Posts Tagged ‘experience’

For a lack of knowledge…my people are silenced

Posted: September 4, 2012 in Discipleship, Jesus Christ, Life
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God is a Life or Death choice…

God is the definition of life. God is all about life. When he created this world He placed life on it and said go forth and be fruitful and multiply. He set a tree of life at its center. Satan came along and struck at the very heart of God by setting death loose. Satan is all about death and decay. Sin is death and decay. When man lives without setting God before Him as God, man is apart from life. Whether you are Christian or not, Muslim or not, Mormon or not, the choice as far as God is concerned, is life or death. God’s way always leads to life. Man’s way always leads to death. LIFE IS A CHOICE!

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.” Joshua led the Israelites into the promised land.

Christ is the Life of man!

Jesus said that He is the life, that He is the only way to God the Father. While many of us have come to Jesus Christ to obtain eternal life, many of us have failed to take hold of the LIFE that Jesus wants us to live NOW! It is a life that is not dependent upon your sight, your flesh, your strength, or your wisdom. It is a LIFE that through faith and the Word sees Jesus Christ ever before you, living in you, living through you and living for you.

Galatians 5:25 says that if you have life by the Spirit, then walk by the Spirit!

I want to begin a study toward the end of the New Testament. Today we look at Titus. If the Lord leads we will spend the next two years walking toward Revelation. Wednesday’s we will begin in Genesis and walk through the Old Testament. From time to time we will join the two together, as I will this morning, as I tie Hosea 4:6 to Titus 1:1-4

Destroyed (silenced) for a lack of knowledge

Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge[1],[2]; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. 

Spoken to the PRIESTS! They were not making sure the Jews were experiencing God in the reality of everyday living! (This knowledge used is that which comes from an encounter and experience. They probably knew scriptures, participated in memory drills, had the scriptures hanging on their walls, but they had long ago stopped having a fresh encounter with the author of the Scriptures.)

The background of their sin was a lack of an encounter with God through His Word. “My friend, if you are a Christian, the minute you get away from the Word of God, you are doomed to failure in the Christian life. Regardless of the number of conferences or seminars you attend that tell you how to be a success in your home, in your business, and in your social life, you will be a failure”.[3]

Man’s way – failure and death

Proverbs 14:12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

My people are silenced for lack of knowing me!
  • (knowledge and discernment which comes from an experience or encounter)
1. The people are lacking in their relationship with God.

Hosea 4:1 …There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land;

  • „ Neglect, busyness, priorities, excuses, hurts.
  • „ God is ignored, forgotten, neglected and even spurned.
2. Neglect turns into rejection of God and His ways
  • „The pull of this world system is too powerful
  • Our hearts are too deceptive
  • Our heart gets cold, our faith is stale.
  • We go through our day without a fresh touch from God.
  • We barely hold on to believing faith
  • We live the majority of our lives without Him.
3. Rejection of God leads to Him rejecting you.
  • „ No longer a priest, able to go directly to Him
  • „ You have lost your standing, your voice.
  • „ Your heart has become a barrier to a living relationship with God.
  • „ Your pride has become a brick wall.
  • „ God is a jealous God. He must be first, or He will move on.
 4. You will be Silenced
  • „ Overcome, cut off, made to cease– silenced.
  • „ No longer have a voice
  • „ Doesn’t necessarily mean death-but rather you have lost your significance with God.
  • „ The Jews would lose their voice and blessing from God.
  • „ God left them to their own devices.
5. God will forget your children.
  • „ Through your forgetting of the Law of God in your life and home…
  • „ God will forget your children.
  • „ Your children will not matter with God.
  • „ His grace will not be at work in their lives.
  • „ They will not hear God’s voice.
  • „ They will not encounter God in their lives.

Hosea 4 indicates what happens when we forget Him. Our worship becomes comfortable and convenient. We worship other things. The family breaks down. There is great immorality among the youth. Wives become immoral. Marriage becomes a joke. The family breaks down.

Proverbs 1:29-31 Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices.

What is God’s Way? – Success & Life!

The major thrust of Titus, while bearing on our relationships, is really upon  personal character and lifestyle which grow out of the truth. God’s Word is to be encountered, for it will change your character. Christ in you will result in a new Jim or Larry or Beth or Mary. God’s Word is never empty, but always leads to LIFE!

