It will be a fight to the death.....

[Gideon]

 

A fork in the road approaches. Light and goodness go in one direction and evil and darkness the other. Do we not see the world getter more and more evil right before our very eyes? Is the darkness increasing? You bet it is. Guess what? That part of each of us that is willful, stubborn, full of pride, that part will begin to pull even harder, if it has not done so already. Many of you know exactly what I am talking about. But I want to encourage you. It is all about to change.

However, we must realize that even if we are saved, we cannot dodge the issue. A split must occur. The old us? We must figure a way to get freed of its grip. But first a choice awaits each of us. Us or Him in us? Only one can rule. Us...the old us.... or Him.... in us. The part of us that is willful, prideful, self centered, and of course always right, that us. A part of us wants to rise up in self defense, crying "Heresy! God has forgiven us, no matter how we behave." Again, that us. We.... the part of us that likes to rule the roost...that us must die. And it will not go quietly into the night. It will be a fight to the death. One and only one can exist.

To most of us, it sounds like bad news to our ears. Our minds reel at the impossibility of such a thing. We might have to live like monks and run an orphanage and give up our nest. Fear looms over us. Self preservation joins in. Silly us. We do not see what God has done and what He has for us. 

You see, we have been blind men walking up till now. When we think of our lives,, who we are, how we think, how we act,, we walk as a mixed bag, don't we? The old black dog/white dog thing. A constant battle, right? And worse yet, for many, there is no battle anymore at all, but a sort of quasi-peace treaty with the darkness in us, that as long as we don't go too crazy with sin, and keep them respectable and of course "understandable", we will not get all serious about our living out of Christianity 24/7. Moderation in all things, right? Our peace treaty is about to be annulled, and we will forever thank Him for the annulment,

This is the exact point we have erred and gone astray. I pray you really hear these words of truth. We are NEVER both old nature and new. Not for a a nano-second, If a house is divided against itself, how will it stand? It will not. A fountain cannot spring forth with both fresh and salty water. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit. Guess what? Jesus then said:

"Either make the tree good or make the tree evil". 

Let that sink in in quietness of heart before God for just five minutes and I believe He will change your mind on the matter. We are either new men or old, one or the other. But here is the catch. As new men, we can still walk in the old one if by ignorance or by choice, we let down our guard and do not believe we are truly born again with new natures.

Soooo.... if we are truly one natured, not two, then that part of us we described a minute ago, the ugly part, the part that has the audacity to say "No" firmly to God as if it is our birthright and we do not even blink, let alone bow in shame for such behavior? Yes, .... that part? It is dead. And moreover it is NOT you any longer, glory to God.

Is this not the root of our problem? Is this not why in the heart of multitudes of believers, secretly many are truthfully a bit...shall we say "disappointed" that their Christianity has evolved as it has? What began in our lives with such LIFE....with such excitement, joy and genuine faith in a loving God has somehow inexplicably eroded into something far different. Enough said here. Let he who has ears to hear, hear, I suspect.

Our Christian lives, they are surfacey about Jesus, but far too often not backed up by a real thriving, amazing abiding in Christ, is woefully lacking. Our joy is shriveled and with no signs of changing in this life. We have all slowly lowered our expectations so as to not feel disappointment face some deep questions. But if joy has withered from the hearts of men, and the joy of the Lord is our strength, you can see our dilemma. If evil is getting stronger inside us, we.... the new us... we need to be stronger, and yet without joy, it is impossible.

Listen We all WANT deeper prayer lives, We all WANT to stop sinning, and to care more deeply for the lost, but we do not. We CANNOT. Why? Because in our minds and hearts, we have never identified and disassociated from the enemy. That part of us is dead...gone. And yet here we are at the end of the age, and we are dragging around a carcass through our unbelief. That old me? That old you? It died when you got saved. It is NOT you. It is the enemy. Again, listen closely. We are told to PUT IT OFF. Yes, disassociate. It WAS us. it is us no longer. Who are we? Light. I beg you, take a few minutes in the presence of God and simply ask Him if this is true.

Guys, we are dead. We have not lived like it. We think we never will. We think it impossible. We are wrong. We are about to be more than pleasantly surprised. God has another card to play and it is a biggie. We are about to awaken to who we are….. and light our lamps.

