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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
https://christianforums.net/threads/psalm-70-1-save-me-o-god-lord-help-me-now.108509/
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Depending upon the Holy Spirit for all you do?
Read through the following study by Tenchi for more on this topic
https://christianforums.net/threads/without-the-holy-spirit-we-can-do-nothing.109419/
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How are famous preachers sometimes effected by sin?
Join Sola Scriptura for a discussion on the subject
https://christianforums.net/threads/anointed-preaching-teaching.109331/#post-1912042
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Bible Study SO YOU THINK YOU ARE SAVED.
- Thread starter Chopper
- Start date
smaller
Member
If Christ is in us, Christ in us will not "get lost."We are one in Christ.. right everyone ?
Matthew 28:20
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
ezrider
Member
Maybe you misunderstood my question, or perhaps its something that is preferably ignored. We were discussing the scripture that said give no place to the devil. I had asked you if a follower of Christ should seek after the things of the antichrist or devil if you prefer? You answered yes in post #436.
So I will then leave out any obvious portion of scripture that people disagree on as an example of the condition I am asking of: Do you think that people who give more focus to the things of the devil in the scripture can miss things that are attributed to Christ and apply them to the devil instead? Or how about if I were to ask you about the boogie man that lives under the bed: should we give place to the boogie man?
Jeremiah 4:22
For my people is foolish, they have not known me;
they are sottish children, and they have none understanding:
they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
Romans 7:18
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
ezrider
Member
God hates gays? They are under condemnation? By which law? Christ was put to death for sin to condemn sin in the flesh. As a Christian, I am to....... What? Are you not commanded to forgive on another.
Sure, you can find things in the law and say that God hates gays, or God hates divorce, or this is an abomination, and that is a sin. Yes theses are all declared to you from the law. But can the Law show you the Mercy of the Lord. Can the Law declare His Righteousness or make known His Glory?
God hates: that's an old covenant position. God Forgives: that's a new covenant position. Instead of seeking after the things that God hates, perhaps you might want to try and understand why He would forgive them of their sins. As Jesus said, and as Stephen said: forgive them Father, for they know not what they do, or lay not these sins to their charge.
In whose image do you seek to be created in. Do you seek to be created in the image and Spirit of Elijah? Or do you wish to be created in the image and Spirit of Christ?
You have said on multiple occasions in this thread that I am only looking at one side of the issue, but that there are two sides. I am not sure which side you think I am looking at and what side you think I am ignoring, but the sins we have talked about in this thread are sins of the flesh, but what of the Spirit?
So let me ask this according to the commandment:
Have you committed murder?
Have you eaten from the tree of the Knowledge of good and evil?
.
ezrider
Member
It may just be a play on words, but I think there is significance to it. Does the new covenant put us under the blood of Christ? Or does the Blood of Christ put us under the new covenant? The blood of Christ gives you a covering for your sins according to the requirements of the Law and the old covenant, it was also the confirmation of the new covenant.
In the garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree of knowledge, they made themselves a covering and then hid from the presence of the Lord. The children of Israel by Faith put the blood upon the door posts so that the angel of death might pass over. Likewise the sacrifice for sin that was offered was so the angel of death would pass over. But under the new covenant, how can you say that the angel of death will pass over us because the blood of Christ is saving us? Christ has become the angel of death for us, for if we are in Christ then we count ourselves as being dead with Him. And if we are indeed dead in Christ, then why would we need a covering so the angel of death would continue to pass us by. If Christ is in us, then why do we continue to seek a covering to hide from our sins?
ezrider
Member
Matthew 23:15
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
It would be fair to say that the scribes and the Pharisees were knowledgeable of the Law. When they make one a proselyte, are they not bringing that one into their way of thinking? How is it that they make this one twofold more the child of hell? What is it that makes him a child of hell?
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
It would be fair to say that the scribes and the Pharisees were knowledgeable of the Law. When they make one a proselyte, are they not bringing that one into their way of thinking? How is it that they make this one twofold more the child of hell? What is it that makes him a child of hell?
Chopper
Member
Thank you for clarifying your question. Anyone who spends more time focusing on the devil or anti-christ certainly is missing out on the things of our Lord and Savior Jesus, the Christ of God.
