Mirror, mirror on the wall.....

[missmuffet]

On 6/28/2020 at 8:59 AM, Gideon said:

 

When you look into a mirror, who do you see? As we stare at ourselves in the spiritual realm, do we see ourselves sinners, still bound by our old fleshly natures? Saved perhaps, but still sinners who will never be able to walk in true obedience until Jesus returns? Or do we see ourselves as children set free from the old nature that continually has bound us and kept us earth-bound? 

The answer we give is no small thing. Here is what the Bible tells us about how we see ourselves when we look in the mirror.

"But be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror; for he beholdeth himself, and then goeth his way and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. 

James 1:22-24

When many read this, their hearts sink. They read this verse as chains of legalism and teying to measure up to God's standard. But that is not at all what James is sharing. Do we remember the answer Jesus gave to the men who came beseeching Him for what they must do to work the works of God? 

"Believe on Him whom He has sent."

We can hear that we are new creatures, and that the old US is dead. We can hear that we are no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit. We can hear that we have not only been forgiven, but have been delivered from the power of darkness. We can hear that whom the Son sets free is free indeed. But let us take care that satan does not deceive us at this critical point.  For upon hearing these great and wonderful truths, there is something we must DO to activate them.

We must believe them. 

Here I am not speaking of a generalized faith. That is simply head knowledge, assent with our minds. What God asks of each one of us is that we personalize these truths, believe they are OUR truths. If we do not, we give the enemy freedom to rob from us the very blessings our birthright entitles us to. 

How easy it is to read that we are new creatures, that we owe the flesh nothing..... NOTHING..... and walk away unaffected by that truth, forgetting what God has plainly declared to us. How important it is that we do not just accept in a "theoretical sort of way" that we are new creatures. We have been given armor, and weapons of war to fight.... and win....  but such amazing gifts can only profit us whwn we put them on.... by faith. 

Our God requests that we see ourselves  with eyes of faith that believe what the Word states about us, that we  WERE sinners, but we have been given brand new natures, natures that not only want ot fully obey Him but CAN.... and WILL obey! Glory! Yes, we have been forgiven, but we have been also washed, we have been made new! 

We are not asks to "perform" to a certain level to please Him. HE is the potter, not us. If we yield ourselves to Him, weak but pliable, He will do the changing, and it will take our breath away as we see the results of His workings from within us. 

Therefor, get your eyes off the old "you" when you stare into God's mirror. Listen to what He promises us:

 

But we all, with uncovered face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

2 Corinthians 3:18

The end of our journey approaches. There is safety found in Him alone. Let us all lose ourselves in Him, and as we look into the mirror, let our confession line up with what He says about us, not with what the enemy of our souls has whispered incessantly in our ears. 

How do we walk as Jesus walked? Whwn we look in the mirror, we see Jesus. Simple. As Paul declared, it is no more us that live, but Christ who now lives in us, and the life we now live we live by the faith of the Son of God. Amen and amen!

blessings to all, 

Gids

 

I see myself as a child of God. 

[Gideon]

2 hours ago, Alive said:

I wonder @Gideon if you realize that a great many believers the world over have known these things. That the Lord has raised up teachers all through the centuries that teach these things and that a great many also, have been shown these Truths via scripture study and the Holy Spirit and have had not only the head knowledge, but also the 'experiential' knowledge?

It is true that much has been lost to/in various organizations, but that the Lord has always had those that walk in Him. It is also true that over the last 100 years or so, much of this has been 'restored' to a wide swath of christendom. It is not a new thing.

The question is not if it is a new thing. I am not privy to a revelation never before given to others. I am nothing special. I simply saw myself as more wretched! LOL. Thank God for those who have seen the truth of who they are and who believe it, never letting the truth of who they are become 'just another truth'.

The question is, however, "Is it a critically needful thing?" Can you live without it?    Those content where they are are not yet ready to only believe. The coming shakings are being sent to change that in us.

Several years after my revelation that literally turned my life around,  I came across a book written that almost exactly matched what I had been shown. It had been written in 1978. Excitedly, I looked up the author to try to contact him. I found several books  he had written afterwords, and none even mentioned the life altering truth of who we truly are.