Blessings, 

Gideon

[Guest Butero]

I believe that we are to put off the old man and walk in newness of life, but here is my question.  Are you saying this change is just going to happen out of the blue, and we will suddenly be able to walk according to the new man, where we struggled before?  Is there anything we must do in order for this to happen, or is it just going to occur on it's own?  It sounds like you are trying to motivate us to do something, but I am not sure what that is.  I have already said I am open to consider what you are saying, so I don't need to seek God to ask if it is true.  If I understand you correctly, this is just going to happen, unless I am missing something.  If it is just going to happen?   Where is the fight?  I have made no judgments about anything you have said thus far.  I am just not sure what, if anything, is expected of us.  

[Gideon]

Hi again, great question. And yes, there is something we need to do.

as I said, I walked for almost 38 years trying to jiggle the battery cables to get that ‘spark’. I tried everything...serving as a cell pastor, memorizing scripture, church without fail three times a week, accountability partners, prayer, being prayed for by the elders, disciplining my flesh.... and all added up to abject failure.

That night eleven years ago, I was at the end. God has spoken clearly, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’, and my heart was anything but pure. I refused to lower the standard of holiness being our calling, but by doing so, I became the poster boy for Romans 7. Like most everyone else, I was trapped there, but unlike many, I hated my life and was truly a wretched man. That night, in tears, I cried out to God, telling Him His was was too high, too hard....impossible, unless I received a miracle. And I did.

God appeared and a blinding golden lightput me on my face..... and He spoke to me.... yes, audibly.

“For this, my son, I am well pleased.”

Say whaaatt?? For almost four decades I had longed to feel like my life was pleasing God and now, now in my failure, He tells me I am pleasing? It made no sense.....until He spoke again.

”I knew all along that you could not walk the  walk I had for you, but you did not yet know it.”

Ahhh, that amazing, full of hope,three letter word yet. In an instant, God removed the scales of blindness from my eyes and I saw. I was finally at the place where I had ZERO confidence in my flesh. I was finally at the place where I had NO strength. And God was ready to teach me a life transforming truth I had been blinded to.

He spoke again.

”In all your trying, did you ever do what I  instructed you to do through my apostle Paul?”

Again, He let my eyes instantly see the answer. Romans 6. I had had it memorized, for I knew that Romans 6-8 held a key to it all. I just could not see it.

And what does Paul tell us in Romans 6? Here Paul tells us that first, there are two facts, two truths we MUST know.

1) We died when Christ died. 

2) When Christ rose from the dead, we rose again with Him to newness of life.

We all know that, right? Ok,so what? So, read the next verse. 

“Therefore, reckon yourself dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God.”

And instantly, I saw it. In 38 years of struggling to get mastery over my old nature, I had tried to discipline it, tie it up with heavy chains, re-train it, starve it, ignore it, but never, never, had I done the one thing God asked me to do. Believe it as mine...now.

That word ‘reckon’ is a banking term. If I have money in the bank,but no cash in hand, I can confidently write a check because I KNOW the check is good. I do not hope my check clears. I KNOW it.  It not ‘will be good’ in the future. It is good right now. And not once had I ever appropriated those truths as MY truths, my possession,  right this very minute.

So what did I do? I spoke. Out loud. LOUDLY out loud. I reckoned my old nature not as dying but as dead. DEAD.. I confessed that I was no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit, and that I owed my flesh nothing. I yielded myself to my God not as a poor sinner saved by race, but as one who is alive from the dead. I put off my old man, and clothed myself with my new nature. 

And with my ears hearing truth, my stony little seed of faith that God had given me began to sprout. My ‘good fight of faith’ had begun. There is the fight. It is not a fight to get it. The fight is to hold onto it, and praise God, He plants us on the high ground ad tells us that He will ‘cause us’ to win the fight. 

Brother, what I share works. Many lessons had to be learned. I had to learn that this is not a one time ‘sinless perfectionism’ experience. That is man’s attainment, an impossibility. This is an abiding that works by faith. As we stand with our shields of faith up, they do indeed quench ALL he fiery arrows of the enemy, just as God has promised.

Can we slip here? Yes, but only because our faith is weak. So, IF (not when) we slip, we confess it, repent, and immediately, we re-hoist up our shield of faith as to who we are. Why? Because the only reason we slipped is unbelief. The cure? Believe again! And glory to God, as we do, our faith gets stronger. An as we get established in that faith, as we agree with God as to who we are and who we aren’t, we find abiding in the vine is easy, not hard, no matter how weak we are. And praise God, we discover that as we learn to abide in the vine, we do not fulfill the lusts  of the flesh, just as He promised.

Ok, I have to go to work, lol, but I will be back. Pray on this and let it bless you. I have a strong feeling you are one who will see it. If you have any questions, I would be honored to try to answer them. 

Have a blessed day.

