- Jun 26, 2015
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This post is actually a message I wrote to a brother who has been battling committing adultery unsuccessfully, for years. But listen. It can apply to any who are living in the fleshly old nature, caught in the web of sin.
I pray people reading this do not fall into the trap of thinking that if one is only committing “small sins”, non-addictive ones, socially acceptable ones, that the words shared here somehow do not apply to them. In truth, these children are in more danger because they have a harder time understanding how reprehensible their fleshly nature is to God. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to admit that their old man must die, just as surely as with the addict or the adulterer. I pray that eyes are opened and hearts enlarged to receive what God has for us all.
Blessings,
Gids
**************
Brother, as you read the following words, I hope you understand that I am not trying to lessen your offense. Yes, it is shameful, yet is God surprised at what our flesh is capable of? Nope. Sometimes I think He is shocked we don’t do far worse things! LOL. Here is what you have to realize.
First you must see that your battle is not against lustful thoughts and actions. If you do as you have, trying not to give in again, even if you succeed in not feeding your lust, it will be what I refer to as a “white knuckle” victory, which leaves you no joy, no peace, no rest. In addition, it robs God of the glory, for you did it, not God.
How many believers fall into this trap, trying to prevent themselves from producing bad fruit? But that is what Satan wants, and watches your struggles, your failures and yes, even your white knuckle victoriewith glee and yes, amusement.
There is truly only one way to win this fight. God’s way. And what is this path to real victory? We must make our tree good. And we do that by a willful act of desperate, bodacious faith, believing that the old us, the adulterous us, the self loving us, died when Christ died.
This is what Paul is talking about in Romans 6. Reckoning faith. Calling something that is not yet seen as though it is. Believing you receive it, right now, this very minute, simply because God said it. He says we are dead to self and alive to Him. And by and large, few have ever done this. But this must be done, for if we are to ever walk as overcomers of the world, the flesh and the devil, we are going to have to do so as an act of spiritual force...by faith!
Do not wait until you ‘feel’ strong enough. Or sincere enough. Or desperate enough. You never will. Now, at your weakest, with guilt still fresh on your soul, realize that Christ died to rescue you from YOU. Until that contrition leads you to the difficult truth that you, your old nature, is the real culprit, and you finally HATE that person, even the one that seemingly does good, and behaves nicely, you will forever be running laps in the wilderness of unbelief.
God has already made you new... victorious... alive. But, and this is huge, until by a willful act of reckoning faith, you put off the old man and put on the new man, you will never experience victory.
I am sure in your guilt you wish you could be like other Christians who seem to have no battles. But you have a great advantage. You KNOW your flesh is out of control and cannot be counted on. You KNOW you need the great physician. How many there are who do not struggle with sins such as yours and the addiction I struggled with against inappropriate content and masturbation. Their sins, their flesh, does not appear to be that bad, so they never come to the point that they have NO strength.
But that is the point you are finding yourself. So the question you must ask yourself is “Would you be made whole, free, victorious?” This is your own personal valley of decision. It is a hard place to come to, trust me. But understand that your choice here is THE decision that will guide you into eternity. I am not saying that if you slip again, you will have sealed your fate.
But know this. You will simply have to repeat this painful process, and be brought back to the same choice.... life or death. The pleasures of sin for a season, or choosing pleasing God over pleasing self.
One other note here. It will never get easier than it is today. Why? Because sin hardens hearts, and makes it even more difficult to believe. You have been given a great gift, understanding the narrow way of escape, I pray you fall before God and ask Him for the faith to believe the truth. Your seed that God planted in you is perfect and capable of growing up into a huge tree, doing exploits for God, but each willful choice to not believe will make it that much more difficult to do so the next time.
I do not want to scare you, but you must realize that not making a choice is to God making the choice to choose this life, to choose pleasing your rebellious old man. There will come a day, and I believe we will see it, that multitudes of people who thought they had their eternity nailed down and that their prayer said long ago secured Heaven for them, who will discover that by willful choice, they rebuilt what God destroyed and MADE themselves transgressors, even after they had been washed clean. Can you imagine the horror one will have on that day to realize that is what they thought was ok, was spitting on the cross, and counting the blood of Christ, wherewith they WERE sanctified, an unholy thing, and by their actions putting Christ to an open shame?
Can you imagine waiting in line as you hear the screams of anguish... the terror... as those who go before your into the judgment room to face God discover their error and it slowly dawns on you what you too have done the same thing. And sitting next to you is the woman you have committed adultery with. There will be no lust as you sit together. There will only be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Oh brother, my heart aches for you. Jesus offers each one of us a way out, a way out of sin, out of letting self rule in God’s place. It is wonderful and it is sure, but you must want what He offers you more than 1000 nights of illicit pleasure. God is better. I pray you believe that. A pure conscience is an amazing thing.
I pray my words help you. My heart aches for you. If you have any questions or would like to call so I can pray with and for you, I would be honored.
One last thing. What I have shared here is critically important to all who walk in the flesh, even to those thinking they are doing fine in the Lord while they still walk in the flesh. A new life of joy, peace and rest awaits us all. If we choose to believe Him, He will plant our feet on the high ground of victory, and make us real overcomers. Can you imagine the joy we will experience as Satan comes against us again with temptation, and we calmly staring Him down, with assurance and power in voice that echoes up from our hearts made new? That awaits any and all, no matter how bound, no matter the sin, if we will simply cry out to Him in our weakness to set us truly free by believing His amazing truth?
