9014	Forums / Theology Forum / Change, "by God?"	on: May 28, 2006, 08:39:07 AM
Quote Dipping or whatever is simply behavior. Not all behaviors are sinful...and in another context all behaviors CAN be sinful. Both Jesus and Paul said it's the heart that matters: I could not agree more. It is the heart that matters. What I am saying is that we are obligated to live as clean a life as possible. And since we are using my dipping as the example. The reason that I am quitting is because I am convicted of it. I am not saying all that dip and smoke are sinners. I am also not saying that because I am quitting, it is right for everyone else to quit also. What I am saying is we as Christian, quite often pass the buck. We use Jesus as an excuse saying, "I cant quit until he gives me power". Now, this is quite true, It is the Lord that gives us the strength. What I think happens is that we (I) use urges and tempting as a reason to do something, saying to myself "the Lord must not have delivered me yet". But in reality, He has. It just takes more effort and willpower on our part. The will power that HE put there. Because it sure does not come from me. Make sense??? Take care Jeff please keep in mind I am using my life and assuming that others run into the same ruts. I am not sure that it is that simple Jeff. I mean we know that appropriation is needed in every area of our lives. Yet some of us struggle with different sins at different times. It is sometimes a mystery as to why we struggle with sins that we have overcome and we dip back into them. The object of growing in sanctification is to become more like Christ and that is becoming holy in all we do. Sin in not necessarily behavioral in an active sense, it is also passive in that we fail to live up to a standard of loving God with all of our hearts and minds. What we consider is our problem usually is a public sin. But God is looking at the private attitudes and the active thought life as more heinous in His sight. Its more than just looking at dipping and trying to stop, that is being held accountable by someone else for that to take place. Its seeing ourselves in the light of Gods word , by exposing ourselves to His word in meditation and prayer, and the other means. Sometimes, the mystery of overcoming sins works in our favor to draw us to a deeper knowledge of God by making us humble so that we trust Him instead of ourselves. We will always sin. In my questioning i was trying to bring out that sin is not just things we do. Sin is like a person, it has a personality, it is present in us and is always moving in us and drawing us to not love God with all of our hearts minds and will. We mortify the deeds of the flesh, that is this nature that has a power in us and is a two fold power in our spirits and bodies. We in ourselves can never wash our feet. Remember that Peter wanted to Christ to wash his entire body. And Christ did that on the cross. When we are in Christ we are being washed and thats why our feet are washed on a daily basis. We do not even understand enough of the depth of our sin to be able to face each sin on a daily basis to be able to wash our feet by confession. As the Psalmist says forgive my hidden faults, so all of the feet washing we go through are by grace and are done in that power of God from the cross, they are within the It is finished. So our unconfessed sin is washed also or we would all be without hope of our Fathers approval. We really do mortify the deeds of the flesh by the Holy Spirit. The amount of sin we concur is really measured by how much we know the word of God, \"sanctify them by the word, thy word is truth\", and what exposure we have to it in consistency. In other words we must increase our fellowship with the Spirit as the single most important principle of over coming sin. Its not necessarily running to men for that help or thinking that we have will power. Maybe latter we can get into the \"self- determined will. I think we make the salvation so simple when we say that we have all of these things available from grace and then all we need to do is appropriate them. The bibles paradigm in this area is the doctrine is given first, and then the commands follow, with the doctrine interspersed into the command teachings. In other words it is what we know which even tho salvation is simple it is also extremely difficult. The process of overcoming sin and the counsel we receive by men sometimes gives us the illusion that the struggle with sin is easy and within a system of steps. But really the insight into the reality of sin and its depth and its power and its connections in us , demands an extended struggle to finally get us to love God. It is in that motif of Christo centric universe that we are aiming at in over coming sin..\"