Fri 6.5 - Self Illustrated, part 2

Today’s Readings: Colossians 3.5-9; Judges 1-2

Yesterday we went over Part 1 of this devotion, please make sure to reference it again before completing today’s in order to understand it properly…

LASTLY, FOR THE ILLUSTRATION ITSELF…

• Check out Judges 1.21-36. What is happening there is the Children of Israel do what seems to be the “Christian” thing to do. Rather than killing everyone, they show MERCY – God is a God of Mercy right??? So surely this was the RIGHT thing for them to do, it may have even felt RIGHT. However, What they were doing was MAKING A DEAL WITH THE ENEMY OF GOD. When they didn’t completely kill all of God’s enemies, they were disobeying! They were YIELDING to the very enemy of GOD (Romans 6.12-13)!!!
• Now, remember what it was that happens is NOT that they went out and joined up with the enemy of God. They didn’t change uniforms, join the other army, or strip the Israelite crest off of their battle gear…they simply allowed the inhabitants to beg for mercy, and made a deal with them – and that SIMPLE LITTLE MOVE cost them for GENERATIONS AND GENERATIONS TO THIS VERY DAY!
• It is interesting the reasoning behind their allowing them to live…that which represented the flesh (the inhabitants of the land) were allowed to remain in the land, and live, because the Israelites made two mistakes… (look at Judges 1.22)
  • THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE STRONG ENOUGH TO HANDLE IT. When we are having a spiritual growth spurt, we are likely to get big-headed about how much we can handle. When we used to run from the very presence of a dirty movie, now we think to ourselves, well, I can handle this…and we watch… allowing those inhabitants to remain….wow, how DECEITFUL ARE THOSE LUSTS!
  • THEY PUT THE INHABITANTS TO TRIBUTE. They took that which represented the FLESH and put it in tribute to THEIR FLESH. They were not letting these people remain alive because they wanted to be “good” folks, it was because they wanted to be wealthy folks. They wanted the TRIBUTE money – In scripture, that basically means they became the indentured servants of the children of Israel…they would work and the Israelites would get all of the income in exchange for not killing them.
• Please hear this – we do the same thing!!!! We will see some part of our flesh, and see the “good” that it can do, and we make a deal to allow it to remain so that we can put that part of us into TRIBUTE to please our flesh. We may know that cutting people down at the lunch table is wrong…but we see that it brings us popularity…comfort…social acceptance…so rather than kill it, we make a deal with it, we will let it remain, as long as it is benefiting us somehow…and we may even do it in some new SPIRITUALIZED way…like adding a phrase “bless his heart” or “I’m just kidding” after each SLANDEROUS AND HURTFUL REMARK. That’s how we are.
• This danger is not simply that we would use things of our flesh to our own benefit, but also that we would use them in the service of God. You better believe those Israelites excused their behavior because these servants were giving them the money, supplies, and resources they needed to build the temple of God. BUT, Never loose sight of the fact that God said He ABHORRED those things because of where they came from! – GOD NEVER HAS AND NEVER WILL WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH OUR FLESH! ESPECIALLY IF WE ARE TRYING TO USE IT IN SERVICE TO HIM!!!!

Oh God, please forgive me for all the times I have approached worshipping you through the flesh. I am so remorseful for every time that I have brought you offerings of my flesh and not of my own death so that your Spirit may live in me. Lord Jesus, I ask you today to strengthen me to mortify my flesh that You may life in me. I realize that I cannot make any deals with this flesh, I cannot allow it to keep any ground, or show it any mercy because it will draw me away from you every time. God, I yearn for you today, may you be alive in and through me today in a new way, fully, wholly, completely yours today! Amen.

