[28] And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
"It's very clear especially in Paul's epistles that the world system we live in, 'this present evil world', is the tool of the devil to seek to destroy you," said Pastor Richard Jordan in his Sunday morning sermon the other week.
"Ephesians 2:1-2 says, [1] And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
[2] Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
"The world is used to appeal to the lust of your flesh, and determine how you're going to walk according to the flesh. Verse 3: [3] Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
"The devil's going to use the world to tempt, seduce, deceive and to drive a wedge between you and who you are in Christ.
"He has a specific way he does that. Listen, this is THE most helpful psychology you'll ever learn. You can go to school and get three PhD Degrees in psychology and never learn this right here and never have the wisdom to deal with yourself or anybody else.
"I Thessalonians 5:23 says, [23] And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
"We have a spirit, soul and body; that's the essence of humanity. When you are born into the world as a natural man your spirit is dead; it's cut off. God's up there and you can't contact Him. You're dead.
"Your spirit has no light so you're inner man is darkened, but your flesh is alive and well as the body of sin. Your life as an unsaved person finds its impetus there.
"Notice how that verse starts 'spirit, soul and body'? So when you get saved, the Spirit of God comes into your spirit; that life He puts into your spirit produces light which dispels the darkness in your soul, which then gives the capacity for your soul to live out through your body.
"James 3:14-15 says, [14] But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
[15] This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
"When Satan wants to work, how does he go? He gets your body, your body influences your soul and your soul works out . . . God works spirit, soul and body, but Satan starts with your flesh and moves to your soul and then captivates your spirit."
*****
“Folks, the path of faith is wearying to the flesh. The flesh doesn’t like to be left out and that’s what faith does. You have to be constantly on guard because the seduction is so subtle and so insidious that it gets all of us.
“That’s why Paul warns in II Timothy 4:16, ‘Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.’
“Not just the doctrine but yourself. Why? You’re being careful to bring these things into your life because you can get to assuming they’re there when they’re not, and you get kind of diverted into (earthly, worldly) things. It can happen to you, too!
“That’s why Paul says in I Corinthians 9:27, ‘But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.’
“In other words, he disciplines himself. He’s careful to maintain good works. Why? Because that’s going to make him more pleasing to God? No. It’s because it makes him a better soldier. It makes sure he’s not ‘entangled with the things of this world.’ It makes sure he’s doing what’s expedient and not being brought under the power of something deceptively.
“It’s a faithful saying that you can give yourself to that; these things are good and profitable unto men.
“By the way, when Paul says ‘suffer,’ that word doesn’t necessarily mean that you experience pain. The word simply means 'to allow.' Jesus said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me.’ Spiritual growth is a process of paying more and more attention to God’s righteousness and less and less attention to your own.
“Preachers spend time trying to get people to do more and more--to try harder, live radically for God, change your life, etc.—and the result is really stunted spiritual growth because you fix your eyes on yourself and you can’t do it.
"It’s not going to be you. And when you’re in those moments where it’s you, and you come to the conclusion, ‘I can’t do it,’ that’s good! Because you know where to go to the One who can.
"It’s not going to be you. And when you’re in those moments where it’s you, and you come to the conclusion, ‘I can’t do it,’ that’s good! Because you know where to go to the One who can.
“Most of the thinking about Christian living and sanctification is really just terribly narcissistic. It’s thinking about, ‘How am I doing? How am I growing? Am I doing it right? Am I not doing it right?’
“We ponder our spiritual failures and we brood over our spiritual successes and it’s all about us. The more you focus on your need to be better, the worse you really get. You wind up becoming neurotic and self-absorbed and all of life’s about you.
“When you’re possessed with your performance, instead of Christ’s performance . . . when you spend your time thinking about what you’re doing, instead of what He’s doing, well, then, what are you going to do but get worse?! That hinders your spiritual growth because it makes you increasingly self-centered.
