Consider This Analogy:
Living by the futility of our thinking is an upside-down thinking. We were created to reflect the Spirit that gives life. The flesh, at best, can only, and for a short time, maintain the gift of life given to it. There is a better way. Let God disidentify yourself as your body, feelings, and thoughts. You are one spirit with Christ. The flesh is but a host that will soon expose the seed.
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“But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” — (1 Corinthians 6:17, NASB95)
“So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” — (1 Corinthians 15:45, NASB95) |
Agent: “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” — (Romans 6:3, emphasis mine NASB95)
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Goal:“so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” — (Romans 8:4, emphasis mine NASB95)
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Action:“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” — (Galatians 5:16, emphasis mine NASB95)
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Conclusion:We must conclude that we can walk by the Spirit of God. What is that? Not doing the flesh: don’t identify with the desire to live for yourself. The spirit of disobedience is the self-for-self. It is the desire to get at another’s expense. The Spirit of God is The Self-for-others. Sin is rejecting His Spirit for the spirit of independence.
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Key Verses:“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh” — (Romans 8:1–3, NASB95)
"But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” — (1 John 2:11, NASB95) “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” — (1 John 4:20, NASB95) |
Questions:
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