Walk In Newness of Life.

'Salvation is essentially a present exit from a doomed order which is Satan's.'

'It is by baptism that you declare this: "Lord, I leave my world behind. The cross separates me from it forever!"

'So the same water on one hand puts you and me on salvation ground in Christ, and on the other hand buries Satan's whole system of things. Not only does your own history as a child of Adam end in your baptism; your whole world ends there. In both cases it is a death and a burial with nothing resurrected. It is the end of everything.'

'This means you cannot carry over anything from the former world into the new one.'

'When you pass through this water, all that system of things goes, never to return. Instead you see yourself in Christ…'

1Pe 3:21  The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ

Rom 6:3  Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 

Rom 6:4  Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 

Rom 6:5  For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 

Rom 6:6  Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 

We are buried with Christ by baptism.

We are raised from the dead like Christ.

Our death is to the world, to our life prior to our baptism.

We want a newness of life.

Our old life has to be done with.

The world still exists all around us- unchanged. We are changed. This is truth. We are given a new life, a heaven bound life. Our old self is crucified with Christ- we should not serve sin.

Sin should be our enemy, sin should be despised, not cherished, not alive in us.

More on this tomorrow by the grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. May we live a new life, not serving sin. May we comprehend the truth of our old sin-filled lives being crucified with Christ. Heaven is our home, we are NOT of this world- right now, we are not of this world if we have been baptized in Christ.

Jesus Says He Is Not of This World.

Joh 17:14  I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

Not of the world.

The definition of world is- the planet Earth, Earth and everything on it, human race, society, universe, domain … you can look it up for more if you like. The word world here in this verse is taken from the word Kosmos.

Kosmos- Probably from the base of G2865; orderly arrangement, that is, decoration; by implication the world (in a wide or narrow sense, including its inhabitants, literally or figuratively [morally]): - adorning, world. (From Strong's Definition)

Jesus says He is not of the world.

We know factually that Jesus took on flesh, He was not born of two human flesh parents. Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit (God) and Mary (human flesh). Jesus divested Himself, emptied Himself to become human flesh. Jesus gave up His spirit form and took on the form of flesh. Jesus was formed in Mary's womb like all human babies are formed and He was born as babies are intended to be born. He grew from a baby into a child, into an older child, into a teenager, into a young adult and then simply an adult- as we all- who live that long grow to be. He lived out the natural flesh cycle of a human being. Jesus was born human in this world, a human with the spirit of God. God, as we know has His inhabitance in the heavens and not the atmospheric heaven but the spiritual realm of existence- heaven. Jesus- God with God, Jesus- the declared Son of God, Jesus- the only begotten Son of God. Jesus cannot be separated from His Godhood, it's impossible. Any more than we can separate ourselves from our heredity, our inherited ancestry, could Jesus separate Himself from being one of the three God's which exist in agreement with each other. The trio of Gods live in heaven, and the heavenly existence is theirs always. Even when Jesus was in flesh upon the earth, He knew where His true home was and it was not the earth, not this world.  This world was made by Him.

Col 1:16  For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him

He was outside of this world in order to create this world. He was spirit form, not flesh. He wanted to be a part of the human family as a Creator, not as a Redeemer, but was willing to become the world's Redeemer when man yielded their allegiance to Satan. He knew that deception tricked Eve and Adam. He knew that not all human beings would choose to yield to Satan when offered a choice. God with God, both in spirit form, and one God declared to be the begotten Son. They lived in heaven their world, their place.

Jesus was not of this world.  And we are not of this world if we belong to Jesus, if Jesus is our God.  We give up this world and accept the world of Jesus. We place our treasures in heaven, our home.

Jesus gave us God the Father's words. As a human being and God, Jesus knew the words of the Father and He gave those words, those truths to mankind.

Joh 17:8  For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. 

Jesus doesn't want those who are His to be of this world. In fact, those who are His cannot be of this world. We have to have heaven as our world, right here, and right now. Heaven is our world as we choose to LIVE for heaven and not for this world and the worlds possessions. Our treasures are to be in Heaven! Heaven is our world! We are strangers and pilgrims here, we really truly are.

