As man thinketh in his heart, so is he!

Peace and grace to you my friend from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly (spiritual) realm!

May your roots continue to grow down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love!

This is a great post my brother.

We all must see our need of forgiveness and our unworthiness of anything from the Lord and we must then receive Christ and identify with Him. He is our substitute at Calvary. All that we have is found only in Him. This is a great post.  Blessings,

              Pastor Len
 

God is spirit. (John 4:24) When I get closer to God, he sees not my carnality, he sees my spirit, He sees His Spirit, that spirit that has now been fused together with the same life-giving spirit that raised Christ from the dead. That my friend is why I can come boldly before the throne of Grace!

See, I have made a decision to let God be true and every man a liar. I have put on the new man!

I have been sanctified:

When I come to God I don't come with my tail tucked between my legs, whimpering and whining, hoping he won't reprimand me because I am so very wretched, no! I come boldly, like a child of the Most High God, praising Him and thanking Him that He was willing to change, renew, and restore me from the wretched state that I once was, and create in me a clean heart and a renew a right spirit! That same spirit that cries forth, Abba Father!

Amen!

Well...I am too simple minded to get in this debate.

I just know I am saved by grace. I have been forgiven much and love much. Awesome blog...Thank you Steve!

Steve,

I do understand where you are coming from; I also understand where Michael is coming from. I'm have no interest in getting into a debate and I'm pretty sure no one else was either.  I know all the years that I spent in Romans 7...not doing the good that I wanted to do but doing the evil that I didn't want to do; and I know all the years that I thought it was about my commitment or my faith, that I couldn't move from there the freedom spoken to in Romans 8.

I would ask only that you might do me the kindness of considering what Paul said in the first part of Romans 7:

Remember also in Romans 8 it says that we are no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of Christ is in us.  The real reason we, as born-again Christians, end up in Romans 7 is because we are still trying to live for the Lord.  I have learned that as soon as I turn to myself to overcome any given temptation then from that point on I am doomed to end up giving in to it...eventually.  That is because I am not abiding in who I am in Christ.  In Him, I am dead indeed to sin and as it says in Romans 6, I must consider myself to be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ...so there is absolutely nothing that "I" have to do about the temptation except to stand in the fact that I do not have to present my members to sin to obey its lusts.  So I set my mind on the truth of the scripture and on the things above and the temptation passes.  The mind set on the flesh is death it is not able to keep the law; the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.

We are a new creation in Christ but we do still have sin that dwells in the members of our bodies.  The scripture says that our bodies are dead because of sin but our spirit is alive because of righteousness.  So, I have learned that I really am a new creation and have become a partaker of the Divine nature (as Peter says) but that sin still dwells in my members.

Satan, the flesh, and sin will always try to get us to move from who we are in Christ to try and get us to do things about the things that God has already told us He has dealt with in Christ.  When we turn from who we really are in Christ to who the flesh says we are then we will fail.

A public blog is not the place to go into all of this but I would encourage you to read "The Rest of The Gospel: When the partial gospel has warn you out" by Dan Stone (see my Profile).  Also Watchman Nee's Book "The Normal Christ Life" is probably the finest exegesis of Romans ever written...these books opened my eyes to all this.

Blessings!
Craig

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

If you look up the word "purged" in the dictionary, it means to clean, If you look up the word "clean" it means to purge!

We have been cleaned, purged. White as snow! Praise God! We are to have no more conscience of sins!

I just had to throw that in the pot, for the topic of discussion. Hebrews Rocks!

Great discussion!

It's not wretched to be human. God created us human. What made us wretched was the old sin nature. My old sin nature, or old man died, the very moment I allowed Christ to come into my heart. I do not have two opposing forces working within me. I have been re-born of the incorruptible seed.

But our old man left behind habits and thought patterns. That's where becoming a living sacrifice and renewing the mind comes into play.

We will one day be human again. When we reach our final destination, the New Earth, we are not going to be spirits without bodies. We are going to be physical beings on a physical earth. An earth without the possibility of corruption. We shall be placed back in the Garden so to speak for the purposes of dominating and ruling the earth and all creation. The way is was meant to be the first time.

I have been delivered from the evils of this present world!

Hallelujah! - Thank you for redeeming blood Jesus!

Steve,

What's up bro?

I see you added some scripture verses.

"Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing"

Is this not talking about those that have completely turned their back on Christ. They trust not in Him nor have need of Him.

"be zealous therefore, and repent"

I was under the impression you had aleady done this.

and this,

"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."

Man, I had to really hesitate to come back and post yet another comment. But it's wrong to tell all your readers that they are still just wretched human beings. I make the assumption, of course,  that most people that read your blogs are born-again followers of Christ.

And, because Christ now lives in them, the old wretched man no longer lives!

Colossians 2:13-23 NLT

You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. 

In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

So don’t let anyone condemn you (including yourself) for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. Don’t let anyone condemn you  (including yourself) by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud, and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it.

You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as,  “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. 23 These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires.

You are a child of the King my friend.

Could it be that the church of Laodicea were not knit together with strong ties of love? Was it because they had not received an understanding of God's marvelous plan, which is Christ himself?

I know Steve, you are probably getting fed up with me and I don't blame you. I am just trying to encourage you my friend. Your spirit-,man is wall-to-wall holy, and righteous, and blameless.

And, I agree, apart from Christ, I can do nothing. But, thank God, I am not apart from Christ. He'll never leave nor forsake me. And through Him, in me, I can do all things because He has strengthened me!

You're alright in my book Steve. Thanks for putting up with me!


Laterr