What Really Is Sin?
Sin includes all the lies that the human race has been telling about God the Creator down through the centuries.
Sin is universal and represents the margin of difference between all that God is (in whose image we are made) and what we are on our own.
Sin is anything that falls short of God's glory (Romans 3:23), so that God will evaluate sin as any behavior that falls short of what He does, what He says, and what He is.
Sin therefore is exposed simply by relating our behavior to God's behavior. God is perfect, and by that perfection you and I can recognize sin, because sin is anything which falls short of His perfection.
God Himself is therefore the only standard by which sin is recognizable.
Sin also is defined in the Bible as faithless independence: "Whatever is not from faith is sin" (Romans 14:23). It is an attitude of "lawlessness" (1 John 3:4).
In light of this understanding of sin, what then does repentance involve?
Repentance means stepping out of independence back into dependence, and the measure of your repentance will be the measure of your dependence. Every area of your life in which you have not learned to be truly dependent on God is an area of your life in which you have not as yet repented.
Christ died for us so that He, risen and alive, might now come and dwell within us, so that we might no longer be egocentric, self-oriented, living only for our own interests. "He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again" (2 Corinthians 5:15).
Never be sorry for your self. Just be sorry for your sin!
"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23)
1. Is there any area of your life in which you have not learned to be truly dependent on God? If so, what repentance is necessary and appropriate at this time?
2. In your own behavior at this time, how are you falling short of all that God does, all that He says, and all that He is?
~W. Ian Thomas~
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Saturday, May 19, 2018
From Ignorance To Righteousness
From Ignorance To Righteousness
There is a lie that satan continues to propagate today with signal success in the hearts of countless people. It is the notion that by giving themselves back to the God who made them, and by submitting themselves to His sovereignty, they will be robbed of that liberty which makes life really worth living. Such people are not necessarily insincere in this conviction, but are the victims of their own ignorance, which makes them dupes of the devil, whose greatest delight is exploiting that ignorance.
God's Word describes in detail the ignorance and the devil's part in it:
For the god of this world has blinded the unbeliever's minds [that they should not discern the truth], preventing them from seeing the illuminating light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ (the Messiah), Who is the Image and likeness of God.
Their moral understanding is darkened and their reasoning is beclouded. [They are] alienated (estranged, self-banished) from the life of God [with no share in it; this is] because of the ignorance (the want of knowledge and perception, the wilful blindness) that is deep-seated in them, due to their hardness of heart {to the insensitiveness of their moral nature]. (Ephesians 4:18).
This hardened heart is the essence of the "old man" within us (Ephesians 4:22), our flesh. The soul of the unregenerate is sold out to the flesh, and that persons behavior is subject to the demands of a rebel regime that denies to God His right to be God.
The human soul, dominated by the flesh, becomes party, however unwittingly, to every carnal ambition that would silence the voice of God and resist the claims of His Holy Spirit.
The Lord Jesus Christ wants so very much to replace by His presence within you, all your inherent potential for evil under the influence of the flesh. He offers you instead all His limitless potential for good through the energy and power of His indwelling Holy Spirit.
Spiritual new birth involves the principle of divine substitution, and though you are to be persuaded of your inherent wickedness, you are to be equally persuaded of Christ's inherent righteousness and all that it means for you.
If that which is both of the flesh is flesh, you can be equally certain that that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit - that God is God!
What is so completely amazing is that God is prepared to be God in you not figuratively but FACTUALLY. You can actually share His Life and be transformed into His likeness.
"For His divine power has bestowed upon us all things that [are requisite and suited] to life and godliness, through the [full, personal] knowledge of Him Who called us by and to His own glory and excellence (virtue). By means of these He has bestowed on us His precious and exceedingly great promises, so that through them you may escape [by flight] from the moral decay (rottenness and corruption) that is in the world because of covetousness (lust and greed), and become sharers (partakers) of the divine nature." (2 Peter 1:3-4).
