hi cfultz3
i understand your concerns.
people (
christians) must be convicted by the Holy Spirit for their sin. watered-down Law coming from someone else
won't do it.
what do you think is the solution?
my own
opinion on that is:
first we should examine ourselves to be sure
we are in the faith.
the faith that was delivered once, for all.
the only way i can know for certain is if i am
desiring to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
personally, i know that the willing is there.
i also know that the flesh is weak.
so what do i do about this now that i know (both that the flesh is weak,
and that in my inner man i want to hear God and do what He says, and not do what He says i can not do)?
where can i learn about his problem? how can i know for certain where the remedy lies? (remember, i have to first examine my own self before i can hope to be of
any help concerning the sin and failures of others).
the best way, if i find myself involved in sin, or obsessing about sin (my own, or that of others), is to go back.
back and see where i went off the rails.
the thing i have learned is that if i (or other people - and how i know what is in
their hearts, i'm not sure) are not experiencing a conflict over serving sin, all the talking and hearing from anyone other than God is meaningless, and actually ends up heightening the impulse to sin.
why? because all i am hearing is a second-hand, uninspired version of Law.
this causes the same reaction Adam had - cover it up and hide.
as a Christian, who has been aware that i have access to the Throne of Grace....if i personally am convicted by a sin problem,
i know i have to do something about it. The Spirit is at war with that sin problem, and it is going to be uncomfortable for me.
if i think someone else has a sin problem, and they aren't appearing to do anything about it - what do i have to offer
them?
Law? that sounds good. and it's true. but not from my mouth...it has to come from God's mouth.
and
with the Law, i
have to have the remedy for what the Law does to me in my obsession with and serving of sin. it shows me what i am doing (so much so, i have no place to hide).
then what? does it have the power to stop me from sinning? NO!
so i'm going to be worse off without the solution than i was before i was convicted of my sin!
i start striving according to Law...and i can not win that one, because the Law is powerless to do anything for me, since i over-ride the Law!
the Law is good, but i am not. i don't obey it.
now that i know i don't...what do i do?
try harder to obey it? that's going to make me sin more!
not because the Law is sin, but because i am a lawbreaker by nature! (i'm speaking of the new believer...i hope you know that). and it's in this stage of the battle i'm either going to find out the remedy for my problem with the Law, or i'm going to fall into total sin!
when we get stuck on the sin problem (others'), our default position is to return to the Law as the remedy.
let's see if that works:
Romans 7
Released from the Law
1Or do you not know, brothersa—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.b 3Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
4Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.c
The Law and Sin
7What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
13Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
~
okay...so clearly then, i have looked back and seen what it means if i find myself actually not doing
"the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing."
it means
i now know i'm not the old me, because the old me:
1) didn't have a desire to do what is right
2) if i did, i didn't know how to...because i had a sin problem!
so what is
the new me trying to do? why is the new me still doing what i know i don't want to do???
HELP!
i KNOW I HAVE TO STOP THIS SIN!
what do i do? (about MY sin first before i can warn others about their sin)
cont.....
