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Originally posted by Carol Swenson:

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Originally posted by barrykind:
At least this post you made is more on subject although crudly wrong!

Sorry try again Sister.

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LOL

So do you really believe that it's wrong to walk in the Spirit?

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Posts: 8775 | From: USA, MICHIGAN | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

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quote:

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Originally posted by barrykind:
At least this post you made is more on subject although crudly wrong!

Sorry try again Sister.

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Posts: 6787 | From: Colorado | Registered: Dec 2007  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Caretaker:

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Originally posted by Carol Swenson:
WALK IN THE SPIRIT


Many Christians are so burdened with the heavy load of law. They are bent low with such a sorrowful sense of failing. They always talk about what a “wretch” they are, or they simply try to ignore how far short they fall from the standard they believe the Bible teaches them to live. I would rather talk about the victory I have in Jesus than the failure I am certain to experience in the flesh. Law makes you focus on yourself. Grace allows you to focus on Jesus.

For those who think they have at least ten things to live up to, I have great news. There is only ONE thing you must do to be successful in your Christian walk. WALK IN THE SPIRIT. If you do this one thing consistently your whole life will change. It is “easy.” It is “light.” Or else Jesus lied to us. You will handle ONE thing a lot better than you will succeed in ten things.

“WALK” is a very simple word. The term lines up with the comment, or exhortation of Paul towards the end of the letter to the Galatians in 5:25, where he says, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

How do we do that? It is obviously stressed in the Scriptures that we walk in the Spirit. I think we should find on examination that either every letter, or almost every letter, in the New Testament that discusses living in the Spirit, has moved on to discussing walking in the Spirit.

So it’s quite plain that the Spirit of God expects us not only to live but to walk—not only to claim to live but to walk it out. Just to give an instance or two, we can turn to Romans 8 where for the first time the word “walk” comes in, “who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.”

We pass through Galatians and we come right up against “walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” Galatians 5:16. Then there is this verse, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Galatians 5:25.

We move into Ephesians and we are taken up into the ascended life, and then we are brought down, “I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech ye that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” Ephesians 4:1. “Walk in love, walk as children of light, walk circumspectly.” Ephesians 5:2, 8, 15. So the note is struck again and again in Ephesians.

Colossians takes us up to the headship of Christ and then it says in Col. 2:6, “As therefore ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him.”

I Thes. 4:1, after He has given those delightful heart outpourings to that young church in its early days, He says, “as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God.”

And then you get on into John’s epistles, which are full of the walk in the strongest possible terms. “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.” And, in his second and third letters, he constantly says he delights that his converts, his children, walk in truth. That comes two or three times over, or words to that effect.

So we have sufficient proof that the Holy Spirit has a great deal to say to us and to impress upon us concerning the walk. So it is good that we spend some time meditating on it.

THIS IS A PRESENT TENSE ACTIVITY

Remember, Jesus said it is “easy” and it is “light.” (Mat. 11:28) Even a child can understand it. (Mat. 18:3) Our “labor” or our “struggle” is to enter into that rest. The flesh refuses to rest. (Heb. 4:9-11)

The first very simple lesson that simplifies things for me is the fact that the whole meaning of the walk is that it is a present-tense activity. The whole meaning of it is that it is a present tense, a down to earth, immediate, present activity. I am now walking—that’s the idea. You are walking NOW, not in the future, not in the past, but in the present. You are walking now—walking in fellowship with Jesus now.

So it brings us down to the present tense and I find it helpful to remember that there is only one tense that really makes sense in the Christian life. There is only one tense and it is the present. The only tense we are really responsible for is the present. We are to live in the present. A great many of our diversions come because we are pulled back to the past, or forward to the future.

We’re often pulled back to the past by the condemnations of the Satan, the Accuser, who works through our flesh. He smears the simplicity of our present walk by reminding us, “Oh, you’re no good; why, you sinned yesterday; you’re selfish, you’re proud, you’re this and that. You can’t walk consistently.” Satan dulls our presence with Jesus by his false accusations through our flesh.

Now, I’m not to take a single word for one minute from the past, because “there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” The whole past is forever blotted out in the Precious Blood for “as far as the East is from the West, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12. They are cast into the depths of the sea. I’m not to take Satan’s condemnation! The only sense in which I am to take the past is if I am conscious that I have just sinned, specifically sinned on a specific point; not a general point that I am generally proud, or generally selfish, or those lies Satan gives my fleshly mind. I’m not. I’m in Christ. I’m not going to take that lie. I’m in Christ and crucified with Him. I’m not going to take that smear from the past, but if there is something I may just have committed this morning and I know it is sin, well then, certainly I must face up and put that right. But I can do it in one second. That’s a thing I can do at the present. I can immediately put that right and immediately have cleansing—and walk!

So I’m to learn, not to add to my other sins the sin of unbelief by denying the efficacy of the Precious Blood because the Precious Blood (Christ’s death) is effective right up to this present moment. As I stand here, all that matters to me at this present moment is that I am consciously in the presence of Jesus as I write this email now. That’s all. That’s walking. I’m walking now, as you are walking as you sit there reading this email. Now am I, just at this moment as far as I know, with nothing between me and my Lord? Has the Blood blotted out every sin there was? As far as I know it has. Very well then, I walk. As for the Past, as for the Future, leave them alone!

As for the future, leave it with the One to whom it belongs—God. We’re specifically told, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matt. 6:34) I don’t know if that’s one of The Lord’s ironical sayings, because when you walk with Him evil becomes His good because you get it from His hands. So the evil becomes His good when you walk in the present, not in the past or the future.

Most of our troubles, of course, are fears of the future, not what things are in the present. It’s a very simple lesson, but very blessed when you get it. It frees us; we become simple as a child. We’re just happily walking now with Jesus. I won’t take anything from the past. I won’t take anything from the future. The past is under the Blood, the future is in God’s hand, and the present is in mine with Him. And all I can do is to be present to Him; that’s all. And if I’ve nothing in between, then, all right, I’m not responsible. I’m just happy. That’s all. Just walk.

There is too much heavy talk about being responsible. Responsibility is a heavy word. I prefer RESPONSE-TO-HIS-ABILITY-IN-ME. That, to me, is far more Scriptural. I am “as a child” holding His hand as we walk together right NOW.

CONTINUAL ABIDING—Way of Walking with Jesus

How do we walk? What does walking mean? Let’s go to that verse which I have quoted from Colossians, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him.” Of course, walking is the walking in the fellowship—in Him, with Him.

