When we get a sober estimation of ourselves from God's eyes, it brings true humility and brokenness which allows us finally to become poor in spirit. Blessed are the poor in Spirit for there is the kingdom of God. Matthew 5:3 God resist the proud, but gives grace to the humble. James 4:6
If we truly walk in the Spirit of God, His work is to convict of sin, not just the"sins or mistakes" we make. He has come to show us our entire sin nature, and the root of our problem the "self life."A self life now controlled by sin. Sin that desires to fill that self with the things God made instead of God himself. A sin nature that would worship the created things and not the Creator.
This sin nature we inherited from our first parents, Adam and Eve. God gave us the "self" the ability to choose for one purpose to "choose him and his kingdom and be always dependent upon Him for everything."
Satan deceived Adam and Eve to choose something outside of God and His will to be "their own god and satisfy their own needs as he tried to do in his rebellion against God.
Our "self" was made for only one purpose, God. It has one function: to please Him and obey Him out of the deepest love for Him. Jesus said, "if you love me, you will obey me, and keep my commands." John 14:15
The "self" or "flesh" or "mind" God has given us was made to be always filled with him in complete submission to his heart and his desires. Because of Adam and Eve's sin our eyes were opened to the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and now we "could be like God" and choose whatever we want. We can decide for ourselves apart from God what we want to call good and evil.
Because of their sin mankind could now live for another will, "my will!" Before Lucifer fell there was only one will, God's will or THY WILL!. When Lucifer sinned with his rebellion against God, two wills entered the realm of creation.
Lucifer's rebellion was defeated and he was cast down to the Earth. His plan then became to entice men and women to do what he did, rebel against God and His will and do their own will like him.
God knew this was going to happen already, and he had a plan to remove that other will "my will" from the heart of mankind through the sacrifice of His own beloved Son. Why did God make us lower than angels, yet give us a higher place with him. Because we were going to be made in his image and in his likeness. We would become the perfect bride for his Son Jesus.
The Father had the plan before anything was made that he would create us for his one purpose, His pleasure. He was going to make a creation (mankind) that would be able to freely love him because they choose to. A creation that would do his will because the freely choose to because they love him that much. That is why we were made.
That was his intention for giving us our "free will" our "self" or "self life" to choose Him of our own free will. He waits for us to choose willingly the entire surrender of that "self' to Him and His will out of pure holy love for Him alone. Beloveds, this Adam and Eve did every day of their life until they tempted and then fell by their sin. Up until then, God's presence and God' Glory was their covering so strong they did not even know they were naked.
Adam and Eve never choose evil until they were tempted with the offer "to be like God." The tragic part of that temptation was they were "already like God, made in "his image and likeness. Eve was led to believe God was holding something "good" from her.
Satan convinced her that there was something to gain more than God Himself being all she needed. She believes the lie of Satan and by her own choice she acts independently from God's will by making her own choice and sins against God.
What is sin? Sin is living our lives outside of God's will and desires. It is choosing what please us and not God.
Sin chooses not to "deny" self, but to "satisfy "self with the things God made or evil which satan brought into the world by exalting his "self" over God. The voice of the anti-christ spirit declares in your heart you are our own god, do whatever you want.
When the Holy Spirit can convict you of the power of sin in your life as in Romans chapter 7, and not "sins or mistakes you make" you begin to understand the root of the problem is the "sin nature".
That nature is a life that would desire to satisfy itself, please itself, by denying God and what God would want for your life. Self is the power to choose and we have two choices, please self and deny God, or deny our selves and please God.
Every day we are faced with 1000's of choices maybe more, in each one we have "self" that can be led by sin or make us a slave to sin, or we can choose God and His will and not sin, and choose what is only pleasing to him.
Without Jesus saving us and being born again and living a new creation life, self will always satisfy itself with the things of this world and do only what makes it happy, That is sin to the fullest.
When we get born again the Holy Spirit come to convict of sin, first by all our sins we committed and then cause us to repent to have those sins forgiven. When we accept and receive Jesus in our hearts His blood washes my sins away. Then we start our journey in Christ to follow His laws and commands because we love and want him.
Yet after a while in this walk with God, we begin to see that we still keep stumbling, still keep sinning, and sometimes don't get victory over old habits and mind sets yet we keep seeking God and trying to fix what is wrong. We will fast more. We will pray more.
We will read Christian books to help us get power over our habits, and things we know that don't please God, yet alas we come to the end of Romans 7 with Paul and say, "oh wretched man that I am, who shall my body from the shackles of death?" Oh thank God, He will, through Jesus Christ.."
Beloved, this is when we realize we need more of God and the problem is more than trying to be better Christians. The problem is bigger than trying in our own power to live a Christian life and constantly failing or only getting victory for a few weeks.
