Romans 8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. The Law of the Spirit of Life will set us free from the law of sin and death, if we will allow God to come in and perform His work of Love in us, and we show by our actions, by the works of our flesh if God lives in us or not. Those who live according to their sinful nature show that sin has control over them. Those who live by Faith will show that the Spirit of God lives in them and they do the will of their Father. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to Gods law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. We must die to the old way of obedience to God wherein we obeyed or suffered the consequences. We must live so that His desire becomes our desire because He lives in our hearts and minds. This is the Life-giving Way. If we demand to live by a law that demands the life of the one who breaks it, then all humanity will die. For the law of death can only end in death. It can never bring forth Life. But that Law that is above will give Life to those who will live by its desires. Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation-but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are Gods children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs-heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. The Ten Commandment law was to point out our sinful nature. And if we look at it we see ourselves in a new Light, and will allow God to come in and clear away the clutter of our sinful nature we no longer need to have anything point out that lives by that old nature. This does not do away with what God Himself wrote and gave to Israel, but is an admission of what happens when God comes into the life and is allowed to work His will and guide the child of God in the way they should go. This is a new and better life where sin is no longer present and God has made His home in the person, never to leave. This is the point of SINLESS LIVING. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. The sons of God will be revealed. The only question is: “Will we be one of them?” Only those who have come by Faith into His Faith and have died to the old self and have risen with Christ from the tomb to a new and life-giving way will be called the sons of God. We cannot hold on to the law of death and have the Law of Life living in us. We must die to the old law (the sinful nature) and let God give us Life. This is what all of creation was about—the sons of God appearing before the world showing that God’s Law of Life could be lived out in His people and that Satan is a liar and a thief, for he has convinced most to see God as a tyrant, an arbitrary ruler and redundant priest. Through the Ten Commandment law priests and pastors have preached “death to the sinner” and hell fire and brimstone. This is not God’s desire. He used this form of teaching only for a moment of time, to a people who would not listen to His voice. They had become deaf to His Words, blind to His ways and ignorant of His Law that was to be alive in their hearts. So an emergency method was used to bring them back to a place where they could start all over again and the world would see through their connection to God that there is only one God and one Life giving Way. But very few ever came to this kind of relationship with God. Instead, they became slaves to the law and are compared to Hagar, Sarah’s hand maid, who could only bear slave children. Gal. 4:24-27 These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. But the Jerusalem that is above is our mother. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Those who are victors in the race against sin, wait for the redemption of their bodies, from being mortal to immortal. This is not a hopeful expectation of a new mind in Christ, but a final deliverance from a world of death to an eternal home with God. But if our minds have not already become new in Him, then we cannot become participants in an eternal Kingdom where sin is not allowed to run free. We must shun sin as did our Lord while living as one of us in the same sinful world we live in but without sin, through the power of the Spirit of God living in Him. If we say we have the Spirit of God and yet continue to sin, we show by our own actions that we are not participating in the same Spirit as Christ did when He overcame. We must know as Christ knew that the Spirit of God helps us, even in what we need to pray for, so that we may become overcomers and partakers in the mind of Christ and need not worry about what to say or how to say it. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with Gods will. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. This predestination is not to arbitrarily demand or move against any person’s will in a way that would limit or destroy their freewill of choice. This is a “foreknowledge” of what will take place before it happens. In this kind of scenario, God knows who He can successfully choose to do His will and who He can walk and talk with as a friend. Each person has a freewill-of-choice or there would be no rhyme or reason to try to proselytize anyone to receive God into his or her lives. But as God knows the future, He knows who will let Him into their hearts, and those whom He can use He calls, and they choose to work with Him and to dig a little deeper into the mysteries of Godliness. To those who seek this walk with God, He unlocks heaven’s storehouse and pours out His blessing, His knowledge and allows the receiver to partake in those things that He has promised to give to those who will seek and knock. What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-more than that, who was raised to life-is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Christ’s death on the cross is a constant intercession on man’s behalf and proof of how much the Father and His Son were willing to do for mankind. Satan’s lies that God does not really Love us fall flat against this backdrop. Forever will the Life, crucifixion and resurrection be a resoundingly loud cry of the Father and Son’s Love for us. Nothing more can ever be done to show the universe that God Loves us and cares so much that He wants us to be His very own and that He will never ever leave us alone. But the cross to the foolish person will never be enough. The story of redemption to them is nothing but empty stories told by people with too much time on their hands. But for those who know God as their friend, the intercession of Christ through His life, death and resurrection are sufficient.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 14:07:08 +0000
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