“That man smokes a pipe….and that man drinks liquor….but I do believe he is a Christian!”
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From Richard Jordan:
You focus on your obedience, you know what will happen? You'll fail, because that's what you do. That's what sinners do. We're not perfect. If God required you to be perfect before He'd do anything for you--if that was the deal--He could have stayed in heaven.
He came out of heaven because HE'S the one who makes you perfect. It's His righteousness, His perfection.
Satan makes inroads into your thinking. He gets strongholds in your life, where you focus on your obedience to determine your standing. When you think, "I'm right with God because of what I'm doing; I'm going to have victory and success because of what I do," the Adversary gets a stronghold.
It's really about when you say, "Hey, I'm righteous whether I have good or bad thoughts, or good or bad activities. My righteousness has nothing to do with my obedience; it has to do with the obedience of Jesus Christ at the Cross and that's what's made me righteous in spite of ANTHING I do . . ."
People will say, "Well, you're just teaching people to live in sin!" Well, you could. A guy asked me years ago, "You think you could go out and rob a bank and come home and shoot your grandmother and commit suicide and still go to heaven?!" I said, "Well, I could because I would if I did that. Could I do it? Sure I could do it."
I saw on the internet a guy wrote in a book, "How to serve God while smoking a cigarette." Well, can you do that? Duh. Sure you can. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great British Baptist preacher, smoked big old cigars.
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It wasn't too long ago that I realized I had been misunderstanding this passage in a critically important way:
II Corinthians 10: [3] For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: [4] (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
We're here on this planet, but our resources to battle the spiritual battle we're in are not fleshly resources.
Satan's desire is to get a stronghold in your life. You remember the verse in Ephesians 4 where it says, [27] Neither give place to the devil.
Satan wants to get little places in your life where he can operate from, because if he can get a little one then he can get a little more ground, a little more ground, and the way he does that . . .
II Corinthians 10: [5] Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
Satan comes in with all these ideas, thinking processes, that are the opposite of what God's thinking is. Now how do we deal with that?
Here's the way we war: Casting down these thinking processes of the Adversary, the imaginations . . . Don't be imagining what God's doing; you'll be wrong every time.
You see, that's why sound doctrine is designed to change your thinking, to renew your mind, so you know how God's thinking. So you're not having to do all this wondering, dreaming up.
You remember Romans 1: [21] Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
[22] Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,So Christ says, "Here's how we work, casting down all of that and bringing every thought into captivity."
Now, what I want you to see, and where I've missed in this verse a long time ago, is to bring every thought into captivity to what? The obedience OF Christ.
You got that? Usually what we do with that is we say, "Bringing every thought into captivity so that it obeys Christ." Then we think, "Bringing every thought into the obedience TO Christ."
It doesn't say that. You see, the verse isn't talking about YOUR obedience; it's talking about the obedience OF Christ.
In Romans 5 is a verse that helped me with that. Victory in your life isn't going to be available, functioning in your life, by you focusing on your ability to do something.
It's going to come by HIS ability. It's not going to be functioned on your obedience. It's going to be focused on HIS obedience, and when you focus your thinking, you bring every thought into captivity to who God's made you in Him.
Romans 5: [18] Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
[19] For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.Do you know you were a sinner, not because you sinned, but because you were born a sinner? It's not because of your disobedience, but because of Adam's. "By one man sin entered into the world."
You sin because you're a sinner; you're not a sinner because you sinned. You're a sinner because of Adam. Again, "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."
You see, it didn't say, 'By your many obediences you were made righteous." It said, "Just like our position as sinners is based not on what we do but what Adam did, so we're made the righteousness of God, not by what we do, but by what Christ did." It's HIS obedience, and that's why verse 21 says:
[21] That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Philippians 2 says, [8] And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
[9] Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:Now, when you focus your thinking on HIS obedience, not on yours . . . You see, the obedience of Christ is His grace, His obedience at the Cross."
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