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 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
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| The Nashville Statement
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Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
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Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
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| The Heart of Unrepentance.. |
At the core of the unpenitent heart is this one thought - "I will not have you to rule over me!"
Consider the believer who comes to know that looking at pornography feeds his lust and is a wicked offense against God. He sees this because [1] his conscience is informed by the word of God, and [2] because the indwelling Holy Spirit convicts him of sin. Notwithstanding, since he was addicted to porn prior to his salvation, the addiction continues after his salvation - only he feels very, very, bad about it.
Now let us say that this man one day, driven by remorse over his sin, determines that he will no longer look at porn, and from that day on he removes everything in his life that would trigger the temptation - the computer is cleaned of all bad images, the internet is either disconnected or he puts his computer into a public room in the house and makes sure that he is never alone there - he even begins to guard his own thoughts so that whenever a lustful though enters his mind he forces himself to think of something else until the temptation goes away.
Many would say that this man has repented.
He has certainly put himself on morally higher ground. He has recognized his sin, and responded to it by producing in himself morally superior habits. Some understand repentance as being an entirely practical exercise - you simply stop your bad habits, and replace them with better habits and voila! you have repented.
But in Acts 20:21 we read that Paul preached "repentance towards God".
I point out that phrase because it helps us to make a distinction between turning to God and suppressing a sinful habit. A man can suppress a sinful habit without ever turning to God in doing so. He can be motivated by a desire not to offend God, and begin a regimented attack on all the sin in his life, and do so without ever surrendering to God. In fact, he does that -get this now- instead of surrendering to God. He is willing to give up some sin for a season, but he is not willing to surrender Himself to God.
There is no victory over sin in a heart that obeys that spirit of rebellion (small "s") that scripture calls the "old man".
It is entirely possible and I suspect even common for Christians to deal with sin not according to the gospel of grace, that is, not by surrendering themselves to God, but rather by staunching the outward expression of sin as much as is humanly possible without surrendering to God.
Don't think for one second that doing what is right equates to repentance. Repentance produces what is right, but doing what is right does not produce repentance. I have used this illustration before, but it fits here. The young girl who is told to sit and defiantly refuses until threatened then begrudgingly plops herself down in a show of outward obedience betrays her heart when in open rebellion she remarks - "I may be sitting on my bottom, but I am standing in my heart!" - that "heart" illustrates what obedience without surrender looks like - it is not repentance, it is a rebellious servility that was coerced by fear of retribution.
The believer who puts away the porn because way down deep inside he is secretly afraid that by viewing porn he is proving that he was never saved in the first place - and so in order to be free from the fear of damnation he puts aways sin, but does so without really surrendering himself to God - this one hasn't repented, he is doing penance because deep down he is convinced that doing so will appease God. He is catastrophically wrong.
Any "righteousness" that springs from a heart that is motivated to appease God in order to secure for themselves God's favor or pardon - such a "righteousness" is not righteous at all, it is in fact unclean. Such a righteousness is polluted by the flesh, it is counterfeit, an external facade - it is, in biblical terms "=the= world religion" it is Babylon, it is attempting to be like God (righteous) without surrendering to God. It is in no way harmonious with the gospel of grace, but has at its core a concealed, "dressed up as righteousness" rebellion against God.
I repeat - genuine surrender produces genuine repentance and not vice versa. The problem with sin is not the sin, it is the self that is unwilling to surrender to God. The sin is just the outflowing of that rebellion. The real culprit is the old man - and that is why Christ took the old man to the cross with Him - to render him powerless - a reality that while true immediately of every believer, is only experienced when the believer is surrendered, that is, when the believer is "in Christ".
When scripture instructs the believer to walk by the Spirit as the means by which we overcome the lusts of the flesh it isn't some empty slogan - it is life from death. You can battle with sin until the cows come home and you will never get on top of it if you don't surrender yourself to God.
If you are a genuine Christian you know what genuine surrender looks like because that is how you became a Christian - you surrendered yourself to God.