The way Jesus spoke about walking was by another illustration—that of abiding. (John15) Now we all know in John 15 that His emphasis is not on how we get into the abiding relationship. He’s taken that for granted. In John 15, He says, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” He doesn’t discuss that. I presume He couldn’t discuss it because it was before the atonement and they didn’t have the inner light of the Spirit. Therefore it was not good for Him to go too far in discussions of that inner, mystical union that the Apostle Paul later reveals. It must come after Calvary, after the Resurrection, after Pentecost.. So He passes that by. He just says, “This is fact. I am the vine, ye are the branches.” We’re one organism, we’re one blessed life. He Himself within us, that’s the union.

Now He says, “What I am saying to you is, ‘Abide in the union.’” So all John 15 is saying is summed up in verse 4, “Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in Me.” Verse 5. “I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in Me and I in Him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for apart from Me ye can do nothing.” “If a man abide not in Me, certain consequences follow.” Verse 7. “If ye abide in Me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.”

So we see quite clearly what His emphasis is. “Now continue in Me.” The word “abide” is the same as continue, the same as remain. Continue now in me. Now that’s how you put the walk; that’s the same as walking. “Continue now in Me.” “Abide in Me.” I suppose the simplest explanation we can give of what He means is that abiding in Him is seeing Him. Now He is in us and we in Him.

Now abiding in Him is the consciousness of His Presence, isn’t it? Seeing Him. If we’re really abiding in Him we have that consciousness. Now if we are to know how to abide in Him, all we have to know is how to maintain ourselves free from anything which interferes with that abiding. That abiding is automatic and continuous unless something interferes with it. Why? Because it is the ministry of the blessed Spirit. Why has the Spirit come into our hearts? To magnify the blessed Lord. He has only that one purpose, constantly, unceasingly to reveal to our hearts that glorious Presence, which produces all peace and power and everything else a person can know. That is what He is here for. Therefore, that’s the automatic consequence of our life—an invariable consequence because the Holy Spirit is an invariable Person, unless He is interfered with. Therefore, nothing can stop that abiding unless it is something that positively interferes with the Spirit.

Now that’s, perhaps, the most important lesson I have learned, to recognize that if there is the slightest cloud of any kind (whatever I might name it; whether I call it something physical or some oppression or any other of many names), if there is the slightest shade of a cloud between me and Him and the bright revelation of His Presence in my heart, it means I am interfering with the ministry of the Spirit. It is not that something automatic has come in. Things can’t come automatically into that relationship, as it’s a sacred citadel; things can’t enter automatically there; it’s a private place of its own; it’s a Holy of Holies. If there is a single thing that is clouding in the slightest way that brightness, there is something interfering with the Spirit; and I am responsible, because it can’t get there unless I have let it in.

Now that’s the point that has been so helpful to me—a new quickness and sharpness of recognition. “Hello, Hello, there is something wrong here. I’m not consciously abiding here.” Now that’s not the Spirit’s fault. He’s there. He’s permanent. He’s a well that always springs up into everlasting life. No, if there is something clouding there I have let something in because the flesh or Satan can’t get there unless I let him in. Oh no, that’s private property in there, praise God. He can’t get in there unless I let him in. “Now what’s up?”

And so it comes back to this very simple fact: the simple walk with Jesus is a happy, easy, free, daily, natural walk with Jesus only, coupled with it a sensitivity to sin and recognition that if there is a cloud, it is sin. That’s the point. The reason that we aren’t sensitive to sin is because we don’t call it sin, because we have other names for it, and we name the cloud something else and so it remains. The whole point is that God has given His remedy for sin, but He hasn’t given His remedy for excuses. And if we call a thing this or that, and the other, it remains this, that, and the other; and we remain in this, that, and the other too. If we’ve let something in which is interfering with that gracious work, that gracious ministry, we are grieving Him; but if we call it what it is, and “confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” And we’re free.

So the life becomes very simple, simply walking with Jesus but having the immediate readiness, quickness—not introspectiveness, not that—but if something does come in, just a readiness to say, “Hello, now there is something there. Let me smell that out, and then put it out via the Blood.” Yes that’s a good Scripture, “quick of scent.” We need to be quick of scent in this job as well as quick of sight.

A Single Eye—Full of Light

Matthew 6 talks about the body being full of light. It illustrates what I am talking about. Matt. 6:22-23 says, “The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” Well, when your eye is single you see Jesus, of course. That’s the only point of having an eye, a spiritual eye, isn’t it—to see Jesus? And if my eye is single, it means I have a clear simple sight of Him and therefore I am full of light. Because He is there, therefore His Presence, His Peace, His Power, His Fullness, His Adequacy and everything is there.

All right, that’s obvious. That’s abiding. That’s walking now, that’s walking with Jesus. A single eye, a body full of light, abiding in Him is all there.

An Evil Eye—Needs Cleansing

Now what struck me with surprise is the next verse. “But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.” Now what struck me was this: the opposite of single is double. And therefore there is a sudden change by inspiration here, for it doesn’t say what we would think it would say, “If thine eye is double it’s full of darkness,” but it says, “If thine eye is evil.” Because if it said “double” we should find a good excuse: “Oh, I’ve a good reason for it being double! I’m not feeling well this morning, or my neighbor is a bit off, or something.” And I could find these rotten excuses for which there is no deliverance.

The evil is a different point. In other words, the Scripture says, “Whenever I don’t see Jesus I’m in evil.” Now I’ve got it. I’ve got it! Whatever sort of thing it is, if I’ve not a crystal clear sight of Jesus in my heart, through the ministry of the Spirit, it is evil. It’s not just double—somebody else’s fault, or my body, or this or that, or the other; it is evil. In other words, we shall begin to get a blessed deliverance when we begin to call a few more million things “sin” than what we usually call sin. And thank God it isn’t a burden to call a thing sin because He reveals sin to cleanse it, not to condemn us. And the law of sin is that it always veils Christ, and it always binds the sinner because Jesus said so. Jesus said, “Whosoever is committing a sin is thereby the servant of that sin, a slave.” Therefore, if I’m committing a sin, I’m a slave to that sin. I may call it anything I like on earth, but it still binds me. If I dislike you, I’m bound by my dislike. Although I may say you deserve it, I’m still bound by it. If I’m resentful, I’m bound by my resentment although I may say it is entirely somebody else’s fault. Whatever sin I commit, in spite of what I might blame for it, it binds me and it cuts off the Saviour. Therefore it is a blessed thing to see sin when it is revealed to us by that Person who shows it to us in order to cleanse it away, because He said, “I’ll show you the sin. And here’s the cleansing.” The immediate moment I’m ready to acknowledge it I’m free and walk on again.

