Yikes! Did you run out of the fruit of the Spirit or what? I simply gave you some background to counter your assertion that I am immature in the faith. Your assertion that what I am saying is at odds with God's word is in error. You seem to have some kind of paradigm regarding your definition of spirituality and carnality and if someone rocks that paradigm you get a bit unhinged. For an example of the spirit nature and the sin/carnal nature co-existing read Paul's description of it in the last part of Romans 7. If our carnality is not existing along side our spirit nature, why is it necessary to take up our cross daily and follow Him? If our carnal nature is not still active how can we be tempted and be disobedient? Unless you have achieved a level of spiritual actualization in which you no longer sin, then your spirit nature exists and is in conflict with your sin nature on a daily basis. The imperfect mind can contemplate and grasp spiritual concepts. Maybe not as deeply or with as much clarity, but it can. Hope you have a better day tomorrow.
Reaper,
I have nothing against you, your interpretation is wrong, you are correct carnality and spirituality is mentioned side by side in the Bible.
That said, the Bible says we are to renew our minds and to Walk in the Spirit and not be ruled by ANY form of carnality.
I have nothing against you personally, I am not angry, not lost any Fruit of the Spirit, you are saved and have had Bible College, those are good things. Yet your questions are not questions as much as an attempt to discredit what the Bible says.
I take you task and say the things I do, because you need to come to full age, below is an example:
YOU STATED:
If our carnal nature is not still active how can we be tempted and be disobedient? Unless you have achieved a level of spiritual actualization in which you no longer sin, then your spirit nature exists and is in conflict with your sin nature on a daily basis.
This proves you have a a very shallow grasp of the sin nature versus the righteous nature. Of course my carnal nature is still active, yet I have put certain things of that carnal nature under the blood and renewed my mind and conformed that part of my carnal nature to the image of Christ and guess what?
I am not beset by those sins anymore. In fact, I don't even commit those sins anymore, SIN is not a behavior it is a CHOICE!
They don't hold me in bondage, I don't think about those things anymore,I AM FREE because who the SON set FREE is FREE indeed!
When we were translated from the powers of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son, we GOT our CHOICE back. You only SIN, because you CHOOSE to SIN! YOU are only ruled by your carnal man, because you CHOOSE to let the carnal man rule.
Your spirit man is never in conflict with your sin nature, because you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! [See 2 cor 5.21, heck check out all of 2 cor 5!]
The single largest heresy in the church, both protestant and catholic, today is the preaching and teaching that you will never, ever be able to have power over SIN and that SIN has you in bondage and you will never be able to live without it and you will always SIN. This is true to a small extent, Jesus was the only one perfect and never sinned, yet he was touched by our infirmities, he was surrounded by SIN, but never touched by it. The Bible teaches us completely different. We are righteous and were given our choice back.
The other thing the church universal never teaches is the SIN cycle found in James 1.12-18. This squarely places the choice to sin and be carnal on us.
Picking up our cross is often interpreted in many different ways, this is what I see in it.
Picking up our cross is not about the battle between our spiritual man and our carnal man.
Above all, it is about laying our will down, through humility and being obedient to the Father's will for our life. Just as Christ was humbled himself and was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. The take away here is not about crucifying our sin nature day after day, to me that is in violation of Heb 6.6, that by doing that, we crucify to ourselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. This is why I never got behind those who teach/preach that picking up your cross is crucifying our sin nature everyday
SO what does this mean, taking up your cross daily? To answer that we should maybe ask ourselves what the cross was for Jesus. That is often overlooked when this subject is taught or preached. Above all else the cross for Jesus was his sole divine destiny. That is his whole destiny.
SO knowing that what did he mean, that we should pick up our cross daily and follow him?
The Bible teaches that weere are to be like Jesus, and it also teache sus that we are all called to serve him, the Minsitry buck does not stop with the pastor, deacons and Sunday school teacher, the Bible says everyone born again is a minister of reconciliation. You may not be called to full time ministry, but you are a minister, youa re the light of the world, the salt of the earth, when you are born again and let your spirit man rule over you, instead of the carnal man you are called to serve him.
Simply put, we all have a divine destny that God has chosen for us, Jesus' divine destiny was the cross, so I believe Jesus was telling us that if we love him, and are his disciples we are to pick up the cross of our divine destiny and attach ourselves to it and be everything God has called us to be.
In this season of my spiritual life I am called to preach to delivrnace to the captives in my prison ministry, You could not talk me off this cross no matter how much you tried. For this season my wife and I are prison ministers, and we will not come down off that cross.
You see, we have Christians that have a divine purpose, but come down off their cross, because it's too hard or they think only their pastor, deacon or teacher are called.
Jesus was telling us, pick up your corss of divine destiny and complete it and overcome as I did with my destiny, which WAS the Cross.
This is why it seems like I am beating you up and being angry, but I am not, angry, beating you up, yes LOL! My desire is to see you become everything God has called you to be and be free from error.
The canral man adn spiritual man are cosntantly at war agaisnt each other and the soul[mind will, emotions, passions, creativity, experiences, intellect] is stuck in the middle. Only one man can rule you, the carnal or the spiritual and whichever you let reign will control your soul[mind will, emotions, passions, creativity, experiences, intellect].
This is hwy what you are saying is wrong and at odds with the Bible, this is how a I defend the faith, not by slamming you, but forcing you to go deeper, even if it seems that I am angry, frustrated or agitated. You are not the first and you won't be the last.
Ezekiel 47 talks about waters you can swim in...you cannot swim in waters over your head until you wade in the ankle, then the thigh high waters.
Blessings buddy!