This truth can be understood with the mind, yet ungrasped at all by the heart, and such knowledge is totally unprofitable.  To be given a way to abide in Him all day every day, to be given weaponry that will send satan fleeing because he has become incapable of penetrating our shield of faith,  are these truths commonly found in the body of Christ? 

We are told that holiness is the will of God for our lives,that we are to kbow how to possess our bodies in holiness and righteousness. Please share with  me as to which churches actually teach such amazing news. 

Why can a man know  this truth with their heads and still be held captive to sin and self? Simply because he does not yet hate his old nature. He instead thinks that if he feeds his old nature enough head knowledge about the truth of his newness, he will become new. It will be his 'revelation of the day', shortly to be replaced by a new one. 

But when a man is broken of all self confidence, snd hates his rebellious old nature that so often refuses to take the way of escape when undergoing temptation, and cries out to the Lord for true deliverance from evil as Jesus taught us to pray, God breathes on his faith and he finally sees with his spiritual eyes what had previpusly been hidden from him. 

Free indeed is not a positional state.  Nor is it a mental state.  It can only be seen with spiritual eyes, when we come to the end of our rope hungering and thirsting for righteousness and yet realizing we simply have no strength to resist sin, nor ability in ourselves to oust our old nature from its position of sitting on the throne of our life.

Brokenness, a crisis point in our lives, must be passed through. Like Paul in Romans 7, we too must see ourselves as wretched men, powerless men in resisting evil. Only then will we be able to  look completely away from ourselves and cry out for our deliverer.

The temptation is to get saved and rest. Yes, we have escaped Egypt. But a land of promise awaits each one of us. The rest is reserved for those who have finally escaped the wilderness and entered into the land of promise. I pray none come short of its full possession.

blessings, brother

Gideon

Edited June 30, 2020 by Gideon

[Alive]

Gideon---have you ever read Watchman Nee and T. A. Sparks?

[Alive]

50 minutes ago, dhchristian said:

The Question you asked is straight out of Satan's handbook.... Just sayin' 

The question is will you acknowledge this? Or will you continue to deny this? 

It was a valid question and you are taking an awful high position, here.

IMO...this is way out of line for you to so indict a brother.

 

[Gideon]

1 hour ago, Josheb said:

We were never in disagreement on this matter. 

That doesn't change my other inquiries. Why qualify or limit what is otherwise a universal condition with eschatology? Don't answer that; I'm asking solely to highlight the validity of the inquiry - no matter how might have asked it. 

 

Yes, we are promised a good tree will produce good fruit but we must understand those words are spoken with a certain hyperbole common in scripture. If taken literally works, not faith would be the dividing line between those truly saved and those just posing. In Luke 6 Jesus states a thorn tree cannot bear figs, nor a briar bush grapes. There is no good tree which produces bad fruit. If taken literally that would have disqualified Paul and Peter from apostleship. (it's one of the reasons I asked about sinless perfectionism earlier) A more whole-scripture understanding would be to understand we were all once bad trees and are being made into fruit-bearing "trees" or "vines" by abiding in Christ (John 15). So one of the things we want to avoid if/as we discuss "what we see in the mirror" is all-or-nothing thinking. 

How can we be assured what we see is not a distortion? On one hand it is definitely a distortion because none of us truly know, see, nor understand our sonship (daughtership) in Christ. One the other hand, and the hand more relevant to this op, we have the written word.  The Word is the measure of our experience, whether our efforts to model Christ or visions or rhema, etc. Anything that clearly contradicts the written word must be discarded. Like negative attribution of strangers, or the suspicion a poster is up to no good just because he has a different pov or asks uncomfortable questions. 

Ultimately most of it doesn't matter when the end comes because three things will occur in every single one of our lives: 

 

1) we'll all have unaddressed sin on our ledger.

 

2) we'll find there were areas in our doctrines that we wrong.

 

 

3) we'll all still be saved if we persisted in faith.

