Kiss Each Other

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To Have Gotten up A

I am grateful The Holy Spirit suggested going down an old trail I have not been on for many years. There was fields of beautiful wild flowers that were dug up and transplanted in the garden.

I am grateful to have gotten up a steep dirt incline from the trail. A couple of times the scooter had to be pushed up.

I am grateful The Holy Spirit suggested going into this woodworking plant area. The owner gave me huge bags of sawdust to use on the front garden The Holy Spirit is guiding me to build.

I am grateful The Holy Spirit suggested going to a certain quiet place every day with meditation verse to spend quiet time with the Trinity

Dressed for the New Life

Are you dressed in grave clothes or wedding garments?

Now that we have been saved by grace how then shall we live? How are we to walk in this new life?

The apostle Paul uses an illustration in terms of taking off one set of clothes and putting on another in Colossians 3:9-10. “Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.”

The verbs in this passage are in the past tense. “You have taken off your old self . . . and have put on the new.” The aorist tense indicates something that has already taken place. It has already happened, and not something to be done.

The action is to take off completely; to strip off one’s self. If the old self really has been put off, one must not at a critical moment revert to the way one acted before his conversion. The plural describes the deeds, which characterized the former life.

In Colossians 3:10, the idea of “new” is the newness in quality, and it is the continual action “which is ever being renewed.”

We are to take off once for all, definite concluding action. Stripping off is to be done at once, and for good. The old manner of life is to be done with.

“In reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self (Lit. man), which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Ephesians 4:22-24).

The “old man” is your manner of life which Paul described in 2:3. Westcott said, “The whole character representing the former self was not only corrupt but ever growing more and more corrupt.” Every aspect of the old man’s behavior is putrid, crumbling, or bloated like rotting waste or cadavers, stinking, ripe for being buried and forgotten.

The other action is to “put on” one’s self, to cloth one’s self. It is newness in quality that is put on. Paul is not suggesting the restoration of the original state. The old and new is contrasted.

The present tense in Ephesians 4:23 emphasizes the continual renewing. We are to put on in the sense of putting on a garment (v. 24). Thus, the believer puts on, or fulfills the divine demands God places upon men. This is the habitual action that is to characterize the life of the Christian (v. 25).

The “renewing in the spirit of the mind” of which Paul speaks in Eph. 4:23 is to make new again, or to renew. It is also found in Rom. 12:2 when he speaks of “the renewing of the mind.” This renewal is kin to make new, different. It is an adjustment of the moral and spiritual vision and thinking to the mind of God. The stress in Rom. 12:2 is on the continual operation of the indwelling Spirit and the willing response of the believer. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Paul is speaking of a radical change, “being transformed” which is the same word for “transfiguration” of Jesus in Matthew 17:2. It is “to change into another form,” which is an inner change, a radical renovation. We are changed from the inside out.

Our practical everyday sanctification is the restrained and obedient powers of the personality brought into subjection and submission to God’s will by the Holy Spirit.

Are you responding to the appeal of the Holy Spirit to put off all conduct associated with your former life apart from Christ and put on a new pattern of behavior that looks like Christ? We are to follow Christian standards because God has already made us new creatures in Christ Jesus. The apostle is demanding a high form of behavior on our part because something decisive has already taken place in our lives. We have already been made new in Christ by the new birth. Because that has already taken place, we must live like it.

Old grave clothes are ok for a corpse, but they are completely inappropriate for wedding garments in preparation for the wedding supper of the Lamb. If you are the Bride then dress like one.Selah!

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Anyone is free to use this material and distribute it, but it may not be sold under any circumstances whatsoever without the author’s written consent.

Dying Daily and Our Life in Christ

Spiritual growth is making real in our daily experience what is already true for us in Christ.

Our progressive sanctification is an ever putting off all that belongs to the old man, and putting on all that belongs to the new man in Christ.

The old nature of man in Adam has not evolved better over the last two thousand years.

Has the carnal mind with its urges become so good to the Holy Spirit that we no longer need to subject it to the Holy Spirit?

Undisciplined self-gratification has never been compatible with strong, vibrant, mature spiritual growth.

You cannot be a mature believer and live anyway you choose. You cannot give nature all that it desires without defrauding the grace of God.

Romans chapter seven pictures every Christian’s spiritual battle in progress. Our old nature, though judged and condemned and deposed in the death of Christ is forever revolting against the sentence of death. It struggles daily to regain its lost supremacy.

