We have all heard the story. There is, inside each of us, a black dog and a white dog and they are fighting. Which one wins? The one we feed the most, right? Hmm, it may seem that way but in truth, is this right at all?? Is it scriptural? If we err here, we can spend years assuming that our seeming eternal unrest and impossible-to-defeat flesh is "normal". I am here to share with you some good news. It is not.
You see, after 38 years of striving to defeat my own out of control flesh, addicted to porn and masturbation, five years ago I was shown the pathway to freedom that is the birthright of every single one of us to love the Lord in truth. You see, it was then that God mercifully visited me and showed me the truth I had been missing. I have walked this pathway for five years and in that time, as I have trusted God to keep me in victory, He has not once failed me. After 38 years of struggling as a believer, my desperation brought me to my knees and one glorious night five years ago, God showed me this....what I share with you now. It took me a while before I totally “got it” but I now realize that this is the missing puzzle piece that will rescue us from religion and do’s and don’ts to LIFE, walking as victorious overcomers as sons and daughters of God. I ask that you prayerfully consider it.
1) The reason Jesus came was to set His people free from not only the penalty for our sins (forgiveness) but also from the power of sin in our lives. (John 8) Sin is NOT to have dominon over us as believers.
2) Walking in victory is meant to be normal Christianity, not for the super strong or for those who can wrestle their flesh under control by their own will power. Romans 7 is to be the wilderness we pass through on our escape from Egypt, but we are meant to live and move and have our being in Romans 8. It s for the weak, those who know they do not have the strength to love the Lord with ALL of their hearts, or have the will power to resist the temptations that are hurled at us daily.
3) The early church walked in this truth and because of the joy of seeing their flesh totally dealt with and sins that once bound them defeated fully, they were like a wildfire in spreading the gospel, and many in the world listened because they saw it WORK in the lives of the believers.
4) The key element that is missing, and that God is restoring to His bride in these last days is the truth found in Romans 6, the key that let us escape Romans 7 and dwell in Romans 8.
And what is that? That God offers all of us, no matter how weak, no matter how badly we have messed up our lives, the ability to believe that when Christ died, so did our fleshly old nature, the one that self… our yucky, rebellious us, rules. When Christ rose from the dead, He brought us with Him and made us new creatures, with new natures! With these two truths firmly before us, He then asks us to do ONE thing. It is not a work that only those who have it all together can do. It is an act of weakness and abandonment. He asks us to admit we cannot love as He asks, cannot obey as He asks us obey, cannot do ANYTHING until it is Christ inside of us doing the work.
With this admission acknowledged, He asks that we “put off” our old fleshly nature, reckoning it DEAD and to by faith believe the impossible, that we are new creatures, with natures that are victorious ones. He asks that we add victory in Christ over sin, over addictions, over self and self love, over satan himself, over the world thsthas always, up til now defeated us, to our spiritual bank accounts by faith alone.
To legalists, it sounds as if this take on truth is saying sin is ok and reckoning is enough. They do not understand that when we do indeed hold up the shield of faith as to who we are in Him, IT WORKS! God really does begin to abide in us and "cause us" (see Ezekiel 36) to walk obediently. But this path to our full obedience is from the inside out, just as Jesus told us, not from trying to get the worst and most visible outer sins defeated.
Once we abide in Him and stand fast in victory by our reckoning, God Himself begins to grow fruits in us... love, joy, peace, patience, and yes, the one we have failed to master our entire Christian walks.....self control (Galatians 2).
To those who say grace is why we do not have to worry about sin in our lives, this truth that Isharesounds like a work we must do, and smacks of legalism, of something God demands we do. But what God does is simply offer us a way out....a way out of our battle, our failure, our weakness. This is where His saints, His weak followers, can say with confidence,,,,, "I am strong!" and see our strength grow miraculously.