So that’s the simplicity of the life. But it does mean sin-sensitiveness; that’s a tremendous verse isn’t it? “If my eye is single it is full of light; if it’s anything else but a single sight of Jesus, it is evil.” Let me call it what it is. A verse that lines up in my mind with that and is much the same is in Romans 14:23, the last phrase of the last verse. It says it in another connection but we can pick it out I think quite fairly and make it a general statement: “For whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Well faith is seeing Jesus, of course. We have the faith of Jesus for we see Jesus. Of course we do. Faith is believing Jesus, seeing Him in our hearts, and knowing Him. That’s believing Jesus. So faith is seeing Jesus. “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin” is the same idea. The moment I am not seeing Jesus in a situation, the moment I am not seeing Christ in my neighbor, the moment I am not seeing Christ in a crisis, or Christ in a difficulty, I am sinning because it’s not of faith. I’m not seeing Jesus; I’m seeing something else. That’s evil. Not to see Jesus is evil. That’s big!

I’ve got to see Jesus in every circumstance, not a single circumstance but that it’s Jesus coming to me. That, I take it, is what Paul meant when he made that terrific statement around which I circle in my mind again and again and wonder at: “To me, to live is Christ.” That doesn’t leave much else, does it? “To me, to live is Christ.” That’s a single eye. That is SingleVISION living. Every circumstance, every person is just Christ to him. That’s this life. Anything less than that is sin, because it veils Him.

AVOID SELF IMPROVEMENT - REPLACE YOURSELF

Our great error is in thinking that our human selves can be improved. And we think this because we have a false concept of being responsible for self-development. This is contrary to the truth, but it comes from the spirit of error in our world system. Self-help books and How-to books line the shelves of even our Christian bookstores. But we already have perfection in our union with Christ. This is an eternal union with Him. This is our true identity.

We are called the body of Christ. The body is the expression of the head. The body is the instrument for the head to act. But the head and body are a unity. So Paul called the body Christ in 1 Corinthians 12:12, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”

We are the branches in the Vine. The branch is the means by which the Vine can bear its fruit. But it is a unity and when we see a vine we really only see its straggling branches and we call that the vine. The branches are the vine in their branch forms and we are Christ expressed in our human forms.

We are called the temples of the living God, the buildings in which God may be seen; and we are the earthen vessels whose treasure is the Christ within. We are containers and the containers are not called on to improve or change. How would changing the outside container improve the treasure within? It is our “earthen ness” as vessels that magnifies the glory of His work through us.

As human selves, our only true place in creation is in our unity with God, as the means by which He manifests Himself through us. Apart from our destined place in the unity, we can only be self-loving selves. Therefore it is useless and a waste of time for us to ask God to make us loving, or patient or pure, or free us from human reactions of hate or fear or worry or depression. It is asking an absurdity and impossibility. The human self can never change. The vessel can never be the living water it contains. The branch cannot be the vine.

When that recognition is a reality to us, then we can start by accepting ourselves in our weakness and all normal human reactions. In this distorted world we are besieged all day long by fear and doubt and hate and worry, etc. To feel them is normal, not wrong. We shall always be responding to them. We hate or dislike this person. We are jealous of that one. We are afraid of what we are called on to do. We are worried by daily problems. We have fits of deep depression. Our minds are assaulted by all kinds of wrong thinking. If we struggle against them, how does that help? If we condemn ourselves for such reactions, we remain still bound and full of guilt. If we call on God to help or change us, we don’t get changed, or maybe just a momentary relief.

Then on what grounds can we accept ourselves? Now we are no longer just ourselves. As Christians, we are Christ-in-us. Christ is the real “we”. Listen to Paul. He starts by saying Christ died for us, then speaks of the Lord with us, and goes on to his special revelation of Christ in us; but he ends up, when he gives his personal witness, by saying Christ is the real “I”. “I live,” he says in Galatians 2:20. “No,” he corrects himself. “It is not I, but Christ living in me.” Christ, not with, not in, but replacing Paul, Christ in Paul’s form or Christ in your form or my form. Put your name there. You are Christ in John’s form, Christ in Mary’s form, I am Christ in Gene’s form, and so on.

Now, in light of this revelation, when we in our humanity are moved in this direction or that by our negative reactions (like hate, worry or fear) we don’t struggle, we don’t condemn, we above all don’t try to change ourselves (trying to be good is the worst sin); no, we REPLACE. We transfer our inner believing from what has its hold on us because we are believing in it (fear, lust, hate, etc.) and attach our believing to who we really are, not our human selves, but Christ in ourselves. And as we affirm and recognize Him, He Who is the peace, love, courage, purity, manifests Himself in and by us.

“When I am afraid,” David said, “I will trust in God.” Unlike David in the Old Covenant, God is within me as Christ-in-me. I won’t look away to some other place. That is separation. This is union. When I feel fear, I will replace that “I” with the true “I” (which is Christ-in-me) and I will express Him Who is courage. When I feel hate, I will replace that by expressing Him Who is in me, Him Who is love. I choose to believe what the Word says about who I really am. I will be who I really am, not fear or hate, but Christ-in-me as me. That is the truth of the Word of God and I will practice the “obedience of faith” (Romans 16:26) by believing it and acting as if it is so, because it is.

There is the secret of our WALK IN THE SPIRIT, discovering who we really are. We have come back home at last as the branch in the Vine and the Vine in the branch. Remember, “Abiding” in John 15 is, in the Greek, just ‘remaining.’ We remain by simple faith-recognition. Our sanctification or walk in the Spirit is realized the same as our salvation is realized, BY FAITH, by believing. Only when we are consciously weak, as Paul said, then His strength is perfectly manifested. When we fear, He is the courage. When we dislike, He is the love. And Paul goes as far as to say he personally takes pleasure in negative situations of weakness, hurts, needs, problems, for when he is weak, then he is strong.

Today we are just so bogged down in taking ourselves for granted as normal functioning people and we are so used to preserving an image that it is a second spiritual breakthrough for us to grasp the fact of helplessness. In our salvation we had come to acknowledge that we had not kept God’s law and were guilty sinners. But it is another thing, after becoming a Christian, to discover and admit in our sanctification that we are also helpless saints. We can’t do it and not only can’t but are not meant to.

That is the whole meaning of Paul saying we can have dominion over sin because we are not under the law. This is why there is that important chapter of Romans 7, which has been such a ground of puzzlement and controversy. Chapter 6 he says in Christ’s death we are cut off from the former control of the spirit of self-centeredness, “dead to sin.” In Romans 8 we see His Spirit replacing that former spirit in us and joins us to Christ in resurrection life. In between chapter 6 and chapter 8, chapter 7 says we are not only dead to sin, but also dead to the law. Why? Because if we are to function as living sons, we must know once and for all in what sense our human selves can be manifestations of Christ.