God help us!

Keep Us From Evil.

'The natural trend of all the "things that are in the world" is toward Satan and away from God. Some of them may have been set going by men of the Spirit with a goal that is Godward, but as soon as the restraint of divine life is removed from them, they automatically swerve around and take that other direction. No wonder then that Satan's eyes are ever on the world's end, and on the prospect that at that time all the things of the world will revert to him. Even now, and all the time, they are moving in his direction, and at the end time they may be expected to have reached their goal. As we touch any one of the units of his system, this thought should give us pause, lest we be found inadvertently helping to construct his kingdom.'

Joh 17:14  I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 

Not of the world. Truly as the world's course is ever Satan bound, we cannot be of the world. Jesus was not of the world. Jesus prays to the Father and tells Him that the world hates those who have been given His word and are not of the world just like He is not of the world. The world HATES those who are like Jesus- NOT of the world.

Jesus gained a lot of notoriety as He began His ministry, why? Because of the miracles He performed- the healing, the helping. Jesus spoke with a knowledge of Scripture, a knowledge of God all with authority. Jesus healed and as He healed He pointed those He healed and those around witnessing the healing - all to God and the gospel of salvation. Salvation - the restoration of man with God without the existence of evil. Satan's grip on the world would end.

 Until our Savior returns Satan will continue to rule this world turning everything He can to his way, the worldly way. We need to ask ourselves where Satan is trying to get His hold on us. He is in the world and wants us to be of the world with Him.

We need to constantly submit to God, and strive for God's rule in our lives, in all aspects of our lives. Please God, please may Your only begotten Son's words ring loud in Your ears and please KEEP US FROM EVIL.

Evil surrounds us, it is on every side no matter where we turn. We scarce can live without coming face to face with evil daily, and several times a day. Please, keep us from evil as it threatens to overcome us. Please. Please. All through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, now and forever. Amen!!!!!!!

Affections Above.

'When material things are under spiritual control they fulfill their proper subordinate role. Released from that restraint they manifest very quickly the power that lies behind them. The law of their nature asserts itself, and their worldly character is proved by the course they take.' -- From 'Love Not the World' by Watchman Nee.

Col 3:2  Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

When we set our affection on things on earth we misplace our affection in relation with God. How often we get so caught up in the things on earth. We live our lives as if the things around us are more important than spiritual things. We behave as if the things on earth are eternal, but they are not. Why do we place so much importance on earthly things? Why? I sit here and type on my laptop and know I place a lot of importance on my laptop. This machine holds a lot of photos, and each photo is a memory of my past. This machine holds a lot of my writings, blogs, studies, stories, emails with others. This machine gives me access to things I have saved in the cloud, and while it's true I can access cloud storage from anywhere, that's the point of putting things in the cloud, I have passwords saved, I have familiarity with the keyboard, I hold my laptop in high esteem and should it suddenly stop working, or be stolen I would be upset, I would be sad, I would mourn the loss of all that I keep on here. Things on this earth-- and my laptop is just one of the things I own. I have memories stored in many objects. In my baby box I have things from my childhood all of them kept for the memories they provoke and no other real reason. How many things do we keep strictly for the memories they give us.  When people lose all their possession in fires, they mourn the loss of the memory provoking objects they can never replace.  Our affections are all tied up earthly things, we need to loose those affections and set them on things above, things of God.

Watchman Nee wrote that 'when our material things are under spiritual control they fulfill their proper subordinate roles'.  All our material things need to be under spiritual control. Is this possible? It needs to be possible. As long as anything we own is not under spiritual control- subject to God's will- then we are allowing ourselves to get caught up in earthly things, worldly things.

Our affections need to be on the things above so much more than on any earthly thing.

Col 3:1  If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 

1Ch 22:19  Now set your heart and your soul to seek the LORD your God

Psa 62:10  … if riches increase, set not your heart upon them. 

Psa 119:36  Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness. 

Psa 119:37  Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way. 

Pro 23:5  Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven. 

Mat 16:23  But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. 

Rom 8:4  That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 

Rom 8:5  For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. 

