The Mission:
“…therefore every teacher and interpreter of the Sacred Writings who has been instructed about and trained for the kingdom of heaven and has become a disciple is like a householder who brings forth out of his storehouse treasure that is new and [treasure that is] old [the fresh as well as familiar].” Mt 13:52 AMP
Like Sin it is Always Crouching at the Door
Have you arrived at the day when your confidence in your walk in the Spirit is on autopilot? When your vigilance concerning your thoughts, or intentions, or actions is only loosely monitored? Where you have settled nicely into the posture of assuming your walk is fully in the Spirit?
Brother and sister beware!!!
In these last days we have as much need as ever to be open to the correction and monitoring of the Holy Spirit! To always be considering ourselves as dead to sin and alive to Christ, yes, but verify, verify, verify!!!!
The days of deception are fast closing in, and they desire to take us unaware…
I want to focus here, not on deception from the external world, but deception concerning our own behavior in Christ Jesus.
First, let’s consider some Scripture:
“We know that our old (unrenewed) self was nailed to the cross with Him in order that [our] body [which is the instrument] of sin might be made ineffective and inactive for evil, that we might no longer be the slaves of sin.” Rom 6:6
So every day, we must agree with the word that says our old self is ineffective and inactive for sin… Got it!
On another level, we must remain in a posture where we are:
‘…quick to hear [a ready listener], slow to speak, slow to take offense and to get angry.” Jas 1:19
Where we begin to notice that we are more easily confrontive and irritable, that we have lost our peace and fret and become easily angered… we must recognize that we have moved out of walking in the Spirit, and are instead walking in our own reasoning and flesh (that guy that is the unrenewed self that was already nailed to the cross with Christ but has somehow slid off the cross and is now operating once again as an entitled being!). This happens when we lose our vigilance over how we are walking and assume we are good…
The Apostle James gives us insight into how this slide occurs… he says we have failed to be doers of the word…
“But be doers of the Word [obey the message], and not merely listeners to it, betraying yourselves [into deception by reasoning contrary to the Truth]. For if anyone only listens to the Word without obeying it and being a doer of it, he is like a man who looks carefully at his [own] natural face in a mirror; for he thoughtfully observes himself, and then goes off and promptly forgets what he was like.” Jas 1:22-23
So I see that there are three ways that I can safely check if I am truly “doing” or only “listening.”
These three ways pertain to a deliberate aligning of my will to God’s will in (1) thought, (2) intention or purpose, and (3) action or deed.
I must continually be enforcing this process of alignment. Once only does not do it. There is not enough spiritual glue to make this a one-time deal that works.
God desires my active, ongoing, commitment and enforcement of this alignment. Because it is an active, deliberate activity, I am more inclined to recognize when a disparity or breach occurs, or when I am being led off into an attack by the enemy…
If you will look back to Jas 1:19 where we are told to be a ready listener, slow to speak, and slow to take offense… you can align that word with what I described above as our thoughts, intention, and deed.
It is so easy to allow the reigns of diligent observation slide from our hands. We think because we have at one point desired to be a ready listener (or committed the thoughts of my heart and mind to God’s will), that I will always do that. But I don’t. Like the chain of a garage door opener that has too much play, the door begins to slide and fail, finally becoming inoperative without some deliberate maintenance.
This becomes my point: we all need deliberate maintenance especially as we draw farther into the last days…
It is not enough to “want” to commit your thoughts and intentions and action to God’s will… You must ensure you are actually doing it.
Otherwise you are like that person who believes they are physically fit because they wear work out clothing or have purchased a gym membership…Unless you actually go to the gym and workout…you are deceiving yourself!!!
This is the worst type of deception to have!!! Self-deception!!!
In this same line, we know that 2Timothy 3:2-5 warns us about the people in the last days…to beware of them. I would add, beware that we don’t become them (Eph 4:17-25)…!!!
As I encounter more and more people describing other believer’s as being Narcissist’s, and as I have looked into that issue in Scripture… these are people who have remained fleshly, carnal Christians…very much like 2Tim 3:2-3 describes. While the baseline is carnal, it is as if it is on a progression as to its degree…
Before he was “worked on” by the Spirit of God, Nebuchadnezzar was certainly a perfect specimen of a full-blown Narcissist at the time.
Ephesians 4:17-24 gives us great insight to all this and is worth meditating over and allowing it to do a full work in us…
As it is addressed to believers, one cannot overestimate its value!!!
“So this I say and solemnly testify in [the name of] the Lord [as in His presence], that you must no longer live as the heathen (the Gentiles) do in their perverseness [in the folly, vanity, and emptiness of their souls and the futility] of their minds, Their moral understanding is darkened and their reasoning is beclouded. [They are] alienated (estranged, self-banished) from the life of God [with no share in it; this is] because of the ignorance (the want of knowledge and perception, the willful blindness) that is deep-seated in them, due to their hardness of heart [to the insensitiveness of their moral nature]. In their spiritual apathy they have become callous and past feeling and reckless and have abandoned themselves [a prey] to unbridled sensuality, eager and greedy to indulge in every form of impurity [that their depraved desires may suggest and demand]. But you did not so learn Christ!” Eph 4:17-20 AMP
Paul’s warning here, is that believers were looking more like Gentile heathens than they were believers. Failure to deal with hardness of their heart had resulted in unfeeling and callous ways of dealing with others. Ultimately, they were self-absorbed in their outlook, much like the description in 2 Timothy…
Scripture tells us that we have been given all things for life and godliness… and it is in the application of those things that we either stagnate and harden, or continue to grow in Christlikeness.
Nowhere are we given a pass to not apply the word of God…
Make sure you are still growing!
Insolomonsporch's Blog 
Leave a comment