1. In what ways have you been tempted to think that by giving yourself to God, you would be missing out on certain freedoms and pleasures?
2. What does it mean practically to you that by your spiritual new birth, Christ's inherent righteousness is now yours?
3. At this time, how do you recognize that you are sharing the life of Christ in actuality?
~W. Ian Thomas~
There is a lie that satan continues to propagate today with signal success in the hearts of countless people. It is the notion that by giving themselves back to the God who made them, and by submitting themselves to His sovereignty, they will be robbed of that liberty which makes life really worth living. Such people are not necessarily insincere in this conviction, but are the victims of their own ignorance, which makes them dupes of the devil, whose greatest delight is exploiting that ignorance.
God's Word describes in detail the ignorance and the devil's part in it:
For the god of this world has blinded the unbeliever's minds [that they should not discern the truth], preventing them from seeing the illuminating light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ (the Messiah), Who is the Image and likeness of God.
Their moral understanding is darkened and their reasoning is beclouded. [They are] alienated (estranged, self-banished) from the life of God [with no share in it; this is] because of the ignorance (the want of knowledge and perception, the wilful blindness) that is deep-seated in them, due to their hardness of heart {to the insensitiveness of their moral nature]. (Ephesians 4:18).
This hardened heart is the essence of the "old man" within us (Ephesians 4:22), our flesh. The soul of the unregenerate is sold out to the flesh, and that persons behavior is subject to the demands of a rebel regime that denies to God His right to be God.
The human soul, dominated by the flesh, becomes party, however unwittingly, to every carnal ambition that would silence the voice of God and resist the claims of His Holy Spirit.
The Lord Jesus Christ wants so very much to replace by His presence within you, all your inherent potential for evil under the influence of the flesh. He offers you instead all His limitless potential for good through the energy and power of His indwelling Holy Spirit.
Spiritual new birth involves the principle of divine substitution, and though you are to be persuaded of your inherent wickedness, you are to be equally persuaded of Christ's inherent righteousness and all that it means for you.
If that which is both of the flesh is flesh, you can be equally certain that that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit - that God is God!
What is so completely amazing is that God is prepared to be God in you not figuratively but FACTUALLY. You can actually share His Life and be transformed into His likeness.
"For His divine power has bestowed upon us all things that [are requisite and suited] to life and godliness, through the [full, personal] knowledge of Him Who called us by and to His own glory and excellence (virtue). By means of these He has bestowed on us His precious and exceedingly great promises, so that through them you may escape [by flight] from the moral decay (rottenness and corruption) that is in the world because of covetousness (lust and greed), and become sharers (partakers) of the divine nature." (2 Peter 1:3-4).
1. In what ways have you been tempted to think that by giving yourself to God, you would be missing out on certain freedoms and pleasures?
2. What does it mean practically to you that by your spiritual new birth, Christ's inherent righteousness is now yours?
3. At this time, how do you recognize that you are sharing the life of Christ in actuality?
~W. Ian Thomas~
Saturday, May 12, 2018
Where My Blogs Will Now Be Seen
Where My Blogs Will Now Be Seen
Alert!
All of my blogs (all seven of them) will now be posted on the following sites:
Facebook.com-www.facebook.com/katherinesewell775562
MeWe.com
mewe.com/join/in-depth_christian_teaching
MyPraize.com - www.mypraize.com/kathy7
GooglePlus.com - https://plus.google.com/+KatherineSewell
I have the desire, and need, to get true Christian teaching out to as many as I can - world wide!
I would be happy to see you on all of the above sites!! Come join me!!
I am also looking for a good social site that is more European, more attined to the non-Christian folks. If anyone knows of a good site, please let me know! I truly appreciate your help!
God bless you all and may He send His precious grace and generous mercy to all!
Alert!