The church of Jesus that once turned the entire world upside down has become a weak, splintered religion that talks much of freedom but none walk in it. We talk of the joy of the lord, but how few really are experiencing it. We are told to be satisfied with forgiveness because the battle with our flesh is never ending and real victory over self is a mirage….impossible. But God is not coming back to rescue a defeated bride. She will be walking in glory, our faces shining in joy, arms linked with other believers as we discover the secret of how to love the Lord with ALL of our heart, and love our brothers and sisters in Christ so much that again, the world will exclaim "Behold the love they have one for another."
This can only happen when the power of self is stripped away, revealing who we really are... and in truth, who we always really have been. We ARE new, we ARE light, we ARE victorious over sin, but there is a missing key to make it come to the surface....our faith.
God said this in Revelations of His people in the last days:
"and they shall overcome him (the devil) by the blood of the lamb AND the words of their testimony."
In the coming days, the entire church is going to be awakened. A hunger for more will drive God's children to their knees to seek for a victory that up till now was not even believed possible. But be encouraged, dear weak, hungry ones. We are the ones who are destined to see this scriptures fulfilled before our eyes:
"I am going to do a work in your days, that if your eyes did not see it, you would not believe it."
What is coming is glorious, and once again the world is about to be turned upside down by an on-fire, live drenched church. But God is going to start by turning our own lives on their heads, and planting our own feet on the highway of holiness. It is not a hard, pain-filled "whipping ourselves into acting like God's true servants", for if we follow this path, in the end we only end up defeated and despondent, or worse yet, religious and pride filled. No more holding on by our fingernails. God offers us REAL overcoming victory as we stare down the enemy of our souls and refuse to listen to the lies he bombards us with day and night. No, guys, God has destined us to be FREE INDEED.
Like Jesus, it will be because of the joy set before us, we will willingly run into Him, and by faith overcoming the world and our own old, selfish natures. Joy will empower us, love will fuel us, not religious duty.
We have all heard it. There is a black dog inside us and a white dog inside us and they are fighting. We are told that the one that wins is the one we feed the most. There is one problem…. We keep feeding the wrong dog. But the truth, according to God’s word, is that there is no more black dog in us! Look, we do not have to attempt to starve it to death. The black dog is dead! Our job is to believe it and to use it as our shield of faith.
We are new. It is no more we that live, but Christ IN US. It is time we light our lamps as to who we are in Him....who we have always been. It is time we believe our God.
Be blessed.
Gideon
You see, after 38 years of striving to defeat my own out of control flesh, addicted to porn and masturbation, five years ago I was shown the pathway to freedom that is the birthright of every single one of us to love the Lord in truth. You see, it was then that God mercifully visited me and showed me the truth I had been missing. I have walked this pathway for five years and in that time, as I have trusted God to keep me in victory, He has not once failed me. After 38 years of struggling as a believer, my desperation brought me to my knees and one glorious night five years ago, God showed me this....what I share with you now. It took me a while before I totally “got it” but I now realize that this is the missing puzzle piece that will rescue us from religion and do’s and don’ts to LIFE, walking as victorious overcomers as sons and daughters of God. I ask that you prayerfully consider it.
1) The reason Jesus came was to set His people free from not only the penalty for our sins (forgiveness) but also from the power of sin in our lives. (John 8) Sin is NOT to have dominon over us as believers.
2) Walking in victory is meant to be normal Christianity, not for the super strong or for those who can wrestle their flesh under control by their own will power. Romans 7 is to be the wilderness we pass through on our escape from Egypt, but we are meant to live and move and have our being in Romans 8. It s for the weak, those who know they do not have the strength to love the Lord with ALL of their hearts, or have the will power to resist the temptations that are hurled at us daily.
3) The early church walked in this truth and because of the joy of seeing their flesh totally dealt with and sins that once bound them defeated fully, they were like a wildfire in spreading the gospel, and many in the world listened because they saw it WORK in the lives of the believers.
4) The key element that is missing, and that God is restoring to His bride in these last days is the truth found in Romans 6, the key that let us escape Romans 7 and dwell in Romans 8.
