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twayneb
Member



Joined: 2009/4/5
Posts: 2256
Joplin, Missouri

 Re:

Quote:
That Nee article sounds more like Buddhist/Zen philosophy than Christianity. If you stop trying you will succeed...



benjoseph: It is not at all that sort of thing. I agree with Truewitness. I have experienced it myself. In the book of Hebrews, Paul talks about entering into the rest that God has for us. He says that rest is a cessation of our own labors just as God, when He had finished His own labors, rested on the seventh day. It is a total abandonment of our own efforts and a total reliance on God through faith. The walk of faith is that rest. This does not mean that we don't make decisions to stand against temptation. We just realize that in our own strength and power we cannot have victory. We abandon our own efforts and our own strength and instead allow the power of the Holy Spirit to work through us. Nee was not a quack. He was not right in all things. He was a fallible human being. But I have read his writings on dying to self, and he is spot on. So many of us have interpreted dying to self as, "Man up and quit sinning. Just decide you are not going there anymore and quit it.", as if sinning were the definition of the self we are putting to death. Not so. Dying to self means dying to ones reliance on self to do ANYTHING. We must quit living and allow Christ to live in us. As long as we are doing it, He cannot.

This brought me to a greater understanding of James 4:7 as it pertains to temptation.

Jas 4:7
(7) Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

We focus on the "resist" portion of the scripture. But if we are resisting on our own effort, "I won't, I won't, I won't", guess what...We will! But if we get first things first and submit to God, then we can resist effectively. We say, "God, I cannot defeat this temptation on my own. I have tried and failed. I repent of trying to do this on my own. I recognize it as pride to think I can just tuff it out and stop on my own. I submit myself to You. I give up on trying myself and from now on will rely only on Your power. Now Lord, I am going to stand and resist the devil in Your strength. You do it through me." It is only then that we can effectively resist the devil. To resist means to actively fight against. It goes far beyond simply saying, "temptation I resist you." We must use the Word of God as our sword empowered by the anointing of the Holy Spirit and resist the devil in that way. We literally use the word of God as an offensive weapon as we are told to do in scripture. If I am using His word empowered by His Holy Spirit and I have given up on my own efforts as being in any way sufficient, then I have total victory.

So you see, it is not some kind of philosophical thing. It is just fighting scripturally to obtain victory.

Travis

PS: In my own walk, I found this one revelation to be the key that allowed me to walk in true victory in areas I had not before. It is just God's way. Total abandonment of self reliance, and total reliance on Him in all things.


_________________
Travis

 2010/2/15 17:48Profile
Logic
Member



Joined: 2005/7/17
Posts: 1791


 Re:

Quote:
codek said:
When is the last time you sinned?

I don't know, it's been a while.
I have not recently chose to rebel or be disobediant towards God.
I have not neglected anything which would cause me to sin either.

Why do you ask anyway?

Quote:
Will you ever sin again?

I sure hope not, I don't plan on it.
No one has to sin anyway.

Quote:
I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYONE LIVE LIKE THAT

Listen to Leonard Ravenhill, he talks the same way as I am.
Quote:
Leonard Ravenhill says:
You see some bumper stickers saying "Christians Aren't Perfect, Just Forgiven"; they say Christians are not sinless, they just sin less. Well, I got news for you; if you're a Christian, you don't sin! You've got victory over sin! The Lord Jesus Christ came to purify us unto holiness and nothing but purity will satisfy Him!

You say I'm preaching sinless perfection. You say, "Well, do you think you can get to a place where you [b]can't[/b] sin?" I know nothing of the kind. It is not impossible (for a Christian) to sin, but it's possible not to commit sin.



Quote:
It sounds like you can be PERFECT and flawless after you have the Holy Spirit in you.

The Bible tells us to be perfect, therefore we may.
However, the Bible never tells us to be "flawless"

Quote:
Or maybe even before the Holy Spirit is in you.

It would be much more difficult if the Holy Spirit wasn't in you, but it must be possible since God commands it.

God cannot command impossibilities, it would be unjust (not to mention ridiculous).

Quote:
What about idolatry? I heard someone tell me that if you can't throw away anything in your life in that instant, it is idolatry.
Let's say you saved up for a TV or a guitar or even a nice meal. If you can't give it up in that instant, that is idolatry.

They could always throw it away if they want, but they are not willing.
Furthermore, the hesitation to throw it away does not prove it to be idolatry.

 2010/2/15 18:05Profile









 Re:

I'm just trying to prove a point. This just doesn't make any sense. You said

Quote:
It is imposible to sin as you walk in the spirit.



then you reply

Quote:
Quote: codek said: When is the last time you sinned? I don't know, it's been a while. I have not recently chose to rebel or be disobediant towards God. I have not neglected anything which would cause me to sin either. Why do you ask anyway?



What I'm saying is that sin in somes are involutary. You previously said it is impossible to sin as you walk in the spirit which we should be doing at all times after we are saved. but in the next quotation that it's been awhile since you sinned. I thought after we're saved, we never sin?

 2010/2/15 18:23
Logic
Member



Joined: 2005/7/17
Posts: 1791


 Re:

Quote:
codek asked:
I thought after we're saved, we never sin?

As Leonard Ravenhill says, "It is not [b]im[/b]possible (for a Christian) to sin, but it's possible not to commit sin."

 2010/2/15 18:48Profile









 Re:

The devil wants us to believe that we can never be free from sin. The devil sometimes accuses people of sinning even if they are not doing anything wrong on purpose. God will never accuse us of sin unless it was on purpose. Anything involuntary is just a mistake which we don't need forgiveness for, but it is still good to apologize for mistakes for the sake of others.