So, in Romans 7 we see the human self that now has God’s Spirit and delights in His law in the inward man and wills to do it and serves the law of God with the renewed mind. But what a seemingly sad discovery is made. He can’t do it. He just can’t do it. His discovery is he can’t do it because of “sin” in him. Sin in him is the spirit of self-sufficiency.

The moment we humans, not recognizing Christ in us as the only keeper of His own law, want ourselves to keep it and slip into this old habit of thinking we can do it, then down we fall. We can’t do what we would and find ourselves doing what we should not. Oh wretched man! And the law of God stands there to demand of us that we keep it, if we think we can! Then at last it dawns on us. Our human self is now a container of ANOTHER SELF, Christ, the Spirit of Christ.

We never were meant as humans to keep God’s laws of self-giving love. Left to our human selves we can only be ourselves and love ourselves. That is who we are without the exchanged life - we are a self-loving self. But this is just why Christ has come into us – to REPLACE the spirit of self-centeredness by which we have lived, “the flesh.” By ourselves we would still remain self-loving selves, but we are not our old selves any more. We are a “new creation” in Christ. By inner union, Christ is our real self.

So what do we do now? We tell the law it is no good its shouting at us, because we can’t fulfill it, were never meant to; but we contain the One Who can and does. So the law has not a thing more to say to us or demand of us. We are “dead to the law” in Christ. And now we are free by simple recognition that Christ in us, Christ as us, keeps His own law in us, so that “the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us” who are now walking by inner recognition of the Spirit and not recognition of that old self-effort.

It is your choice. Choose to WALK IN THE SPIRIT.

But We Can Improve ...

I do believe that a Christian can improve, not in merit, but in knowledge, i.e. intimate, experiential relationship knowledge of the indwelling Christ. As we study the Word of God and see what the Word tells us about Him and about who we are in Him, by grace through faith we come progressively to maturity in Him, not in personal worthiness, but in a knowing relationship with Him.

The primary thing is as Paul says, “to know Him.” This knowledge becomes our experience by faith. Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe (have faith) that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him (not merit).” 1John 3:22 “and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. 23 This is His commandment, that we believe in the name (or have faith in Who He is) of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He commanded us.” Relationship growth is not only possible but is predestined. Romans 8 29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son- “To know Him is eternal life” or a quality of life that I could have in no other way but by “knowing” Him.

Of course, we keep His commandments because He said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” This is accomplished through “being strong in the Lord and the power of His might.” Whatever we do or accomplish is His accomplishment in us. 1Corinthians 15:10 – “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”

John even says, “The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.” That is the “how” of keeping His commandments, faith. 1John 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. 4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. In Romans, Paul refers to our obedience as the “obedience of faith.” As Paul told the Corinthians “because it is by faith you stand firm.” And “We live by faith, not by sight.”

Whatever we “need” in our Christian walk, He is that in us. If I “need more” love, He is going to be that love in me by the Holy Spirit. There really is no deficiency of love, just deficiency of “knowing.” The better I know Him, the more I will in relationship with Him express that love that He is in me by faith in what I have come to know is true. Peter commends us to grow, not in merit, but in knowledge (relationship knowledge). 1Peter 3:18 “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” If I “grow in grace” (unmerited favor), I am growing in my realization of my unworthiness. If I grow in knowledge of Him, I learn He in me has all the love I need. Romans 5:5 “because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” If I try to have a natural love, the best I can do is love a worthy object. Romans 5: 7 “Now it is an extraordinary thing for one to give his life even for an upright man, though perhaps for a noble and lovable and generous benefactor someone might even dare to die.” That is as much as natural love can achieve. Natural love must have a worthy object. God's love is the next verse - "But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. " So Paul says, in Galatians 5:6 The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. And “everything that does not come from faith is sin.”

The wilderness wandering of the children of God is depicted in Hebrews 3 and 4. They did not enter into the “rest” that they were offered because of their “unbelief” or lack of faith. He says there remains a rest for the people of God and that we are to “labor” (struggle), not to get better at doing, but to “rest” from our sweaty efforts in the strength of the flesh and rely on the power of His might.

For 25 years I tried to serve by merit. If you had asked me, I would have denied it, but experiencing a terrible “fall”, I discovered that I was actually a Pharisee for all those years. I didn’t know I was until by my fall I thought I didn’t deserve to live, as if I ever had deserved to live. Then I knew.

I had read all the Puritan books and “Alarm to the Unconverted.” I read and preached the sermons of condemnation and the call to “try harder.” I hurt a lot of people by setting them up to fail, as any one has to fail who is “trying to DO better” in the flesh. I thought the more I could know intellectually the better Christian I would be, but I think Father was showing me the truth “so that our faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.” As Paul said, Our hope is that, as your faith continues to grow, our area of activity among you will greatly expand.” The doing comes on the heels of believing.

The next 25 years became for me an opportunity to learn, experience and teach the faith-rest of the “easy yoke” and the “burden that is light.” In the wake of the first 25 years there were “bodies” lying all around. In the wake of the next 25 years I see people serving God in a freeness and a joy that is indescribable. Addictive personalities are no longer addicted. Abusive people stopped being abusive. Immoral Christians stopped being immoral. Alcoholics are now missionaries on the foreign field. Church dropouts are now active leaders in their churches. People who knew nothing but failure are now living a life of joy, peace, and successful witness for Christ.

I tell you, I am hooked. This is the most blessed ministry I have ever known and I will by the grace of God never stop as long as He gives me breath. Can I say it better? I have no doubt that someone else could say it better than I (perhaps my clients, the very ones that I have been referring to in this writing.) I do apologize for my poor ability, but I will not apologize for what I believe to be the truth of CHRIST IN US. As I tell my clients, I will keep working by His grace and His power so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Ephesians 4:13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

http://www.seegod.org/walk_in_the_spirit.htm

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Amen Sis!!

Galations 5:

[1] Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
[2] Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.
[3] For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
[4] Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.
[5] For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.
[6] For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.
[7] Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?
[8] This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.
[9] A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.


Barry your legalism is a yoke of bondage.

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Posts: 8775 | From: USA, MICHIGAN | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

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quote:

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Originally posted by Carol Swenson:
WALK IN THE SPIRIT


Many Christians are so burdened with the heavy load of law. They are bent low with such a sorrowful sense of failing. They always talk about what a “wretch” they are, or they simply try to ignore how far short they fall from the standard they believe the Bible teaches them to live. I would rather talk about the victory I have in Jesus than the failure I am certain to experience in the flesh. Law makes you focus on yourself. Grace allows you to focus on Jesus.

