Post by beloved on Oct 9, 2006 22:33:07 GMT -5
John 8: 31-32
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If you continiue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed; And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
Renewing our mind to the truth of God's Word is what will MAKE us free! God said in many places that he has made us free in Him from sin. So, we need to believe Him to experience our blood bought freedom.
Romans 6:3- 23
Know you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ as raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we will be also in the likeness of his resurection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more; death has no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that lives, he lives unto God. Likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin will not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace. What then: shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delievered you. Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as you have yielded your members servants to uncleaness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become the servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let's look again at verse 16:
Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
First lets clear up that this is not talking about losing our salvation as clarified in verse 23:
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
What verse 16 is talking about is sinful strongholds/ addictions that bring forth "death" in our lives- death being destruction.
With that cleared up we can see from this verse that in order to form an addiction/ stronghold we must yield ourselves to it. In fact the word addict means- to yield oneself to. If you repeatedly yield yourself to a sin, you will become the "servant" of that sin. You will become as bound to that sin as a slave is to their master. However, God tells us in verse 18 that we have been freed from sin and made servants of righteousness after our new birth in verse 17:
But God be thanked, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delievered you.
The doctrine we have obeyed is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and we shall be saved. Once we do this God declares He has made us free from sin. We no longer have to obey the lusts of our flesh. We can live out of the new man that "after God has been created in righteousness and true holiness."
How do we live in the new man and not in the old fleshly nature?
Eph. 4: 22-24
That you put off concerning the former conversation that old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
The old man is corrupt in nature. We must "put off" that old man by the renewing of our minds to who our new man is in Christ- righteous and holy like God. After all, the "fullness of the Godhead" dwells in our spirits where we were born again. He can't live in anything unholy. He made us holy and placed Himself within us. He becomes not only our righteousness, but the power by which we can live out righteousness through the "washing of the Word".
Once we are addicted to sin, once we have allowed strongholds to be set up in our minds by continually yielding ourselves to the lies of sin, we must tear down those strongholds by the Word.
2. Corinthians 10: 3- 5
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
In verse 3:
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
God tells us that we cannot fight against sin with our flesh.
In verse 4:
(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; )
God tells us that the weapons we use to defeat sin are not carnal weapons (our own human strength), but God's weapons which are able to pull down strongholds. See Eph. 6 to see God's weapons/armor.
How do we use God's armor? We use the truth found in His Word to pull down sinful strongholds in our lives. But through His armor we find out the basic foundation of who we are so we can apply His truth to our lives and fight the enemy in our minds. Our mind is where the battle is won or lost as verse 5 explains:
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
We cast down lies of the world/enemy in our minds by refusing to believe those lies and replacing them with the truth of God's Word.
The devil says, "If you comit this sin you will be happy."
You refuse to believe the lie, or even to give it the slightest place in your mind, and use God's word to remind yourself of the truth:
"If I comit this sin, it will bring death in the form of __________. This sin cannot fulfill me and bring happiness because happiness only comes from doing what is right. The devil is a liar. I will not gain what he has promised me from this sin."
The devil says, "You cannot be satisfied sexually with one person."
Remind yourself that God's word tells us that fulfillment comes only from sex with one person- your spouse. You CANNOT and will NEVER be satisfied outside of God's plan for sex.
Over time, denying the lies of sin and replacing them with the truth of God's word will take away even your desire to commit that sin. When the allure of sin (or the lie of sin) is gone from your beliefs, then you will not be interested in that sin any longer.
But then you must guard your mind always by continually being the gatekeeper of what you allow in your mind. If you don't guard your mind, you will likely somewhere down the road find yourself in the same sin and not know how you got there. You will wonder, 'what happened?' What happened is you grew slack in guarding your mind and the enemy who roams about seeking whom he may devour found your house swept clean but empty. Then he took with him 7 more devils to try to bind you up again in your former sin even worse than you were before through his lies. But you didn't recognize his lies. That's because they came slowly at first and he worked patiently and subtly on your mind to cause you to believe lies again. Those lies grew and formed sinful strongholds (beliefs) in your mind again. Now you are bound in your sin even more than you were before and must start renewing your mind to the truth to get free again. Don't allow that to happen. Pay attention to your own thoughts. Are they godly truth, or worldly lies? Your body cannot follow where your mind did not go first. By the time a person commits adultry, they have already allowed a small flame to grow into a bonfire in their minds. All sin starts in the mind. Snuff it out there with God's word before it turns into action.