Rom 8:6  For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 

1Jn 2:15  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 

1Jn 2:16  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 

1Jn 2:17  And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. 

God... or Satan?

'Ultimately, when we touch the things of the world, the question we must ask ourselves always is : "How is this thing affecting my relationship with the Father?" '

1Jn 2:15  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 

I found the above quote from Watchman Nee's 'Love Not the World' book interesting. Do we question ourselves enough? Do we ask ourselves often how the things we do affect our relationship with God? Right now think back over your day and the things you've done. Was God with you in all those things? God is supposed to be with us always, there is never a time where we can set God aside and then pick Him up again. We have a relationship with God through the Son, and all we do will affect that relationship in one way or another- positively, or negatively.  If we can think of things we've done that affected our relationship negatively we need to repent of those things, not continue on in them. We need to seek guidance, to seek help to live the life God would have us live. We need to pay attention to our relationship with God, always.

'When we are faced with alternatives and a choice of ways confronts us, the question is not: Is this good or evil? Is this helpful or hurtful? No, the question we must ask ourselves is: Is it of this world, or of God? For since there is only this one conflict in the universe, then whenever two conflicting courses lie open to us, the choice at issue is never a lesser one than: God …or Satan?'

Do we think of our choices this way? Seriously, do we? We need to! We need to face the truth! We have to stop sugar-coating life so that we cover the things of Satan in something acceptable to us. Calling evil things good has become common place. Truly, there are so many things that are evil but we call them good simply because we don't want to believe they are of Satan. God or Satan these are the only two choices we face. God or Satan, we can't be afraid to ask ourselves which we are choosing. Heaven help us, God help us. The world surrounding us is filled with so much evil, so much deception, so much of Satan. The narrow way is the way we would choose, please LORD, please help us to this end. 

By the will of our LORD, through Jesus Christ our Savior, now and forever!!!!!!!

Love Not the World.

I'm re-reading a book by Watchman Nee called 'Love Not the World'.

So far in the beginning of the book he writes about in the beginning our existence there was the earth, after sin there was the world, and when the world is eventually redeemed it will be with the Kingdom.  I found that very interesting.

We know from previous studies that this world and its current kingdoms belong to Satan. He offered them to Christ when he was tempting Him. You can't offer something that doesn't belong to you. Satan is the Prince of this world, he rules this world. Satan so ruled this world in the days of Noah prior to the flood that things were beyond saving, the entire world had to be redone, a do-over had to take place. And then… Noah, the very man God saved because he found grace in the eyes of God, planted vineyards in the newly made over earth and used the wine from those vineyards to get drunk. And so once again mankind continued their descent into a fully corrupt world where only a handful out of the majority would be those who would choose God over the world- but not without many hiccups. The world has so many enticements and we are so very weak.

We are to LOVE NOT the world.

We are to LOVE NOT the things that are in the world.

ALL that is in the world-

-the lust of the flesh

-the lust of the eyes

-the pride of life

IS NOT of the Father.

The world will PASS away with all its lusts.

Doing the WILL Of God brings ABIDENCE, brings LIFE EVERLASTING.

1Jn 2:15  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 

1Jn 2:16  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 

1Jn 2:17  And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. 

Watchman Nee has a lot of good things to say about all this and by the will of God I will be able to relay some of them here as I continue to read the book and study God's holy word.

God should be EXALTED above all, His Will Be Done Now and Forever!

All through the love of our Savior, Jesus Christ!!!!!!!

Christ Tendencies.

Mat 7:12  Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. 

Jesus said…

How we would like to be treated by others is how we should treat others.

Jesus did not say…

If someone wrongs you make sure you wrong them in return, or at the very least snub them and no longer like them.

We have a mindset that tells us to dislike those who treat us in ways we don't want them to. And that mindset will often refuse to allow us to even entertain the idea of doing good towards someone we dislike, someone who has wronged us. And if we do allow ourselves to be nice to the one who wronged us, often we do so with the intention of getting revenge upon them at a later date and they'll never see it coming. Or, we might not be seeking revenge but we tell ourselves we'll be the better person and treat them nicely- giving ourselves a huge pat on the back and maybe a quick shoulder squeeze to congratulate ourselves on being such a superior, better human being than the one who wronged us. We place ourselves up on a pedestal not realizing it's made of Satan's pride.