True LIFE is never apart from God, but in God!

Titus 1:1-4 Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior; To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

A. Paul-Focus on the Living Savior

Paul opens the veil of his life. He wants Titus to know the motivation of his life and ministry. He reminds Titus that he has the imprint of two indelible marks upon his life.

1. He is a bond-servant to God

2. He is an apostle of Jesus Christ, personally commissioned by Him.

Everything about Paul’s life bore those two marks. Everywhere he went, people knew that Paul belonged to God, and that he was representing a living Savior, whom Paul personally knew and spent time with. People could ignore the message, but they could never forget the man. Paul belonged to God, and Paul knew Jesus Christ. There was no denying that Paul was not his own. You had to be impressed with the effect that Jesus had on Paul’s life. This message to Titus is all about how the truth of Jesus Christ changes your life. The Life of Jesus impacts your life.

Paul once though he was alive. But he realized he was dead to God.

Eph 2:1 –you were dead in trespasses and sin.

Paul saw Jesus Christ on that road to Damascus. When he saw Jesus as the Christ, his life was forever changed.

B. Paul-with a Message of Life

1.    For the sake God’s elect

a)  For their faith

b)  For their knowledge of the truth

Paul desires us to see God, to see Him at work in our lives. This only grows through fresh encounters with the Word of truth.

What are you facing in your life that has you boxed in? Instead of your problem driving you to God’s word, you spend your time arguing, your sleeping time frustrated. There is no peace. Faith opens your eyes to see God in whatever situation you are struggling with. Without the Word of truth, your eyes will be shut.

2.    For the hope of Eternal Life

a)  Promised by God

b)  God never lies

God has always focused on LIFE God is jealous for me to experience life! Not a frustrated, defeated life, but a victorious, joy-filled life!

Look at God’s Love for LIFE!

  • In the Garden of Eden

„ God guarded against all that which of Life would destroy life.

„ After the fall, God had to guard life by casting man out

  • The Tree of Life will be in heaven-yielding fruit once a month

„ Sin has been dealt with

„ Only those who know life through Jesus will be allowed to eat.

  • Cain and Able

„ Blood cries from the ground

„ Cursed Cain for taking life

  • Noah

„ Genesis 9:6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

„ You will never gain by taking a man’s life. You will lose

  • Enoch

„ Walked with God and had life

  • Abraham & Isaac

„ Isaac must come into death so death can be destroyed,

„ God’s purpose is that death is past, and not future.

„ God wants us to always have life without fear

„ In Christ, death is past, life is now and in the future

  • Job

„ Satan: “Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce thee to thy face.”

„ God: “… Only spare his life.”

„ Controversy for life is the theme of Job

„ Satan could only indirectly try to take Job’s life: Satan’s indirect method is to move Job to break with God by cursing Him, so that his life is forfeited and destroyed

„ With God is life, even from trials.

„ Trials with God always lead to increase!

„ Trials always lead to Revelation 22

Revelation 22:1-4 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

  • The Exodus

„ Life in the face of death

  • Levitical Laws of Life

„ Always about protecting life and health

„ Guarding the life of the family and nation.

„ Don’t drink blood…

Life Is Sacred To God, And He Is Intensely Jealous Over It.
God wants us to LIVE, but LIFE is in GOD! In order to know true LIFE, we must die to our self and LIVE to God through Jesus Christ! This way, death will be past. There is no more fear of death, for we will experience God’s LIFE forever!
Sin And Death Always Go Together Just As Righteousness And Life Go Together

There is a way that seems right to a man.

I was asked to go talk to a step-father-in-law by one of the gals at EBC. He was a KS Highway Patrol officer, close to retirement, whose job it was to investigate accidents. He had seen every imaginable thing-gory, bloody and horrendous. He was a functional alcoholic. It was 9:30 Saturday morning, and I could smell the alcohol on his breath. We started talking about God in his front yard, where he was doing some yard work. He very quickly turned the conversation to his standard answer-God is everywhere. God is in the trees, in the flowers. He felt close to God when he was working in his yard.