Chopper
Member
PLEASE!! Don't misrepresent my statements. I said that God hates divorce. I didn't say God hates the people who divorce. I said, God hates gay marriage, I said nothing about God hating the people. Romans 1 is very clear on this.
GodsGrace
CF Ambassador
Hi EZRider
I'd have to say that the New Covenant puts you under the blood of Christ.
The reason is the fact that some covenants were unilateral and some weren't. For instance, the Abrahamic Covenant was unilateral. God was going to make a nation whether or not man agreed to it. There was a sign if you belonged to the Covenant - circumcision. You did have to be circumcised if you wanted to belong to this covenant. The circumcision itself separated people into chosen and not chosen.
Now we got to the N.C. as expressed in the O.T. Jeremiah 31:31-34
So now we have this N.C. Bu we still have to BELONG to it. And how do you belong to the New Covenant? By believing in Jesus, by accepting Him as the Savior of manking, by accepting His blood to cover you. The N.C. is an unconditional covenant. God will make the entire world the Kingdom and it's not limited to Israel. However, there is one little condition: You have to ACCEPT it to be in it.
So it does seem like a play on words I guess. If you ACCEPT the N.C. you're placed under the blood.
But you have to accept it first. The blood doesn't put everybody under its protection, just those who accept.
The last part of your pp gets at what you believe about how our sin is taken care of. If we continue to seek a covering it's because we still sin. Are we dead to sin?
Romans 13:14
"Christ has become the angel of death for us." What does this mean? Is He the one circling to kill the firstborn??? We are dead in Christ means we go into the baptismal water, signifying our death to ourselves, we come up with a New Life. Jesus in us. The New Creature or creation. Do we magically stop sinning?
If we do still sin, is it okay? Does Jesus cover for sins we feel we can commit?
If I'm not asking the right questions, it means I didn't understand the second part of you last pp.
Wondering
Chopper
Member
We are not classified as sinners. We are the Children of God who sometimes sin. If you think you're a sinner, that's what you are. Get saved!
smaller
Member
Some believers, eventually, are not interested in fantasies about how "perfect" they are and instead will observe and focus on where they lack, and why.
Having a Tony Robbins mindset is not beneficial imho. An extremely critical mindset is far more important, as that is what Paul presents in the "capture" of every thought.
There are thoughts and imaginations to be captured and put into submission.
2 Corinthians 10:5
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
Using a well known analogy from the sports world, in golf for example, a hacker who doesn't care about their score will take no thought about their errors, and will continue to just hack without regard to score. A professional will be challenged by the slightest miss and be critical in the extreme, about every single shot. For a professional there is no such thing as a perfect shot.
Theology works the same way. There is no such thing as our own perfect thoughts.
Similar principal.
Paul opens a great door of discovery about 'thoughts' in Romans 7:7-13. I might even term it a "universal principle" of how "man" operates internally.
Where the law arises, evil present, which God Himself placed into our construct, does have thoughts against that law. And as such, sin is a proven internal fact. We can certainly go into la la land, and excuse such, or even worse, to claim that the evil present within our conscience does NOT resist the law, but that is the essence of internal captivity to a lie. So it's NOT beneficial whatsoever to go that route. It's better to be honest about our internal construct and recognize what is going on, not only within ourselves, but in the world in general.
It helps greatly to see the reality on the inside.
Hebrews 10:22
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
Understanding this, prepares honest ground for GODS MERCY, which we are always needful of, are we not?
smaller
Member
I was personally challenged on the matters of Phariseeism, thankfully, by a good brother in the Lord many years ago.
He pointed out quite rightly, that if we DIDN'T want to be a Pharisee, then we accept Jesus' critique of them, and do NOT reject His Harshest Words. We 'accept' them as true, and if not, then we ARE the Pharisee.
But the evil that is present within our own conscience will reject being dragged into Jesus' harshest Words, when in fact we should accept every Word.
Here for example, Jesus applies TRUTHFUL critique to them:
Matthew 23:28
Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
Today I fully accept Jesus' within sight. If not, then I am that Pharisee, rejecting His Words.
If we are honest, we know we have part of our internal construct, part of our conscience, IS in fact evil. There is little use, if any, in denying this without being turned into a liar by that evil conscience.