Truthfully. We have all wronged others in one way or another. We all give others reasons to dislike us. I'm not saying all others or all the time, but not a single one of us has gone through life without upsetting someone. We've made friends and enemies. Some people make enemies simply by the way they look, or the way their personality rubs someone the wrong way. Through no extenuating fault of their own they instantly raise the hackles of someone else.

Christ would have us not look at all upon how others treat us- whether they like us or they don't. Christ would have us only focus on how we are treating others.

How do you treat other people?

Right now with the pandemic underway it's easy for us to snub others because we are being ordered by our government to keep away from people. Did you know you can still smile at someone else when you are six feet away from them? You can imagine others around you have the cooties and are crawling with microscopic bugs and still smile and treat them with respect.

Setting aside the newly accepted pandemic snub, how do you normally treat others?  Do you ALWAYS treat them like you would want them to treat you- with kindness and respect?  If you don't I'm sure you could give me a list of many reasons why they don't deserve your kindness and respect- they cut you off in traffic, they swore at you, the ignored you as you waited to be served by them, they gave you a dirty look, they called you a name, they laughed at you, they flirted with your husband/wife, they were impatient with you.  We expect to be treated in certain ways while dealing with the people around us and when they fall short of our expectations we feel slighted, justifiably so. Yet, Christ doesn't want us to feel slighted, to feel hurt, to feel offended, He wants us to react contrary to what seems natural to us. He wants us to love as He loves.

If we are being completely honest with ourselves then we'd comprehend that the perfect, only begotten Son of God, more than any other human being who ever lived had the right to feel offended by so many who treated Him wrongly. He had the right to condemn those who had just put the nails in his hands, but instead He said this…

Luk_23:34  Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.

And even if those soldiers had jumped up and yelled that they knew exactly what they were doing, Jesus knew that their eyes had been blinded by the evil one's influence, and they really did not comprehend what they had done.  Forgive them.

Forgive them.

Forgive them.

Forgive.

We do not forgive those who have nailed our hands to our perceived crosses. We take their actions and file them away neatly in a mental drawer to be remembered and fawned over at our will. We go through the stack and repeat offenders have a pile of noted offenses towards us. We clump groups together, and all those idiotic other drivers deserve my wrath as if they were all those who ever drove offensively around me. The server deserves the scorn of all those other servers through my life that have slighted me in anyway. We wear our cloaks of derision proudly, when we should feel shame to even possess such a cloak.

Forgive them.

How do you want Jesus to forgive you?  Do you want Him to mouth the words and yet treat you as being unforgiven? Do you want Him to say He forgives you but will never ever stop feeling the pain of how you treated Him?  Jesus' blood was spilled to cover our sins, blotting them out completely and one day blotting them out so that we never ever committed them- they are that gone. We need to strive in our very imperfect way to forgive as we want to be forgiven. We most certainly do not want to be forgiven in such a way our sins are forever held in front of us taunting us even silently, and some of the loudest taunts can be silent ones while screaming at us inside. It can be exhausting in so many ways to have our sins surround us. We need the peace that only Christ can give us with His assurance to forgive us, to cleanse us, to renew us, to make us free indeed. We need to believe in Christ's love, in His sacrifice, and the power of His blood. We don't deserve it, just as we may believe others don't deserve such forgiveness from us, but we are offered Christ's love and all that means just the same- undeservedly.

Let us treat others as we want to be treated no matter how often they knock us down- mentally, emotionally, and even physically (though I'm no advocate of staying in abusive life threatening relationships). Let us love as Christ loves. Let us forgive as we would be forgiven. Let us let the Holy Spirit live in us to do the work of God through us. When our natural tendency is to be hurt, spiteful, any number of seemingly justified ways, let us seek Christ's tendencies, not our own. May we let Christ live in us, our hope!

All by the grace and love of our Savior, through His will now and forever! Amen!!!!!!!