false attitude towards forgiveness and God's mercy

[anti_nietzsche]

Hi,

this is kinda difficult to talk about, it's hard to find the right words.

Let me start earlier, when I was not a christian yet, I still kinda believed in God as in a benevolent destiny. I threw my life at the mercy of that. I didn't know much about sin and righteousness, hadn't read the bible and all that. Basically, I thought that sin was only about human relationships. I was very ignorant and sinned much, sexually.

But emotionally, I was at peace compared to now.

Still, now that I am a christian I would like to lead a more righteous life. I think I don't have to refrain from everything, abstain from everything, etc ... but I do believe I have a duty to keep myself unspotted from the world's evils. This is not so easy for me ... because I used to love the world much. Now, I have reconciled this, I do believe I can love the Earth, I can even love the world of man with its theaters, schools and factories. It's the world of sin I have to deny and resist.

My problem is, I don't notice much coming from forgiveness. I believe my former sins have been washed away, but I only believe this in an abstract sense, it doesn't really become true for me. I mean, I know I am forgiven, but I am so often falling into the same crap again. It gets me in the night, in my dreams. Recently I saw a woman in my dreams and I committed fornication with her. It was ugly and perverted, and I saw a demon in her face. I know I have to resist but back then I just gave in, as if I had learned nothing.

I don't want to abuse God's forgiveness, I want to meet it with honest repentance. How do I achieve that? How do I get rid of these old sins completely? I am so ashamed of them. Anytime I think of them I feel bad. Also, I have schizophrenia with a thought disorder, so it's not easy there as well.

About other christians, well, I have made mostly good experiences with them. Even when I believe in UR and many of them don't, we have good relationships. I think this is a kind of temptation for UR people, to think they are better than others. But Jesus put a little child in our midst and said it is the greatest if we become like these kids. I am trying to see people's heart. I've never quite met a man who had a heart of stone. Sometimes I think we should all become more normal. We have our sins but the very most of us is far away from a Hitler or a Judas. We can have peace. We are here to love God and each other, not for building towers of Babylon.

UR is best when it comes to other people. It allows us to insist on Christ without worries or fears, because eventually anyone will receive Him. This is what these childlike christians believe. This is faith. And if you take it as it is, it will protect you. Of course we cannot sin anymore, but in time this becomes a characteristic of us, if we keep closeness to God in our hearts.

[Tim B]

To be honest I don't know how you would get rid of old sins. Do you mean forgiveness of them? I'd say you have that. But that doesn't mean you'll so easily accept that (as I fear I won't be forgiven at times too). Or do you mean, how do I rid myself of these old habits? Again, I cannot say I know how. But I'm confident that God has you in good hands, and one way or another, you'll be free in the end (the end being whenever you're completed in Christ's redemption). I wish there was an easy, steps-to-follow answer, but I kinda gave up on those a long time ago. lol

You'll make it man, you'll make it!

And, on a side note, I have OCD (not major by any means, but at least enough to be annoying. So I know, at least in a particular sense, what it's like to have your mind mess with ya.) You're not alone my friend!

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: The power of God comes from the baptism in the Holy Ghost, which begins the deliverance process (fire that comes) from those things that still have some part of us bound. If you haven't studied it already, I recommend you study Acts and Corinthians where Paul is talking about the gifts of the Spirit that the baptism in the Holy Ghost, activates. Blessings....

[Livelystone]

:cloud9: The power of God comes from the baptism in the Holy Ghost, which begins the deliverance process (fire that comes) from those things that still have some part of us bound. If you haven't studied it already, I recommend you study Acts and Corinthians where Paul is talking about the gifts of the Spirit that the baptism in the Holy Ghost, activates. Blessings....

Amen Sis

When Jesus went through what He did on the Cross He fulfilled three of the blood offerings that are required of us........ first is the trespass offering for any transgressions of His Law both those that we confess to as well as those that we ask forgiveness for that we are not aware of...... these are the sins that we are cleansed of by the Blood of Jesus.