Deuteronomy 30:15
See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;
God knows this. We know it too, if we are honest. So who are we kidding but ourselves? This is how we were made by our Creator.
Understanding we do have an evil conscience makes the bed for Gods Mercy.
Why? Because we do in fact NEED it, because of our construct, internal.
Understanding this principle wipes out "works salvation" imho. There is no way to justify the evil conscience in any of us. Or as the farmers where I grew up used to say, the Pope puts his own pants on the same as I do.
Jethro Bodine
Member
Amen................We know the flesh is contrary to the Spirit............no one is denying that!
It's smaller's conclusion that I thoroughly resist.......that because the flesh is contrary to the things of the Spirit we have no choice but to continue in sin as a slave. That's not even remotely true according to Paul.
If he dares to insist he is not saying that I will remind him how he's been calling us slaves to sin because we can't see his argument because of our bondage to denial and pride.
smaller
Member
I've never proposed such. But I will also never lie and say I'm not a sinner, with sin indwelling my flesh and evil present with me in the form of an evil conscience as part of my construct. No, I do not desire to be captured or controlled by it. But I'm certainly not interested in being a LIAR about these facts either.
At some point you submit to "internal reality" and in that we understand our quite factual internal weakness. There are no spiritual rewards for liars, other than to get sucked into false notions about ourselves. I am not any different in my sights than what Paul provided us to view for himself. I'll take my measures of being truthful from him, rather than some illusory fantasies from works salvation people. To me such people are simply delusional about their own factual internal state of affairs. If such are not honest, they are not worthy of trust whatsoever. WE do not put our trust in man precisely because we know how "man" is put together. Religious charlatans are my LEAST favorite people.
I've never made such a claim. I think it's quite odd that's what you think you hear. I think everyone here that has called upon Jesus to save them will be saved. Do you hear ANY condemnation in that? If you do, you simply are not listening very well. And I'll chalk that up to evil present, rather than having to "blame you" as Gods child. And I "do that" precisely to not fall into condemnation of any believer. There is no benefit in seeing God in Christ as ineffective or unable to save those who have done so.
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GodsGrace
CF Ambassador
Gosh Chopper,
I never thought when I joined here that I'd have to be so careful with words.
We're sinners in the sense that we sin. One could say we're sinners and not be wrong.
We're NOT sinners in the sense that our NATURE is not the nature of a sinner since we have accepted the Holy Spirit into our lives, our very nature has changed.
BUT, what nature do we now have if we still sin?
You see. It depends on how much theology you know, it depends on how you understand the sin nature to be.
For instance, I don't think Smaller is saying that we can't have victory over sin. I think he's saying that no matter how much victory we have, we're still sinners in our nature - as he understands nature to be.
God breathed his breath into Adam, and Adam was in the image of God, but he didn't get God's nature.
Nature is a very specific thing and I see that Jethro likes this subject and it's an important subject. But the wording can throw us off...
Just a thought.
Wondering
smaller
Member
Well, thank you for hearing that much.
Paul set the goal post in the opposite direction than what most run to.
He claimed this for himself: "sinners, of whom I am chief." 1 Tim. 1:15
In this Paul recognizes the most important principles of 'genuine' Christianity.
Sin is NOT measured externally. It's internal and it is because we all deal with temptation internally, which is in fact "of the tempter." An adverse agent that was not Paul. And Paul gloried in this internal weakness, and was cognizant of his internal attacker when he penned that fact.
Paul gloried in his own personal weakness, as he was commanded by God in Christ to DO SO!
2 Corinthians 12:9
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Rather than figuring out how we are not a sinner, we might be better advised by Paul to figure out how we are the "chief of sinners." Even though it may not appear that way on the outside.
Hospes
Member
When looking at my salvation and my sin I find a two-handed approach useful.
In my right hand I hold the glorious truths of the Gospel: by grace I have been given life in Christ, the power of unforgiven sin is broken, I am clothed in the perfect righteousness and obedience of my Lord, I may boldly approach a most Holy God and call him Abba, father. In my left hand I look and see myself as a person still prone to sin, prone to wander off after idols, and see the infinite holiness-gap between who I am and who my God is.
I have accepted this paradigm, but fully believe it will end upon entering glory.