 

Both sin and fruit-bearing are best measured by the word. There is fruit each of us will bear that is unique to us. This is implicit in the purpose of our salvation because we are saved by grace, through faith, for works God had planned in advance for us to perform (Eph. 2:8-10). It is not solely in answering these questions that we determine anything. It is in acting out those answers that we determine what we're looking at in the mirror. 

 

I've made some errors and will work to mitigate them. How do you think you've done here, Gideon? What do you see in the mirror of the forum? 

The  Lord knows my strong desire to share with others where I have given my all, held nothing back, and done so with love on my heart for all I share with. Do I always hit that  mark? I wish! LOL.

As to making it personal to you,  I have apologized and will do so again. May God keep me from doing so again.  My motive was right, but my delivery was certainly needing improvement, and for that I am truly sorry. 
 

As to your concern about bringing eschatology into it,  why I do so is that oftentimes, when one knows that time is running out,  we are moved to change course in a way we would never do if things were assured to never be different. If we knew we would die a week from today.... guaranteed..... would we go on with our lives  as currently lived? I sincerely doubt so.

The hour is late, even though you do not agree. The need is great. The church as a whole is languishing, and displaying little of Jesus to a lost and soon-to-be-judged world. That should bother us to our core.  Tha fact that it does not speaks volumes as to our overall condition. 

We read in the parable of the messenger of the King announcing the King's imminent return. But the King's servants were too busy to respond, being occupied with other things, things of this life. Thus, they refused to make ready for the arrival of their master. The King  heard this and was hurt and angry.  He commanded his messenger  to go instead to the poor, the halt, the lame, the broken of this life and COMPEL them to come in, for His house WILL be full. 

I love that word.... compel.... , and thus, in my weakness and imperfect ways, I am attempting to compel His children, my fellow saints,  to open their hearts to the truth that Jesus can... and WILL... keep us from falling as we trust Him to do so. Paul tells us that despite us still having physical bodies, we are no longer in the flesh spiritually and owe it nothing. Oh, that we would grasp such an amazing truth! 

 As I have stated, what I share is not perfection. It is rather the way we can abide in Him all day every day, and see ourselves changed to where we are almost unrecognizable from who we have been up till now. And what is one of the acid tests of whether or not we are truly abiding? 

We do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. 

Have I arrived? Ha! But..... and this is a huge but...... have I seen my heart, my demeanor, my actions, my motives changed since reckoning myself dead to my old nature and putting on the new me now fourteen years ago? Yes, yes, yes and yes. Is more changing needed? Absolutely! Do I have confidence that He can keep me in Him and do a complete work in me, filling me with all the fullness of God He He destined me to walk in? Praise God, yes, I do. 

blessings, dear Josh

Gideon

 

[TheBlade]

Not sure if there is really anything to say but.. amen

Some of these posts.... lol praise God.

These last days.. AMEN!

I always pray Eph 4:22-32 I make it personal.

I ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts  And I am  renewed in the spirit of my mind. And I put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. I putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:  I give no place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. I Let no corrupt communication proceed out of my mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And I grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from me, with all malice: And I am kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

Faith.. can't please Him with out it. I think its hard for some to see past flesh. You know.. to go from the natural to the super natrual

 

 

 

[Gideon]

8 hours ago, David1701 said:

I have only seen a tiny handful of your posts and I have only posted on this forum in two, short spells.  One, for a few weeks, when I first joined; and now, for the last few weeks.

You have also not said whether or not you believe WoF teaching regarding the points I mentioned.  Here they are again.

1) Visualise what you want to happen.

2) Speak words of faith to bring it about.

3) Have faith in your faith.

4) Faith is a force that anyone can use (including unbelievers). 

Do you believe these or not?  Remember that you said that WoF principles were sound, only misapplied to material things.

The shield of faith, is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Yes, that is the shield, doused in the water of the word of God, that we hold up against the fiery darts.

You don't know what trusting in the Lord means?  It means to rely upon him, as one who is fully able and absolutely trustworthy; it means to cling to him as the only Saviour and to look away from ourselves.

In the words of a famous hymn, "Trust and obey, for there's no other way, to be happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey.".