Gideon

 

Edited April 3, 2018 by Gideon

[Guest Butero]

I think most people have a head knowledge of the death of the old man and new life in Christ.  If I am understanding you correctly, the key is simply to believe in our heart what is already in our head.  Is that pretty much it?  

[Gideon]

2 hours ago, Butero said:

I think most people have a head knowledge of the death of the old man and new life in Christ.  If I am understanding you correctly, the key is simply to believe in our heart what is already in our head.  Is that pretty much it?  

You are correct. But here I would like to make some important clarifications.

First, and this is critical, one cannot just decide they are “going to believe it with their heart instead of their head”. To put off your old nature, you have to want to be free of it more than anything else. Jesus said, “Unless you HATE your life, you cannot be my disciple.” The actual believing part is quite simple IF you are properly motivated. But realize this, the old man was ruled by US. We were the pilot, and Jesus the co-pilot. The only time we let Him take the wheel was in emergencies. But walking in the new man, putting on our new nature, is in essence putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. He IS our armor. He becomes not only our savior but also our Lord. 

Our surrender is not “I give up this or that” but “I surrender ME”. This is easily done if we have come to hate our inability to love Him with our whole hearts, and if we hate the fact that our self-love far surpasses our love for others. But if we still want to “sin just a little”, we will find faith remains a door locked to us. We must become like Paul was in Romans 7. Romans 8 awaits, but only to wretched men. 

Right now, for many, that is not even on their bucket list. Why? Because we have all been asleep. Sin is simply not exceedingly sinful to us. We think grace makes out “little”sins quite acceptable, not realizing that those sins put Jesus on the cross, just like those of the drug addict. We have, up til now, had no real desire to walk holy before God. The truth is, our unbelief has hardened our hearts to the point we do not even believe walking as overcomers is even possible. But praise God, all that is about to change. 

God is beginning to awaken us all, both wheat and tares. What will we be awakened to ? Well, let’s see. First, we will be awakened to the cost of following Him. It has always been ALL our pearls. But our modern Christianity has watered this down to having our cake and eating it too. We want to die on the time payment plan, LOL.  Soon, we will understand the full cost. And thankfully, we will soon RUN to Him, beseeching Him to remove those things that once were our treasures. Those  who love the light will begin to HATE their lower nature, our wretched flesh that keeps them earthbound and lukewarm.

We will also waken to the full benefits of our inheritance. Like the prodigal, which we all have been, even those in church, we who truly love God more than we love us will come back to Him and agree to just be Hos willing devoted servants, not sons or daughters, and when we do, to our amazement we will discover what abiding in  the vine truly means for us. Full sonship, always abiding in Him!

There will be no more religious going-through-the-motions Christianity. No more one foot (ok,ok, nine toes is more like it) in this world and one in Heaven. We will truly become sojourner and as we awaken, both wheat and tares, some will fall away (the great falling away) and some will light their lamps, and BE light, new creatures, with their old nature totally left behind.

We will finally see why Jesus called it born again. We are! We will finally understand the spirit of being baptized. We really do come up new people. We finally with understand why it is called “conversion” because we were always meant to be changed.

Sins that have grabbed us fro years will literally melt away. Joy will replace boredom, zeal will replace ho hum    lukewarmness, power to stare down the devil will replace defeated souls. 

Ok, breather time. One last thing, I think it very important to finally have a line drawn in the sand, so to speak. It is important, even if no one is there but you, to verbally make your declaration of faith to God. Your ears need to hear your mouth declare your new nature is real and it is NOW you.

I fully realize all this is quite unheard of.... yet. But there will be an excitement inside that is undeniable. Do not let the fact that others do not see this or want this deter you. Jesus said “How can you believe, which receive honor one of another, and do not seek for that honor that comes from God alone?” The Answer? You can’t.

May our God bless the ears and hearts of those who read these words. A blessing awaits us all.... a life of victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. If any have any questions, feel free to ask. I will do my best to answer.

Blessings,

Gideon

Edited April 3, 2018 by Gideon

[Prycejosh1987]

On 4/3/2018 at 2:53 AM, Gideon said:

Light and goodness go in one direction and evil and darkness the other. Do we not see the world getter more and more evil right before our very eyes? Is the darkness increasing? You bet it is. Guess what? That part of each of us that is willful, stubborn, full of pride, that part will begin to pull even harder, if it has not done so already. Many of you know exactly what I am talking about. But I want to encourage you. It is all about to change.

I agree with you. Once we are in the light we should keep walking through it and stay away from darkness.