One thing that helped me on this was the story of Peter’s vision in Acts:
Peter was faced with seeing a slew of animals he knew were unclean by the very Word of God and yet God was calling them clean. All the evidence pointed toward the animals being unclean, even the scripture. But God declared them clean. Peter was faced with the choice of using his own judgement based on obvious evidence to decide the truth or to let God declare the truth.
Even though all I see in my left hand says I am unclean. What is in my right hand is God’s declaration of my perfect righteousness. Though all the evidence screams otherwise, I desire and am learning to adopt God’s declaration as true.
The irony is once I decided to accept God’s declaration of reality, I found freedom to face boldly what I hold in my lefty hand and wage war against it, knowing in the end, it loses.
Hope this helps.
In my right hand I hold the glorious truths of the Gospel: by grace I have been given life in Christ, the power of unforgiven sin is broken, I am clothed in the perfect righteousness and obedience of my Lord, I may boldly approach a most Holy God and call him Abba, father. In my left hand I look and see myself as a person still prone to sin, prone to wander off after idols, and see the infinite holiness-gap between who I am and who my God is.
I have accepted this paradigm, but fully believe it will end upon entering glory.
One thing that helped me on this was the story of Peter’s vision in Acts:
And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven. (Acts 10:10-16 ESV)
Peter was faced with seeing a slew of animals he knew were unclean by the very Word of God and yet God was calling them clean. All the evidence pointed toward the animals being unclean, even the scripture. But God declared them clean. Peter was faced with the choice of using his own judgement based on obvious evidence to decide the truth or to let God declare the truth.
Even though all I see in my left hand says I am unclean. What is in my right hand is God’s declaration of my perfect righteousness. Though all the evidence screams otherwise, I desire and am learning to adopt God’s declaration as true.
The irony is once I decided to accept God’s declaration of reality, I found freedom to face boldly what I hold in my lefty hand and wage war against it, knowing in the end, it loses.
Hope this helps.
smaller
Member
Both sights are true.
Peter was shown a vision of the "unclean" descending upon himself. And was commanded to EAT. 3 times no less.
Picture the descent of temptations of the tempter in the account and there is a more accurate spiritual picture. Unclean animals are used as a similitude of this matter in the vision. We are to call no man common or unclean. And should see them as they are. Blinded by the god of this world. That makes 2 parties present to the drama. Acts 26:18, 2 Cor. 4:4, Mark 4:15 for quick examples. And yes, we are to love one and HATE the other. Just as we do in our own temptations, knowing that the wrath of God does abide for a certainty upon the TEMPTER.
Gods Judgment does abide, adversely, on the left hand. That can't change either. Nevertheless that is our situation. And yes, we are saved in FULL, eventually, out of that condition. But not in this present life.
Our change comes at the end of the exercises of this current life. Phil. 3:21.
Most errors in judgments arise from a basic lack of insight and the source of our evil present with us, which is of the tempter. A party that is not us as Gods children and is not man either.
We do all have very real adversaries, and they are "internal."
Here's a short scriptural math lesson on it:
Romans 11:32
For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
Ephesians 2:
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Prior to salvation we did not see our condition, in this binding.
Now that we DO see it for what it is, a working that is NOT US, we do not follow that leading, but reign over it.
Does NOT mean though, we eliminate this present reality. In claiming elimination there is nothing to reign OVER. Or we falsely perceive being against ourselves only, when there is a more legitimate direction to look that is NOT ourselves.
As Gods children we are naturally repulsed by any notions of slavery. And that should rightfully include not being enslaved to LIE.
When we lie about having sin indwelling our flesh by saying it isn't so. When we lie about not having evil present, the slaveship of Satan's deceptions has performed it's adverse duties. And our condition is worse in the eyes of God, as we have been pawned in failing to be honest, by that adverse working.
God does demand truth on these subjects.
When we see these things as they are, we will also have a bit of a shocker. That God is both simultaneously FOR us, and AGAINST the adverse spirit of the tempter, simultaneously.
From that understanding we are led to cast ourselves headlong into HIS MERCY. There is no "work around" available for the tempter. And yes, God does have every right to deal with the tempter in anyone, adversely. Including locking believers into LYING. Unfortunately that's where a lot of believers land. And it is by God, working adversely against the tempter in their own flesh.
The best discourse is and will remain, honesty. Regardless of the outcomes in this present life.