The Holy Spirit can now convict us we are not to live a yo-yo Christian life of always up and down, victory and failure, mixture and defeat. He convicts us there is a higher Christian life to live than this.
He know reveals to us that there is a far surpassing victory in Christ we must know and were made for. The Holy Spirit must bring us the end of all our human efforts of trying to serve and please God with one ounce of human power. He know is ready to bring us into the REST OF GOD!
The Holy Spirit begins the deeper work of not only bringing out of our sins, but now if we will surrender to His power. He will bring us in to the land or promise where sin will no longer reign in our life. He brings us to the understanding of Romans 8:2, "that the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus HAS FREED ME FROM THE POWER OF SIN AND DEATH!
He does this when He can show us the root cause of all our failure is the "sin nature." A nature in our being "that wants to rebel against God continually and wants our "flesh" to be satisfied."
When we desire to fill our "self" and decide to choose the things of the world to satisfy the flesh we sin, we get all the miseries of sin, and we die spiritually. This is message or Romans chapter 8. The Holy Spirit has come to convict us only of the sins we did, but the very root of sin that remains in us.
The self "mind of the flesh" can not please God. The "self"or"flesh" which is our mind and reason apart from the Holy Spirit is our power to choose to do whatever we want, get whatever we want, speak whatever we want to satisfy our own self. That self life is sin and it is death to our spiritual life.
That is where we get the word selfish, self-seeking, self-righteous, and more. All of these terms are the fruit of the "self" being filled with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and we become our own gods.
Yet, Jesus destroyed and conquered the power of the "self life" to fill itself with the world at Gethsemane and at the cross. He sweat great drops of blood not to "fill the self" with the way out of suffering the father planned for him. He said, "Father if it be possible, take this cup from me, but nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done. "
It is here, He bought our victory and He completed it by taking the power of the self life, the flesh, and crucified it by hanging that body of sin and death on the tree to die for us. He rose again not in the power of a human fleshly life, but in the power of the spirit of a resurrected life free from the power of sin and death. Sin and it's nature no longer was in his body to tempt him.
He then sends down to us the power of that victory on the day of Pentecost so that as He lived in the world so can we.
In Romans chapter 8 we see the power of the Baptism of the The Holy Spirit doing its full work a second time in our life. He comes to convict us a second time not of our "sins we have committed or the fruit of our sins," but He comes to convict us of our "sin nature."
Beloved, we must allow the Holy Spirit to bring us a deeper truth and brokenness before God. A conviction as found in Galatians chapter 2 when Paul writes to them to reflect on their true spiritual life in Christ.
Saints of the Most High God, these are the sames words God is speaking to us as believer's today in this nation. It is true beloved although we go to church, pay our tithes, do our works for God, yet there is so little victory over sin in our lives, yet we are trying to do all these marvelous things for God to reach the lost.
Is God interested in our "works for him" in our own flesh, or is he interested in "His work" in us changing us from glory to glory into His image to be the reflection of His life and His glory in our life in this world?
Galatians 2:1-4:
1. O you poor and silly and thoughtless and un-reflecting and senseless Galatians! Who has fascinated or bewitched or cast a spell over you, unto whom—right before your very eyes—Jesus Christ (the Messiah) was openly and graphically set forth and portrayed as crucified?
2 Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the [Holy] Spirit as the result of obeying the Law and
doing its works, or was it by hearing [the message of the Gospel] and
believing [it]? [Was it from observing a law of rituals or from a
message of faith?]
3 Are you so foolish and so senseless and
so silly? Having begun [your new life spiritually] with the [Holy]
Spirit, are you now reaching perfection [by dependence] on the flesh?
4 Have you suffered so many things and experienced so much all for nothing (to no purpose)—if it really is to no purpose and in vain
Until He is able to bring us to the truths in Romans chapter 7 we will never see the Holy Spirit doing the second and full work of the conviction of sin and how he must free us.
Yet, to every heart that will open to the full convicting power of the Holy Spirit to convict us our "sin nature," we are now ready to have the sober estimation needed to receive the resurrection power of Jesus to free us from the power of sin, once and for all!
This is what Paul writes to us to show us the only way into the promised land. It starts with this sober estimation and a deep cry for Jesus to "finish the good work He began in us."
15 For I do not understand my own actions [I am baffled, bewildered]. I do not practice or accomplish what I wish, but I do the very thing that I loathe [[b]which my moral instinct condemns].
16 Now if I do [habitually] what is contrary to my desire, [that means that] I acknowledge and agree that the Law is good (morally excellent) and that I take sides with it.
20 Now if I do what I do not desire to do, it is no longer I doing it [it is not myself that acts], but the sin [principle] which dwells within me [[c]fixed and operating in my soul].
