Bible Study Sin a Choice
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Desire to be a vessel of honor unto the Lord Jesus Christ?
Join For His Glory for a discussion on how
https://christianforums.net/threads/a-vessel-of-honor.110278/
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Taking the time to pray? Christ is the answer in times of need
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Others say that because they have skin and bones-"flesh", they are not sinless.
I can't agree with that.
Are we really going back to that after we already said skin and flesh can not sin! I will no longer respond.
Some do slack to much, some do not see what they do to be sin, just as others are to quick to judge others in things that they deem to be sin as they become holier than thou. As a child of God if we sin unknowingly then it is the Holy Spirit, not man, that will convict us. What one deems to be a sin may not be a sin before God.
Well, we know this mortal does not inherit the kingdom of God so what does that tell you.
It tells me we get a new vessel at our resurrection.
It does not tell me the skin, bones, and blood vessels, are sin laden entities.
You really need to let this go as we already agreed that it is not the skin, bones or blood that sins, but that of the thoughts and actions of a carnal mind.
In my nearly sixty years in the Church, I've observed that most Christians cut themselves far too much slack in the area of sin. They do so by way of remarks like, "No one's perfect," or "We all make mistakes," or "I'm covered by God's grace," and so on. I used to be one who excused his sin by this sort of thinking. In fact, I thought it was something of a virtue - a kind of humility - to acknowledge that I wasn't perfect. In reality, my pious admission of my imperfectness was just me making room in my life for spiritual and moral compromise, for wickedness. And I wasn't alone in doing this. All around me, fellow Christians were saying the same, making room in their lives, too, for sin.
Yes, if there is one thing we are all natural masters of it is self-deception. And so, we all must do as David did and apply to God for His searching, exposing scrutiny of our hearts and minds.
Psalm 139:23-24
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Only those believers unwilling to see their sin remain blind to it. God wants His children to be more and more holy, to be increasingly sanctified in their daily living, separated out to Him from the World, the Flesh and the devil. We can't know and walk with Him well unless we are holy - and more so over time.
Hebrews 12:14
14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:
2 Corinthians 6:14-18 (ESV)
14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?
16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
17 Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you,
18 and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”
Ephesians 5:8-12
8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light
9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true),
10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.
11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.
1 Peter 1:15-16
15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,
16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
1 John 2:15
15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
And so, He is always eager to reveal to us those evil things in our lives that block up the way between us and our holy Maker.
This is the common refrain of the wicked. "Don't judge me!" they cry. "Who do you think you are? Get off your high horse and step down into the muck with the rest of us. Only when you're covered in the filth of sin, too, will we listen to you!"
My wife calls this the "crabs in a pot" effect. Fishermen have observed that if one crab in a pot full of crabs manages to claw its way up to the rim of the pot and is about to escape, other crabs will quickly pull it back down into the pot. Sinful Christians do this, too, when they clamor and complain about the "holier than thou" Christian whose increasingly sanctified life makes them feel condemned and ashamed of their own life. They want that holy Christian to fall back into the "pot" of sin with them so that they feel better about their moral and spiritual compromise. And if the Christian whose life is being more and more sanctified doesn't go along, well, the rage of the wicked toward them gets pretty crazy.
It's a strange and very unbiblical false dichotomy that Christians often set up in their thinking:
1.) I'm a sinful person and can't help it. So, I can't ever speak about holiness and sin to other sinful people.
or
2). I'm a sinful person but I pretend I'm not. Being a hypocritical sinner, I shouldn't ever speak of holiness or sin to others.
These are the only two options most Christians, in my experience, will allow. In both cases, silence on holiness and sin is supposed to be the course the Christian follows. The idea that sin can be overcome and a Christian's life made increasingly sanctified so that they can speak to fellow believers about the need for, and the means of, doing the same is not an option, though this is exactly what the Bible lays out as the normal state-of-affairs for a Christian.
Matthew 7:3-5
3 "Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
4 "Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye?
5 "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
Galatians 6:1
1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.
Ephesians 5:11
11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
2 Timothy 4:2
2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.
Cleverly, the sinful Christian demands perfection from any fellow believer who would challenge their sinfulness and by this tactic evades all criticism. But the Bible nowhere makes moral/spiritual perfection the basis for a believer speaking to sin in the life of a fellow believer. The only restriction on doing so is that one does not challenge sin in the life of another person of which one is guilty, too.
Romans 2:1-3
1 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.
2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.
3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?
Romans 2:21-24
21 you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal?
22 You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?
23 You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.
24 For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
To a point. Christians regularly reject the conviction of the Holy Spirit, refusing to give up certain favorite or well-established sins.