All born again Christians ARE overcomers!

1 John 5:4 (ESV) For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world— our faith.

That is part of our testimony; but remember that the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus.  Our testimony is about HIM, who HE is, what HE has done (especially the cross and resurrection), that HE saved us and washed us in HIS blood, that HE keeps us, etc.

Indeed; but look away from yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Author and Finisher of our faith.

Long post, and I had to leave for a while, but let me take a atb at answering you, David. As to my discussion of faith principles, there is no doubt that the WoF movement has twisted things far out of kilter. If you are interpreting what I share from your anti-WoF opinion, and in my mind  it is a very justified thing to do so, I can understand why  you may think my faith principles are suspect.  

So, let me clarify here if ai can. 

First, faith is like a muscle. It must be exercised. As we are told, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. We have a need. We ask God for something we know to be His will for us, believing for the answer.  If we doubt, we are not believing but doubting, and James tells us we will not receive our request from the Father. 

We are also told that we are to believe we receive it when we ask for it, what is often referred to as NOW faith. If we believe we will receive it some day in the future, we are edging away from faith and more in line with hope. Hope is good, but it is not faith.  

Now the receiving of our petition may take time to be manifested, but we are to receive it now, and believe it is a done deal. 

And so it is with our reckoning ourselves dead to sin and our believing we truly are new creatures that have been delivered from the power of darkness. We read that the old us died. We desperately want the old us out of the picture. God tells us to reckon it so.... to, without any evidence outwardly, declare it so. God asks us to appropriate the truth of who we are as a done deal. 

We believe it with our heads, in a generalized sort of way that we died when Christ died, that when Christ rose from the dead to newness of life, so did we. But that is truth lying in our heads. It does nothing to change our circumstances.

Ah, but faith grabs hold of those two truth, when we are desperate enough to exercise audacious faith. For me, it was when I had tried everything I knew to walk in victory and still ended up yielding to sin I hated, that the only thing left to do was believe for it. And even this I could not see until Jesus opened my eyes to the beauty of faith and why it so pleases God. 

God wants us as His children to believe Him . He has given us some amazing promises, promises we for the most part have never walked in and truth be told, currently do not even think realistically possible. Yet Peter  tells us that it is through our stepping out to believe in  these promises... because we believe we serve a God who cannot lie.... that we are transformed more and more into the image of the one we all  love. 

When we step out to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to Him, satan immediately comes and tries to pry those words out of our mouths and hearts, for he is well aware the dangers posed by someone truly walking as an overcomer.

Thus, another principle of faith is continuing to believe, despite any lack of phtpysical evidence. It is in this continuing that patience is developed. If we do not see immediate results, do we assume God didn't answer? Not at all!  We continue in the faith, grounded and settled. This is our good fight of faith, where we do not allow the enemy to rob us of our reward. 

There are more, and I personally have much to still learn, but I know this much. Jesus died to deliver us from the power of darkness. Our walk began with forgiveness. But He desires we walk free indeed, for that was His goal for every one of His children. His will has been clearly stated. Our full sanctification, with us possessing our bodies in holiness and righteousness. 

And if we know wecask according to His will, we also know He hears us and gives us what we ask for. A pure heart is certainly not something we ask for to consume upon our own lusts. It is a noble desire! So we ask in confidence, reckoning the truth that when Christ died, so did our old carnal nature as OUR truth, OUR possession. 

I pray this helps.

blessings, 

Gids 

 

[Gideon]

18 minutes ago, TheBlade said:

Not sure if there is really anything to say but.. amen

Some of these posts.... lol praise God.

These last days.. AMEN!

I always pray Eph 4:22-32 I make it personal.

I ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts  And I am  renewed in the spirit of my mind. And I put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. I putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:  I give no place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. I Let no corrupt communication proceed out of my mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And I grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from me, with all malice: And I am kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

Faith.. can't please Him with out it. I think its hard for some to see past flesh. You know.. to go from the natural to the super natrual

 

 

 

Thank you for that, Blade. You are a blessing. 