Next is the sin offering that is our covering over the sin in us that that is a noun aka the serpent seed that is found in every human being on earth via the seeds of evil and good that were in the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that Adam and Eve partook of that were then passed down from them to us through our Fathers in the flesh.

This is why the cover found in His Blood is necessary and is what allows us to enter into His presence that without WE CANNOT COME BEFORE A HOLY GOD........ without His Blood for a cover the "sin in us" would get us killed just as the High Priest was killed if he did not change into the linen garments that symbolized the covering of the Holy Spirit and followed the rules exactly

Saul made the critical mistake of making the peace offering that is the reconciliation we have with God through the Blood of Jesus without first making the required sin offering. That was the straw that broke the camels back and for it Samuel told Saul that he had done foolishly and for his punishment the kingdom would be taken from him and given to another

It is not just enough for man to be forgiven for his sins to come before God and let us not fall into the same mistake that Saul made who is a metaphor of the disobedient church and always remember the sin offering that gives us the cover we need to go before God in prayer. The jews always had the offerings of the laws that were a shadow of better things to come and Pentecost was the fulfillment of the blood offerings that through them we were given the Holy Spirit that allows us to cry "Abba" Father have mercy upon us as we come into His presence through His works and not any of our own. It is through the Holy Spirit of the Son Christ Jesus that we may enter into the Holiness of God the Father and not our old spirit of man ever being made worthy to qualify to go before a Holy and Awesome God.

Everyone everywhere gets forgiveness of their sins because God made us all subject to vanity but no one gets the Holy Spirit until they go to the Cross where they may have their hearts and minds sprinkled with the Blood of Jesus and then receive the free gift of salvation that is the Holy Spirit.

Blessings

Doug

[reFORMer]

anti_nietzsche,

The issus raised by your OP have proven to be difficult, not just for provoking controversy, but some promised cures are worse than the disease.  There is warfare over these matters, because sin brings death.  Freedom from sin and there is no cause of death.  Apart from what seems to need changing and how to bring it about, it is very important to not let yourself be distracted by the motions of sin in your members.  This is not to dismiss the need for out physical nature to enter on into the rest of obtaining all God promises.  But we are granted Life in the Spirit and need not identify who we are at our core by the more transient things in the realm in which our body manifests.  We are not our environment.  And, as Paul says, "Now if what I am not willing, this I am doing, I am conceding that the law is ideal.  Yet now it is no longer I who am effecting it, but Sin making its home in me." (Rm 7:16-17, CLV)  Believe, reiterate and confess what God says of us, how He defines us and where He is taking us rather than what it seems might be the destiny for sins of the flesh.  We are Divine beings coming into manifestation in dirt forms.  "Now we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the transcendence of the power may be of God and not of us." (2 Co 4:7, CLV)

He says, for instance, "Call no man father; for you have one father Who is in the heavens, and you are all brothers."  Like begets like.  The proof that this will some day be demonstrated in us, spirit, soul and body, is what is called the "foretaste," or, "earnest of the Spirit."  That we will have an immortal body we have promisory gifts of healings of the Spirit.  We have powers working by God that are beyond the natural human abilities.  This promises the Omnipotence to come.  Omniscience is a Divine attribute that we will partake of when we are changed to be able to experience God as He is  Now such awareness is foreshadowed among the Eclessia when, "...to one, indeed, through the spirit, is being given the word of wisdom, yet to another the word of knowledge, according to the same spirit." (1 Co 12:8, CLV  There are other spiritual functions listed there in 1 Corinthians.)