When asked about his relationship with God’s Son, he said that he has God and that is good enough. In reality, while he though God was all around him, God had forgotten him, and life was escaping him. Death was his life now, for he did not know God in reality. His sins had not been forgiven. The pain of his life was being drowned out by alcohol. He was fooling himself. His ways seemed right, but they were the ways of death. He had been deceived.

Genesis 3:13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Satan is a deceiver. Eve ate because she wanted to be like god. Instead she became like the serpent, cursed and with a death sentence upon her.

Chose life or chose death. You may think you have life, even surround yourself with life, but you are deceived. You are facing death.

There is only one who faced death and conquered it. There is only one who defeated sin, and satisfied the righteous demands of our Holy God.

Jesus Christ, the way the truth and the life. No man comes to the Life of God but through Him!

If life is in Christ, don’t you want to know more of Him?

If you are not satisfied with your life, you need to know Jesus Christ in a living way! Christ is the Life of Man!

[1] daʿat̠: A feminine noun meaning knowledge, knowing, learning, discernment, insight, and notion. The word occurs forty of its ninety-one times in Proverbs as one of the many words associated with the biblical concept of wisdom. The root meaning of the term is knowledge or knowing. In Proverbs 24:3, 4, it is the third word in a chain of three words describing the building of a house by wisdom, the establishment of that house by understanding, and finally, the filling of the rooms of the house by knowledge.

The word is also used in the sense of knowing by experience, relationship, or encounter. For example, Balaam received knowledge from the Most High who met him in a vision (Num. 24:16); the knowledge gained by the suffering Servant of Isaiah justified many people (Isa. 53:11); and to truly know the Holy God leads to real understanding (Prov. 9:10). This moral, experiential knowledge of good and evil was forbidden to the human race in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:9, 17). Warren Baker and Eugene Carpenter, The Complete Word Study Dictionary – Old Testament, (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2003), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 245.

[2] The word meaning “knowledge” in Hebrew is daʿat, a noun coming from the root of the verb yadaʿ, “to know,” “to experience,” “to acknowledge.” This key word in the Old Testament includes both intellectual and experiential knowledge. The noun for knowledge, daʿat, also has this range of meaning.. Carpenter Eugene E. and Comfort Philip W., Holman Treasury of Key Bible Words: 200 Greek and 200 Hebrew Words Defined and Explained, (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2000), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 106.

[3] J. Vernon McGee, Thru The Bible with J. Vernon McGee, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1983), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, Under: “Chapter 4”.

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What are you Counting on to Overcome Sin?

Posted: May 24, 2010 in Faith, Journey Through the Cross, Justification, New Life, Resurrection, Romans, Salvation, Sin, Uncategorized
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One day, an out-of-work man knocks on the door of a home in an upper-class neighborhood. The lady of the house answers. “Pardon me Ma’am; I’m out of work and looking for any odd jobs that people need done. I’m very handy with everything from repairs to yard work, to painting…”

“Painting?” the woman jumped in.

“Oh, yes, Ma’am! I’m a very careful painter,” the man replied, his face brightening at the realization she could provide him some work.

“I’ll tell you what. My husband just bought some green paint last week to paint the porch out back with, but we haven’t had any time. If you can do a good job, then you can paint it before he gets home and surprise him.

“Now, do a particularly good job and paint the trimmings white also, and I’ll pay you an extra bonus.”

“Oh yes, Ma’am, I’ll do an excellent job!” He was told the paints were also around back in the garage.

A few hours later, the man returns to the door.

“That was quick, did you do a good job?” the woman inquires.

“Oh yes Ma’am, two coats! But there’s something you should know,” the man says.

“That’s not a Porsche, that’s a Mercedes!”

Paul Paints Pictures for us In Romans 6

In Romans 6 Paul is painting a picture, a picture of the present that is based on the past. In verse 5 the painting is of two scenes:

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united (planted as one) with him in a resurrection like his.

1. The first painting is of our being united with Christ in His death.

Because of that fact, we see a painting of the future-our resurrection with Jesus! The reality paints the future! Because we KNOW we have died with Christ, we KNOW we shall be resurrected just like Him!