But if you find that sin is your master, then know this: at some point you stopped surrendering - and it was at that point that sin got a foot hold in you again.
What are you to do? Stop trying to perfect yourself in the flesh Christian! Do it spiritually, do it the way you received Christ - by surrendering to him the whole of you. Surrender again, surrender continually - give your very life and all that is in it to God - a living sacrifice - stop cherishing that secret rebellion in your heart! it is killing you, do you understand this? It is killing you, killing your time, killing your inheritance, killing you!
The part of you that wants to rebel was (past tense) crucified in Christ in order that you may now (present tense) no longer obey it. It will call the same old shots, tempt the same old temptations, but only when you are not surrendered to God will these be any problem for you. Being in Christ is being surrendered. Being in the Spirit is being surrendered. Being surrendered is being willing in every moment to do what God asks because God asks. It is the opposite of rebellion - a slippery thing to describe, but easy enough to know, for we know it both by its absence, and by a conscience that knows it is utterly right with God.
I am convinced of these things. Are you?
If these things seem strange to you, talk them out with someone who has been in Christ for a long time - study scripture, see if these things are so. It is not noble to accept these things because some guy on the internet wrote them. Nor is it noble to reject these things because some guy on the internet says they are so. What -is- noble is to examine scripture and see if what I am saying is found there or not. We need to understand repentance if we are going to avoid wasting days, weeks, and years pretending to repent but never overcoming sin's power in our life.Labels: holiness, Instruction, repentance, sanctification, sin, Theology, union with christ, victory |
posted by Daniel @
9:54 AM
15 comment(s)
 
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| The Heart Of Repentance. |
You are a pretty good Christian. You have given up many besetting sins, and have become morally superior to the person you were before you were a Christian. You love to read your bible, and you even pray daily.
But something is wrong.
You know that you are holding back. You know that you are not 100% for the Lord. You have given God everything that you have been willing to let go of, but there are things in your life that you are not willing to let go of.
Maybe you tell yourself that you are not able to be free from these things. Maybe you have tried to be free from them so many times, and failed every time to produce a lasting break, maybe this has convinced you that really, there is no cure for sin - you just have to put up with it, and fight it when you can, but not to get too down on yourself when you fail - besides, doesn't scripture tell us that we are all sinners anyway?
But whatever shallow platitudes you might try to comfort yourself with, fall upon deaf ears, because deep down you know they are bunk. You know that God expects more from you than you are giving him, and your failure to make the grade eats you alive.
That is a pretty complex place to be in, and I will explain why.
First, because you aren't as deceived as you would like to be. You know that you should be obedient to God, but you find yourself "unable to obey" when it counts. We may even identify who is calling the shots at this point - the old man - but where is the victory - how do we break through to the other side?
The Israelites that halted at the Jordon, and didn't want to take the promised land instruct us in this. The ones who don't enter into the promise fail to do so because they don't trust it. They don't believe. They hate where they are, but they think it is at least better than where God would bring them if they obeyed - and they believe that obeying God at this point would be worse than not obeying him.
To put it bluntly - they like their sin more than they want to obey God.
We can even shorten that to, "they like their sin".
The reason a person gets into the habit of "not repenting" is because deep down they don't really want to repent - that is, the "old man" refuses to repent. He ... cannot ... repent.
Think that through.
Your old man, in no way, can ever repent - he is irredeemable, and his song is going to be the same until the day you die - he does not want to repent.
Why do I tell you this. Because you need to -recognize- him. If Christ is in you, you will want to repent, but the old man will not want it. You have to separate yourself from, that is, set yourself apart from, the old man who refuses to repent. Identify yourself, not as the one who refuses to repent, but as the one who is at war with the one who refuses to repent. I do not use my words here carelessly - when a thing is "holy" it is separated unto God. You must be holy as your father is holy - separate yourself from the thing that refuses to repent - that ain't you Christian, that is the thing that is dwelling in your flesh, and you have been set free from it.