A Christian is just someone who is following Christ. Being a Christian is an everyday choice. When we sin we are not following Christ so we are not being a Christian while we sin. That doesn't mean that God doesn't want us to repent and resume walking as a Christian daily.

So Christians don't sin because being a Christian means following Jesus who did not sin. But Christians CAN sin because they have free choice. If a Christian sins he is no longer following Jesus who did not sin. They are not worthy of the name Christian while they are being deliberately selfish and sinning. But God wants them to repent so he can forgive them and they can walk as sinless Christians again.

God is slow to anger and long-suffering with us. We should not put him to the test like the Hebrews in the wilderness who sinned and died.

 2010/2/15 19:00









 Re:

It should be every man's plan to never sin again. God does not deserve us to sin against him and we should not sin against each other either. Let's love God and each other and never sin. Let's put sin behind us and grow in love as God teaches us.

 2010/2/15 19:02









 Re:

Quote:
As Leonard Ravenhill says, "It is not impossible (for a Christian) to sin, but it's possible not to commit sin."



But how many christians live that life? I have seen [B]NONE[/B] that never sinned. It's only possible if someone has done it. Name a person. Out of the billions of people living on this earth and the billions before it, name one besides Jesus with no sin after conversion.

This is my point. I challenge anyone to never sin even it's from now on.

If it's possible, prove it. Salvation to me is a gift. You weren't righteous, you can't earn it. What God wants is for you to try your best. Trying your best is the sign that you have the Holy Spirit in you. But try as we might, we will still fall from time to time because we live in this flesh.

 2010/2/15 19:18









 Re:

Hi codek,

Do we continually sin after we receive salvation?

Salvation is God's undeserved promise to forgive sins that are in our past. If we have sins right now in our present then we will not be right with the Father until we confess and forsake those sins. Once they are in our past then he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

As long as we are walking in the light and not disobeying our calling then we have salvation through Jesus.

Some people backslide and then either repent or die in their sins. Other people repent once and never sin again. Someone like Jesus never sins in the first place.

Wherever we are coming from we must lay aside our sin and continue in love and holiness until the end.

Quote:
I believe that even though the Holy Spirit comes into you, I believe you will still be prideful, etc until the Holy Spirit gives you the power to overcome those sins.

You always had the power to overcome sin as God said to Cain before he killed his brother “Why are you angry, and why is your expression downcast? Is it not true that if you do what is right, you will be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. It desires to dominate you, but you must subdue it.”

Quote:
Sure, sometimes you can quit cold turkey but that would matter if we only had a few types of sins. I believe that each of us has a multitude of sins because we were of this world.

Yes sin expresses itself in many ways. However, be careful not to confuse a multitude of things we haven't learned yet with sin. We may make many mistakes but these are not sin. We may have many difficult situations where are emotions are tempting us but this is not sin.

Quote:
Even in the way we speak to each other, we are heavily encouraged to sugercoat everything we say and lie to others in society. Isn't lying a sin? When I talk about sin, I'm talking about all sins, not just the major ones in society.

It might help you to understand that all sin comes from one source. Selfishness. Love for ourselves is not wrong but selfishness is wrong. When we love ourselves more than God and more than others it is selfish. If we don't love God with all our heart, soul, mind, strength and our neighbor as ourselves, it can only be because we are being selfish. So we only need to repent on ONE sin. Selfishness. If we repent of this one root of sin then the whole tree of sin will dry up and die and be easily torn up and cast away.

The bible says love fulfills the law. All we need to do is be properly loving. It is not a burdensome or grievous command. Sometimes life is very painful, like it was for Jesus, but he overcame the world and so can we.

 2010/2/15 19:28









 Re:

christian perfectionism, what is the point of Christ dying for our sins, because we cannot save ourselves and live righteous enough to ever stand before a perfect and holy God, you know that is the requirement to stand holy before God, you must be perfect, that is why Christ died for us because we couldn't, and even after we our saved we don't live perfect but we stay justified with the righteousness of Christ always. What is the point of sanctification or growth and maturity. We are perfect in the eyes of God because of Christ but we are sinners still saved by grace. Codek i am happy you understand we are righteous because of Christ and nothing we do. For us to enter the presence of God on our own behalf we must be perfect. So we are saying that we are saved by Christ but it us who will have to continue to perform and work to keep that status of justification, no it is only by Christ. Their are sins the Lord has not revealed to all of us even yet. Brother i recommend staying away from christian perfectionism, yes you should desire to live and be perfect in your walk, but you will not by your works not until your glorified will you be sinless. Study into Christ's imputed righteousness by faith.

 2010/2/15 19:58









 Re:

If we pretend we tried our best and then give up and sin then we are disobeying God. BUT if we truly try our best then we ARE obeying God. If we don't know all the answers to something this is not a sin. If our weak physical bodies limit us from doing something, this is not a sin.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who never sinned after their conversion. I also think there may be people who never sinned besides Jesus. We just wouldn't necessarily hear about them. But isn't it sad how discouraging all the sin in the world is?? It even leads people who seem to truly hate sin to think that it is impossible to be free from sin. If we sin we are guilty for this wicked example we would set for others. It is such an awful discouraging influence. As the bible says "ruin and misery are in their ways".

But the Lord says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.”

John says, "His commandments are not grievous."

God will always provide a way of escape from temptation.

We've all been challenged to never sin again. The Holy Spirit challenges us continue sin-free every day.

It doesn't matter how many other people have sinned. We can be sin free. It doesn't matter how much we've sinned in the past. We can be sin free. It doesn't matter even if we were the most wicked sinner on earth, we could stop sinning immediately and trust in Jesus Christ.

Let's all accept this challenge.

 2010/2/15 20:51





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