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I give credit to Mikko Ainasoja for starting these great teaching lessons; hopefully, they will help the Bride of Christ iron Her garments to meet the soon coming Bridegroom.
Colassians 3
[3] For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
[4] When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
[5] Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
I give credit to Mikko Ainasoja for starting these great teaching lessons; hopefully, they will help the Bride of Christ iron Her garments to meet the soon coming Bridegroom.
Colassians 3
[3] For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
[4] When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
[5] Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Where does it say we HAVE to mortify our sin to enter Heaven? A Christian should detest sin...but we don't earn heaven by good behavior.
Mortify the deeds of the Body to enter God's Kingdom
Carnal thinking is what leads to the misunderstanding of the spiritual import of the inspirations from God. Focus on the body and its desires is misguided. Focus on the control of the desires that hurt or harm others directly or indirectly. That should be our spiritual focus. And our focus should be on OUR spiritual growth, NOT what others are doing or not.
Colossians 2:19,
. . . If you have died with Christ to the elements of the world, why, as if still living in the world, do you lay down the rules . . . Things that must all perish in their very use? In this, you follow the 'precepts and doctrines of men.
Jeremias, 8:8
. . . How do you say: We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Indeed the lying pen of the Scribes hath wrought falsehood. The wise men are confounded, they are dismayed and taken . . . and there is no wisdom in them. They are confounded because they have committed abomination: yea rather they are not confounded with confusion.
Romans 14:13-14 King James Version (KJV)
13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.
14 I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.
Spiritual thinking is what separates us from the animals. Animals do not develop attitudes or abstract philosophies to guide and direct their behavior. They merely assess each separate course of action on the spot to determine which response is least painful or more pleasurable and react accordingly. (Evaluate your own actions against this animalistic model.)
Paul in his epistle to the Colossians warned of this approach, 2:18,
. . . Let no-one cheat you who takes pleasure in self-abasement and worship of the angels, and enters vainly into what he has not seen, puffed up by his mere human mind. . . In this, you follow the 'precepts and doctrines of men,' which, to be sure, have a show of wisdom in superstition and self-abasement and hard treatment of the body, but are not to be held in esteem, and lead to the full gratification of the flesh.
The "show of wisdom" refers to the correctness of the principle of control of our behaviors. Everyone who adopts an ascetic lifestyle does not have the wrong attitude. But for those who do it out of love of self and not others, their reasons or attitudes corrupt the result and virtually assure failure. This, it seems to me, can be an especially tragic error for those misguided souls who adopt this lifestyle with every good intention of fulfilling God's purpose.
All the angst about sin proceeds from the mistaken notion that sins are a violation of God's laws and that there will therefore be a punishment for them emanating from the wrath of God. This is utter nonsense. Sins are selfish and inconsiderate responses to our drives that satisfy US . . . but result in harm to others. They stifle the growth of our spiritual awareness and sensitivity in favor of our carnal enjoyment. (We feed our animal needs and starve our spiritual needs.) This is counter to God's desire for us . . . since our purpose is to develop a strong enough spiritual embryo to be reborn as Spirit at our death. Failure has negative consequences . . . but they are not a punishment.
Understanding that our true purpose here is to develop spiritually while surviving by satisfying our carnal needs should produce a more enlightened view of our predicament. We would not have carnally pleasurable experiences if they were prohibited or "sinful" in their own right. It is the indiscriminate pursuit and enjoyment of those pleasures REGARDLESS OF THEIR CONSEQUENCES TO OTHERS . . . that is sinful. This why the injunction to "love each other" is so much more encompassing than a mere ten commandments. Love will not allow us to harm others just to please ourselves so it covers far more circumstances.
I give credit to Mikko Ainasoja for starting these great teaching lessons; hopefully, they will help the Bride of Christ iron Her garments to meet the soon coming Bridegroom.
Colassians 3
[3] For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
[4] When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
[5] Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
How about just making the effort to be a good person?...
Through Jesus people don`t need to stop all sin the be saved , as after salvation cleansing through repentance and deliverance will bring sanctification to Christ ..................Christians are not under the law , but through spirit and in truth need to discern the spirit and keep the adversary spirit out , as if people sin the adversary spirit will always be there ..................... Still many Christian pass from this world who were under spiritual attack on the bodies who had physical ailments the devil brought , as the devil cannot ever see God in Christians in the spirit, so saved people with the Holy Spirit are just like anyone in the world to these adversary spirits .............. See Christians need to fight the wrong spirits who may bother their minds and bodies through the gift of God of the authority of the believer which the redeemer Jesus Christ will cleanse ..... So the more stringent rule is active faith in Christ ....
As the Scripture continues, we learn that people who live after the flesh have the wrath of God abiding on them. In our former lives, we often walked in these works of the flesh.
Colossians 3
[3] For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
[4] When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
[5] Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
[6] For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
[7] In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.
How about just making the effort to be a good person?...
That's self righteousness -- which is as filthy rags before God.
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Mortify the deeds of the Body to enter God's Kingdom