Paul is picturing our union with all that is Jesus Christ. Everything He experienced, we experience by faith. But Paul wants to drive this picture home to the reality of our daily living, not just our future eternity.

2.In verse 6 He pictures a truly unbelievable truth…

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

Paul says that our old man, our old ‘Adamic’ self, was actually crucified with Christ, with the result being that we are no longer in bondage to sin. Paul says our fleshly body of sin is rendered powerless, brought to nothing, put out of business, unemployed.

This truth transcends our ‘fleshly’ comprehension. This truth runs contrary to our real-life experience. Sin is very much alive, and something that most of us tolerate, deal with, cope with, resent, you name it, we do it when it comes to this sin nature that plagues our Christian walk. Even Jesus told his disciples that when they pray they should say “Father, forgive our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Jesus even acknowledged that we should daily ask forgiveness of our trespasses.

Paul wants to drive this truth further into our hearts and into our daily walk! He paints a beautiful picture of the reality of our New Life in Christ in verse 7:

For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Set free is (dedikaiōtai)-perfect passive indicative of dikaioō, a word we have seen before in Romans 5. It’s the word we translate “justified”. The word means that because of the blood of Jesus and our faith in what He did, God can declare us righteous. He doesn’t just overlook our sins, He declares there is no sin, we are Holy and Righteous just as God is Holy and Righteous. As Paul wrote in Romans 5:1:

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our faith in the finished work of Christ on our behalf places us before God as sinless and Holy as He is. Why, because we are placed ‘in Christ’ (we are planted as one), His Holy and Righteous Son. Christ’s righteousness becomes our righteousness!

A. Paul wants us to realize that if by faith, we can believe that the blood of Jesus covers our past sins, and our New Birth makes us justified before God,

B. then by faith, our death with Christ justifies us (makes us righteous) and thereby frees us from this sin nature!

  • By faith we are brought into a new birth,
  • By faith we are brought into a new walk, a walk that is freed from the power of sin!

One painting is of the crucified Christ, shedding His blood upon our sins, and making us white as snow. The other painting shows our “old man” hanging with Christ on the cross, and our New man walking free from the chains of sin as we walk hand in hand with our risen Savior!

This is what Paul paints in verse 8:

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

A cartoon read – “Well, I haven’t actually DIED to sin, but I did feel kind of faint once.”

This is not speaking of our life after death with Jesus. This is talking about our lives right now! If this is true, then this will be the reality. If your old man is dead, your new life will be entirely with Jesus Christ. There are no ifs ands or buts.

The Christian walk is not a fleshly or a self-willed walk. Our walk with Christ is to be totally with and by and through the means of Jesus Christ!

PUT ON THE NEW SELF

The believer’s new life imparted to him at the moment of believing is the life of Jesus Christ. We don’t get a piece of Him, we receive His Life!

We live by means of Him. We get every bit of our spiritual life from Jesus Christ!

Paul is not speaking of fellowship with Jesus, he is not speaking of our eternity with Jesus. He is speaking of our LIFE, our LIVING!

If God paints a picture of our eternal life with Him through the Blood of Jesus, why can’t we see the painting of our Living as Jesus because we were crucified with Jesus on the Cross?

Why do we doubt the truth that we have been freed from the power of sin? Why do we doubt that our body (of sin) is unemployed, powerless? Why do we doubt that our old man is really dead?

It is as if Paul is reading our minds as He writes verses 9-12:

9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.

Today we will look at Romans 6:7-12 and will seek to understand the first two steps of deliverance from sin. We will look at Knowing and then we will look at reckoning (or counting upon), and then we will look at the practical way this works in our daily walk.

1. KNOWING THIS

In verse six we read: knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with him.

Knowing is from the greek word “ginosko” which is objective knowledge. The knowledge you learn at school, who the President’s have been, facts about the Civil War, Vietnam War. If someone is acquanted with someone, they know that person

The other word for knowing is “oida”, which is knowledge of a more personal, intimate nature. It is an inward consciousness. It is intuitive knowledge not necessarily known from external sources. You have a gut feeling about someone. A Mom has an intuition about a hurting child.

