didn't want to live in daily submission to the control of the Holy Spirit, to "walk in the Spirit."

What is to be done with a believer who has grown hard and cold toward God and bound in a powerful habit of stimulating, gratifying sin? How can they be induced to leave off the sin they strongly desire and move toward their distant and uninteresting heavenly Father in repentance, confession and submission? Who in this condition is ever eager to do as the apostle James described?:

James 4:7-10
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Well, in the quotation from the apostle Paul at the top of this post, he offers a very rational response to this question. God is so far above us that His ways are ultimately "inscrutable," His wisdom and knowledge outstripping our own in an incomprehensible degree. God is the Ultimate Source of All Things, to whom, then, nothing can be given; we can only receive from God, our Alpha and Omega, our Beginning and End. And so, Paul wrote, it stands to reason that we should yield ourselves to our Creator and God as “living sacrifices,” regardless of what we may or may not feel about doing so.

We all of us do things, not because we want to, because we have some strong, positive desire to do them, but because it is the sensible, the rational, thing to do: We visit the dentist; we get regular colonoscopies after age 55; we go to the gym and curb our eating; we mow the lawn and weed the flowerbed; we pay car insurance and income tax, and so on. There are a host of things we do simply because it makes good sense to do them, even though they cost us money, time and effort that we'd much rather invest in other things.

We ought to take this same rational approach in regards to living in constant submission to God. If we can see the good sense in visiting the dentist regularly, though we may not want to, can we not do the same with God, who is both our Creator and Sustainer, the vital Source of our very existence? Simple, obvious rationality dictates that we should.

Ah, that simple, sensible reason was sufficient to win out over our Self-will and sin! But the billions of people bound in sinful habits, destructive addictions, and psychological neuroses demonstrate that reason alone rarely orders the human mind and heart. Though humans may acknowledge the great benefits of rationality, as often as not, they ignore reason, pathologically pursuing pleasure instead - even if doing so destroys them.

Typically, only when God's promises concerning sin are fulfilled in their lives are Christians sufficiently provoked to follow His will and way. They must end up in the desperate degradation of the pig-pen of sin, as the Prodigal Son did (Luke 15:11-32), before they can be made to return to their heavenly Father in humility and repentance.

Galatians 6:7-8
7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption...

James 1:14-15
14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death...

2 Peter 2:21-22
21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”

Even then, some Christians can become so gripped by sin that they follow it to complete physical destruction. Both the apostle Paul and the apostle John note this in their letters:

1 John 5:16-17
16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that.
17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.

1 Corinthians 11:28-30
28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.

God would much rather we responded to His incredible kindness, to His amazing love, grace and patience, and walked with Him in His way:

Romans 2:4
4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

Matthew 11:28-30
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Psalm 36:7-9
7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
8 They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
9 For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.

We who are truly born-again have the Holy Spirit within us, too, who convicts us of "sin, righteousness and judgment (John 16:8), who shows us the Truth (John 14:26; John 16:13), who will be strong for us (Ephesians 3:16; Romans 8:13; Philippians 2:13) in times of temptation and testing, who responds to our submission to God by going to work on what we want, first of all, and conforming us to the "image of Christ" (Romans 8:29). It isn't all on us to walk with God in His way. Thank God!

These are the things, then, that form my response to Christians who say that they "just don't want to" live in submission to God. I hope and pray that in your life it has been His goodness, the "carrot" of God's kindness and love, not the "stick" of sin's degradation and destruction, that prompts you to "walk in the Spirit" and so not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. There is life, joy and liberty in submission to God. May you find these things in abundance in Him!

 

[Christ_empowered]

Self renunciation is a big theme in Christs teachings, but it does seem undervalued or under emphasized in church ️ settings. My best guess would be that thee aren’t many seasoned Christians who are heeding the call to minister unto others…

And the church ️ much like the world as a whole has become reliant on experts and the so called helping professions instead of spending time with believers and teaching us to truly follow love and obey Jesus Christ. This is a long standing problem…I seem to recall reading about this being an issue in the 19th century.

In Christ we have all we need for life and for godliness. I’m trying to remind myself that if I abide in Him…if I love and obey Him, and in the process die to self daily and become less me, more Jesus Christ…


Then I can be a productive healthy branch of the vibe, and bear much fruit .

Personal side note : coming to The Cross as a psychiatric survivor has some benefits in Christ. The constant emphasis on self in the mental health realm…self esteem and self worth if one has good insurance and self condemnation and slavery for the victims of psychiatry and the poor…is obviously sinful and wicked. In Christ I am a new creation…put off the old put on the new…

Not a patched up drugged up labeled same self as yesterday.

Thanks, Tenchi .

 

[Hopeful 2]

Romans 11:33-36 - 12:1
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and
knowledge of God! How unsearchable are
his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of
the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift
to him that he might be repaid?”
36 For from him and through him and to him
are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of
God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy
and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ​

"I just don't want to."

