Monday, July 2, 2012

Mortify your members

Col 3:5  Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Col 3:6  For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
Col 3:7  In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.
Col 3:8  But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
Col 3:9  Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds

Mortify our member which are upon earth.
We LIVE in a physical flesh world and yet we are called to a higher life in the SPIRIT, living FOR CHRIST.

We are TOLD what to do, and so many people think we are at the mercy of our flesh nature. Are we? To a certain extent we are- we are inclined towards sinning and yet we are given the ability to use reason and that reason tells us we have the ability to CHOOSE our actions.  We face temptations, but yielding to the temptations is OUR CHOICE. Yes, they can be awful! It can be excruciating to fight the flesh desires that are incredibly powerful. Do we always overcome, no, we fall and we feel the guilt of that transgression knowing we must repent, we must truly desire to overcome THROUGH CHRIST JESUS OUR SAVIOR, we must ask for FORGIVENESS.

Here we are being told to MORTIFY our members.

Dictionary- (mortify)
2. To subdue or bring into subjection, as the bodily appetites by abstinence or rigorous severities.

Mortify our members--
Bring our flesh appetites into subjection by ABSTAINING or RIGOROUSLY STRIVING to KEEP FROM GIVING INTO THESE THINGS.

We all have our own flesh appetites that plague us, appetites we find it all too easy to succumb to when we are tempted. Your flesh appetites might be different from mine and yet they are all deadly from the least likely sin to the most blatant.

Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, covetousness, idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication, lying.

We have to MORTIFY our flesh.

People HATE to imagine having to actually, consciously deny themselves their desires.

Mat 16:24  Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Heb 12:4  Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

How hard do you resist?
How hard do you try to deny yourself?
Do you WORK to resist?
If you KNOW you have a problem you should work to solve it, right? Yet do we truly try and work to solve our sin problems? No, and you know why? Because we get caught up in the fact that people have thrown around for years and years that you cannot SAVE YOURSELF. And because that is true they take it to mean they shouldn't do anything about their sin problems. They shouldn't strive at all because they just can't help themselves and Jesus will just have to forgive them because HE knows they can't do anything.  This is NOT BIBLICAL!

We just read about STRIVING against sin.
We just read about DENYING OURSELVES.

If we are to strive and deny then where does- not striving and not denying come into play?

Only Jesus has the power to forgive us of our sins. Only Jesus has the righteousness necessary to save us. We do have to rely upon HIS power, HIS righteousness, and not our own.  And while we RELY upon HIM fully, we have to follow HIS commands to us.  Even if we resist a sin, even if we deny ourselves that will not save us. Christ saves us. When we do resist sin and deny ourselves, we have to give the glory to God because it is HIS power that has allowed us to resist and deny.  We do nothing of ourselves, nothing.

We HAVE to pray for recognition of our sins if they are not readily making themselves known. We have to pray for the strength- the spiritual strength to resist and deny. 

We MUST actively STRIVE not INDULGE without any remorse, without any thought of the wrong we are doing in so many ways when we choose not to deny ourselves, or strive against sin.

Please LORD, HELP US! SAVE US! All through YOUR LOVE! YOUR MERCY, YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS! YOUR FORGIVENESS!

All in YOU.

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