  • John 8:55 illustrates: But you have not known (ginosko) him. I know (oida) him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word.
  • John 13:7 illustrates: Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest (ginosko) not now; but thou shalt understand (oida) hereafter.
  • Hebrews 8: 11: And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know (ginosko) the Lord,’ for they shall all know (oida) me, from the least of them to the greatest.

In Romans 6 verse nine, we find another Knowing, but this time it is from “oida”, meaning an intimate, personal knowledge.

Paul writes that we know personally, intuitively, that Jesus is rasied from the dead, and therefore He will never die again. We know within that Jesus conquered death!

So what we must know personally and intuitively, is that if Jesus conquered death by His resurrection, He also conquered sin by His death! So verse 11 says, when you know this personally, you will know and see that your old man is dead to sin. The King James says you must reckon, others count, others consider.

So, living the new life starts with:

  • Knowing that He died to set us free from sin.
  • Knowing that our old self was nailed to the cross w/Him.
  • Knowing that just as Jesus rose from the dead & will live forever, we have been raised to a new life in him that has no end.
  • Knowing that we live no longer by the tyranny of sin.

Bottom line: Once we know in our heart of hearts (as revealed by the Holy Spirit) that our old man was crucified with Jesus and buried with Him, then we must count on our old man being kept dead to sin. We reckon the old man dead!

The Four Steps of Deliverance

Last week I mentioned there were four steps of deliverance from sin. These are in our Journey in Romans 6, 7 and 8.

  1. Knowing
  2. Reckoning
  3. Presenting ourselves to God
  4. Walking in the Spirit

Here is the connection between believing and knowing. When you read the Word of God, you have a choice: believe or not believe.

“but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John 20:31

Once you believe, by faith in Jesus Christ, you inwardly KNOW you have eternal life. No matter the doubts, no matter the feelings, no matter what the Devil says, you KNOW Jesus is your Lord and Savior.

“These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” 1 John 5:13

Believing becomes KNOWING! KNOWING turns into a life – long Believing Jesus Christ.

You don’t leave Jesus at the Cross. You don’t get up from the altar and walk away in your own strength. Your NEW LIFE is Jesus Christ! Your daily walk is a daily walk of BELIEVING JESUS!

Our Belief in the Blood of Jesus results in our KNOWING we are justified before God.

Our Belief in our crucifixion with Jesus Christ results in our KNOWING that our old man is dead to sin, and that we are (JUSTIFIED) freed from the power of sin.

Both Paul and John knew this truth:

  • I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:-20
  • For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Colossians 3:3
  • We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 1 John 5:18-20

When our belief in Romans 6:6 becomes the inward knowing of Romans 6:9, we are ready to go to the second aspect of deliverance form sin, from verse 11:

2. Count on this (Reckon)

NIV: In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:11

KJV: Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:11

Phillips: In the same way look upon yourselves as dead to the appeal and power of sin but alive and sensitive to the call of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:1

ESV: So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:11

The point is, that if we believe that our salvation is because Jesus is alive, and since He is alive in God, then we must see ourselves as alive in God as well. God would not have us alive in Him if we were still under the power of sin! We are alive in God, and sin has no power over God! Therefore sin has no power over us, because we died to sin and are now alive IN GOD!

How Does Reckoning Work? Reckoning Is Faith In Action!

“You Count Upon Something”

  • This doesn’t just happen! – It is something the believer can & must do daily.
  • Christ’s’ death & resurrection has altered their position & they should live in accordance w/the new reality.
  • He doesn’t say that sin is dead! But that we are to count ourselves as dead to it!

Faith accepts God’s fact. Faith is always founded upon the past. Hope relates to the future. Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for. Because we have faith in what God did in the past, we can have hope in the future.

Jesus said this about faith:

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11:24

Faith believes God has already done it! If you pray hoping God will do something, that is not faith! Faith always relates to the past, that God has already done something. If you say God can, God may, God will, God must, you do not have faith. Faith always says GOD HAS DONE IT!

So when do we have faith in our crucifixion? Not when you say God can, God will, God must crucify me. You have faith in what God has done when you exclaim “Praise God I am crucified!”

Reckoning makes real that which you accept by faith! Because I believe I am crucified with Christ, I am now count myself dead to sin!