For those who think they have at least ten things to live up to, I have great news. There is only ONE thing you must do to be successful in your Christian walk. WALK IN THE SPIRIT. If you do this one thing consistently your whole life will change. It is “easy.” It is “light.” Or else Jesus lied to us. You will handle ONE thing a lot better than you will succeed in ten things.

“WALK” is a very simple word. The term lines up with the comment, or exhortation of Paul towards the end of the letter to the Galatians in 5:25, where he says, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

How do we do that? It is obviously stressed in the Scriptures that we walk in the Spirit. I think we should find on examination that either every letter, or almost every letter, in the New Testament that discusses living in the Spirit, has moved on to discussing walking in the Spirit.

So it’s quite plain that the Spirit of God expects us not only to live but to walk—not only to claim to live but to walk it out. Just to give an instance or two, we can turn to Romans 8 where for the first time the word “walk” comes in, “who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.”

We pass through Galatians and we come right up against “walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” Galatians 5:16. Then there is this verse, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Galatians 5:25.

We move into Ephesians and we are taken up into the ascended life, and then we are brought down, “I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech ye that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” Ephesians 4:1. “Walk in love, walk as children of light, walk circumspectly.” Ephesians 5:2, 8, 15. So the note is struck again and again in Ephesians.

Colossians takes us up to the headship of Christ and then it says in Col. 2:6, “As therefore ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him.”

I Thes. 4:1, after He has given those delightful heart outpourings to that young church in its early days, He says, “as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God.”

And then you get on into John’s epistles, which are full of the walk in the strongest possible terms. “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.” And, in his second and third letters, he constantly says he delights that his converts, his children, walk in truth. That comes two or three times over, or words to that effect.

So we have sufficient proof that the Holy Spirit has a great deal to say to us and to impress upon us concerning the walk. So it is good that we spend some time meditating on it.

THIS IS A PRESENT TENSE ACTIVITY

Remember, Jesus said it is “easy” and it is “light.” (Mat. 11:28) Even a child can understand it. (Mat. 18:3) Our “labor” or our “struggle” is to enter into that rest. The flesh refuses to rest. (Heb. 4:9-11)

The first very simple lesson that simplifies things for me is the fact that the whole meaning of the walk is that it is a present-tense activity. The whole meaning of it is that it is a present tense, a down to earth, immediate, present activity. I am now walking—that’s the idea. You are walking NOW, not in the future, not in the past, but in the present. You are walking now—walking in fellowship with Jesus now.

So it brings us down to the present tense and I find it helpful to remember that there is only one tense that really makes sense in the Christian life. There is only one tense and it is the present. The only tense we are really responsible for is the present. We are to live in the present. A great many of our diversions come because we are pulled back to the past, or forward to the future.

We’re often pulled back to the past by the condemnations of the Satan, the Accuser, who works through our flesh. He smears the simplicity of our present walk by reminding us, “Oh, you’re no good; why, you sinned yesterday; you’re selfish, you’re proud, you’re this and that. You can’t walk consistently.” Satan dulls our presence with Jesus by his false accusations through our flesh.

Now, I’m not to take a single word for one minute from the past, because “there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” The whole past is forever blotted out in the Precious Blood for “as far as the East is from the West, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12. They are cast into the depths of the sea. I’m not to take Satan’s condemnation! The only sense in which I am to take the past is if I am conscious that I have just sinned, specifically sinned on a specific point; not a general point that I am generally proud, or generally selfish, or those lies Satan gives my fleshly mind. I’m not. I’m in Christ. I’m not going to take that lie. I’m in Christ and crucified with Him. I’m not going to take that smear from the past, but if there is something I may just have committed this morning and I know it is sin, well then, certainly I must face up and put that right. But I can do it in one second. That’s a thing I can do at the present. I can immediately put that right and immediately have cleansing—and walk!

So I’m to learn, not to add to my other sins the sin of unbelief by denying the efficacy of the Precious Blood because the Precious Blood (Christ’s death) is effective right up to this present moment. As I stand here, all that matters to me at this present moment is that I am consciously in the presence of Jesus as I write this email now. That’s all. That’s walking. I’m walking now, as you are walking as you sit there reading this email. Now am I, just at this moment as far as I know, with nothing between me and my Lord? Has the Blood blotted out every sin there was? As far as I know it has. Very well then, I walk. As for the Past, as for the Future, leave them alone!

As for the future, leave it with the One to whom it belongs—God. We’re specifically told, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matt. 6:34) I don’t know if that’s one of The Lord’s ironical sayings, because when you walk with Him evil becomes His good because you get it from His hands. So the evil becomes His good when you walk in the present, not in the past or the future.

Most of our troubles, of course, are fears of the future, not what things are in the present. It’s a very simple lesson, but very blessed when you get it. It frees us; we become simple as a child. We’re just happily walking now with Jesus. I won’t take anything from the past. I won’t take anything from the future. The past is under the Blood, the future is in God’s hand, and the present is in mine with Him. And all I can do is to be present to Him; that’s all. And if I’ve nothing in between, then, all right, I’m not responsible. I’m just happy. That’s all. Just walk.

There is too much heavy talk about being responsible. Responsibility is a heavy word. I prefer RESPONSE-TO-HIS-ABILITY-IN-ME. That, to me, is far more Scriptural. I am “as a child” holding His hand as we walk together right NOW.

CONTINUAL ABIDING—Way of Walking with Jesus

How do we walk? What does walking mean? Let’s go to that verse which I have quoted from Colossians, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him.” Of course, walking is the walking in the fellowship—in Him, with Him.

The way Jesus spoke about walking was by another illustration—that of abiding. (John15) Now we all know in John 15 that His emphasis is not on how we get into the abiding relationship. He’s taken that for granted. In John 15, He says, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” He doesn’t discuss that. I presume He couldn’t discuss it because it was before the atonement and they didn’t have the inner light of the Spirit. Therefore it was not good for Him to go too far in discussions of that inner, mystical union that the Apostle Paul later reveals. It must come after Calvary, after the Resurrection, after Pentecost.. So He passes that by. He just says, “This is fact. I am the vine, ye are the branches.” We’re one organism, we’re one blessed life. He Himself within us, that’s the union.

Now He says, “What I am saying to you is, ‘Abide in the union.’” So all John 15 is saying is summed up in verse 4, “Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in Me.” Verse 5. “I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in Me and I in Him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for apart from Me ye can do nothing.” “If a man abide not in Me, certain consequences follow.” Verse 7. “If ye abide in Me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.”

