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I discipline my body.

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 10:01 pm
by JacobMartinMertens
Paul seems to be talking about knowing the truth, then preaching it, and knowing that he needs to tell others that he disciplines his body and makes it his slave.

1 Corinthians 9:27 NASB - 27 but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

It seems to be about getting things right, and never stopping in your pursuit of moral perfection in the grace of God. That is, obeying God and Jesus yields or reaps eternal rewards. If we struggle in any way with anything, from feeling the weight of God's Law to not understanding any activity opposed to God that we commit in the flesh, are tempted to commit, or which deeds of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21 NASB) that are evident and don't belong in the life of the Christian, these need to be defeated. We are serious about sin and getting it out of our life. Otherwise Paul wouldn't describe a struggle at all. The only thing he could possibly mean if not sin would be getting better at doing good works or good deeds, which of course we should do. I'm just not at all sure he is not at all talking about ridding our bodies of sin and every defilement of flesh. May you have victory on account of the work of Jesus Christ 2000 years ago and in your life today.

Galatians 2:20 NASB - 20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Romans 8:13 NASB - 13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Re: I discipline my body.

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 10:07 pm
by JacobMartinMertens
1 Peter 4:1-2 NASB - 1 Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.

Re: I discipline my body.

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 11:15 pm
by dizerner
Good word.

There are two ditches on every path. One is the ditch of legalism here, trying to rid sin in your own power—good luck with that.

The other is thinking grace means you can be free of all restraint, you can embrace sin because it doesn't matter, you can purse lawlessness.

It is true that the grace of God teaches us something. A movement called "hyper-grace" teaches that we don't confess sin, we don't repent of sin, we don't strive to live holy, because that's all legalism and salvation by works. But we know that's not what Scripture teaches.

Titus 2:11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

and

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

Hyper-grace is wrong, very wrong, but if we try to be holy under the Law, this is just as wrong. Our self-righteousness and pride can be fed by our legalistic good works and good deeds that we think are perfect and pure, when underneath are "dead men's bones and all uncleanness" because they've not the right motivation being purified through the Cross-work of Jesus, such that Jesus is living again in us. This is a form of "religious depravity" an expression of sin and the doctrine of total depravity, that without Christ we cannot produce good spiritual fruit.

The Bible's solution is quite dynamic and perfectly middle of the road—we must have holiness at all costs but it will never come through the Law but rather through the blessed and free gift of grace. One moment of grace will produce a more pure and true love than thousands of years of striving to keep the Torah in the flesh. Two widows mites outweighed in the moral and spiritual purity all the mounds of religious deeds of the Pharisees, with their tassels and robes and tithes and trumpets and prayers and offerings and missionary converts and memorization of Torah—two little mites!

Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, "Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on."

Grace and faith is God's solution to our need for obedience, and it's a struggle and it's a fight, but not one to keep the Law—but rather to believe One kept the Law and will keep the Law freely in our hearts—by grace! We need a miracle, not only to try harder. We need a resurrection not a rule list. We need life not law. And Jesus is the answer.

But must we do anything? Are we called to some form of action and effort? I believe Scripture indicates we very much are. Grace is not passivity. But neither is holiness self-effort.

We are called to believe and trust in the midst of failure, to strive to enter rest, to fall at the Cross every time we strive to fulfill the Law and fail, so that Jesus can freely fulfill it in us by grace, and a Love, a magical and pure and beautiful love we could never produce or imagine, arises when we say "God be merciful to me a sinner" and fall at that Cross helpless and wicked.

None of us even realize how cheap and low our standards are, we lower and lower and lower God's perfect Law, and then act like God is pleased with that half-hearted effort that doesn't even come close to fulfilling the Sermon on the Mount—no dear friends. God does not want our filthy rags, he wants Christ to live again in us. But if we don't meditate in God's Word day and night, how will God's grace ever enter our heart, how will God's life in Christ ever spring up? So like many things in Scripture and life it seems like another paradox—laboring to enter rest.

And here's the Bible's solution: Reckon yourselves dead. Put off your old man. Do not let sin reign.

For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

That's certainly not passivity. When we have a choice to do something worldly, to find entertainment, or to pray and read God's Word, especially in this day and age, we cannot assume that choice does not matter. We are working an eternal weight of something—either glory or judgment.

That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

What we need to realize is that the nature of life is to want to live. When grace is flowing we will desire God's Word, we will be starving for it, this is not to say it's not a struggle but neither can it be a legalistic demand—no one reprimands a heart to beat, or lungs to breath, or stomachs to hunger, rather the nature of life is to live. Were we to try to forcibly pump the heart or squeeze the lungs what we would have is not life, whatever it were. This is why the greatest grace happens in a life with the corresponding acknowledgment of sin and inability in the heart. Life flows through dependence on Christ, just like an IV line keeps a patient alive.