The Two greatest facts in history are:

  1. All Our Sins Are Dealt With By The Blood
  2. We Ourselves Are Dealt With By The Cross

Barriers to Reckoning

  • Doubt of the divine facts

The devil comes to us and says, there is something stirring inside you. How can you say you are dead to sin? God deals directly with our sins by blotting them out with the blood of Jesus. But God deals with our sin nature in an indirect way. He doesn’t remove the sin nature, he doesn’t remove this sinful flesh, he simply kills the go between, our “old self.”

We don’t have victory over sin, wed on’t overcome our sin, only Christ has done that. What we do have is the power to be delivered from sin. That power is by reckoning what God has done in the past as true in our present.

Our daily choice is what facts to count on and live by: the facts of our daily experiences or the mightier fact that we are “IN CHRIST” and our old man is crucified in Him.

What facts are you placing your faith in?

Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the vidence of things unseen! How do you substantiate something? We substantiate things everyday.

I hold up a white towel. It is already white, but my eyes look at it and communicate with my brain to substantiate that it is white. Now if the socks are navy blue I may have to go outside in the sunlight to substantiate that they are not black, but indeed are navy blue.

You cannot substantiate divine things with your fleshly sight or touch.There is only one way to substantiate the invisible things of God – by faith. Faith makes the real things (even though they be invisible) of God become real in my experience!

Faith substantiates to me the things of Christ!

To faith, God’s Word is true, to a doubting mind not illumined by the Holy Spirit, it is not true, but a lie!

Whatever contradicts the truth of God’s Word we are to regard as a lie of the devil.

The devil will work overtime to convince you that you are not dead to sin, and that God’s Word is a lie. Reckoning is done not based on experience but on the basis of what God says!

  • 2 Cor 5:7 for we walk by faith, not by (appearances) sight.

Fact, Faith and Experience are walking on top of a wall. Fact walked steadily on, turning neither to the right or the left, and never looking behind. Faith followed, and all went well as long as he kept his eyes focused upon Fact.; but as soon as he became concerned about Experience and turned to see how he was getting on, he lost his balance and tumbled off the wall, taking Experience with him.

The same thing happened to Peter. As long as he focused on the fact that Jesus Christ was walking on the water, he was fine. When he started to feel the wind and the waves, he took his eyes off the fact of Jesus Christ and let the experience of the wind blow him over into the water. That is why Jesus said, “O ye of little faith!”

3. Let the Knowing be Applied by Counting

God doesn’t remove the sin nature that we inherit from Adam. He doesn’t remove our flesh. God removes the intermediary, the catalyst, our old man. If we do not know this, if we do not reckon this, then we will attempt to handle our sin nature in the wrong ways.

We Focus on sin nature

If we focus our attention on the sin nature, or the devil, or evil, or whatever we want to call it, we will constantly trying to resist sin in our own strength.  Our focus on trying to resist sin will just further enslave us to it. It like trying to break a bad habit; the more you try to quit or overcome, the more you end up doing it. So your guilt emotions run back and forth between saying you’re sorry to doing the sin, and at some point you either give up trying to quit, or you get hardened and say well that’s just me, why fight it?

Either way, sin wins. The sin nature cannot be overcome. That is not God’s way!

We Focus on the Flesh

Some people focus their attention on the flesh. These are the folks who set up a system of rules. These are your “legalistic” Christians. These are the ones who don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t dance, don’t chew and who don’t go with girls that do. Their constant attention is upon conquering the desires of the flesh. These are the Christians who see their walk as a struggle between the black dog and the white dog.

This is not God’s way either. Either way of fighting sin will produce failure, defeat, legalism, pride, a fleshly walk. If you overcome a sin or a bad habit, then you say look what I did. You may throw in a “by the grace of God”, but inwardly you are thinking “I beat this!”

So for most Christians who walk in the flesh, the Christian life is one of constant battles with what you think you must do to be a Christian.

You force yourself to do this or that, read your Bible, go to church, maybe even get on your knees once in a while and pray. You are not living the Christian life. You are not living the LIFE that Jesus died to give you. You are doing the best that you can to look like a Christian.

God neither eradicates the root of sin within nor suppresses the body without!

We Focus on Christ

  • What is true of Christ is to be true of us.

