We must be taught to deny self as we embrace Christ!

From January 3, 2015-

'Php 2:5  For think this within you, which mind was also in Christ Jesus,

Php 2:6  who subsisting in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God,

Php 2:7  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, having become in the likeness of men

Php 2:8  and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, having become obedient until death, even the death of a cross. (LITV)

Christ put HIMSELF into the form of a slave! We are to be like Christ, and if HE took on the form of a slave, shouldn't we? Don't we need to?  We are BOUGHT and the price we are bought with is the Blood of Christ! He bought us with His life!'

1Co_6:20  For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

We BELONG TO GOD when we CHOOSE to belong to God. 

We get to CHOOSE our Master.  Unlike those forced into Slavery we CHOOSE slavery.  WE choose to be bought, to be owned, to be Christ's.

Our Master requires us to give up our self-sufficiency, the  hardest thing we'll ever do.

Do we care if our actions are acceptable to Christ?

So many want to do anything they can, anything they desire, not denying themselves anything at all. If they feel inclined to do something they do it. If they don't want to do something, they don't, and they call it their right. We call it our right. Yet throughout the Word of God there are numerous examples of living uprightly, living by denying flesh desires that would keep us from God.  Were all flesh desires denied. NO. And they aren't all to be denied. Yet ANYTHING that would keep us from our Walk with God, anything that would steal us from God, ANYTHING THAT WOULD interfere with our spiritual walk with God - HAS to be denied!  How do we know what we should deny? I think it is a very personal knowledge that we are given when we seek God with all our heart, leaning NOT unto our own understanding. We need to pray for guidance, pray for understanding, study to know! God's word gives us the ANSWERS.

Do some people take things to extreme? Maybe to our understanding, but maybe not to theirs. They have their own walk with God. They have to answer to God for what they are called to do or not do.  I say this thinking of John the Baptist. John was called to live very roughly- in camel skins and eating honey and locusts while in the desert, but were others called to follow that walk? No, not all others. Some might be called to such a walk, but not all. Some are allowed to drink wine, and eat fine food, and have very fine linen, they are called to that in their walk with God. Some are called to great hardship, others to lives of earthly luxury, but each to their own walk according to the Word of the Lord.  There are basic actions in the Moral Commandments of God that ALL rich or poor must obey by the grace of God, but in all the material aspects of our lives, in all the day to day existing we are called to do beyond the initial born again moment, we have to find our path in God's word, in God's love, through prayer, through meditation, through the love of our God and by the grace of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ now and forever! We must be taught to deny self as we embrace Christ!

More tomorrow by our Savior's will, by the Father's will, through the Holy Spirit!

Amen.