Another important emphasis to maintain is to follow Jesus is not so much about my change as it is about entering His presence.  Until death or trasfiguration we are to daily take up our cross, deny ourselves and follow Him.  I thought things like love or patience were lessons you learned and then you had them.  Instead, it seems just as hard to exercise patience as it ever did.  Certain friends, as well as myself, have at some time gotten to where it seems impossible to live the Christian life and so quit trying.  This puts one into an between world and is not the answer.  You know He's with you but you're not making any progress.  We continue on by agressive believing, the faith that rests secure on what God says, on what He has promised.  Jesus Himself said, ""I can not do anything of Myself."  If Jesus can't live the Christian life, then why do we think we can.  It is only the very life of God the Unlimited coming into expression through our limitation that cases pain, as the seed thrust into the manure breaks and is no longer whole in its first form as the new life bursts forth, growing to another realm, the world above which is light.  The seed quits being what it was, it dies.  "Then we who believe are entering into the stopping (or, rest)..." (Hb 4:3)  "For he who is entering into His [God's] stopping [sabbath,] he also stops from his works even as God from His own.  We should be endeavoring, then, to be entering into that stopping, lest anyone should be falling into the same example of stubbornness." (Hb 4:10-11, CLV)  "Strive to enter into rest," is how the KJV has it.

Salvation is by grace through faith.  That means salvation is God's working.  Faith is resting confident that He wants to and is working in us.  It is a faith that is in accord with God's performance, not ours, that it can be by grace.  "By works of law shall no flesh be justified." ()  To learn more and try harder is legalism and generates more and more bondage.  To be "justified" means to have been cleared by a judicial investigation and declared innocent of all charges.  It is God Who does the declaring.  There is no disciplined path of anything that will bring the voice of God into your life.

I tried to believe right in every way I knew how and I put all my strength into it.  A shallow reading of Scripture concerning our warfare did not grasp how it was not carnal.  I used my soul and not through God, though I thought it was for God.  This led me to suffer at length to discover that the more you fight sin in your mind, the more you invest it with strength.  Trying to adapt to Scripture's word that I'm dead to sin, having been baptized into the death of Christ I found at length that the more you ignore it, the more it reemerges from deeper aspects of your personality even less susceptible to your control.  The answer is grace, the working of God that you can not cause or control.  It is to not limit God to Spirit, because He moved into my mind, changing my soul more directly than I'd ever been told He could.  While His gifts are to be maintained and perfected, they are His gifts.

This could be enlarged and clarified; but, the bones of how to stop sinning are here.  Is it surprising it is Jesus?  Fall in love with Him.

[anti_nietzsche]

But how do I get this grace that obliterates my sinfulness? You say it has no cause and cannot be controlled. Do you mean that grace is irresistible, like the Calvinists say? In my christian walk so far, it has been my impression that I must cooperate with God. Yet I often end up not really knowing what to do, and then panicking. I always reach forgiveness somehow, but then when it comes to righteous living, I fail.

I must add that my worst problem these days is having evil thoughts. It's really bad. In any other aspect, if I may say so, I think I am ok. But it's like the sin in me always looks for a way out of the prisons I build for it. If I am ok in my deeds, it starts to get into my thoughts. And I am panicking so often, I live many days in a quiet desperation.

My mother who is also a christian doesn't have that problem. She always amazes me by how simple she is in these things. When I read the bible, the law for example, I fear and worry and sometimes rebel. She just closes the book and says it's doing me no good, I want to have faith in God and protect that faith so I don't read on. Other people benefit from seeing the law as a foreshadowing of the cross.

[Molly]

We are Divine beings coming into manifestation in dirt forms.  "Now we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the transcendence of the power may be of God and not of us." (2 Co 4:7, CLV)

Yes.  It is not we who are overcomers, but Christ [in us].  Thus, all we have to do is get out of our own way and let him take over.  This is why he is our rest.

Do you know who he is?  Do you believe in him?


1 John 5:5
Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

[jabcat]

But how do I get this grace that obliterates my sinfulness? You say it has no cause and cannot be controlled. Do you mean that grace is irresistible, like the Calvinists say? In my christian walk so far, it has been my impression that I must cooperate with God. Yet I often end up not really knowing what to do, and then panicking. I always reach forgiveness somehow, but then when it comes to righteous living, I fail.

I must add that my worst problem these days is having evil thoughts. It's really bad. In any other aspect, if I may say so, I think I am ok. But it's like the sin in me always looks for a way out of the prisons I build for it. If I am ok in my deeds, it starts to get into my thoughts. And I am panicking so often, I live many days in a quiet desperation.