All of my blogs (all seven of them) will now be posted on the following sites:
Facebook.com-www.facebook.com/katherinesewell775562
MeWe.com
mewe.com/join/in-depth_christian_teaching
MyPraize.com - www.mypraize.com/kathy7
GooglePlus.com - https://plus.google.com/+KatherineSewell
I have the desire, and need, to get true Christian teaching out to as many as I can - world wide!
I would be happy to see you on all of the above sites!! Come join me!!
I am also looking for a good social site that is more European, more attined to the non-Christian folks. If anyone knows of a good site, please let me know! I truly appreciate your help!
God bless you all and may He send His precious grace and generous mercy to all!
The Ways of the Flesh
The Ways of the Flesh
You may have harnessed the energy of the flesh in an otherwise quite genuine desire to honor the Lord Jesus in your life. The flesh, which has its origin in satan, will go along with you; to survive, it is quite prepared to engage in every form of Christian activity, even though this may seem to honor Christ.
The flesh will sing in the choir, teach Sunday school, preside at a deacons' meeting, preach from the pulpit, organize an evangelistic crusade, go to Bible college, volunteer for the mission field, and a thousand other things, all of which may in themselves be otherwise legitimate, if only it can keep its neck out of the noose. The flesh will threaten, shout, strut, domineer, sulk, plot, creep, beg, plead, or sob, whenever the situation may demand in the interests of its own survival. By any and all means it will seek to cause every Christian to live by his own strength instead of by the power and grace of the Lord Jesus, and to conclude that doing so is actually a good thing!
The characteristic of the spiritually immature is that they are unable to discern between good and evil (Hebrews 5:13-14), and the baby Christian, like the foolish Galatians, "having begun in the Spirit" still tries to be "made perfect by the flesh" (Galatians 3:3).
We must be particularly patient with those whose lack of understanding allows a genuine love for the Lord Jesus to be satisfied with, and sometimes to be quite enthusiastic about, Christian activities involving means and methods which are heavily contaminated by the flesh. These are more deserving of instruction then rebuke, for they are still in their spiritual babyhood.
The spiritual conviction is an activity of the Holy Spirit within the human spirit, and when the Holy Spirit begins to convict you of your immaturity, bearing witness to your conscience that the Lord Jesus Christ is being denied His rightful place in your life, the old Adam-nature within you becomes irritable and edgy. At the same time it will seek to produce the most plausible arguments in justification of its own illegitimate activities, even though these activities are only what the Bible calls "dead works" (Hebrews 6:1; 9:14) and not the "good works" which are truly the work of God.
The Lord Jesus said, "This is the work of God that you believe in Him whom He sent" (John 6:29). The work of God is your living faith in the adequacy of the One who is in you, which releases His divine action through man. This is the kind of activity that the Bible calls "good works" (Matthew 5:16, Ephesians 2:10), as opposed to "dead works".
"Good works" are those that have their origin in Jesus Christ, as Christ's activity is released through your body because you present it to Him as a living sacrifice. You do this only by a faith that expresses total dependence, as opposed to the Adamic independence (Romans 12:1-2).
God does not honor men and women and their deeds or their books or their organizations. The Father in heaven delights to honor His Son. It is only the Life of the Lord Jesus - His activity, clothed with you and displayed through you - that ultimately will find the approval of God.
"Whatever you do (no matter what it is) in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus and in dependence upon His Person, giving praise to God the Father through Him" (Colossians 3:17).
1. What Christian activities have you pursued more out of the energy of the flesh than in true dependence on the activity of Christ?
2. For any activity in your life, how can you go about assessing whether you are pursuing it in dependence on Christ instead of in the energy of the flesh?
3. In what way does your flesh try to justify its own illegitimate activities in your life?
~W. Ian Thomas~
You may have harnessed the energy of the flesh in an otherwise quite genuine desire to honor the Lord Jesus in your life. The flesh, which has its origin in satan, will go along with you; to survive, it is quite prepared to engage in every form of Christian activity, even though this may seem to honor Christ.
