My position is that because God has declared us to be totally holy, righteous, pure and sinless, we are living our Christian lives from a position of victory and not trying to attain what we already are in Christ. What this means is that we are not compelled to live holy lives by some external set of laws or rules, but that because of our new nature and new heart we have the overwhelming desire to put our bodies and minds into subjection so that our thinking becomes Christlike, and then our behaviour will follow. If we use the image of the horse and cart, the horse is our new nature, and the cart is our behaviour. Where the horse goes, the cart has no option but to follow. Therefore, as we think more and more like Christ, which is the same as thinking in line with the fruit of the Spirit, then our behaviour has no option but to follow. "As a man thinks in his heart, that who he is." God does the work in our hearts first, knowing that our conduct will change accordingly.
Oscar, God has made us new creatures, and sin is to have no more dominion over us. We are told that we are no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwells in us. This is wonderful truth, truth that is to set us free indeed. But He has ordained that our partaking of such a blessing is hinged on our believing it, and using that truth as a weapon and protection when satan comes to tempt us. If we refuse to put on the armor of God, if we choose to love the world, if we choose to live in sin still, the positional blessing God has given us is of no value to us at all. In truth, if we are Christians and walking with compromise, and with lukewarmness to the real victory God has made possible for us, we will be held accountable for our actions, for we must remember, to whom much is given, much is required.
The saints in Laodecia were true Christians, and yet did God continue to see them as holy and pure? Did He pat them on gthe back and wink at their sins and tell them it was all ok? The truth is, He warned them as severely as God can warn His people. He told them they must repent of their compromise, their continuing in sin, while thinking all was well with God. You speak as if sin consciousness is a bad thing, and indeed it can be if we are fully yielded to Him and standing on the promises He has made to us. But is this where we as the church in the west are found right now? Sadly, it is not. Why do we need to be sin conscious in this late hour? Because as a whole, we are walking with hardened hearts from sins we think we cannot escape or do not have to give up. The result is that our hearts have been hardened and although we use all the right words and have a show of godliness, our hearts by and large are far, far from Him.
Is the solution to placate the church and assure them all is well, whether they believe it or not? Please understand, all IS well, IF we are walking fully submitted to the God we love. Thank God, He sends the Spirit to rebuke, correct, instruct when it is needed, and this, brother, is being made sin conscious. Now, the church as a whole has failed, not because they are being made sin conscious, but because they have not told the sheep how to get the shackles of sin off their heads and hearts. Once instructed in riughteousness, and how to walk with our shields up, our swords sharp, our lives totally His to lead, we indeed do not have any more consciousness of sin, as the writer of Hebrews attests. But what we are trying to do is avoid the part about selling all of our pearls, about actually giving up sins big or small, and assume we can live unto ourselves, as long as outwardly we have a certain amount of "goodness" to fit in with others doing the same thing in the church.
God has spoken. We must lose our lives, our "self", our desire to rule over our life. Only then can we truly believe the glorious good news that the gospel offers us. God has promised that if we totally yield and break before Him, crying out for a brand new nature, He will grant us the faith to believe and to put it on. However, to do so, we cannot escape the need to put off the old nature first, and therein lies the rub. We as the church of the day want to have our cake.... i.e. salvation, blanket forgiveness, being seen as holy in God's eyes, when our own hearts simply want to eat the cake too, as we continue to enjoy the ability to sin "a little bit" and to hold onto our pearls that we think Jesus would never ask us to give up.
Our eyes by and large have been blinded to the second half of the new covenant, where God promises to not only forgive us, but to change us..... transform us..... make us true holy children. This is what God is awakening us to. God will make us holy, not positionally but in real time, and when He does, the world will sit up and take notice. But make no mistake. For us to believe such an amazing thing, our hearts must hunger after it with all that is within us. We must awake to how far we have drifted from God. Our treasure has not been Him at all costs, and that is the bump in the road we must all navigate.
Are we content with positional holiness? Do we like the fact that the present day gospel requires nothing on our part? Or is there a deep disturbance inside us, a knowing that there is something more we need, pure hearts that set their affections on things above, not on things of the earth? I have said for a long time now, we are being led into the valley of decision, where the cost of our salvation must be faced. The cost is us, our old nature, the one that likes to sin occasionally, the one that likes to reassure itself that all is well with God even though our lives are far from what God has told us His will for us is. Will we agree to such a price? I pray we get a glimpse of what God is offering us. Our eyes are fixing to be opened to the very same gospel that turned the entire world upside down. Our lot, if we choose to follow after our Lord with ALL that is within us, is to be made totally holy, with sin lying at our feet..... in this life. Not by our determined efforts. Not by our strength, our grit, our ability to resist sin. It will be accomplished by Christ actually being placed on the throne of our hearts, with our knee bowing to Him in ALL things in our lives. When that happens, the second half of the new covenant will come into play, just as it did to those blessed saints in the book of Acts. God ill indwell us and actually "cause us" to walk in full obedience with pure hearts and fill us with the very same love Christ himself possesses.
This is not the time to assure saints that are living in powerlessness, compromise, worldliness and that we are holy no matter what our lives testify. The Word of God is quite clear. Those walking in the Spirit will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. If we still are, the truth is we are not walking in the Spirit and that is a hard, bitter pill for our religious nature to process and admit to. But brother, when we do? When the church cries out for the ability to lead lives worthy of the Lord, and we admit we need far more than we have believed for in order to live as God desires for us, the heavens will be opened and God will pour out upon us blessings we can now not even comprehend.
The awakening is beginning. It may start with tears and repentance and hunger, but it will in no way end on that note. We are about to fully discover the joy of our salvation and our full deliverance from the powers of the world, the flesh and the devil. The church is about to re-discover the secret of how to walk as a living sacrifice..... and love it.
May it come quickly. Live, bones, live.
Blessings,
Gideon