So we see quite clearly what His emphasis is. “Now continue in Me.” The word “abide” is the same as continue, the same as remain. Continue now in me. Now that’s how you put the walk; that’s the same as walking. “Continue now in Me.” “Abide in Me.” I suppose the simplest explanation we can give of what He means is that abiding in Him is seeing Him. Now He is in us and we in Him.

Now abiding in Him is the consciousness of His Presence, isn’t it? Seeing Him. If we’re really abiding in Him we have that consciousness. Now if we are to know how to abide in Him, all we have to know is how to maintain ourselves free from anything which interferes with that abiding. That abiding is automatic and continuous unless something interferes with it. Why? Because it is the ministry of the blessed Spirit. Why has the Spirit come into our hearts? To magnify the blessed Lord. He has only that one purpose, constantly, unceasingly to reveal to our hearts that glorious Presence, which produces all peace and power and everything else a person can know. That is what He is here for. Therefore, that’s the automatic consequence of our life—an invariable consequence because the Holy Spirit is an invariable Person, unless He is interfered with. Therefore, nothing can stop that abiding unless it is something that positively interferes with the Spirit.

Now that’s, perhaps, the most important lesson I have learned, to recognize that if there is the slightest cloud of any kind (whatever I might name it; whether I call it something physical or some oppression or any other of many names), if there is the slightest shade of a cloud between me and Him and the bright revelation of His Presence in my heart, it means I am interfering with the ministry of the Spirit. It is not that something automatic has come in. Things can’t come automatically into that relationship, as it’s a sacred citadel; things can’t enter automatically there; it’s a private place of its own; it’s a Holy of Holies. If there is a single thing that is clouding in the slightest way that brightness, there is something interfering with the Spirit; and I am responsible, because it can’t get there unless I have let it in.

Now that’s the point that has been so helpful to me—a new quickness and sharpness of recognition. “Hello, Hello, there is something wrong here. I’m not consciously abiding here.” Now that’s not the Spirit’s fault. He’s there. He’s permanent. He’s a well that always springs up into everlasting life. No, if there is something clouding there I have let something in because the flesh or Satan can’t get there unless I let him in. Oh no, that’s private property in there, praise God. He can’t get in there unless I let him in. “Now what’s up?”

And so it comes back to this very simple fact: the simple walk with Jesus is a happy, easy, free, daily, natural walk with Jesus only, coupled with it a sensitivity to sin and recognition that if there is a cloud, it is sin. That’s the point. The reason that we aren’t sensitive to sin is because we don’t call it sin, because we have other names for it, and we name the cloud something else and so it remains. The whole point is that God has given His remedy for sin, but He hasn’t given His remedy for excuses. And if we call a thing this or that, and the other, it remains this, that, and the other; and we remain in this, that, and the other too. If we’ve let something in which is interfering with that gracious work, that gracious ministry, we are grieving Him; but if we call it what it is, and “confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” And we’re free.

So the life becomes very simple, simply walking with Jesus but having the immediate readiness, quickness—not introspectiveness, not that—but if something does come in, just a readiness to say, “Hello, now there is something there. Let me smell that out, and then put it out via the Blood.” Yes that’s a good Scripture, “quick of scent.” We need to be quick of scent in this job as well as quick of sight.

A Single Eye—Full of Light

Matthew 6 talks about the body being full of light. It illustrates what I am talking about. Matt. 6:22-23 says, “The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” Well, when your eye is single you see Jesus, of course. That’s the only point of having an eye, a spiritual eye, isn’t it—to see Jesus? And if my eye is single, it means I have a clear simple sight of Him and therefore I am full of light. Because He is there, therefore His Presence, His Peace, His Power, His Fullness, His Adequacy and everything is there.

All right, that’s obvious. That’s abiding. That’s walking now, that’s walking with Jesus. A single eye, a body full of light, abiding in Him is all there.

An Evil Eye—Needs Cleansing

Now what struck me with surprise is the next verse. “But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.” Now what struck me was this: the opposite of single is double. And therefore there is a sudden change by inspiration here, for it doesn’t say what we would think it would say, “If thine eye is double it’s full of darkness,” but it says, “If thine eye is evil.” Because if it said “double” we should find a good excuse: “Oh, I’ve a good reason for it being double! I’m not feeling well this morning, or my neighbor is a bit off, or something.” And I could find these rotten excuses for which there is no deliverance.

The evil is a different point. In other words, the Scripture says, “Whenever I don’t see Jesus I’m in evil.” Now I’ve got it. I’ve got it! Whatever sort of thing it is, if I’ve not a crystal clear sight of Jesus in my heart, through the ministry of the Spirit, it is evil. It’s not just double—somebody else’s fault, or my body, or this or that, or the other; it is evil. In other words, we shall begin to get a blessed deliverance when we begin to call a few more million things “sin” than what we usually call sin. And thank God it isn’t a burden to call a thing sin because He reveals sin to cleanse it, not to condemn us. And the law of sin is that it always veils Christ, and it always binds the sinner because Jesus said so. Jesus said, “Whosoever is committing a sin is thereby the servant of that sin, a slave.” Therefore, if I’m committing a sin, I’m a slave to that sin. I may call it anything I like on earth, but it still binds me. If I dislike you, I’m bound by my dislike. Although I may say you deserve it, I’m still bound by it. If I’m resentful, I’m bound by my resentment although I may say it is entirely somebody else’s fault. Whatever sin I commit, in spite of what I might blame for it, it binds me and it cuts off the Saviour. Therefore it is a blessed thing to see sin when it is revealed to us by that Person who shows it to us in order to cleanse it away, because He said, “I’ll show you the sin. And here’s the cleansing.” The immediate moment I’m ready to acknowledge it I’m free and walk on again.

So that’s the simplicity of the life. But it does mean sin-sensitiveness; that’s a tremendous verse isn’t it? “If my eye is single it is full of light; if it’s anything else but a single sight of Jesus, it is evil.” Let me call it what it is. A verse that lines up in my mind with that and is much the same is in Romans 14:23, the last phrase of the last verse. It says it in another connection but we can pick it out I think quite fairly and make it a general statement: “For whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Well faith is seeing Jesus, of course. We have the faith of Jesus for we see Jesus. Of course we do. Faith is believing Jesus, seeing Him in our hearts, and knowing Him. That’s believing Jesus. So faith is seeing Jesus. “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin” is the same idea. The moment I am not seeing Jesus in a situation, the moment I am not seeing Christ in my neighbor, the moment I am not seeing Christ in a crisis, or Christ in a difficulty, I am sinning because it’s not of faith. I’m not seeing Jesus; I’m seeing something else. That’s evil. Not to see Jesus is evil. That’s big!