The divine principle is that God has done the work in Christ and not in us as individuals. The all-inclusive death and the all-inclusive resurrection of God’s Son were accomplished fully without us in the first place.

The history of Christ is to become the experience of the Christian. We have no spiritual experience apart from Him. We were crucified with Him, we were quickened, raised, and set by God in the heavenlies “in Him” and we are complete “in Him” (Rom 6:6, Eph 2:5,6; Col 2:10)

God purposed to include us in Christ.

To think you can experience anything of God apart from Him is wrong, and self-focused. Your spiritual experience is only entering into His history and His experience.

At a couple of points in my life I felt that I died to my old man.  The experience I had gone through was earth-shattering, stripping me of any self-esteem, of any dreams, any self-respect. On a couple different occasions my world came to an end. Through God’s grace I accepted what God was doing and died to what I wanted. I willingly accepted my execution.  But my spiritual experience was not unique to me. God had simply brought me to a point where I shared what Christ had already done.

None of us can boast in our experiences, because we have simply entered into what Christ has already done.

Even our salvation is not given to us apart from what He has done in Christ.

“He that hath the Son has life”

Your spiritual growth, your spiritual walk, your spiritual deliverance from sin, nothing is yours alone. It is all as you enter into what Christ has already done!

Since salvation has crucified our old man, sin is annulled, it has no power over our old man, and therefore, the body of sin is unemployed. We have a new King reigning in our body, the Grace of Jesus Christ:

Romans 5:21 (ESV) so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

When you are born again, the Holy Spirit places a NEW KING on the throne of your heart and life. King Jesus comes into your life, removes the power of the old self, and brings you new life in HIM!

  • Doe Jesus always stay on our throne? No, He does not !By our choice!
  • Does He want to always be on your throne? Yes He Does! And we will see from His Word how this can be possible!

A floor lamp is connected to a wall outlet. The light is possible because of the electricity that flows from the outlet up through the cord into the light bulb. Just so, a sinner has this old man, this nature of Adam that is under the domination of Sin. Remove the old man, and Sin no longer has a conduit to appeal to the man’s flesh! When a new believer understands that the old man is truly dead, that he has been crucified on the cross, it presents an entirely NEW WAY of praying when faced with the temptation of sin!

Our prayers should confess confidence in the fact that the old man is dead, that he was crucified and buried, and that now we are in Christ.

Is your every breath an expression of the fact that your new life is totally dependent upon Jesus Christ? Or do you depend upon this dead old man, have you got him on life support and are dragging him around with you?

The Christian walk is not a weekend with some guy named Bernie. You are dead. The old man is dead. Now everything you have is in Jesus Christ! Every spiritual experience He has experienced. He has already overcome sin, and if you die to the old man, whatever He has experienced will be your experience.

You simply believe. Let your faith in what He has accomplished rule your walk. Don’t walk by sight. If you do, you will allow your experiences to dictate what you believe. You’ll be like the scientist that sees the fossils, sees the rock strata, and conclude that God could not have made the world in six day.

But God said He did. Who will you believe? Will you place your faith in the facts as God has stated them, or will you walk by sight?

Faith in the facts becomes the substantiating of the unseen.

As you believe what God has said, you will see that indeed, that sin that always bothered you, all of a sudden, it has no effect upon you. You simply saw that Christ had already overcome it. You entered into the experience of Jesus Christ. By faith, you substantiated that what is unseen is definitely true.

You first knew it, then you really knew it, then you counted on it! He is faithful!

God’s way is to get us weaker and weaker until we finally see that Jesus has put our old man to death on the cross. God delivers us from sin, not by strengthening our old man but by crucifying him; not by helping him do anything but by removing him from the scene of action.

For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— Philippians 3:3

That no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:  That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:29-31

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

Do you want the power of Christ in your life? Do you want to experience deliverance from sin? Count on what He has already done for you. There can be no confidence in your flesh or your abilities. There can only be a counting upon His strength. In fact, glory in your weaknesses, and know His power!

Your old man is dead. This you must come to know deep in your heart and spirit. Once you see it, then count on it, and by faith enter into the spiritual victories that have already been won by Jesus Christ. His life must be your life. Your life is dead. Jesus lives in your stead!