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If you continiue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed; And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
Renewing our mind to the truth of God's Word is what will MAKE us free! God said in many places that he has made us free in Him from sin. So, we need to believe Him to experience our blood bought freedom.
Romans 6:3- 23
Know you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ as raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we will be also in the likeness of his resurection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more; death has no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that lives, he lives unto God. Likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin will not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace. What then: shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delievered you. Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as you have yielded your members servants to uncleaness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become the servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let's look again at verse 16:
Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
First lets clear up that this is not talking about losing our salvation as clarified in verse 23:
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
What verse 16 is talking about is sinful strongholds/ addictions that bring forth "death" in our lives- death being destruction.
With that cleared up we can see from this verse that in order to form an addiction/ stronghold we must yield ourselves to it. In fact the word addict means- to yield oneself to. If you repeatedly yield yourself to a sin, you will become the "servant" of that sin. You will become as bound to that sin as a slave is to their master. However, God tells us in verse 18 that we have been freed from sin and made servants of righteousness after our new birth in verse 17:
But God be thanked, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delievered you.
The doctrine we have obeyed is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and we shall be saved. Once we do this God declares He has made us free from sin. We no longer have to obey the lusts of our flesh. We can live out of the new man that "after God has been created in righteousness and true holiness."
How do we live in the new man and not in the old fleshly nature?
Eph. 4: 22-24
That you put off concerning the former conversation that old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
The old man is corrupt in nature. We must "put off" that old man by the renewing of our minds to who our new man is in Christ- righteous and holy like God. After all, the "fullness of the Godhead" dwells in our spirits where we were born again. He can't live in anything unholy. He made us holy and placed Himself within us. He becomes not only our righteousness, but the power by which we can live out righteousness through the "washing of the Word".
Once we are addicted to sin, once we have allowed strongholds to be set up in our minds by continually yielding ourselves to the lies of sin, we must tear down those strongholds by the Word.
2. Corinthians 10: 3- 5
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
In verse 3:
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
God tells us that we cannot fight against sin with our flesh.
In verse 4:
(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; )
God tells us that the weapons we use to defeat sin are not carnal weapons (our own human strength), but God's weapons which are able to pull down strongholds. See Eph. 6 to see God's weapons/armor.
How do we use God's armor? We use the truth found in His Word to pull down sinful strongholds in our lives. But through His armor we find out the basic foundation of who we are so we can apply His truth to our lives and fight the enemy in our minds. Our mind is where the battle is won or lost as verse 5 explains:
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
We cast down lies of the world/enemy in our minds by refusing to believe those lies and replacing them with the truth of God's Word.
The devil says, "If you comit this sin you will be happy."
You refuse to believe the lie, or even to give it the slightest place in your mind, and use God's word to remind yourself of the truth:
"If I comit this sin, it will bring death in the form of __________. This sin cannot fulfill me and bring happiness because happiness only comes from doing what is right. The devil is a liar. I will not gain what he has promised me from this sin."
The devil says, "You cannot be satisfied sexually with one person."
Remind yourself that God's word tells us that fulfillment comes only from sex with one person- your spouse. You CANNOT and will NEVER be satisfied outside of God's plan for sex.
Over time, denying the lies of sin and replacing them with the truth of God's word will take away even your desire to commit that sin. When the allure of sin (or the lie of sin) is gone from your beliefs, then you will not be interested in that sin any longer.
But then you must guard your mind always by continually being the gatekeeper of what you allow in your mind. If you don't guard your mind, you will likely somewhere down the road find yourself in the same sin and not know how you got there. You will wonder, 'what happened?' What happened is you grew slack in guarding your mind and the enemy who roams about seeking whom he may devour found your house swept clean but empty. Then he took with him 7 more devils to try to bind you up again in your former sin even worse than you were before through his lies. But you didn't recognize his lies. That's because they came slowly at first and he worked patiently and subtly on your mind to cause you to believe lies again. Those lies grew and formed sinful strongholds (beliefs) in your mind again. Now you are bound in your sin even more than you were before and must start renewing your mind to the truth to get free again. Don't allow that to happen. Pay attention to your own thoughts. Are they godly truth, or worldly lies? Your body cannot follow where your mind did not go first. By the time a person commits adultry, they have already allowed a small flame to grow into a bonfire in their minds. All sin starts in the mind. Snuff it out there with God's word before it turns into action.