The flesh will sing in the choir, teach Sunday school, preside at a deacons' meeting, preach from the pulpit, organize an evangelistic crusade, go to Bible college, volunteer for the mission field, and a thousand other things, all of which may in themselves be otherwise legitimate, if only it can keep its neck out of the noose. The flesh will threaten, shout, strut, domineer, sulk, plot, creep, beg, plead, or sob, whenever the situation may demand in the interests of its own survival. By any and all means it will seek to cause every Christian to live by his own strength instead of by the power and grace of the Lord Jesus, and to conclude that doing so is actually a good thing!
The characteristic of the spiritually immature is that they are unable to discern between good and evil (Hebrews 5:13-14), and the baby Christian, like the foolish Galatians, "having begun in the Spirit" still tries to be "made perfect by the flesh" (Galatians 3:3).
We must be particularly patient with those whose lack of understanding allows a genuine love for the Lord Jesus to be satisfied with, and sometimes to be quite enthusiastic about, Christian activities involving means and methods which are heavily contaminated by the flesh. These are more deserving of instruction then rebuke, for they are still in their spiritual babyhood.
The spiritual conviction is an activity of the Holy Spirit within the human spirit, and when the Holy Spirit begins to convict you of your immaturity, bearing witness to your conscience that the Lord Jesus Christ is being denied His rightful place in your life, the old Adam-nature within you becomes irritable and edgy. At the same time it will seek to produce the most plausible arguments in justification of its own illegitimate activities, even though these activities are only what the Bible calls "dead works" (Hebrews 6:1; 9:14) and not the "good works" which are truly the work of God.
The Lord Jesus said, "This is the work of God that you believe in Him whom He sent" (John 6:29). The work of God is your living faith in the adequacy of the One who is in you, which releases His divine action through man. This is the kind of activity that the Bible calls "good works" (Matthew 5:16, Ephesians 2:10), as opposed to "dead works".
"Good works" are those that have their origin in Jesus Christ, as Christ's activity is released through your body because you present it to Him as a living sacrifice. You do this only by a faith that expresses total dependence, as opposed to the Adamic independence (Romans 12:1-2).
God does not honor men and women and their deeds or their books or their organizations. The Father in heaven delights to honor His Son. It is only the Life of the Lord Jesus - His activity, clothed with you and displayed through you - that ultimately will find the approval of God.
"Whatever you do (no matter what it is) in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus and in dependence upon His Person, giving praise to God the Father through Him" (Colossians 3:17).
1. What Christian activities have you pursued more out of the energy of the flesh than in true dependence on the activity of Christ?
2. For any activity in your life, how can you go about assessing whether you are pursuing it in dependence on Christ instead of in the energy of the flesh?
3. In what way does your flesh try to justify its own illegitimate activities in your life?
~W. Ian Thomas~
Saturday, May 5, 2018
A Question of Parentage
A Question of Parentage
Every act of sin has its origin in satan; it is his character incarnate. "He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning" (1 John 3:8).
Likewise, every act of righteousness has its origin in God; it is His character incarnate.
In everything you do, the true character of a particular act can always be discerned in the authorship of that act. It is not a question of pattern, but of parentage.
That which is born of God in you is Jesus Christ, and it is He who who does not commit sin, nor can He, for He is God! This is what the apostle John means when he writes, "Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him, and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God" (1 John 3:9). The divine seed within us is the very nature of God Himself, and the nature that He wants to share with you through His Son.
Share the nature of Christ and you share His victory. You do not achieve it; you receive it, for Christ Himself "became for us wisdom from God - and righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30).
To be dominated by the "flesh" is to be dominated by the devil; and to be dominated by the Holy Spirit is to be dominated by God.
What really is this "flesh" of which the Bible speaks? The fle4sh is that perverted principle in human beings which perpetuates satan's proud hostility and enmity against God. In our fallen condition every person's soul is dominated by the flesh and destitute of the Holy Spirit. You and I were born in this unregenerate condition.