I struggle with this myself, I can relate.  Here are a few thoughts from a study I came across.

First step;  Whosever calls upon the name of the lord shall be saved Romans 8:18...if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth Jesus is the Son of God, and that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved...

Then;

...therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.  Romans 8:1

Anybody who gets involved in a discipline of the spirit and dedication of the heart to obey God, but is trying to do it through his own efforts, willpower, and determination, will have the same problem. Legalism is [part of] the problem...There are thousands and millions of Christians who are struggling because of the power of the Law in their lives. Paul tells us about the struggle: "The things that I would not do, that I do; and the things that I would do, I do not do," Rom 7:14-20. How does he resolve this struggle? He immediately answers with this one, great, flashing word of relief in Verse 25:
Thanks be to God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord! Rom 7:25.

Romans 7:18 "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good.."  His heart is right. Then again, in Verse 22, he says, "For in my inner being I delight in God's law;"  Paul explains that sin has deceived us and overpowered us. It is too much for us. We can't handle this wild beast raging within us when it is awakened by the demands and prohibitions of the Law. And God doesn't condemn us for that, he knows that it is more than we can handle. Third, and this is the most important, God has already made provision for our failure in Christ, and our very struggle is driving us to Christ. When you have come to the place of saying, "Oh wretched man that I am!" the only thing left, if you want any escape at all, is to ask, "Why am I thinking of myself in this way?" and to realize, "God says I am different."

romans 7:17    :2thumbs:  So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.  As I see this, it was/is the flesh "acting up"...the sin was no longer being laid to his account.

Who will set me free from the body of this death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!  romans 7:24,25

Yes.  It is not we who are overcomers, but Christ [in us].  Thus, all we have to do is get out of our own way and let him take over.  This is why he is our rest.

:thumbsup:

Freedom from sin and there is no cause of death.  Apart from what seems to need changing and how to bring it about, it is very important to not let yourself be distracted by the motions of sin in your members.    But we are granted Life in the Spirit  And, as Paul says, "Now if what I am not willing, this I am doing, I am conceding that the law is ideal.  Yet now it is no longer I who am effecting it, but Sin making its home in me." (Rm 7:16-17, CLV)  Believe, reiterate and confess what God says of us, how He defines us and where He is taking us rather than what it seems might be the destiny for sins of the flesh. 

Another important emphasis to maintain is to follow Jesus is not so much about my change as it is about entering His presence. 

I tried to believe right in every way I knew how and I put all my strength into it.  This led me to suffer at length to discover that the more you fight sin in your mind, the more you invest it with strength.  Trying to adapt to Scripture's word that I'm dead to sin, having been baptized into the death of Christ....  The answer is grace, the working of God that you can not cause or control. 
This could be enlarged and clarified; but, the bones of how to stop sinning are here.  Is it surprising it is Jesus?  Fall in love with Him.

:thumbsup:

[reFORMer]

When we have trouble with wrong thoughts there are at least two important considerations.

1.) You can't put more in something already filled.  Fill up on God's Word.  Be full of the concern to know Him rather than obsessing over your sin.  "The flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit lusts against the flesh.  We are led by hunger.  When you feed the appetites of the flesh it takes over.  When you cultivate spiritual tastes, the spirit becomes more dominant.  These two hungers do not manifest in the same way.  A desire for God and the knowledge of His Word is one of the best gifts you can have.

2.) Spoken words are superior to thoughts.  You rule over your thoughts with what you say.  "Guard your heart, for out of it are the issues of life."  "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."  Learn the things God says, what His promises are to you.  Speak those things.  "...God...quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were." (Rm 4:17)

"...to the humble He is giving grace." (James 4:6)  That whole area in James is good about this obtaining grace.  Then too, recognize what you already have.  You can not get into a room you're already in.  God's grace is revealed to you.  Much of our problem is that it is in His way rather than according to our own expectations  Psalm 24 is good for explaining who shall ascend the hill (kingdom) of the LORD, how to be of those who seek the face of God and obtain the presence of the King of Glory within, winning the battle against all that is unlike Him.