Gids

[David1701]

54 minutes ago, Gideon said:

Long post, and I had to leave for a while, but let me take a atb at answering you, David. As to my discussion of faith principles, there is no doubt that the WoF movement has twisted things far out of kilter. If you are interpreting what I share from your anti-WoF opinion, and in my mind  it is a very justified thing to do so, I can understand why  you may think my faith principles are suspect.  

So, let me clarify here if ai can. 

First, faith is like a muscle. It must be exercised. As we are told, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. We have a need. We ask God for something we know to be His will for us, believing for the answer.  If we doubt, we are not believing but doubting, and James tells us we will not receive our request from the Father. 

We are also told that we are to believe we receive it when we ask for it, what is often referred to as NOW faith. If we believe we will receive it some day in the future, we are edging away from faith and more in line with hope. Hope is good, but it is not faith.  

Now the receiving of our petition may take time to be manifested, but we are to receive it now, and believe it is a done deal. 

And so it is with our reckoning ourselves dead to sin and our believing we truly are new creatures that have been delivered from the power of darkness. We read that the old us died. We desperately want the old us out of the picture. God tells us to reckon it so.... to, without any evidence outwardly, declare it so. God asks us to appropriate the truth of who we are as a done deal. 

We believe it with our heads, in a generalized sort of way that we died when Christ died, that when Christ rose from the dead to newness of life, so did we. But that is truth lying in our heads. It does nothing to change our circumstances.

Ah, but faith grabs hold of those two truth, when we are desperate enough to exercise audacious faith. For me, it was when I had tried everything I knew to walk in victory and still ended up yielding to sin I hated, that the only thing left to do was believe for it. And even this I could not see until Jesus opened my eyes to the beauty of faith and why it so pleases God. 

God wants us as His children to believe Him . He has given us some amazing promises, promises we for the most part have never walked in and truth be told, currently do not even think realistically possible. Yet Peter  tells us that it is through our stepping out to believe in  these promises... because we believe we serve a God who cannot lie.... that we are transformed more and more into the image of the one we all  love. 

When we step out to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to Him, satan immediately comes and tries to pry those words out of our mouths and hearts, for he is well aware the dangers posed by someone truly walking as an overcomer.

Thus, another principle of faith is continuing to believe, despite any lack of phtpysical evidence. It is in this continuing that patience is developed. If we do not see immediate results, do we assume God didn't answer? Not at all!  We continue in the faith, grounded and settled. This is our good fight of faith, where we do not allow the enemy to rob us of our reward. 

There are more, and I personally have much to still learn, but I know this much. Jesus died to deliver us from the power of darkness. Our walk began with forgiveness. But He desires we walk free indeed, for that was His goal for every one of His children. His will has been clearly stated. Our full sanctification, with us possessing our bodies in holiness and righteousness. 

And if we know wecask according to His will, we also know He hears us and gives us what we ask for. A pure heart is certainly not something we ask for to consume upon our own lusts. It is a noble desire! So we ask in confidence, reckoning the truth that when Christ died, so did our old carnal nature as OUR truth, OUR possession. 

I pray this helps.

blessings, 

Gids 

 

Thanks, that has answered my questions, in a roundabout way.

In general, I agree with what you've posted, not only doctrinally but also in experience.

I'm unsure why you earlier quibbled with trusting in the Lord, which is what all those who walk in faith and fellowship with the Lord do.  We not only believe in who we are, as new creations, but, and much more importantly, we look to him at all times, for all that we need, and not to ourselves, for, without him, we can do nothing.

[Alive]

9 minutes ago, David1701 said:

Thanks, that has answered my questions, in a roundabout way.

In general, I agree with what you've posted, not only doctrinally but also in experience.

I'm unsure why you earlier quibbled with trusting in the Lord, which is what all those who walk in faith and fellowship with the Lord do.  We not only believe in who we are, as new creations, but, and much more importantly, we look to him at all times, for all that we need, and not to ourselves, for, without him, we can do nothing.

Yup...this is the crux. Where our effort and His intersect. That has to be experienced in His Grace and work from beginning to end. We are co workers and companions, but rely on His strength for all.

we become less and He is more.