Andrew, Brad has provided some beneficial general advice. I have been blind
since 1948, when I was 8 years-old.
During my years of involvement with the church and other Christians I also
have encounted occasionally ignorant or porrly taught church attendees. Many
of these have been involved in the charismatic movement and have a man-made
definition of what true Bible-based "faith" means.
Also, sad to say, most do not understand the three enemies of the true
believer or how to deal with them. Doubtless you are familiar with these
three enemies, the Flesh, the World, and the Devil. I put them in that
order, because that is the order we most often have to deal with them on an
individual spiritual basis.
1. The devil can only attack as God allows, 2. the world system has many
lusts/cravings as described in First John 2:15-17, and then 3. their is the
"flesh" or our old sinful nature which is always with us and we will only
escape its lusts/cravings when we go to be with Christ either at the rapture
or by physical death.
First, the devil gets blamed for a lot of things which he does not do. One
example is drunkenness.
Specificly in Galatians 5:19-21 drunkenness is listed as one of the lusts of
the flesh which can best be dealt with by allowing the part of the fruit of
the Spirit, self-control or temperance to help us gain the victory.
A desire for the so-called "devil's brew" does not come from Satan but from
our old sinful nature's cravings. When that lust comes to us, it is the Holy
Spirit that provides the strength to say "no". The devil being a liar and
the Father of lies, wil say "Go ahead and have a drink, it won't hurt
anything."
If you know what the Bible says about drunkenness and the Spirit's provision
for self-control, you have the answer to his lie. A careful study of the
Bible teaches us that most all attacks from Satan are lies. You will find
most of his attacks described in Ephesians 4:17 through 31.
And as mentioned, the lusts of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-21 list things
like sexual lusts, emotional lusts, religious lusts and sensual lusts which
can all be overcome by allowing the fruit from the Holy Spirit to provide
the victory as you direct a specific aspect of the fruit toward its object.
Secondly, the world system is full of all kinds of lusts/cravings, including
those of our old sinful natures as well as the lies of Satan, et cetera. If
we direct our "self-sacrificial-love" Agape love" toward anything other than
God, we become carnal or fleshly and thus are not in fellowship with God.
Anything that takes our agape love away from God and focuses on other things
is going to break fellowship with God. John tells us, 'STOP LOVING THE WORLD
SYSTEM AND THE THINGS THAT ARE IN IT!" Or as Nancy Reagan used to say,
"Just say NO!" smile
Thirdly, our old sinful nature is the greatest cause for our spiritual
defeat when we give in to those lusts/cravings. Paul had a great deal to say
about this issue in his letter to the Romans, chapters 5:12 through 8. What
Paul discovered was that he could not defeat his old sinful nature in his
own strength even though he had a new God quality of nature. He discovered
that when the Law said "You shall not covet", his sin nature said "Oh yes I
will!" In his own strength, even having a new nature, he could not win that
battle. However, what he discovered was that he could gain the victory when
he "got out of the way" and allowed the indwelling Holy Spirit to provide
the power to overcome his sinful nature.
With Paul, I have discovered that the most important key to this is given in
Romans 6:11: "Consider yourself to be dead to your old sinful nature and
alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord." When He died, He died not only for
ours sins but also for our sinful nature. When we are baptized into Christ
death and resurrection by the Holy Spirit when we first believe, we are
placed into His death, burial and resurrection by the Spirit. That is how
God sees us and that is how we should consider ourselves in this present
life. Such a mind set allows the Holy Spirit to then produce His fruit in
us.
Galatians 5:16-18 tells us to order our lives by the instrumentality of the
Spirit and we will never, no never fulfill the lusts/cravings of the sinful
nature. That is because the Holy Spirit wars with our old sinful
nature/spirit and cancels it out and then produces His quality of fruit in
our lives. In my own strength, I cannot produce love, but I can direct the
part of the fruit of the Spirit called love toward the appropriate object.
The same is true with the other parts of the singular fruit of the Spirit.
But one must be spiritual to do this having his mind set in the right place.
On the Bartimaeus website there is a book entitled "Maturing in Christ".
This book is a compilation of several small booklets written by a former
pastor of mine who helped me greatly in my personal spiritual life. The
book contains chapters on "The Enemy within", our sin nature, "The World
System and Other Appeals", "Satan, The enemy without" and other chapters
regarding the Christian's thought life and spiritual living. It is under
copyright and so you need to become a qualified member of the Bartimaeus
Alliance of the Blind reader's list to access it in HTML format. However, if
you read braille, it is available in braille format in the braille library
and can be read on a refreshable braille display or embossed.
You may not want to read such a detailed book, but I would recommend it to
everyone who wants to gain a better understanding of the Biblical teaching
regarding our basic spiritual life, how to understand it and live it. Not
everything will agree with things said and/or taught on this list, but I
personally have found it of inestimable value for my personal relationship
with God and other believers.
Listening for His shout!
Grant
Bartimaeus Alliance of the Blind, Inc.
Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://bartimaeus.us/
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