22 For I endorse and delight in the Law of God in my inmost self [with my new nature].
23 But I discern in my bodily members [[d]in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh] a different law (rule of action) at war against the law of my mind (my reason) and making me a prisoner to the law of sin that dwells in my bodily organs [[e]in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh].
24 O unhappy and pitiable and wretched man that I am! Who will release and deliver me from [the shackles of] this body of death?
25 O thank God! [He will!] through Jesus Christ (the Anointed One) our Lord! So then indeed I, of myself with the mind and heart, serve the Law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
When the Holy Spirit can bring these scriptures to a living reality in our hearts, and we realize that all our trying to live the Christian life has failed. We are now ready for the power of the Holy Spirit to quicken the work of Jesus in our mortal bodies.
All the trying to fix ourselves in our human efforts has failed. Will we allow the Holy Spirit to convict of why we do what we are doing, and become poor in spirit to truly repent and change? Will we with the Apostle Paul cry out, "oh wretched man that I am, who can save my body from this shackle of death."
Beloved's, It is in that moment the full power of the Kingdom of God is at hand. We have finally come to the reality of becoming "poor in spirit," and we now can begin to mourn over our 'sin nature" not the fruit of sins we have done, but the heart that willing does those sins against God. It is here the Holy Spirit can do it's full work in us because we are broken and mourn over our true condition with a sin nature.
That is when the Holy Spirit who is our comforter comes to help us and comfort us and delivers our body from the shackles of death. He comes to empower us with the life of Jesus as our "self life" so we can nail it to the cross as Jesus did. Then the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead can quicken our mortal bodies to allow Him to live Jesus perfect live in us and through us.
All our human efforts for living a Christian life end when this is revealed to us, and we see how futile it is to live a Christian life any other way but Christ living in us to do it. That is when God lets us come to the throne of grace to receive mercy in our time of need. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.
When we are broken over our true spiritual condition God's power is activated in us. When God shows us what is really inside us we are now able for the power of the resurrection to do it's work in our life as it did with Jesus.
When the Holy Spirit convicts of our sin nature, then TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS IN CHRIST can be imparted to us in reality. Our efforts and trying to be good will be seen as the filthy rags to God they are. Our only hope then will be in His resurrection power to finish us and completely save us and to work in us "to will it" and then to "do it" his good pleasure. Phil 2:13
As the power of God fills us and puts to death the "self life" in us that would look to the world to fill itself, instead now looks to God to fill it with His life and the glory of God. Beloved, we then begin to life righteous and holy to God. Here we become the true living sacrifice to God He desires and we are truly the Temple of the Holy Spirit!
Now we are no longer live for ourselves, but to God. We truly have become crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, but not I, but Christ now lives in me. The life we live in the flesh is no longer living for the (me or I), or my pleasure, but for Christ and His pleasure.
The life we live is no longer religious "trying to please God" in our human efforts, power and reason, but we now live by faith in the Son of God who loves us and gave himself for us. We know that is no longer live the "I life of my desires", but Christ life that must live in and through us for his desires.
Why do we do what we do? What causes me to do those things I don't want to do? Sin rooted in the "self. The "self" or center of my being can either be a slave to sin or a slave to God. But through the power of God we do not ever have to be a slave to sin, but we can be a love bond son or daughter of God.
Our self life without the Holy Spirit will never choose God to be a slave to him, it can not, because it is hostile to God. [That is] because the mind of the flesh [with its carnal thoughts and purposes] is hostile to God, for it does not submit itself to God’s Law; indeed it cannot. Romans 8:7
Romans 8:12-16 :
12:Therefore we are debtors, but not to the flesh ( we are not obligate to are carnal nature). to live [a life ruled by the standards set up by the dictates] of the flesh.
13: For if you live according to [the dictates of] the flesh, you will surely die. But if through the power of the [Holy] Spirit you are [habitually] putting to death (making extinct, deadening) the [evil] deeds prompted by the body, you shall [really and genuinely] live forever.
14: For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
15: For [the Spirit which] you have now received [is] not a spirit of slavery to put you once more in bondage to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption [the Spirit producing son ship] in [the bliss of] which we cry, Abba (Father)! Father!
16: The Spirit Himself [thus] testifies together with our own spirit, [assuring us] that we are children of God.
Beloved perhaps today is the day you will allow the Holy Spirit to do his work, to bring conviction of sin, or righteousness, and judgment. Then not only will Jesus be able to bring us out of sin's bondage (Egypt) but he can bring us in to the promised land (Our Canaan) where freedom from the power of sin through the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is our full grown son ship.
The same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is ready to quicken your mortal body to be free by the law of the Spirit of life that is within Christ Jesus.
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