The Holy Spirit and the flesh are inveterate foes: "For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these ar4e contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish" (Galatians 5:17). That is why any steps God takes to reestablish His law in our hearts are resisted tooth and nail. Being already entrenched within the human soul by nature, the flesh is in a commanding position to incite the mind, the emotions, and the will of unregenerate persons (and of carnal Christians) to defy God and resist His grace.
The Holy Spirit always exposes the flesh for what it is and there is nothing more infuriating to the carnally minded Christian than when those who are spiritually discerning remain unimpressed with him in spite of so much self-advertisement.
The crucified, risen, and living Lord Jesus alone can put the noose around the neck of your flesh and keep your flesh where it belongs, and this He does by His Holy Spirit. You cannot carry out the execution, but to you and to your alone belong the moral responsibility of confirming the sentence of death.
This the decision God is waiting for you to make, for in His sovereignty God limits Himself that simple law of faith which gives to you the moral capacity to know Him and to love Him for yourself.
Consent, therefore, to die to all that you are which does not derive from all that Christ is, and thank Him for His willingness to make it real in your experience.
To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." (Romans 8:6).
1. What step of faith is God waiting for you to take in dying to your flesh?
2. Have you adequately expressed your thankfulness to God for the Holy Spirit's work in exposing the sinfulness of your flesh? Do this now.
~W. Ian Thomas~
Every act of sin has its origin in satan; it is his character incarnate. "He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning" (1 John 3:8).
Likewise, every act of righteousness has its origin in God; it is His character incarnate.
In everything you do, the true character of a particular act can always be discerned in the authorship of that act. It is not a question of pattern, but of parentage.
That which is born of God in you is Jesus Christ, and it is He who who does not commit sin, nor can He, for He is God! This is what the apostle John means when he writes, "Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him, and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God" (1 John 3:9). The divine seed within us is the very nature of God Himself, and the nature that He wants to share with you through His Son.
Share the nature of Christ and you share His victory. You do not achieve it; you receive it, for Christ Himself "became for us wisdom from God - and righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30).
To be dominated by the "flesh" is to be dominated by the devil; and to be dominated by the Holy Spirit is to be dominated by God.
What really is this "flesh" of which the Bible speaks? The fle4sh is that perverted principle in human beings which perpetuates satan's proud hostility and enmity against God. In our fallen condition every person's soul is dominated by the flesh and destitute of the Holy Spirit. You and I were born in this unregenerate condition.
The Holy Spirit and the flesh are inveterate foes: "For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these ar4e contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish" (Galatians 5:17). That is why any steps God takes to reestablish His law in our hearts are resisted tooth and nail. Being already entrenched within the human soul by nature, the flesh is in a commanding position to incite the mind, the emotions, and the will of unregenerate persons (and of carnal Christians) to defy God and resist His grace.
The Holy Spirit always exposes the flesh for what it is and there is nothing more infuriating to the carnally minded Christian than when those who are spiritually discerning remain unimpressed with him in spite of so much self-advertisement.
The crucified, risen, and living Lord Jesus alone can put the noose around the neck of your flesh and keep your flesh where it belongs, and this He does by His Holy Spirit. You cannot carry out the execution, but to you and to your alone belong the moral responsibility of confirming the sentence of death.
This the decision God is waiting for you to make, for in His sovereignty God limits Himself that simple law of faith which gives to you the moral capacity to know Him and to love Him for yourself.
Consent, therefore, to die to all that you are which does not derive from all that Christ is, and thank Him for His willingness to make it real in your experience.
To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." (Romans 8:6).
1. What step of faith is God waiting for you to take in dying to your flesh?
2. Have you adequately expressed your thankfulness to God for the Holy Spirit's work in exposing the sinfulness of your flesh? Do this now.
~W. Ian Thomas~
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