I’ve got to see Jesus in every circumstance, not a single circumstance but that it’s Jesus coming to me. That, I take it, is what Paul meant when he made that terrific statement around which I circle in my mind again and again and wonder at: “To me, to live is Christ.” That doesn’t leave much else, does it? “To me, to live is Christ.” That’s a single eye. That is SingleVISION living. Every circumstance, every person is just Christ to him. That’s this life. Anything less than that is sin, because it veils Him.

AVOID SELF IMPROVEMENT - REPLACE YOURSELF

Our great error is in thinking that our human selves can be improved. And we think this because we have a false concept of being responsible for self-development. This is contrary to the truth, but it comes from the spirit of error in our world system. Self-help books and How-to books line the shelves of even our Christian bookstores. But we already have perfection in our union with Christ. This is an eternal union with Him. This is our true identity.

We are called the body of Christ. The body is the expression of the head. The body is the instrument for the head to act. But the head and body are a unity. So Paul called the body Christ in 1 Corinthians 12:12, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”

We are the branches in the Vine. The branch is the means by which the Vine can bear its fruit. But it is a unity and when we see a vine we really only see its straggling branches and we call that the vine. The branches are the vine in their branch forms and we are Christ expressed in our human forms.

We are called the temples of the living God, the buildings in which God may be seen; and we are the earthen vessels whose treasure is the Christ within. We are containers and the containers are not called on to improve or change. How would changing the outside container improve the treasure within? It is our “earthen ness” as vessels that magnifies the glory of His work through us.

As human selves, our only true place in creation is in our unity with God, as the means by which He manifests Himself through us. Apart from our destined place in the unity, we can only be self-loving selves. Therefore it is useless and a waste of time for us to ask God to make us loving, or patient or pure, or free us from human reactions of hate or fear or worry or depression. It is asking an absurdity and impossibility. The human self can never change. The vessel can never be the living water it contains. The branch cannot be the vine.

When that recognition is a reality to us, then we can start by accepting ourselves in our weakness and all normal human reactions. In this distorted world we are besieged all day long by fear and doubt and hate and worry, etc. To feel them is normal, not wrong. We shall always be responding to them. We hate or dislike this person. We are jealous of that one. We are afraid of what we are called on to do. We are worried by daily problems. We have fits of deep depression. Our minds are assaulted by all kinds of wrong thinking. If we struggle against them, how does that help? If we condemn ourselves for such reactions, we remain still bound and full of guilt. If we call on God to help or change us, we don’t get changed, or maybe just a momentary relief.

Then on what grounds can we accept ourselves? Now we are no longer just ourselves. As Christians, we are Christ-in-us. Christ is the real “we”. Listen to Paul. He starts by saying Christ died for us, then speaks of the Lord with us, and goes on to his special revelation of Christ in us; but he ends up, when he gives his personal witness, by saying Christ is the real “I”. “I live,” he says in Galatians 2:20. “No,” he corrects himself. “It is not I, but Christ living in me.” Christ, not with, not in, but replacing Paul, Christ in Paul’s form or Christ in your form or my form. Put your name there. You are Christ in John’s form, Christ in Mary’s form, I am Christ in Gene’s form, and so on.

Now, in light of this revelation, when we in our humanity are moved in this direction or that by our negative reactions (like hate, worry or fear) we don’t struggle, we don’t condemn, we above all don’t try to change ourselves (trying to be good is the worst sin); no, we REPLACE. We transfer our inner believing from what has its hold on us because we are believing in it (fear, lust, hate, etc.) and attach our believing to who we really are, not our human selves, but Christ in ourselves. And as we affirm and recognize Him, He Who is the peace, love, courage, purity, manifests Himself in and by us.

“When I am afraid,” David said, “I will trust in God.” Unlike David in the Old Covenant, God is within me as Christ-in-me. I won’t look away to some other place. That is separation. This is union. When I feel fear, I will replace that “I” with the true “I” (which is Christ-in-me) and I will express Him Who is courage. When I feel hate, I will replace that by expressing Him Who is in me, Him Who is love. I choose to believe what the Word says about who I really am. I will be who I really am, not fear or hate, but Christ-in-me as me. That is the truth of the Word of God and I will practice the “obedience of faith” (Romans 16:26) by believing it and acting as if it is so, because it is.

There is the secret of our WALK IN THE SPIRIT, discovering who we really are. We have come back home at last as the branch in the Vine and the Vine in the branch. Remember, “Abiding” in John 15 is, in the Greek, just ‘remaining.’ We remain by simple faith-recognition. Our sanctification or walk in the Spirit is realized the same as our salvation is realized, BY FAITH, by believing. Only when we are consciously weak, as Paul said, then His strength is perfectly manifested. When we fear, He is the courage. When we dislike, He is the love. And Paul goes as far as to say he personally takes pleasure in negative situations of weakness, hurts, needs, problems, for when he is weak, then he is strong.

Today we are just so bogged down in taking ourselves for granted as normal functioning people and we are so used to preserving an image that it is a second spiritual breakthrough for us to grasp the fact of helplessness. In our salvation we had come to acknowledge that we had not kept God’s law and were guilty sinners. But it is another thing, after becoming a Christian, to discover and admit in our sanctification that we are also helpless saints. We can’t do it and not only can’t but are not meant to.

That is the whole meaning of Paul saying we can have dominion over sin because we are not under the law. This is why there is that important chapter of Romans 7, which has been such a ground of puzzlement and controversy. Chapter 6 he says in Christ’s death we are cut off from the former control of the spirit of self-centeredness, “dead to sin.” In Romans 8 we see His Spirit replacing that former spirit in us and joins us to Christ in resurrection life. In between chapter 6 and chapter 8, chapter 7 says we are not only dead to sin, but also dead to the law. Why? Because if we are to function as living sons, we must know once and for all in what sense our human selves can be manifestations of Christ.

So, in Romans 7 we see the human self that now has God’s Spirit and delights in His law in the inward man and wills to do it and serves the law of God with the renewed mind. But what a seemingly sad discovery is made. He can’t do it. He just can’t do it. His discovery is he can’t do it because of “sin” in him. Sin in him is the spirit of self-sufficiency.

The moment we humans, not recognizing Christ in us as the only keeper of His own law, want ourselves to keep it and slip into this old habit of thinking we can do it, then down we fall. We can’t do what we would and find ourselves doing what we should not. Oh wretched man! And the law of God stands there to demand of us that we keep it, if we think we can! Then at last it dawns on us. Our human self is now a container of ANOTHER SELF, Christ, the Spirit of Christ.

