Escape Temptation

 1 Corinth 10:13
 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

The work of sanctification in the heart of man does not remove the temptation to do something that is wrong. It would seem that if the Holy Spirit is dwelling in the heart of the believer, and the carnal nature has been put to death, it would be impossible for a believer to fall into doing something that is in violation of the will of God. I don’t claim to be a Bible scholar on this subject, but it is undeniable that no matter how spiritual or committed you are to God, the temptation to sin is no respecter of person. Not everyone is affected by temptation in the same way. The devil knows our vulnerability and human weaknesses. The devil works through human nature and the legitimate desires of humanity. The desire for love, happiness, self-preservation, and self-respect is common among all of us. God puts these desires within each one of us, but Satan tempts us to fulfill them in a way that brings death to the soul. The battle is intensified when the heart is not consecrated and set apart in sanctification. The carnal nature is still lusting after the sinful ways of the flesh. The spirit-filled person must still pick up their cross every day and make the choice to do the will of God. We read and know that Jesus Himself faced temptation, and He did not have a carnal nature, yet was tempted by Satan to fulfill a human desire. They say that everyone has their demons. I would clarify this by saying that Satan has his demons that he uses to weaken the resolve of those who desire to do what is right. We have been given this promise in His word. That whatever we are facing, God is faithful to provide a way to escape and resist the fiery darts of the enemy. Call upon His word, entreat the power of the Holy Spirit, plead the blood of Jesus over sin, resist the devil and yield yourself unto righteousness, doing what is right.  

The Thorns of Carnality

 Matt 13:7
And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up and choked them.

The thorns in our lives that keep us from growing in our faith and grace take on many shapes. The main throne that keeps our roots from getting firmly established and grounded in the Lord is the thorn of carnality. Carnality is not a popular topic among many progressive thinking “Christians”. Many feel it is a thorn that can’t be removed, we just need to keep them from overtaking us. But scripture says, “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (Roman 8:7). This thorn keeps many from growing and being all that God desires one to be. The carnal mind is pulled toward self and the desires of the flesh. It seeks to make sure that self is first and is cared for. Paul said we are to present ourselves a living sacrifice to God, fully surrender our heart, soul and mind to the will of God. Take self off the throne and put Christ first in our lives. This work of living sacrifice is also called sanctification. Allowing God to set us up apart, making us a holy vessel for His service. The Holy Spirit is given right away to move in us, and through us to accomplish the will of God. The thorns of carnality often spring up unaware and choke out the seed of the Gospel that was planted. The things of the world and the cares of life have a way of stifling Christians from growing to maturity. God’s desire is to remove the thorns in our lives so that we can be fruitful for the kingdom and live in harmony with the will of God

Divine Love

 1 Corinth 13:13
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

On this man-made holiday, love is celebrated throughout many countries of the world, where cards and acts of endearment are exchanged. Many use this day to have a romantic dinner, or do something special together. The Bible refers to this kind of love as “eros”. A love expressed between two people who have feelings for each other. Many capitalize on this day to raise their revenue and add to their profit margin. There is nothing wrong with this, but it is wise to realize that one does not have to spend a lot of money, or none at all, to express one's love and appreciation for each other. 
The love mentioned in this passage is love that comes from God, and is put into the heart of man. It is the kind of love that allows someone to love their enemies. To do good to those who mean us harm. It goes beyond feelings and begins with a heart that loves God because He first loved us. This love is unexplainable and, from a human viewpoint, it makes no sense. This is the love that is mentioned in John 3:16, “That God so loved the world…” This is the love that Paul writes about when he says that even if you give everything you own to the poor, if done for selfish reasons, it is all done in vain. 
How does one obtain this love? Such love is provided when we allow the Holy Spirit to cleanse our heart from the carnal nature of sin.  Allow Him to purify our heart from carnal selfish desires. The Hebrew word for this love is called "Agape". It is the divine love that Charles Wesley writes “Breathe, O Breathe Thy loving Spirit into every troubled breast! Let us all in Thee inherit, let us find the promise rest. Take away our love for sinning, Alpha and Omega be; end of faith, as its beginning, set our hearts at liberty.”
As we share our “Eros” love with those close to us on this day, may we not forget the “Agape” love that God has given us. Let our hearts be filled with His divine love and share it with a world in need of real love. 

Loose From Sin

 John 11:44

And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

 

A preacher I heard a long time ago took this verse to show evidence of a second work of grace. I don’t know if the intent of John’s writing was meant to convey this meaning, but it does make a good analogy. We are dead in our trespasses and sin, dead to the things of God. Jesus died on the cross to give us life, He brought us from death to life. But, carnality still has us bound up. Our carnal nature desires to have its own way. It binds us up with fear and pride. Jesus desires for us to be set free, and let loose from the chains that keep us from being all that God wants us to be. He sent the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. His Spirit sets us apart from the world to make us a vessel that can be used for His glory. We can be set loose and totally abandon ourselves to God, letting go of our selfish desires, submitting our will to His will and be holy sanctified to follow Him.

All Things Created

Col 1:17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

His name is Jesus. Before the world was created Jesus, one with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, created the heavens and the earth. All things were made by Him and for Him. He made man in His likeness. Man was made to have fellowship with Jesus, given a free will to choose to love and worship the Creator. Sin has warped the nature of man and put within man a desire to please the self-nature of the human heart. Jesus came to earth to redeem man from this nature, but man must make a choice to deny self and believe in the redemption power of Christ. Satans, the enemy of God, does everything he can to keep man from believing. the struggle to believe is real because sin reigns within the heart of man. The choice is still ours. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved…Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.”  We were made to live in Christ, but we must choose to do so.

Delivered From Sin

Roman 7:24-25 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?…I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

The battle wages within the hearts and minds of man. The desire to do what is right, and the desire to do what is wrong. Good vs evil, love vs hate. This is the true battle of the ages. Born in sin, under the influence of the carnal flesh, we are blinded and hindered to spiritual law of God. We attempt in our humanity to live righteous, but find that we don’t have the power to always do what is right. Whether we are unbelievers or believers the battle is always before us. The answer to this problem is made plain. Who will help us win this battle against sin? Jesus is the answer. In Christ we surrender who we are and accept Him into our lives. Even as believers, we must see that it is only through the power of Christ that we overcome evil. Jesus promise that He would send the Holy Spirit in His fullness and through the Spirit we would be led into all truth and be filled with His divine love.  Love will cast out all fear, love will defeat evil and hate. It is not in the power of our will, but in the power of His love and grace that we overcome evil with good, and hate with love. 

Do What is Right

2 Kings 22:2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.

When presented to do what is right, Josiah did what he felt was right. He followed his conscience in a day when God’s word was put on the shelf. True that our conscience can be misplaced by erroneous teaching, but left allow, God puts within each one of us a desire to seek the truth and do what is right. Sin has tainted the nature of our desires, and the carnal nature that we are born with seeks to gratify self in the face of doing what is good and acceptable to God. Paul speaks of this dual battle in the hearts and mind of people. The battle of doing what is right, when the desire to please self is present. As the Word of God came to Josiah in his day, so does the Holy Spirit come to us to lead us into all truth. We can choose to do what is right and take a stand against sin in our own life. Through Christ, we no longer have to live in condemnation, Through His blood we can have full salvation from sin and victory over sin in our lives. The nature of sin can be crucified with Christ and we can live each day with a pure conscience knowing the power of sin no longer has dominion over us, walking in the light of God.  

The Root of Jealousy

1 Sam 18:9. 12  And Saul eyed David from that day and forward…  And Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with him, and was departed from Saul.

The root of jealousy  finds its origins in the carnal nature of sin. The remedy to rid oneself of jealousy is to deal with the carnal nature within the heart. After God delivers us and forgives us of our sins, there still remains the seed of self that is buried in the heart of each man, women, boy and girl. Self must be put on the altar of surrender. It must present itself a living sacrifice to God. When God shows us what is in our heart, we confess it to God and submit ourselves, believing that the Holy Spirit is able to fill our hearts with perfect love. This work is referred by theologians as sanctification, or holiness of heart. It is a work of grace done in a crisis moment. It is intentional and requires man to make a choice who will be Lord of his life. Holiness of heart does not immune one from temptation of the flesh, it empowers one to be an overcomer of temptation, but daily submitting oneself to the will of God in all matters. Jealousy is not simply overcomes by just thanking God for what He has provided. When one is tempted to be jealous, he is led by the Spirit to flee such thoughts and to be grateful for what God has done and what He has provided. 

Wretched Man That I Am

Roman 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

As a born again Christian, I was taught that Christ died for our sins and also died to save us from sinning. I was saved in a church that preached that the Holy Spirit comes to the believer to purify the heart of inbred sin. That He comes to live and dwell in the heart, keeping the believer eternally secure by His power through the blood of Christ. There are those that say that it is impossible to live without sinning, that Paul says that we continue to fight the carnal flesh and sometime it is inevitable that we will lose the fight. Because we live in these sinful fleshly human body it is our nature to do what is not right. “We can’t help ourselves, we are only human, the blood of Christ will cover these flaws that come out and manifest themselves at times” Such teaching has a thread of truth. For if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” The question then is, can God deliver the Christian from the carnal freshly desire and keep them from living a life that causes them to sin. The answer is given in vs 25. “ I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” we can have victory over sin if we trust in the blood of Christ through the Holy Spirit to give us the victory!

Walk in the Spirit

Gal. 5:16,25 “This I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh…If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

To walk in the Spirit is to live in the Vine. We fight temptation to gratify the flesh. The fleshly desires always puts self first. It looks, reaches, and takes to please the carnal self. As Christians, God forgives the sins of the flesh, but desires that we no longer live in our sins. He sent the Holy Spirit to empower us to live a life that will surrender self to God. Walking in the Spirit is to surrender our will to the will of the Father. He enables us to say “Not my will be done, but thy will be done” As long as we stay surrendered to God, He gives us the grace to resist the lust of the flesh. As we walk (obey) in the Spirit, we consecrate all that we our to Him. Holiness does not free us from being tempted to lust after the flesh, it empowers us to make the choices that keep us from falling. We can live a life free from the lust of the flesh as long as we walk in the Spirit and stay connected to the Vine.

Our Affections

Col 3:2-3 “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”-

As a sinner, our affections were set on the things of this world. Our carnal lustful desires were rooted in self and gratifying the flesh. “If it feels good, just do It” has been the motto of many who seek their own pleasure. Setting your affections implies that one’s will is involved with how those affections are fulfill. Paul, knowing that sexual desire is a human affection given to us by God, write that this affection be not satisfied in a way that fulfills the lust of the carnal flesh. God has ordained that this heavenly affection is fulfilled between a man and a women who have joined themselves in marriage. Sex outside of marriage, or allowing the mind to fulfill this desire is unclean and considered inordinate affections. We are no longer sinners, if we have put on the new man which is the image of Christ. We must now set our will to desire those things that reflect this image. The “new man” will seek the Holy Spirit to help them set their affections on things that are above, or Christ like. We no longer walk in the way of sinful living, but Christ who lives in our heart sent the Holy Spirit to help us put to death those members that seek after the things of this world. As a Christian, Satan will try and twist our affections and tempt us to fulfill a desire that is holy and fulfill it in a way that is sinful. Many a good person have fallen because they failed to keep their eyes and affections on Christ and have given in to Satan’s suggestions. Let us walk in the Spirit, so not to fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Double-minded Man

James 1:8 “ A doubleminded man is unstable in all his ways.”-

The spiritual state of a person is determine by his state of mind. There are essentially 3 states of mind, a carnal mind, double mind, and a spiritual mind. A person who lives and is controlled by a carnal mind has no desire for spiritual things. His 1st thought is only to please himself and consumes himself with fleshly desires. They are humanistic in their philosophy of life, a god unto themselves. A double minded man struggles between the carnal mind and spiritual mind. They desire to do what is right, but they waver in their determination to resist temptation. They fail to hold on to God and faith when they are going through a trail or test. 

Belong to Christ

Gal 5:24 “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts.”-

Being part of the Vine is to belong to Christ. Those who belong to Christ have been forgiven of their sins and have been transform from death to life. A person who has truly given their life to Christ will strive to please God in every part of their life. The old habits of the flesh and the desire to fulfill the lust of the flesh have been crucified with Christ and have been nailed to the Cross. A person who is in Christ will allow the Spirit of God to led them in a deeper walk with God. As long as the carnal nature sits on the throne of our hearts, we will always be warring against wanting fleshly desires. The Spirit leads us to a place in our life where we our willing to present our life a living sacrifice to God in complete consecration. The carnal nature (self) is removed from the throne of our heart and the Holy Spirit is given full control. We still have daily choices to make, and we our not exempt from temptation, but our primary desire is now to fulfill what the Spirit desires. The actions of our life are not written down in tablets of stone, but are written on the tablets of our heart to fulfill that which is good and acceptable to God. The Spirit leads unerring, perfecting holiness in all who are willing to be led by the Him.