Many times in talking with men in discipleship about "walking in the Spirit," this has been their response. They don't have any desire to submit to God; they enjoy the life they're living, though it is in rebellion to God. In most cases, they've been in this sort of life for a long time, and so, have grown cold and hard toward God, their conscience long ago blunted so that it reacts not at all to things that should prick it sharply. The "god" of Self sits on the throne of their hearts and orders their desires. In this condition, it is impossible for these men to muster up any serious interest in walking with God as a "living sacrifice" to Him.

On a gut-level, I think these guys knew that they would simply follow their strongest desires. It's how God has made us all to be; we pursue pleasure and flee pain, as much as we can. The things that give to us the greatest pleasure, gratification and satisfaction we pursue with the greatest ardour. Likewise, that which causes us the most pain we do all we can to avoid. So, if a person has come to find intense enjoyment in sin, they will migrate toward it with increasing frequency and desire, forming a habit of sin, a pattern of selfish and God-defying thought and action that slowly builds momentum, becoming, in time, so powerful the person is just swept along by it. Typically, it was from such a state that the guys I've discipled would tell me that they just didn't want to live in daily submission to the control of the Holy Spirit, to "walk in the Spirit."

What is to be done with a believer who has grown hard and cold toward God and bound in a powerful habit of stimulating, gratifying sin? How can they be induced to leave off the sin they strongly desire and move toward their distant and uninteresting heavenly Father in repentance, confession and submission? Who in this condition is ever eager to do as the apostle James described?:

James 4:7-10
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Well, in the quotation from the apostle Paul at the top of this post, he offers a very rational response to this question. God is so far above us that His ways are ultimately "inscrutable," His wisdom and knowledge outstripping our own in an incomprehensible degree. God is the Ultimate Source of All Things, to whom, then, nothing can be given; we can only receive from God, our Alpha and Omega, our Beginning and End. And so, Paul wrote, it stands to reason that we should yield ourselves to our Creator and God as “living sacrifices,” regardless of what we may or may not feel about doing so.

We all of us do things, not because we want to, because we have some strong, positive desire to do them, but because it is the sensible, the rational, thing to do: We visit the dentist; we get regular colonoscopies after age 55; we go to the gym and curb our eating; we mow the lawn and weed the flowerbed; we pay car insurance and income tax, and so on. There are a host of things we do simply because it makes good sense to do them, even though they cost us money, time and effort that we'd much rather invest in other things.

We ought to take this same rational approach in regards to living in constant submission to God. If we can see the good sense in visiting the dentist regularly, though we may not want to, can we not do the same with God, who is both our Creator and Sustainer, the vital Source of our very existence? Simple, obvious rationality dictates that we should.

Ah, that simple, sensible reason was sufficient to win out over our Self-will and sin! But the billions of people bound in sinful habits, destructive addictions, and psychological neuroses demonstrate that reason alone rarely orders the human mind and heart. Though humans may acknowledge the great benefits of rationality, as often as not, they ignore reason, pathologically pursuing pleasure instead - even if doing so destroys them.

Typically, only when God's promises concerning sin are fulfilled in their lives are Christians sufficiently provoked to follow His will and way. They must end up in the desperate degradation of the pig-pen of sin, as the Prodigal Son did (Luke 15:11-32), before they can be made to return to their heavenly Father in humility and repentance.

Galatians 6:7-8
7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption...

James 1:14-15
14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death...

2 Peter 2:21-22
21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”

Even then, some Christians can become so gripped by sin that they follow it to complete physical destruction. Both the apostle Paul and the apostle John note this in their letters:

1 John 5:16-17
16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that.
17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.

1 Corinthians 11:28-30
28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.

God would much rather we responded to His incredible kindness, to His amazing love, grace and patience, and walked with Him in His way:

Romans 2:4
4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

Matthew 11:28-30
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Psalm 36:7-9
7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
8 They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
9 For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.

We who are truly born-again have the Holy Spirit within us, too, who convicts us of "sin, righteousness and judgment (John 16:8), who shows us the Truth (John 14:26; John 16:13), who will be strong for us (Ephesians 3:16; Romans 8:13; Philippians 2:13) in times of temptation and testing, who responds to our submission to God by going to work on what we want, first of all, and conforming us to the "image of Christ" (Romans 8:29). It isn't all on us to walk with God in His way. Thank God!

These are the things, then, that form my response to Christians who say that they "just don't want to" live in submission to God. I hope and pray that in your life it has been His goodness, the "carrot" of God's kindness and love, not the "stick" of sin's degradation and destruction, that prompts you to "walk in the Spirit" and so not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. There is life, joy and liberty in submission to God. May you find these things in abundance in Him!

What do you say to people who say "it is impossible to submit to God" ?

 

[Tenchi]

What do you say to people who say "it is impossible to submit to God" ?