We never were meant as humans to keep God’s laws of self-giving love. Left to our human selves we can only be ourselves and love ourselves. That is who we are without the exchanged life - we are a self-loving self. But this is just why Christ has come into us – to REPLACE the spirit of self-centeredness by which we have lived, “the flesh.” By ourselves we would still remain self-loving selves, but we are not our old selves any more. We are a “new creation” in Christ. By inner union, Christ is our real self.

So what do we do now? We tell the law it is no good its shouting at us, because we can’t fulfill it, were never meant to; but we contain the One Who can and does. So the law has not a thing more to say to us or demand of us. We are “dead to the law” in Christ. And now we are free by simple recognition that Christ in us, Christ as us, keeps His own law in us, so that “the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us” who are now walking by inner recognition of the Spirit and not recognition of that old self-effort.

It is your choice. Choose to WALK IN THE SPIRIT.

But We Can Improve ...

I do believe that a Christian can improve, not in merit, but in knowledge, i.e. intimate, experiential relationship knowledge of the indwelling Christ. As we study the Word of God and see what the Word tells us about Him and about who we are in Him, by grace through faith we come progressively to maturity in Him, not in personal worthiness, but in a knowing relationship with Him.

The primary thing is as Paul says, “to know Him.” This knowledge becomes our experience by faith. Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe (have faith) that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him (not merit).” 1John 3:22 “and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. 23 This is His commandment, that we believe in the name (or have faith in Who He is) of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He commanded us.” Relationship growth is not only possible but is predestined. Romans 8 29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son- “To know Him is eternal life” or a quality of life that I could have in no other way but by “knowing” Him.

Of course, we keep His commandments because He said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” This is accomplished through “being strong in the Lord and the power of His might.” Whatever we do or accomplish is His accomplishment in us. 1Corinthians 15:10 – “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”

John even says, “The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.” That is the “how” of keeping His commandments, faith. 1John 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. 4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. In Romans, Paul refers to our obedience as the “obedience of faith.” As Paul told the Corinthians “because it is by faith you stand firm.” And “We live by faith, not by sight.”

Whatever we “need” in our Christian walk, He is that in us. If I “need more” love, He is going to be that love in me by the Holy Spirit. There really is no deficiency of love, just deficiency of “knowing.” The better I know Him, the more I will in relationship with Him express that love that He is in me by faith in what I have come to know is true. Peter commends us to grow, not in merit, but in knowledge (relationship knowledge). 1Peter 3:18 “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” If I “grow in grace” (unmerited favor), I am growing in my realization of my unworthiness. If I grow in knowledge of Him, I learn He in me has all the love I need. Romans 5:5 “because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” If I try to have a natural love, the best I can do is love a worthy object. Romans 5: 7 “Now it is an extraordinary thing for one to give his life even for an upright man, though perhaps for a noble and lovable and generous benefactor someone might even dare to die.” That is as much as natural love can achieve. Natural love must have a worthy object. God's love is the next verse - "But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. " So Paul says, in Galatians 5:6 The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. And “everything that does not come from faith is sin.”

The wilderness wandering of the children of God is depicted in Hebrews 3 and 4. They did not enter into the “rest” that they were offered because of their “unbelief” or lack of faith. He says there remains a rest for the people of God and that we are to “labor” (struggle), not to get better at doing, but to “rest” from our sweaty efforts in the strength of the flesh and rely on the power of His might.

For 25 years I tried to serve by merit. If you had asked me, I would have denied it, but experiencing a terrible “fall”, I discovered that I was actually a Pharisee for all those years. I didn’t know I was until by my fall I thought I didn’t deserve to live, as if I ever had deserved to live. Then I knew.

I had read all the Puritan books and “Alarm to the Unconverted.” I read and preached the sermons of condemnation and the call to “try harder.” I hurt a lot of people by setting them up to fail, as any one has to fail who is “trying to DO better” in the flesh. I thought the more I could know intellectually the better Christian I would be, but I think Father was showing me the truth “so that our faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.” As Paul said, Our hope is that, as your faith continues to grow, our area of activity among you will greatly expand.” The doing comes on the heels of believing.

The next 25 years became for me an opportunity to learn, experience and teach the faith-rest of the “easy yoke” and the “burden that is light.” In the wake of the first 25 years there were “bodies” lying all around. In the wake of the next 25 years I see people serving God in a freeness and a joy that is indescribable. Addictive personalities are no longer addicted. Abusive people stopped being abusive. Immoral Christians stopped being immoral. Alcoholics are now missionaries on the foreign field. Church dropouts are now active leaders in their churches. People who knew nothing but failure are now living a life of joy, peace, and successful witness for Christ.

I tell you, I am hooked. This is the most blessed ministry I have ever known and I will by the grace of God never stop as long as He gives me breath. Can I say it better? I have no doubt that someone else could say it better than I (perhaps my clients, the very ones that I have been referring to in this writing.) I do apologize for my poor ability, but I will not apologize for what I believe to be the truth of CHRIST IN US. As I tell my clients, I will keep working by His grace and His power so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Ephesians 4:13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

http://www.seegod.org/walk_in_the_spirit.htm

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Posts: 3978 | From: Council Grove, KS USA | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by barrykind:
You have some serious issues wildb....
Only the Lord knows what your issues are and how to help YOU..i pray that you find that help in YHWH and His Son Yahushua....

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Posts: 8775 | From: USA, MICHIGAN | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by barrykind:
Your not a good example of the Messiah...your coy and crude and your comments are offensive, and you cannot help the "young" in the LORD with your nonsense and when someone corrects you or posts scripture to correct you , you call them silly or to stop thier sillyness...

The LORD REBUKE YOU SIR!

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Posts: 8775 | From: USA, MICHIGAN | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by barrykind:
If your trying to call me effeminate ...The LORD REBUKE YOU SIR!

You are always evasive about your point...

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The Lord do so and more. I was trained to weep as a woman in my heart for my children as Jeremiah for his people.




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That is all.....

Posts: 8775 | From: USA, MICHIGAN | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by barrykind:
wildbill by your "course" comments i truly sometime doubt your "born again"!

You have a problem with homosexuality it appears.

Now i believe that Romans clearly describesthis "gross" sin......but you bring it up alot..

Did you have problems with Homosexuality when you were young?

your comments the other day about "special" and other comments and todays comments..makes me wonder if your dealing with sexual sin..if this is the case we can pray for your deliverence.. Is this so sir??

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Posts: 8775 | From: USA, MICHIGAN | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by barrykind:
At least this post you made is more on subject although crudly wrong!

Sorry try again Sister.

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Posts: 8775 | From: USA, MICHIGAN | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged |