The Divide Of Sin

​Love you all, praying for you,
 
I just love God’s Word, it doesn’t pull punches, it doesn’t punt on important subjects, it does not cower or compromise, it is truth and love.  And it is offensive, to the natural mind, the carnal mind, the sinful culture because it exposes sin, and that makes people upset.  Light always exposes darkness, and darkness doesn’t like to be exposed.  There is something worth noting, sin has a continental divide, BC and AD.  BC is before Christ.  Before putting your faith in Christ, you are dead in your sin, condemned to pay the penalty of sin – if you have no one to pay the penalty for you - which is death, and subsequently eternal separation from God.  Because if you die in your sin, meaning you die without a Savior, without the forgiveness of sin, you are forever separated from a Holy God, that means hell not heaven.  What you believe regarding this matter is really important.  God said it, but you could believe something different.  What someone else says, rather than what God says.  But if you get this one wrong, there’s no going back.  Not a mean God, He’s a means God, He provided the means… God never sends anyone to hell, He came to earth to save you.  It’s a person’s refusal to believe in the means He provided for you to be saved from your sin, to be set free from your sin, that sends a person to hell.  The AD -  After Death – means after the death of your body, your old nature, the sin nature of you, through putting your faith in Christ, what He did, to cover your sin...  You now are a new creation! Old things are passed away, Look, all things are become new!  You have a new nature, a nature of righteousness, actually far more powerful than the old nature of sin.  If you let the old things stay passed away… That is optional, just like Salvation.  Your sins-past are forgiven – that’s what Salvation in the Name of Jesus means.  And that forgiveness of all sins-past is also enough forgiveness to cover any future sin, that you repent of and turn from.  But you can quench the Holy Spirit, you can decline the grace of God to overcome sin, and therefore forfeit the grace that could be yours.  Grace to overcome sin is optional.  The Holy Spirit leads you, He does not imprison you.  Your free will is still intact.  In Christ, you have a new nature, but the old nature will also be with you as long as you are in this earthly body.  And you constantly choose between the two: Holy Spirit, or the old nature.  The devil always brings opportunity to go back to the life you used to live, enslaved by sin.  New nature, or old nature - the one you choose the most is typically the one you feed the most.  You can quench the Holy Spirit – the power to be martyrs (witnesses) – that God promised, of which He said “Don’t leave Jerusalem until you get it.”  You need power from on high to do this – to live this new life – free from the control of sin.  You need a supernatural power to be free from the sin that once bound you!  But you can reject and forfeit the grace that could be yours - to say no to sin, and yes to righteousness, God’s Way over man’s way.  The power to overcome is there for you – to choose or reject.  What do you love?  Jesus said, the greatest commandment is to love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  You either love God more than sin, or you love sin more than God.  People who feed their sin nature over their new nature, fall into sin.  It controls them just like it did before, and often even worse, rather than the Spirit of Christ within them controlling that old nature – so it stays buried.  People sin because they have no fear of God.  There is no fear of God before their eyes. (Romans 3:18)  Jesus said, Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28).  Mere belief in Jesus for your Salvation doesn’t mean sin is now ok with God.  He ain’t playing.  Be not deceived, God is not mocked, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.  You either sow sin which leads to death, or sow righteousness which leads to life. If sins past - required Jesus’ crucifixion, it’s not a joke.  Sin after you are a Christian, is no less egregious than sin before you were a Christian – both will separate you from God, and both can send you to hell.  You mean Salvation is not secure?  Not at all, Salvation is immovable, but you can move from it.  If you couldn’t the New Testament would not contain warnings to those who put their faith in Christ.  Brothers and sisters – this should not be?  What should not be? – blessing and cursing from the same mouth.  Returning to the old life, as pigs return to their slop, as a dog returns to its vomit.  To continue in the sin that once enslaved you – if you go back it’s worse than before.  Jesus sometimes said to those He set free, “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”  Sin is still after you.  It’s just now powerless.  What you couldn’t help doing before, you now have God’s Grace and the Power of the Holy Spirit to overcome it.  But if you choose it, sin will replace grace in your life, and the spirit of darkness will replace the Holy Spirit as the one who leads you.  So how do you choose this grace, so you leave the past behind, the old life buried…   First Step – do what God told His disciples to do.  Wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Ghost is come upon you.  And you will receive power – to be my witnesses. (martyrs – giving up your old life, to live this new life) Those in the church who preach against the Holy Spirit… Do not listen to them, they speak against what they do not know.  They are false shepherds leading the flock astray, like clouds without rain.  If God said, it’s the power you need to live this new life as a witness of Christ, then you need the power of the Holy Spirit.  Not the Holy Spirit’s work of Salvation, but also the Holy Spirit’s work of empowering, the filling of Pentecost, power for you to be His witness, His martyr, to die to your old life, and live in your new life as led by the Holy Spirit.  Those who preach against it, let God be their judge, but don’t you base your belief on what man says.  What does God say?  My advice, go with that.  So how do you choose this grace?   Step 1 Be filled with the Holy Spirit.  How?  Just ask.  Luke 11:13 -  If you give good gifts to your kids, and you’re evil!  How much more with your Father in Heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.  Just like you believed in Christ for Salvation, you can believe that God will fill you with His Holy Spirit, just as He promised through His Word and the prophets.  And every one who received the Holy Spirit, received the infilling evidenced by speaking in tongues.  Paul confirmed it.  There is a prayer language – a spiritual language a vital weapon of power in the Christian life – to pray the exact will of the Father over you, with your own mouth.  Your mind won’t understand it, but your spirit will, the Holy Spirit will (He speaks it), and God will, because  it’s His Words and His Will and His prayer for you – prayed through you by His Spirit that He promised.  It’s how you build yourself up in your most holy faith.  That’s Step 1 – to live this new supernatural life – Be filled with the Holy Spirit.  Step 2 – Choose Grace – just cause you have it, doesn’t mean you use it.  You choose. Love God more, or love sin more.  But He gives you grace as a gift, Grace to say no, to the sin that once controlled you. (Titus 2:11-12)  Step 3 – Immerse yourself in God’s Word – and you will be far more prone to choose that Grace to say No to sin - when you need it.  God promised a way out under every temptation, His grace is your way out.  His Word is how you overcome the sin that wants to trap you again.  PRISM, PRISM Topics – transform your mind by the Word of God.  It’s how you learn to love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, and mind – transform it.  Step 4 - Move your feet.  Stop hanging around those places where you’re tempted.  Get busy obeying what God told you and the sins that used to so easily beset you, you’ve really got no time for, your mind is on something else, the plans God has for you today in this hour (PiVAT before dinner) and those plans don’t include the sins of the old nature.  Step 5  Pray – Ask for Grace.  God will give it.  Step 6 – Confess your sins one to another and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  Step 7 – Celebrate Success.  When you resist the devil, he flees from you.  God promised.  Don’t worry about him coming back, there will be no other ‘more opportune time’ you’re just getting stronger by the day, victory to victory, glory to glory.  That’s worth praising God for!  The power is His not yours.  So sin is forgiven by the blood of Christ, but it’s still after you, it wants to separate you from God.  But God gave the Holy Spirit for you to overcome it, and live in newness of life, and He gave you grace if you choose it, to say “No” to sin that once controlled you.  Praying that you will walk in the power of the Spirit.  There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, who walk according to the Spirit, not according to the flesh.  God gave you all the power you need, and even the grace to choose grace.  Philippians 2:13 – For it is God who works in you both to will and to act according to his good purpose.  He even gives you the want to!  Choose Grace every time, Choose His Word, Ask Him, Get some obedience momentum, and don’t look back.  God said His grace is sufficient. 
 
Love you all,
dad