Fri 5.5 – Jesus taught us how to deal with it…

Today’s Readings: Colossians 1.16-22, 2.12-14, 3.1-7;

As you know, Sunday is the Christian celebration of “Easter”. Although Christ actually died at the Passover, because of pagan celebrations and worldly influences through history, Christians adopted the name to compete with festivals for false God’s. (I don’t even know why I put that out there…guess I just thought you’d want to know?) Anyway, since Easter is coming in two days, I wanted to take a new approach to the thoughts we’ve been looking at in Colossians by looking at them through the window of the MORTIFICATION OF CHRIST. While we have talked about MORTIFYING our FLESH, and making that a spiritual principal, Christ ACUTALLY mortified His flesh. However, many of the same principals applied. That FLESH (the human body of Christ) had to be mortified before the SPIRIT (the Holy Spirit of God) could reign in life (by indwelling the believer, see John 16.7 ).

So, here’s how today is going to work…get our your Bible, get out a pad of paper, click here, and here, for some awesome background music, and prayerfully consider these passages. We know how our FLESH lusteth against the SPIRIT (Gal 5.17), so let’s consider the ultimate battle between ALL FLESH and the SPIRIT HIMSELF as Christ was suffering on that cross…as he bled…as he groaned (Rom 8.23)…as he was mortified… and consider these verses…

Philippians 2.5-8

• Imagine the power it took for CHRIST JESUS the LORD to be on that CROSS!
• How should that invade and influence our MINDS?
• What did the cross signify in Christ’s life? (specifically v.

Hebrews 12.2-4

• Consider the HUGE statement that Jesus Christ is the AUTHOR and FINISHER of OUR faith!
• What made Him mortify that flesh?
• How are we to gain strength from meditating upon His death for us, and how far He was willing to go?

Ephesians 2.14-17

• What has been removed between God and us?
• We were at ENMITY (absolutely against) God, what did Christ do to remove that from us?
• What was the instrument Christ used to RECONCILE us (or bring us back) to God? And what did that tool do to the ENMITY?
• Because of Christ’s work, now we no longer have ENMITY between God and us, but rather we have something amazing, undeserved, and unreachable without Christ…what is it?

Before you leave your time with God today, spend time thanking Him…because He mortified, we can mortify…because He died, we can die…because He suffered, we can have peace…it is truly, NOTHING BUT THE BLOOD, and I pray we will YEARN for Him more today because we realize that more and more!

Tue 5.2 – DOGPILE!

Today’s Readings: Colossians 2.20, 3.3-4,7; Romans 6.2, 7, 11; Galatians 2.20, 5.24; I Peter 2.24

It’s the bottom of the 9^th, your team is up by 3, there are 2 outs and the count is 0-2. Last pitch. Swing and a miss. YOU WIN! Then you hear those dreaded words “DOG-PILE!” and before you know it, you’re buried underneath a mound of sweaty, stinky, ball players.

Well, there is some spiritual truth to this idea that I want you to see. Sunday morning, during the 8.15 service, I was talking to the congregation about many of the same principals that we have been talking about here on the devotions. I received an encouraging e-mail the next morning from one of our members. Through our exchange, a very important truth was brought to life and I want to make sure we do not go on without making it clear for you all.

In the list of verses above, you will find some critical teachings about the death of our flesh. Now, obviously it is not literally dead because you and I are still breathing. However, because of the working and power of Christ, it’s ways and methods are. Don’t forget the truth of Romans 8 when we learned about the DEATH SENTENCE that is already passed on our BODY. What tends to happen in our lives is that after salvation we receive (via the new man) the right DESIRES and WAYS that can rule our lives. Then as time goes on, we allow little bits of that old BODY to creep in, and before you know it we still have that NEW man inside to give us the VICTORY in CHRIST, but he is buried under a DOGPILE of sinful lusts, pride, and so many more.

Students, I cannot express strongly enough to you what YOU ALREADY HAVE IN JESUS CHRIST if you are a born again believer. HE is the one who GIVES US THE VICTORY (I Corinthains 15.57). Do NOT miss that! Our victory over this fleshy state is going to be THROUGH CHRIST JESUS and no other means. The only way for us to mortify, the only way for us to LIVE life as DEAD people, is to allow CHRIST to be our VICTORY over sin and flesh.

