"For everything the flesh desires goes against the Spirit, and everything the Spirit desires goes against the flesh. There is a constant battle raging between them that prevents you from doing the good you want to do." ~Galatians 5:17~
"A person may think their own ways are right, but the Lord weighs the heart." ~Proverbs 21:2~
After being born again I experienced peace. But it was a militant peace, a peace maintained at the point of war.
The wrong disposition, or wrong inherent qualities of my mind and character was no longer in my new creation, but that wrong disposition was still there, and I knew it was. In my infancy I was conscious of an alternating experience, sometimes it would show up as ecstasy, other times in the dumps; there was no stability, no real spiritual triumph. It seemed to be that a normal Christian must be in constant turmoil -- a good day, then a bad, a good day, then a bad, three steps forward, two steps back...But God has shown me thru His Word that this is not the essence of living in my New Creation. If I were to continue to have lived like that as the full experience of Salvation it would prove God not justified in the Atonement. Yet, still this transformation from infancy, to childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood is a matter of His timing and delivery.
"For everything the flesh desires goes against the Spirit, and everything the Spirit desires goes against the flesh," (Not flesh and blood). The Spirit of God entering into man wars against the disposition of sin, (Wars against the being of sin, which is to be God's fight in us, whereas we have been empowered in Christ to rule over sins, no longer a war but a victorious promise of the work on the Cross ). Paul, in the bible, calls this product of friction between Spirit and his flesh, "Carnality." Pertaining to, or characterized by the flesh or the body, its passions and appetites; its sensualities -- (not spiritual; merely human; temporal; worldly).
You see a worldly man see's no Carnality; he is not conscious of any conflict between the Spirit and his flesh; when he is born-again the conflict begins, and there is a "disclosure of the carnal mind," which is "Hostility against God," Never neutral; always caustic. No man or woman knows they have that enemy on the inside until they receive the Holy Spirit.
The Carnal mind is not something that has to be removed; it either is, or it is not. Immediately you agree to the dethronement of the disposition which lusts against the Spirit, the Carnal mind is not. The flesh and the Spirit both draw purposeful daggers, so to speak, and I have to decide, by way of my will, which shall rule. If I am going to decide for the Spirit, I will crucify the flesh; God cannot do it, I must do it myself. To crucify means to PUT TO DEATH, not counteract, not sit on, not white-wash, but kill. If I, thru my Christ-like disposition do not put to death the things in me which are not of God, they will put to death the things that are of God! Thus,a true Christian must understand how this proposition is All-in or nothing with our Savior. To belong to God thru Christ means I have deliberately chosen to dispose the disposition of the flesh and be identified with Christ -- "Yes, I agree with the Spirit, and go to the death of the old disposition; I agree with God's condemnation in the Cross of self-interest and self-realization, despite the fact these things were dearer to me than life."
Jesus Christ is merciless to self-realization, to self-indulgence, pride, unchastity, in fact, to everything that has to do with the disposition you did not know you had until you met Him. God is not trying to get you to do a thing you have yet done. He is interested in growing you up thru transformation in the Holy Spirit, of divine newness of mind and revelation of new convictions in a proper relationship with Himself. We need only obey that which He has revealed to us to do plainly, to truly become, then, what God has made clear; to do the "ought to's" regardless of our full knowledge of the result. God is sitting at the potters wheel just waiting for that righteous relationship to be given Him, by way of our submission, so He can finish producing the great piece of art He predestined you to be. He is the craftsman, we are the clay. The action of Jesus on the Cross that saved you from sin, error, and evil; namely Redemption, does not tinker with the externals of a persons life; it deals with the disposition.
"Those of us who belong to the Anointed One have crucified our old lives and put to death the flesh and all the lusts and desires that plague us." ~Galatians 5:24~
* No one is really Christ's until that is done.
Thru these things, we have received God's great and valuable promises, so we might escape the corruption of worldly desires and share in the divine nature." ~2 Peter 1:4~
At this stage my personality is again united into peace. Jesus Christ's one aim is to bring us back into oneness with God. The whole purpose of the Redemption is to give back to man and woman the original source of life, and in regeneration man this means -- "Christ.......formed in you!"
So, in discipleship class I am always prodded to ask the right questions, what is the right question here? "Am I willing that the old disposition should be crucified with Christ?" And, "Do I actively put to death -- the right to myself -- unconditionally believing God can do it utterly wholly?" If I am, the Bible teaches me Jesus Christ will take possession of me and will baptize me into His life until I bear a strong family likeness of Him. Empowering me for His purposes.
The path from infancy to adulthood in Christ will have lonely times, not alone times, but lonely. To be in the world but not of it; To travel from death into Life, but it also means being "Presenced with Divinity." The Christian life does not take its pattern from good men, but from God Himself, a pattern which is inherently pure, and is an absolutely supernormal life all through.
"Be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect." Normal Christianity is Christ in me or nothing. We grow in stages, but where God is headed is something vastly different than a hope of a fixed Old Self, which offers no hope at all it is in things beyond what we can think or imagine in the union thru Christ to Our Father. We are eternally a New Creation or we are not.