And it is possible for such Spirit-resistant believers to grieve and then quench the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30; 1 Thessalonians 5:19), to despise the discipline of God, and grow hard, deaf and blind in sin, their conscience "seared as with a hot iron" (Hebrews 3:13; 1 Timothy 4:2; 2 Peter 1:9, etc.). In such a condition, the born-again child of God may be taken from this world, having become utterly useless to God and a destructive source of "leaven" in the Church (1 Corinthians 11:29-31; 1 John 5:16; Romans 6:23).
Sometimes, yes. But the call to holiness is not always legalism. It is possible for a believer to say to his sibling in Christ, "You are in an adulterous affair which is sin," or "You ought not to beat your children," or "Your drunkenness is evil," or "Playing with that ouija board is demonic and wrong," or "Your Netflix binging on the t.v. series about Lucifer is wickedness." But these legitimate challenges to sin get mixed up with truly legalistic demands like, "You must only wear a three-piece suit to church on Sunday," or "You sinned when you had a picnic on Sunday," or "Your salvation was lost when you only gave ten dollars in tithe." In objection to the latter, Christians want to stifle the former which is devastating to the spiritual health of the Church.
Tenchi
Here is what scripture calls sin. Mine is the issue I have with anger when I am pushed to hard by others and end up lashing out at them when I know I just need to walk away.
Gal 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
Gal 5:20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
Gal 5:21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Col 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Col 3:6 For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
Col 3:7 In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.
Col 3:8 But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
Col 3:9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
Here is what scripture calls sin. Mine is the issue I have with anger when I am pushed to hard by others and end up lashing out at them when I know I just need to walk away.
Gal 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
Gal 5:20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
Gal 5:21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Col 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Col 3:6 For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
Col 3:7 In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.
Col 3:8 But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
Col 3:9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
Of course.
Do you feel you can control your reactions to temptations ?
(As the OP is about making choices.)
Flesh.
Our mortal body.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
Romans 6:12
Paul wrote to water baptized Christians not to let the sin in their mortal body rule over them to make them slaves of sin.
Hopeful doesn’t really go by scripture.
What's interesting in these lists (at least, to me) is that they describe symptoms of one underlying cause: The old Self (Romans 6:6) in control rather than God. The old Self, being incorrigibly fleshly-minded, can produce nothing else (Romans 8:5-8). So, I've learned not to fixate on the symptoms of sin but to recognize the underlying cause of sin in my life and act in response as God in His word directs me to do. As a result, day by day, sin is increasingly the exception to the rule of my life. And as this is the case, God comes more fully into view and I am able, as a consequence, to enjoy Him more and more.
If one is told that they can keep sin out of the mortal body, (above), how is it you need to keep seeing sin as always in the mortal body ?
You misread it.
It does not say there is sin that can reign in one's mortal body.
It says not to allow sin to reign in one's body: indicating the possibility of keeping sin out entirely.
If we don't commit sin, sin cannot reign in our life.
I read what is there, instead of making bible verses fit a sin accommodating doctrine.
Your doctrine infers that there is sin in the new creature's skin and bones.
In spite if what 2 Cor 5:17 says..."Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
God's creatures are not re-created with sin in them.
I agree. As long as we are walking in the Spirit we have no sin found in us.
By the way, a "fleshly mind" or a "carnal mind" is not necessarily a reference to a sinful mind, only to a mind that is anchored in, and relying primarily upon, human powers of will, intellect and physical action in daily, practical living rather than upon the Holy Spirit. This sort of human-centered mind, because of its orientation away from God, quickly becomes fleshly in sinful ways, however.
But a Christian can be trying to work toward godly, spiritual ends by fleshly means, by means of human will-power, intellect and physical strength/action. Unfortunately, since like begets like, only a fleshly result is obtained. This fleshly sort of "Christian" living has been called "boot-strap Christianity" wherein a believer is constantly trying to pull himself up by his own boot-straps spiritually, which is impossible. This doesn't stop Christians from trying to do so - sometimes for decades - however.
But a Christian can be trying to work toward godly, spiritual ends by fleshly means, by means of human will-power, intellect and physical strength/action. Unfortunately, since like begets like, only a fleshly result is obtained. This fleshly sort of "Christian" living has been called "boot-strap Christianity" wherein a believer is constantly trying to pull himself up by his own boot-straps spiritually, which is impossible. This doesn't stop Christians from trying to do so - sometimes for decades - however.
Most of the times yes, but, like Paul who struggled with sin, still under God's grace, we continue to strive for that perfection that is in Christ Jesus. Our salvation is a single moment, but sanctification is a process
The Apostle Paul on Struggling With Sin Yet Still Under Grace
How does grace interact with the law of God? How do we reconcile grace and law? Two major gifts of grace are the unmerited mercy God grants us by His loving nature and His spiritual law the apostle Paul said he took “delight in” (Romans 7:22).
www.ucg.org
Why Do I Still Struggle with Sin? – Well-Watered Women
Struggling with sin as a Christian can cause doubt of salvation, but Scripture shows us we have assurance if we live by faith in Christ.
wellwateredwomen.com