Never lose sight of Galatians 5.17 – There will ALWAYS be a battle between the FLESH and the SPIRIT. They are fierce enemies at the very best, and if we think for one second that they can co-exist, we are sadly mistaken. Do not allow yourself to enter this war with your MIND. Do not yield to the CARNAL or FLESHY mentality that the world floods you with. Remember I Corinthians 2.16, we HAVE, currently, the MIND of CHRIST.

My prayer for you today is that you would realize your identity in Him. I pray the MIND of Christ would have freedom in your life to rule and to reign over you. I pray the DOGPILE of the worldly, earthly, fleshy things would cover the Spiritual things. Rather, I pray that TODAY as you spend time with God in prayer and opening the doors of your heart to the VOICE of God through His Word, that you would say with Paul, “we are more than conquerors through him that loved us!”

Wed 4.3 – Flesh vs. Spirit

Today’s Readings: Col 3.3-7; Romans 8

As we prepare for tonight’s service, I wanted to take a lighter approach to the devotion this morning. Throughout the DIRECTIONS study, we have been talking about the DIRECTION God gives us for our everyday lives. Much of that so far has centered around the things we SEEK and the things we SET OUR AFFECTION on. That is such a big part of the Christian life that we spent a few weeks on those topics making sure they were clear and understandable. You will notice that in Col 3.3-4, God repeats some key truths as to HOW and WHY we should be seeking and setting our affection according to His plan. Then comes verse 5.

There is a major word in verse 5. We must always give attention to this word when we study our Bibles if we hope to understand it properly. The word…THEREFORE. Notice that God gives all this doctrine through chapters 1-2, and summarizes His plan for that in 3.1-4. Now in verse 5, He tells us “therefore” , or BECAUSE OF THESE TRUTHS, we are to MORTIFY or MEMBERS which are UPON THE EARTH. Let me remind you again, what was it we are not to seek and set our affection on in 3.2??? It was THINGS ON THE ERATH, right? Well that’s what verse 5 is saying about our bodies, they are THINGS ON EARTH, and rather than seeking the things that please them (as we naturally do) we are to forsake them to seek things above.

The truth of the matter is, when we MORTIFY the flesh (which we explained yesterday in 4.2) we must have strength that is not our own. I am no match for my own flesh. I am just as weak as my flesh is. I am just as feeble as my flesh is. So, how then do I overcome it? Through the Spirit! God’s spirit inside of me is a limitless supply for doing his will. That power of God residing in me, keeping me and preparing me for the redemption of my body at the return of Christ, is also in me strengthening me to live my life TODAY!

If you were going to summarize what we have learned so far in this study, it we be (1) that we need to talk to God daily about the PURSUITS AND PURPOSES of life. That’s those 4 things God said were above that we are to seek, and the 4 things we have set our affection on that cause us to seek those first 4 things. We are getting ready to step into the second major concept of the directions study, and that is (2) to talk to God daily about the passions of the body. Until we admit the needs, we will never seek the help to overcome them.

As you close your time with God today, read prayerfully through Romans 8 and ask God to show you keys to MORTIFY the flesh and to LIVE according to the Spirit. He has called you to a spirit-filled life, and God never calls you to something He doesn’t first equip you to do. You may want to use these questions as a guide:

• What is the condition to escape condemnation currently? (8.1)
• What is going to occupy your mind if you are living after the flesh? (8.5)
• What relationship to God do those who are carnally (fleshy) minded have with God? (8.7)
• Can the flesh please God, and how often? (8.
• What should cause us to groan as we wait for it? (8.22-23)
• Who’s image did God predestinate that believers should be in? (8.29)
• What can separate us from the love of Christ? (8.35, 38-39)
• How do we conquer the flesh? (8.37)