It isn't a mind game that you play - it is recognizing who is who. In you dwells a thing that remains no good, and this thing is alien to who you are in Christ, if indeed the Spirit of Christ dwells in you. If Christ dwells in you, you have all you need right now to overcome this old man - this thing that refuses to surrender to God.
Simply identify who is calling the shots, and stop obeying the thing that is killing you. The part of you that rejects this is condemned and powerless. It can lie to you, but that is all it can do. You -can- right now, repent, all you need to do is count on Christ's life in you - apprehend it in your thinking. Examine yourself - find the part that doesn't want to obey, and attack it with the sword of the word of God - the truth can set you free, if you are willing to take your sword out of its sheath and attack that thing that is killing you.
You see, you need to understand that what is killing you is alien to you, and not simply "you". You need to consider it and yourself as two separate things that are both vying for control of your mind, actions, and thoughts. This thing will tell you that you do not want to repent, that you love your sin, and that you will never be free. But the truth is that you are free already in Christ, that this thing is not you, nor is it your master any longer. You must regard it as a dead thing - a thing that is already defeated not because you need to play mind games - but because that is the truth. This thing has been dealt with. The reason you obey it is because you continue to set your mind on obeying it - you haven't separated yourself from it in your own understanding. You need to come out and be separate in your own thinking so that when you set your mind on the things of the Spirit, you understand what you are doing...
Do you get that?
You need to regard this thing as alien to who you are, so that when it makes you think that it is you who love sin you can answer that deceit with the truth - no, I hate sin - it is you, my old man - you! You condemned and alien thing! You love sin, and have deceived me, but the veil is lifted in Christ - the veil is lifted. I see you for what you are, and I will not have you rule over me! Lord Father, have you not put this thing beneath Christ's feet? Haven't you?!?? Is not Christ in me? Isn't He?!! Give me spiritual sight that I might see the chariots of Israel! I know this thing is not me, and I know that I am not it - and though it howls at me to obey it, I know I am the bond slave of Christ - Him will I obey!
You see, repentance begins the moment I recognize that the part of me that wants to disobey, the part that hates God - that thing is foreign to who I am in Christ - If I obey it I am walking in the flesh, but if I regard it as a dead thing, and its lusts and desires as foreign to me, and if in doing so I instead turn myself to the life of Christ that is in me, and willingly obey that whom I am not enslaved to in the flesh - but enslaved to in my spirit - then I set my mind not on the flesh, but on the spirit, and in doing so I am freed from the lusts of the flesh.
Do this and live.Labels: deceit, sanctification, sin, victory |
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posted by Daniel @
2:16 PM
55 comment(s)
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| Don't Hate Your Sins... |
Hate that thing that is producing them - the "you" that was crucified with Christ; you "old man".
Seriously, the "you" that was crucified with Christ has done nothing -(and will continue to do nothing)- but produce death in you every single time you obey him. You see, that old man is a treasonous rebel who utterly hates God. He hates obeying God, he hates being told what to do. His mission statement is, "I shall not have you to rule over me!" - and it was he whom God dragged out and put to death in Christ. He is dead in the same sense as you are eternally alive. You haven't entered into what you are going to be yet, but one day your flesh will be redeemed and you will be changed in the twinkling of an eye - the day star will dawn in your heart, and you will forever be in your new, glorified body. You "own" that life, it is your inheritance, and it is coming to you one day if indeed the Spirit of Christ dwells in you. But in the same way that you now possess this life, so too you possess the death of the old man. Though he has been slain in Christ, yet he lives in the here and now, just as though you received eternal life, yet in the here and now you continue to live on in condemned flesh. The reality of the old man's death is just as real as the reality of your eternal life.
So that every day that you live, and until your last breath (or until Christ returns; whichever comes first) your old man is going to be there with you. He doesn't get what's coming to him in this life that you are presently living, he gets what is coming to him in eternity - and that is he is put to death in Christ.