"A person may think their own ways are right, but the Lord weighs the heart." ~Proverbs 21:2~
After being born again I experienced peace. But it was a militant peace, a peace maintained at the point of war.
The wrong disposition, or wrong inherent qualities of my mind and character was no longer in my new creation, but that wrong disposition was still there, and I knew it was. In my infancy I was conscious of an alternating experience, sometimes it would show up as ecstasy, other times in the dumps; there was no stability, no real spiritual triumph. It seemed to be that a normal Christian must be in constant turmoil -- a good day, then a bad, a good day, then a bad, three steps forward, two steps back...But God has shown me thru His Word that this is not the essence of living in my New Creation. If I were to continue to have lived like that as the full experience of Salvation it would prove God not justified in the Atonement. Yet, still this transformation from infancy, to childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood is a matter of His timing and delivery.
"For everything the flesh desires goes against the Spirit, and everything the Spirit desires goes against the flesh," (Not flesh and blood). The Spirit of God entering into man wars against the disposition of sin, (Wars against the being of sin, which is to be God's fight in us, whereas we have been empowered in Christ to rule over sins, no longer a war but a victorious promise of the work on the Cross ). Paul, in the bible, calls this product of friction between Spirit and his flesh, "Carnality." Pertaining to, or characterized by the flesh or the body, its passions and appetites; its sensualities -- (not spiritual; merely human; temporal; worldly).
You see a worldly man see's no Carnality; he is not conscious of any conflict between the Spirit and his flesh; when he is born-again the conflict begins, and there is a "disclosure of the carnal mind," which is "Hostility against God," Never neutral; always caustic. No man or woman knows they have that enemy on the inside until they receive the Holy Spirit.
The Carnal mind is not something that has to be removed; it either is, or it is not. Immediately you agree to the dethronement of the disposition which lusts against the Spirit, the Carnal mind is not. The flesh and the Spirit both draw purposeful daggers, so to speak, and I have to decide, by way of my will, which shall rule. If I am going to decide for the Spirit, I will crucify the flesh; God cannot do it, I must do it myself. To crucify means to PUT TO DEATH, not counteract, not sit on, not white-wash, but kill. If I, thru my Christ-like disposition do not put to death the things in me which are not of God, they will put to death the things that are of God! Thus,a true Christian must understand how this proposition is All-in or nothing with our Savior. To belong to God thru Christ means I have deliberately chosen to dispose the disposition of the flesh and be identified with Christ -- "Yes, I agree with the Spirit, and go to the death of the old disposition; I agree with God's condemnation in the Cross of self-interest and self-realization, despite the fact these things were dearer to me than life."
Jesus Christ is merciless to self-realization, to self-indulgence, pride, unchastity, in fact, to everything that has to do with the disposition you did not know you had until you met Him. God is not trying to get you to do a thing you have yet done. He is interested in growing you up thru transformation in the Holy Spirit, of divine newness of mind and revelation of new convictions in a proper relationship with Himself. We need only obey that which He has revealed to us to do plainly, to truly become, then, what God has made clear; to do the "ought to's" regardless of our full knowledge of the result. God is sitting at the potters wheel just waiting for that righteous relationship to be given Him, by way of our submission, so He can finish producing the great piece of art He predestined you to be. He is the craftsman, we are the clay. The action of Jesus on the Cross that saved you from sin, error, and evil; namely Redemption, does not tinker with the externals of a persons life; it deals with the disposition.
"Those of us who belong to the Anointed One have crucified our old lives and put to death the flesh and all the lusts and desires that plague us." ~Galatians 5:24~
* No one is really Christ's until that is done.
Thru these things, we have received God's great and valuable promises, so we might escape the corruption of worldly desires and share in the divine nature." ~2 Peter 1:4~
At this stage my personality is again united into peace. Jesus Christ's one aim is to bring us back into oneness with God. The whole purpose of the Redemption is to give back to man and woman the original source of life, and in regeneration man this means -- "Christ.......formed in you!"
So, in discipleship class I am always prodded to ask the right questions, what is the right question here? "Am I willing that the old disposition should be crucified with Christ?" And, "Do I actively put to death -- the right to myself -- unconditionally believing God can do it utterly wholly?" If I am, the Bible teaches me Jesus Christ will take possession of me and will baptize me into His life until I bear a strong family likeness of Him. Empowering me for His purposes.
The path from infancy to adulthood in Christ will have lonely times, not alone times, but lonely. To be in the world but not of it; To travel from death into Life, but it also means being "Presenced with Divinity." The Christian life does not take its pattern from good men, but from God Himself, a pattern which is inherently pure, and is an absolutely supernormal life all through.
"Be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect." Normal Christianity is Christ in me or nothing. We grow in stages, but where God is headed is something vastly different than a hope of a fixed Old Self, which offers no hope at all it is in things beyond what we can think or imagine in the union thru Christ to Our Father. We are eternally a New Creation or we are not.