If you're talking about a non-believer, one who has yet to be saved, I would agree with the person who says that it is impossible for the spiritually-unregenerate to submit to God without God's help. He doesn't compel their submission, however, dragging the lost into His kingdom kicking and screaming, as some would contend, but He certainly must take the initiative in delivering, convicting and illuminating the saving truth of the Gospel to the lost individual (Romans 10:14-15; John 6:44; 2 Timothy 2:25) to whom is left the choice to receive Christ as Savior and Lord, or not.
To the saved person who says they can't submit to God, the word of God says,

Philippians 4:13
13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Philippians 2:12-13
12 ...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

2 Corinthians 3:18
18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

No lost person is saved except the Holy Spirit dwells within them. He is their "new life in Christ."

Romans 8:9-11
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

1 John 4:13
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is not a Divine Puppeteer, however, imposing himself on the born-again person, making them dance to the strings of his will. No, at every turn, the Spirit waits on the conscious agreement of the person in whom he dwells before he works to transform them and express himself through them. And so, to saved people the word of God repeatedly urges conscious, constant submission to God, to the Spirit's will and way:

Romans 6:13
13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

Romans 8:14
14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

Romans 12:1
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

James 4:7
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God...

James 4:10
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

1 Peter 5:6
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,

So, then, to the genuine Christian person who says they are simply unable to submit to God, I would reply, "You're lying to yourself."

Often, though, in my experience, the person who says they can't submit to God really means they don't feel a strong, motivating desire to submit to God. To this believer, I offered God's response in my last post in this thread.

 

[Hopeful 2]

If you're talking about a non-believer, one who has yet to be saved, I would agree with the person who says that it is impossible for the spiritually-unregenerate to submit to God without God's help.

The unsubmissive are not "saved", much less converted.
I am talking about those who say they are saved...though the day of judgement is still a ways off.

To the saved person who says they can't submit to God, the word of God says,
Philippians 4:13
13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Philippians 2:12-13
12 ...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
2 Corinthians 3:18
18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

So man can submit totally to God.
It surprises me that so many on this site argue with such vehemence against the idea.

No lost person is saved except the Holy Spirit dwells within them. He is their "new life in Christ."

All the unsubmissive are "lost".
It doesn't matter what they call themselves, those who walk in and after the flesh are not of God.

The Holy Spirit is not a Divine Puppeteer, however, imposing himself on the born-again person, making them dance to the strings of his will. No, at every turn, the Spirit waits on the conscious agreement of the person in whom he dwells before he works to transform them and express himself through them. And so, to saved people the word of God repeatedly urges conscious, constant submission to God, to the Spirit's will and way:

The unsubmissive don't have the Spirit of God.

So, then, to the genuine Christian person who says they are simply unable to submit to God, I would reply, "You're lying to yourself."

Agreed.
That lie includes the fact that they are Christian.

Often, though, in my experience, the person who says they can't submit to God really means they don't feel a strong, motivating desire to submit to God. To this believer, I offered God's response in my last post in this thread.

They don't want to.
Sin is more important to them than loving God and neighbor.
What Peter was asked "What shall we do ?", on the day of Pentecost, the first word out of Peter's mouth was "REPENT"...turn away from sin !
The unsubmissive give themselves away when they commit a sin.
UN-repentant, UN-submissive, UN-Christian.

 

[Tenchi]

The unsubmissive are not "saved", much less converted.
I am talking about those who say they are saved...though the day of judgement is still a ways off.

It is one thing to say to God, "I submit to you"; but it is quite another to understand what this actually means in how it works out in daily, practical living. The person who says to God, "I submit" remains a largely unsubmitted person in their living because this is so. In attitude, they desire to live before God as a "living sacrifice," but until God shows them, they simply can't understand what it means to be such a "sacrifice." Bit by bit, over time, God reveals to the person who is willing to submit to Him, and who consciously agrees to being under His control, what it is to be truly submitted to Him. So, then, it is only the "unsubmissive" who are saved and who walk with God, becoming less and less so as they continue with Him in a constant attitude of submission.

So man can submit totally to God.
It surprises me that so many on this site argue with such vehemence against the idea.

No one knows what "total submission" to God actually is. We are all so blind to who we really are, so self-deceived, so comfortable in sin, so twisted by the World's demonic philosophies, that we simply cannot see what it is to be truly, totally submitted to God, though we use the phrase as though we do know. We can certainly desire total submission, but actually living in such a state is impossible except God progressively shows us what such living really is.

All the unsubmissive are "lost".
It doesn't matter what they call themselves, those who walk in and after the flesh are not of God.

No, this is simply flat-out false - as you know very well. I've shown you many times now in other threads how unbiblical your statements are here. I'm not going to do so, again.

The unsubmissive don't have the Spirit of God.

Some, perhaps. Many others are truly saved but simply in the process of learning what it is to be fully submitted to God.

They don't want to.
Sin is more important to them than loving God and neighbor.
What Peter was asked "What shall we do ?", on the day of Pentecost, the first word out of Peter's mouth was "REPENT"...turn away from sin !
The unsubmissive give themselves away when they commit a sin.
UN-repentant, UN-submissive, UN-Christian.

No, this is a grossly simplistic, over-generalizing and false set of statements that just don't comport with the plain declaration of God's word. I've already shown you why in other threads.