What's wrong with this statement?
"Ever since I became a Christian, I've been able to control my own
behavior."
It's kind of obvious. When we
allow Jesus to be Lord of our life, it's anything BUT that. We no longer sing "I Did It My
Way!" - unless we're giving our testimony regarding the disastrous
"trail of tears" we lived before we STOPPED "doing it our way".
So when a Christian says they've been able to "control their own
behavior", they simply mean that they have stopped doing the things that
they knew were destroying them.
We don't hear that testimony as often as we'd like to, do we? Yes.
God has worked mightily to deliver many of us from ourselves and our
former self destructive lifestyles.
Yet honest Christians still admit their lives resemble Romans 7 -
"I don't do what I want to do, and the things I don't want to do, I
do."
So we need answers and we need them badly.
The missing element in modern Christianity is how we can experience the
victorious living of Romans 8 where "the Law Of The Spirit Of Life in
Christ Jesus" sets us free from the "law of sin and death". You can teach on this until you're blue in
the face, and many of us will still be in great need. We do not know how to experience this IN
PRACTICE.
What we don't realize is that the modern church has lost much of the
Spiritual (mystical) dimmension. The
Romans 7 experience has it all correct, INTELLECTUALLY. With your mind you love God. It's your body and human instincts that are
giving you fits! Notice, too, that
Apollos had the teaching concerning Jesus correct. But he did NOT understand the baptism in
the Holy Spirit - the mystical side of our faith was foreign to him. So, too, with most modern Christians - even
tongue speaking Pentacostals.
Ephesians tells us that we have "every spiritual blessing" IN
JESUS. If you read through Ephesians,
and just notice all the beautiful things we have "IN HIM", it is
tremendous.
First we must confess that "our thoughts are not His
thoughts". We must also become
blind before we can see. And we must
become converted and become like children before we can "see the Kingdom
of Heaven".
It is our fleshly, controlling thoughts - our natural mind - which holds us
in bondage. There is absolutely no way
for us to serve God with our natural mind, our pride, and self, in control.
So HERE IS THE GREAT PARADOX: For
us to have any TRUE "self control", SELF must yield control to the
Spirit.
Does this sound confusing or a little fuzzy? Let me make it very real. When a man or woman falls on their knees,
weeping before the CROSS OF JESUS - broken by the suffering and death of the
one who Loved Them SO - that is when the chains of sin fall off.
Our "left brain" is our logical mind of "self
control". Our heart, our
"right brain", is held in bondage by the tyranny of our "self
control". When that control is
broken by the LOVE OF JESUS, then, and only then, is our heart set free from
bondage.
So we will discuss this Fruit of The Spirit - "Self Control" - in
spiritual (mystical) terms. We won't
talk theory. We won't talk theology. Our discussion will be very practical and,
therefore, far more helpful than some intellectual study. If anyone wants to live in Romans 7 - a
life of defeat and frustration - all they need to do is refuse to yield
control. We desire better things.
Next we will discuss how Jesus takes us into his "Spiritual
Paradise" - making "self control" AUTOMATIC - if we yield to the
riches HE desires to give us.
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