…"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up"

So I would say Scripture teaches us the middle of the road—pursue holiness but never through the flesh and never by Law, but rather by faith through grace, and we will know the depth of how sinful we are without Christ and the depth of how holy we can be freely in him.

Re: I discipline my body.

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 11:28 pm
by JacobMartinMertens
dizerner wrote:Good word.

There are two ditches on every path. One is the ditch of legalism here, trying to rid sin in your own power—good luck with that.

The other is thinking grace means you can be free of all restraint, you can embrace sin because it doesn't matter, you can purse lawlessness.

It is true that the grace of God teaches us something. A movement called "hyper-grace" teaches that we don't confess sin, we don't repent of sin, we don't strive to live holy, because that's all legalism and salvation by works. But we know that's not what Scripture teaches.

Titus 2:11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

and

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

Hyper-grace is wrong, very wrong, but if we try to be holy under the Law, this is just as wrong. Our self-righteousness and pride can be fed by our legalistic good works and good deeds that we think are perfect and pure, when underneath are "dead men's bones and all uncleanness" because they've not the right motivation being purified through the Cross-work of Jesus, such that Jesus is living again in us. This is a form of "religious depravity" an expression of sin and the doctrine of total depravity, that without Christ we cannot produce good spiritual fruit.

The Bible's solution is quite dynamic and perfectly middle of the road—we must have holiness at all costs but it will never come through the Law but rather through the blessed and free gift of grace. One moment of grace will produce a more pure and true love than thousands of years of striving to keep the Torah in the flesh. Two widows mites outweighed in the moral and spiritual purity all the mounds of religious deeds of the Pharisees, with their tassels and robes and tithes and trumpets and prayers and offerings and missionary converts and memorization of Torah—two little mites!

Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, "Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on."

Grace and faith is God's solution to our need for obedience, and it's a struggle and it's a fight, but not one to keep the Law—but rather to believe One kept the Law and will keep the Law freely in our hearts—by grace! We need a miracle, not only to try harder. We need a resurrection not a rule list. We need life not law. And Jesus is the answer.

But must we do anything? Are we called to some form of action and effort? I believe Scripture indicates we very much are. Grace is not passivity. But neither is holiness self-effort.

We are called to believe and trust in the midst of failure, to strive to enter rest, to fall at the Cross every time we strive to fulfill the Law and fail, so that Jesus can freely fulfill it in us by grace, and a Love, a magical and pure and beautiful love we could never produce or imagine, arises when we say "God be merciful to me a sinner" and fall at that Cross helpless and wicked.

None of us even realize how cheap and low our standards are, we lower and lower and lower God's perfect Law, and then act like God is pleased with that half-hearted effort that doesn't even come close to fulfilling the Sermon on the Mount—no dear friends. God does not want our filthy rags, he wants Christ to live again in us. But if we don't meditate in God's Word day and night, how will God's grace ever enter our heart, how will God's life in Christ ever spring up? So like many things in Scripture and life it seems like another paradox—laboring to enter rest.

And here's the Bible's solution: Reckon yourselves dead. Put off your old man. Do not let sin reign.

For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

That's certainly not passivity. When we have a choice to do something worldly, to find entertainment, or to pray and read God's Word, especially in this day and age, we cannot assume that choice does not matter. We are working an eternal weight of something—either glory or judgment.

That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

What we need to realize is that the nature of life is to want to live. When grace is flowing we will desire God's Word, we will be starving for it, this is not to say it's not a struggle but neither can it be a legalistic demand—no one reprimands a heart to beat, or lungs to breath, or stomachs to hunger, rather the nature of life is to live. Were we to try to forcibly pump the heart or squeeze the lungs what we would have is not life, whatever it were. This is why the greatest grace happens in a life with the corresponding acknowledgment of sin and inability in the heart. Life flows through dependence on Christ, just like an IV line keeps a patient alive.

…"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up"

So I would say Scripture teaches us the middle of the road—pursue holiness but never through the flesh and never by Law, but rather by faith through grace, and we will know the depth of how sinful we are without Christ and the depth of how holy we can be freely in him.
I do not know how it is that I understand I have hope in Christ over the potential evil that can possibly be done to me or that might be in my mind. Meaning, surrendering things to God may or may not be Biblical ("just give it to God"), but I have success maybe in part because I know I must be obedient. That which I have no control over can be something I know God does.

2 Corinthians 10:5 NASB - 5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,

I am also aware that I am more than a mind. :)

1 Thessalonians 4:4 NASB - 4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,