And what is that? That God offers all of us, no matter how weak, no matter how badly we have messed up our lives, the ability to believe that when Christ died, so did our fleshly old nature, the one that self… our yucky, rebellious us, rules. When Christ rose from the dead, He brought us with Him and made us new creatures, with new natures! With these two truths firmly before us, He then asks us to do ONE thing. It is not a work that only those who have it all together can do. It is an act of weakness and abandonment. He asks us to admit we cannot love as He asks, cannot obey as He asks us obey, cannot do ANYTHING until it is Christ inside of us doing the work.
With this admission acknowledged, He asks that we “put off” our old fleshly nature, reckoning it DEAD and to by faith believe the impossible, that we are new creatures, with natures that are victorious ones. He asks that we add victory in Christ over sin, over addictions, over self and self love, over satan himself, over the world thsthas always, up til now defeated us, to our spiritual bank accounts by faith alone.
To legalists, it sounds as if this take on truth is saying sin is ok and reckoning is enough. They do not understand that when we do indeed hold up the shield of faith as to who we are in Him, IT WORKS! God really does begin to abide in us and "cause us" (see Ezekiel 36) to walk obediently. But this path to our full obedience is from the inside out, just as Jesus told us, not from trying to get the worst and most visible outer sins defeated.
Once we abide in Him and stand fast in victory by our reckoning, God Himself begins to grow fruits in us... love, joy, peace, patience, and yes, the one we have failed to master our entire Christian walks.....self control (Galatians 2).
To those who say grace is why we do not have to worry about sin in our lives, this truth that Isharesounds like a work we must do, and smacks of legalism, of something God demands we do. But what God does is simply offer us a way out....a way out of our battle, our failure, our weakness. This is where His saints, His weak followers, can say with confidence,,,,, "I am strong!" and see our strength grow miraculously.
The church of Jesus that once turned the entire world upside down has become a weak, splintered religion that talks much of freedom but none walk in it. We talk of the joy of the lord, but how few really are experiencing it. We are told to be satisfied with forgiveness because the battle with our flesh is never ending and real victory over self is a mirage….impossible. But God is not coming back to rescue a defeated bride. She will be walking in glory, our faces shining in joy, arms linked with other believers as we discover the secret of how to love the Lord with ALL of our heart, and love our brothers and sisters in Christ so much that again, the world will exclaim "Behold the love they have one for another."
This can only happen when the power of self is stripped away, revealing who we really are... and in truth, who we always really have been. We ARE new, we ARE light, we ARE victorious over sin, but there is a missing key to make it come to the surface....our faith.
God said this in Revelations of His people in the last days:
"and they shall overcome him (the devil) by the blood of the lamb AND the words of their testimony."
In the coming days, the entire church is going to be awakened. A hunger for more will drive God's children to their knees to seek for a victory that up till now was not even believed possible. But be encouraged, dear weak, hungry ones. We are the ones who are destined to see this scriptures fulfilled before our eyes:
"I am going to do a work in your days, that if your eyes did not see it, you would not believe it."
What is coming is glorious, and once again the world is about to be turned upside down by an on-fire, live drenched church. But God is going to start by turning our own lives on their heads, and planting our own feet on the highway of holiness. It is not a hard, pain-filled "whipping ourselves into acting like God's true servants", for if we follow this path, in the end we only end up defeated and despondent, or worse yet, religious and pride filled. No more holding on by our fingernails. God offers us REAL overcoming victory as we stare down the enemy of our souls and refuse to listen to the lies he bombards us with day and night. No, guys, God has destined us to be FREE INDEED.
Like Jesus, it will be because of the joy set before us, we will willingly run into Him, and by faith overcoming the world and our own old, selfish natures. Joy will empower us, love will fuel us, not religious duty.
We have all heard it. There is a black dog inside us and a white dog inside us and they are fighting. We are told that the one that wins is the one we feed the most. There is one problem…. We keep feeding the wrong dog. But the truth, according to God’s word, is that there is no more black dog in us! Look, we do not have to attempt to starve it to death. The black dog is dead! Our job is to believe it and to use it as our shield of faith.
We are new. It is no more we that live, but Christ IN US. It is time we light our lamps as to who we are in Him....who we have always been. It is time we believe our God.
Be blessed.
Gideon