Spiritual Gifts part 186: Considering ourselves dead to sin opens a new door to the cross's power.
Pastor-Teacher
John Farley Sunday, October 30, 2011 Spiritual Gifts Part 186: Considering ourselves dead to sin opens a new door to the power of the Cross.What is discernment?
Mat 7:16
Joh 15:2
dead branches = dead works, or the production of the flesh. God the Father removes the “dead wood” through the law of volitional responsibility and divine discipline, Heb 12:11.
It is the branch that BEARS FRUIT that He prunes! “After winter exposure, this dead wood can be easily recognized as dark, brittle, and sapless, and can be removed.” Winter may be a time when your fellowship with God seems to have gone dark and icy and frozen.
Our spiritual life is a life that is designed to be alive and active. A shoot can be a concept of Christ that is small and limited and still very far away from the heart of who He is. It might be a mechanical god; we wind him up with our procedures, and we expect him to behave just as we predicted he should. What started out as alive we have now made into a dead ritual. And dead ritual becomes a covering for evil.
Num 21:8 God gave the bronze serpent on the pole as a means for receiving His healing grace that day, but the Jews ended up worshipping the gift instead of the Giver.
2Ki 18:4 We get stuck on an infantile approach to the spiritual life when we should be moving on to a more adult understanding and lifestyle, Heb 6:1. Illustration: what we understand about our sinning. Rebound is a fantastic grace provision from God our Father. Rebound opens up a door to the work of Christ on the cross in connection with our personal sins after salvation. Christ is the propitiation (the offering that satisfied the justice of God) for all of our sins (1Jo 2:2). Name & cite it. Isolate it. Forget it . Move on in the spiritual life.
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