Blessings,
Gideon
I pray people reading this do not fall into the trap of thinking that if one is only committing “small sins”, non-addictive ones, socially acceptable ones, that the words shared here somehow do not apply to them. In truth, these children are in more danger because they have a harder time understanding how reprehensible their fleshly nature is to God. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to admit that their old man must die, just as surely as with the addict or the adulterer. I pray that eyes are opened and hearts enlarged to receive what God has for us all.
Blessings,
Gids
**************
Brother, as you read the following words, I hope you understand that I am not trying to lessen your offense. Yes, it is shameful, yet is God surprised at what our flesh is capable of? Nope. Sometimes I think He is shocked we don’t do far worse things! LOL. Here is what you have to realize.
First you must see that your battle is not against lustful thoughts and actions. If you do as you have, trying not to give in again, even if you succeed in not feeding your lust, it will be what I refer to as a “white knuckle” victory, which leaves you no joy, no peace, no rest. In addition, it robs God of the glory, for you did it, not God.
How many believers fall into this trap, trying to prevent themselves from producing bad fruit? But that is what Satan wants, and watches your struggles, your failures and yes, even your white knuckle victoriewith glee and yes, amusement.
There is truly only one way to win this fight. God’s way. And what is this path to real victory? We must make our tree good. And we do that by a willful act of desperate, bodacious faith, believing that the old us, the adulterous us, the self loving us, died when Christ died.
This is what Paul is talking about in Romans 6. Reckoning faith. Calling something that is not yet seen as though it is. Believing you receive it, right now, this very minute, simply because God said it. He says we are dead to self and alive to Him. And by and large, few have ever done this. But this must be done, for if we are to ever walk as overcomers of the world, the flesh and the devil, we are going to have to do so as an act of spiritual force...by faith!
Do not wait until you ‘feel’ strong enough. Or sincere enough. Or desperate enough. You never will. Now, at your weakest, with guilt still fresh on your soul, realize that Christ died to rescue you from YOU. Until that contrition leads you to the difficult truth that you, your old nature, is the real culprit, and you finally HATE that person, even the one that seemingly does good, and behaves nicely, you will forever be running laps in the wilderness of unbelief.
God has already made you new... victorious... alive. But, and this is huge, until by a willful act of reckoning faith, you put off the old man and put on the new man, you will never experience victory.
I am sure in your guilt you wish you could be like other Christians who seem to have no battles. But you have a great advantage. You KNOW your flesh is out of control and cannot be counted on. You KNOW you need the great physician. How many there are who do not struggle with sins such as yours and the addiction I struggled with against inappropriate content and masturbation. Their sins, their flesh, does not appear to be that bad, so they never come to the point that they have NO strength.
But that is the point you are finding yourself. So the question you must ask yourself is “Would you be made whole, free, victorious?” This is your own personal valley of decision. It is a hard place to come to, trust me. But understand that your choice here is THE decision that will guide you into eternity. I am not saying that if you slip again, you will have sealed your fate.
But know this. You will simply have to repeat this painful process, and be brought back to the same choice.... life or death. The pleasures of sin for a season, or choosing pleasing God over pleasing self.
One other note here. It will never get easier than it is today. Why? Because sin hardens hearts, and makes it even more difficult to believe. You have been given a great gift, understanding the narrow way of escape, I pray you fall before God and ask Him for the faith to believe the truth. Your seed that God planted in you is perfect and capable of growing up into a huge tree, doing exploits for God, but each willful choice to not believe will make it that much more difficult to do so the next time.
I do not want to scare you, but you must realize that not making a choice is to God making the choice to choose this life, to choose pleasing your rebellious old man. There will come a day, and I believe we will see it, that multitudes of people who thought they had their eternity nailed down and that their prayer said long ago secured Heaven for them, who will discover that by willful choice, they rebuilt what God destroyed and MADE themselves transgressors, even after they had been washed clean. Can you imagine the horror one will have on that day to realize that is what they thought was ok, was spitting on the cross, and counting the blood of Christ, wherewith they WERE sanctified, an unholy thing, and by their actions putting Christ to an open shame?
Can you imagine waiting in line as you hear the screams of anguish... the terror... as those who go before your into the judgment room to face God discover their error and it slowly dawns on you what you too have done the same thing. And sitting next to you is the woman you have committed adultery with. There will be no lust as you sit together. There will only be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Oh brother, my heart aches for you. Jesus offers each one of us a way out, a way out of sin, out of letting self rule in God’s place. It is wonderful and it is sure, but you must want what He offers you more than 1000 nights of illicit pleasure. God is better. I pray you believe that. A pure conscience is an amazing thing.
I pray my words help you. My heart aches for you. If you have any questions or would like to call so I can pray with and for you, I would be honored.
One last thing. What I have shared here is critically important to all who walk in the flesh, even to those thinking they are doing fine in the Lord while they still walk in the flesh. A new life of joy, peace and rest awaits us all. If we choose to believe Him, He will plant our feet on the high ground of victory, and make us real overcomers. Can you imagine the joy we will experience as Satan comes against us again with temptation, and we calmly staring Him down, with assurance and power in voice that echoes up from our hearts made new? That awaits any and all, no matter how bound, no matter the sin, if we will simply cry out to Him in our weakness to set us truly free by believing His amazing truth?
Blessings,
Gideon