The believer who is in Christ not only has died with Christ, but is bound to “die daily” with Him so long as he is in the flesh.

The two natures, at present are dwelling together, even though they are at perpetual war with one another. When one is weak the other is strong. When one loses the other conquers.

The crucifixion we have undergone as believers in Christ is personalized in our own person. The believer is “always bearing about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus.” Our spiritual battle is a spiritual intimacy with Christ against the forces of Satan. Christ began a spiritual warfare that has not ended for us (Col. 3:9, 10).

We are new creatures in Christ whose inward man is “renewed day by day.” The new man from above battles daily with the forces of evil.

The cross and the resurrection of Christ extend their influence and power over the Christian’s life until the day we are presented perfect to our Father in heaven. The development of the Christian toward perfection is always going in two opposite directions. There is the mortifying, suppressing, subjecting the natural man, and the nurturing, renewing and developing the spiritual man who lives within.

In the crucifixion of the old man we make the death of Christ our own. The carnal mind must always be delivered up to death for Christ’s sake. This is our life-long experience.

If we are to become like Christ in our daily practice we must subdue our sinful desires, behaviors and bring them under the influence of the cross.

Our sanctification is prolonged and perpetuated in our daily experiences.

We are to have the same mind of Christ. We have been judged in the person of Christ knowing that He bore our sins in His death, follow on in the path of the cross judging and mortifying all that we find in our lives contrary to Christ. Anything that is opposed to Christ in our lives must die. We must deny and die to the expression of the old life as we knew it before we become Christians. We must refuse the indulgence of the old man.

The Holy Spirit is always bringing us to the surrender of self in all its forms to the will of God.

Our Savior’s suffering is never more beautiful than when reproduced in our daily lives as we die to self, fleshly desires and unholy ambition.

However, no amount of self-denial of the old nature will make us holier, unless we are brought at the same time into a deeper intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit. As we abide in Christ we walk as Christ walked.

Self-denial creates voids in our soul that must be replaced with Christ and divine affection. It is our desire to appropriate the eternal life Jesus has given us. This new life in Christ creates within the believer a hunger and thirst for more of Him. Meditation on the Word of God and contemplation of the character of Christ promotes that end. In the process He conforms us to the likeness of Christ until, we have attained the fullness of the stature of Christ, His life constantly imparted and His character reflected in our lives (2 Cor. 3:18).

Daily communion with Jesus is a certain way of overcoming sin in our lives. Our growth in grace and knowledge of Christ can never fail to promote the subjection of nature. Our natural man cannot endure the burning heat of the unclouded presence of Christ.

May our steady gaze upon Christ blind our hearts to the desires of the unregenerate life-style.

Oh, blessed day when the battle is over and we cease from our putting off and putting on and we are presented spotless in Christ “when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortal.

Even so, come Lord Jesus.Selah!

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Anyone is free to use this material and distribute it, but it may not be sold under any circumstances whatsoever without the author’s written consent.

For Giving Me

I am so grateful to those kind men for giving me sawdust for the garden. Not only will it keep the weeds down but it looks beautiful.

I am grateful The Holy Spirit reminded me of long cardboard boxes in the garage. They can be used in the garden. Dig a hole, put them in it, fill it it with dirt. Then, plant carrots. After that cover the area surrounding it with sawdust.

I am grateful The Holy Spirit reminded me that Jesus has forbidden me to share the work of my labour with Jezebel. Yesterday I dug up a big bunch of garlic and asked her to give it to a mutual friend who helps us out. Instead she gave it to her friends just to get praise. We got into a huge fight. From now on if The Holy Spirit guides me to share, I am to give it to them personally.

I am grateful The Holy Spirit guided me to the Bible verse where Jesus says that a laborer is to be paid their fare wages. The Holy Spirit has strongly informed me that I am not to work in Jezebel’s flower garden. If she has a hissy fit I am to remind her of what Jesus says and that I am forbidden to work in her garden until my ten years of wages is paid

Jesus said: Those who work deserve their pay. Luke 10: 7

Then, to remind her that the wages she owed me she gave to her drunken grand daughter who has done nothing for but to get drunk. You want garden work done, call her, not me.

The ten years of torment are over and now it is time to fight back.

But, I will not be doing the fighting, Jesus is my champion.

Jesus is with me as a dread champion [one to be greatly feared]; Therefore Abusive men and women will stumble and not overcome me. They will be completely shamed, for they have not acted wisely and have failed in their schemes Jeremiah 20:11