“Sanctification, set-apart living, is forgetting about yourself. ‘It’s not me! It’s Christ!’ The grace of God works--is manifested, put on display--in your minuses, not your pluses. It’s in your weaknesses, not your strengths. Now, that’s the opposite of religion. Religion says, ‘YOU got to make it, YOU got to create it , or you’re going to fail.’
“My wife has a new chrysanthemum plant on the kitchen counter that just had a little leaf come out. Now, if she’d of pulled that thing up out of the pot and looked at its roots, and stuck it back down, you know what would happen to it? It wouldn’t grow so good.
“If you’re always uprooting, digging the thing up, checking on its growth (‘How am I doing?’), it ain’t never going to get anywhere. It’s Christ who’s the issue. He’s the cornerstone; the point of reference all of our life and all of our growth originates from. Spiritual growth and deliverance is by God’s design and God’s timing.
*****
“God’s in you to live His life. Now, in I Corinthians 6, that’s talking about you as an individual. His purpose in you personally is to make your life a vehicle, a vessel; that is, a living manifestation of the One who inhabits you.
“You remember Paul in Philippians 1 says that his desire is that whether by life or by death that Christ would be magnified in his body? That when people would see him, even in the extremity of death, they would see that the one he treasured, the one he valued, the one that was of the greatest magnitude to him was Jesus Christ, and when he made choices, he made them based upon what God’s Word said. When he took actions, it was based upon what God wanted done.
“The way sin doesn’t run your life is you’re not under the law; you’re not focusing on your performance. You’re under grace, looking at who God has made you in His Son.
*****
“I have a friend who doesn’t like how a song says, ‘He set me free.’ He said you need to sing it, ‘He made me free.’ That’s a technicality but he’s right. God doesn’t just set you free; He MADE you something you weren’t before. You’re free. You’re the Lord’s ‘free man.’ That’s the reality and faith can believe that.
“But you know what happens? If you look at Romans 7:1, Paul says, ‘Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?’ As long as it’s going to be what you do, here’s what’s going to happen to you.
“Then he writes in verse 14, ‘For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.’ I don’t like to argue with Paul, but that verse is wrong. Oh, I know Paul’s saying it, but Paul is not sold under sin. He just spent 23 verses in chapter 6, and six verses in chapter 7, telling you he’s free. And then he started looking at himself and his performance and said, ‘You know, I don’t look free.’
“The more he focused on himself, you know what the more happened? Those accusatory thoughts came in and sin revived and you know what happens when you start looking at yourself? You begin to see yourself, and when you begin to see yourself, you know who you begin to see? Failure.
“You say, ‘Well, I don’t have any failure.’ Well, that’s called pride. The Bible says the man that says he has no sin has made God a liar and truth’s not in him.
*****
“You go back to the psalmist in Psalm 3 and he could have been talking about Job of old. He says, ‘People look at me and they see what’s going on in my life, and they say, There’s no help from God for him; he’s so far gone even God can’t help him!’
“Paul says, ‘You know, those voices of condemnation and accusing are going to come because you’re conscious of who you are in you, and when you focus on who you are in you, you know what happens? ‘O wretched man that I am.’
“You see, it’s an inner struggle. There’s a spiritual battle that goes on but of faith. The victory is an inner victory, seeing the invisible reality. Moses won the victory, Hebrews 11 says, over Pharaoh by ‘seeing Him who is invisible.’ By faith, looking at the truth of God.
“Paul says, ‘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.’
“When you have your ‘I’ moments, they’re really not ‘I’ moments. They’re moments when you need to be learning that, ‘I can’t do this.’ And when you see, ‘I can’t do it,’ that’s what Galatians 2 told you.
“You only learn two things in your whole Christian life: ‘It’s not I, it’s Christ.’ And when you get into the, ‘The deliverance isn’t here; I can’t do it,’ you say, ‘Whoa, I need to look at Christ! Because HE can; because HE did!' "
(new article tomorrow)
(new article tomorrow)
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