Spiritual Gifts part 197: Our sin nature is our enemy in the race.

Spiritual Gifts Part 197: Our sin nature is our constant enemy in the race.

What is discernment?

Matt 7:16
“You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?”

John 15:2
“Every branch [believer] in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away [discipline]; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it [suffering for blessing] so that it may bear more fruit.”

Suffering is part of the plan of God for our life.

Several N.T. passages have this string of growth by stages. Each time the growth results from some form of suffering or affliction.

At every step, at every cross roads, there is a hurdle. Sometimes it is affliction. Other times it is worry. Or riches. Or pleasure.

His great desire is that we leap over each and every one by believing His promises about what awaits on the other side of that hurdle.

ogkos;
denotes "a bulk or mass";
hence, metaphorically, "an encumbrance, weight,"

In connection with the metaphor of the contestant, ogkos
has the sense of the weight which he must put off to be able to attain his goal unhampered.

Weights are not necessarily or even primarily external.
 
They are first of all in the heart.

Luke 21:34
“Be on guard, so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life,”

The weights are hindering our advance in the growth in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now it is crucial to know HOW we are supposed to lay aside these weights.

1 Peter 5:7
casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.

We are supposed to let our Lord bear our heavy burdens, and in exchange take His easy yoke.

Is this thing a weight, or is it a wing?

euperistatos
well standing around, i.e. (a competitor) thwarting (a racer) in every direction

skillfully surrounding i. e. besetting, namely, to prevent or retard running:
(from Thayer's Greek Lexicon)

antikeimai ;
to lie opposite, i.e. be adverse (figuratively, repugnant) to:

antikeimai  
appears in several other verses where it is translated “adversary” or “opponent” or “enemy”.

1 Cor 16:9
for a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.