Psalm 24

(A Psalm of David.)

1 The earth is the LORD'S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
2 For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
3 Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place?
4 He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
5 He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
6 This is the generation of them that seek Him, that seek Thy face, O Jacob. Selah.
7 Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.
9 Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah.

[Livelystone]

Christians who sin are definitely held accountable for their sins............. Jesus made that abundantly clear in multiple teachings. Chritians who sin do so because they are still in bondage and have not been able to break free from the grip of Satan who is the ruler of their world.......... but it is not their fault as much as is the fault of those who are suppose to be setting them free from sin through teaching the truth.

What is not understood is the hows and whys Christians will be freed from bondage to sin. They have been given the power to overcome it and become sons of God but they are not made created as sons of God with that power........ they need to obtain it and it will not come without the required knowledge.

Hosea 4:6
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

Job 36:12
But if they do not listen, they will perish by the sword and die without knowledge

Christ does not sin and it is not the "Christ" in earthen vessels that sins but the old spirit of man "Adam" who still lives on in the body "after ones born again experience" who will always be infected with the "law of sin" that as Paul said "LIVES IN HIS MEMBERS"!!!. What Christians have to do is figure out how to have Christ rule them instead of their "old man" whom they have always been since birth and who will always be infected with a living organism called "sin" that was the reason why their was a sin offering provided for us in addition to a trespass offering.

Not understanding the reason for a sin offering cost King Saul the kingdon just as it will cost todays Christians the fulness of the kingdom......... As Jesus said those who overcome as He overcame will be given the Morning Star and those words are not to be changed nor misunderstood that those who do not overcome as He overcame will not be given the Morning Star !!!

Christ is given to us as a seed and for Christians to overcome bondage to sin this seed has to grow into a mature fruit baring tree. There is only one way this seed that is Christ in us can grow into this fruit baring tree and that is through being fed the truth that is "our daily bread" from God versus the garbage that has been taught by man as truth for 2000 years now.

Bottom line is when Christians sin it is because Satan is ruling over their heart and not Jesus.......... but it does not have to be that way and will not be if the truth is taught............. the fact that Christians do not know the truth and do not overcome sin is the fault of the "shepherds" whether they be in churches of stone or websites online

Blessings

Doug

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: Amen James, Doug and all.......this is what I did........you have to spend time fellowshiping with Him in the Word, renewing your mind with the washing of the Word. Seek Him in fasting and prayer for those things of the flesh that still want to try to hang on and bother you, and you WILL find deliverance.

Then one day He just dropped in my spirit that I could no longer do the things that were offensive, because "somehow" I was now just not that person anymore, ie. my nature had been changed from the inside out so subtly I did not exactly know when it happened because my focus was so on Him and His Word. Blessings....

[jabcat]

:cloud9:
Then one day He just dropped in my spirit that I could no longer do the things that were offensive, because "somehow" I was now just not that person anymore, ie. my nature had been changed from the inside out so subtly I did not exactly know when it happened because my focus was so on Him and His Word. Blessings....

Amen Card...seeking Him, being filled with Him, being brought into obedience through the Spirit working through us.  As I personally am understanding God gradually teaching me, this is different from something I've done for many years;   mixing of the Law and grace;  condemnation vs. "no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus";  "I'll be punished" vs. "it's no longer I that do it but the sin that dwells in me...Who will deliver me...Christ Jesus";  Jesus' teachings to Israel vs. Paul's message of conciliation to New Covenant believers. 

I DEFINITELY believe in living obediently and walking humbly before our God...only through HIS grace and empowerment.  I don't believe in my flesh dwells any good thing.  Apostle Paul was quite firm about us attempting to turn back from the grace and freedom of the Christ back into futility and bondage of attempting to be made righteous by works/Law...always a need to properly divide...God's blessing, James.