Now this death was for a reason, as Romans 6:6 explains - so that we no longer are -his- slave. For the other name he has is "the sin". He is the "part of you" that produces sinful desires in your flesh. He is the part of you that is alien to creation - he is not subject to God's law, and he will never be subject to God's law. You cannot make the old man obedient, he will never stand for it. The bible describes only one way to deal with "the sin" (your old man) that dwells in you - and that is to know that you are no longer his slave but God's slave. To regard this thing in you that prompts you to obey its desires and thereby sin - regard it now, as it is in eternity - a dead, defeated thing that has no authority over you to make you obey it.
If you obey it, it -will- produce death in you, but if instead of regarding this thing as the "real" you, you see it for what it is, your greatest enemy, an enemy so profound and great that Christ was willing to die to free you from it - this thing must be regarded as the enemy that you go into battle with day in and day out - a foe whom you only have power over in the moments that you are entirely and utterly surrendered to God.
The way to deal with this thing is to start to see it for what it is - the thing that is working overtime to drag your to hell. The thing that is trying to destroy you right now - it is your untiring enemy, always working to produce death in you - to separate you from the life of God. That is what this old man is - the part of you that wants autonomy, that wishes you could live forever in your own power and strength, and flushes you with desires that would only be appropriate if you could live forever on your own dime. This is the part of you that is killing you, it has no intellect, only an appetite, and every moment you obey it is swallowed up, never to be repeated - another moment in your life where death reigned, and the life of Christ neglected.
Hating the symptoms of this thing is like hating the baseball bat of the one beating you - it isn't the bat that is doing the beating, it is the one wielding it. Jesus didn't take Satan to the cross and kill him there, because Satan is -not- your biggest enemy - your old man is, and you better stop treading water, because he is eating up your life right now.
How do we deal with this old man? He is a defeated foe, but only in Christ. We must regard as true that he is truly dead in Christ, and that we are truly alive in Christ. Christ has already put him to death on Calvary, your job is to stop taking orders from him - regard him as an utterly defeated foe, defeated expressly for this purpose - that you would be free to take your orders from God.
You who are reading this - who are you obeying in this moment - are you obeying that evil thing that is killing you and hates God, and in doing so swallowing up the most precious gift that God has given you and those around you - the moments that you are on the earth as a Christian? Or are you in the fray - sword out, and with your ear turned to the Captain of your soul. Listen: the Holy Spirit is in you if indeed you are Christ's. You really are dead to this "Sin" fellow, the old man who wants to destroy you - stop obeying him, and instead, letting the truths of Christ produce life in you - trust in them, not in some vague way - but specifically. The violent take the kingdom by force, they are not passive - no one stood on the banks of the Jordon waiting for the Canaanites to fall over dead - they crossed the Jordon on dry ground, and went in fighting because GOD HAD PROMISED THEM EVERY INCH OF LAND THAT THEY WERE WILLING TO TAKE. Force your mind to reject the desires of the old man. That old man is not your master Christian - you are God's slave, obedience to God sanctifies you - it cleans out the old habits, the ruts that you used to fall into - don't let the old man make new ruts - obey God, give God a chance to cleanse you. He --will-- sweep out the house if you let him - but you better let Him fill it, or you will be worse off for it.
Christian - today is the day. Today. Not later, now. Right now. Surrender yourself to your master, make today the day of battle - go into the fray with your mind set on the victory and not on the enemy. Don't go into Canaan as those 10 who came back with a bad report, focused on the enemy - no, focus on Christ - He is a mighty General, he has already given you the victory, he cannot be defeated - if you follow his battle plan you -- will -- be -- victorious - man, go out there and take it - run brother, run sister - don't walk, don't crawl, don't hesitate - get into the fray, and redeem this day, and every day. You are not your own, you are bought with a price - do not shame that purchase another day.
And pray for me. Man, I am preaching to myself.Labels: holiness, sanctification, sin, victory |
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posted by Daniel @
11:27 AM
9 comment(s)
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