It’s been a productive morning. I plan on heading to the house here in a few minutes from my office on the road, but before I do I am thinking about where I left the story off about “Salvational Engineering”. I left it off wanting to write about our “machines” (bodies) as the outermost circle of our Person of three circles. Right now my body is gradually declining into the desire for sleep after having worked overnight, and so this machine is preparing to shut down for a few hours.
Did you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?
1 Corinthians 6:18-20 18 Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
There are a few things I want to distract myself with once I get to the house, one of them being to watch an episode from a series or a movie as down time. However, I know that will not be wise because there are other responsibilities I need to take care of aside from reaching my goal for this site, and career path with my wife. So what I’m going to do is go to the house and prepare for sleep.
Romans 6:12-14 12 Therefore sin is not to reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the parts of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead, and your body’s parts as instruments of righteousness for God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under the Law but under grace.
Right now I’m under the grace of God to exercise my body’s parts as instruments of righteousness. To do that I need to leave. This machine of mine is ready to rest, and I know in the past when I was beyond tired I acted delirious. When in a state of delirium I was more vulnerable to unrighteousness and susceptible to sin. Wisdom teaches me to be aware of the state of my body, to manage each moment at a time to present my mortal body as alive from the dead. So that’s what I’m going to do.
3 For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, And her speech is smoother than oil; 4 But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a two-edged sword.5 Her feet go down to death, Her steps take hold of Sheol.
Four months ago I didn’t think myself equipped to pull the speck out of my reader’s eye (Matt. 7:2-4) regarding these verses – if indeed there is a speck of lust? I was still in combat training against the lips of an adulteress; her speech is smoother than oil, which makes grappling against her batting of the eyes and biting of the lip impossible to resist for turning into some perverse fantasy. It wasn’t that I was involved in a physical affair or looking at porn—that demon departed—but that the idea of being unfulfilled in some lustful way…was my battle ground; self-control is developed through the discipline of resistance.
Matthew 7:2-4 2 For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and look, the log is in your own eye?
That battle ground I mentioned, it’s a place you and I are sharing in my writing and your reading. It’s only natural for the mind to think about our subject at hand, but how the information of the topic affects us… intrigues me.
I had judged what I was up against four months ago as worse than committing the act of adultery because I lived in “death” for the experience of “Sheol”. In other words not looking at porn or resisting masturbation will not solve the deeper problem of lust although it is a step in the right direction. The feet of a seductress goes down to death and her appetite is the devil’s bed, or restroom perhaps? Because you know the places of your vices, they’re home to you and the devil. It’s a deal bargained for your soul unless confessed and repented of. The mind is so powerful that it has the capacity to stronghold you into unbelief by keeping you in your sin that Jesus Christ saved you out of; the choice on whether you want to live in sin or escape is purely psychological and spiritual in nature, the choice is made by how you behave! So how do you behave in secret?
The question is simple:
Do you want to escape from the will of the devil (2 Timothy 2:24-26)?
The answer is not so simple; discipline is suffering.
2 Timothy 2:24-26 24 The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, skillful in teaching, patient when wronged, 25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.
In my case I lived in the adultery of my mind because of insecurities and pride that the Church couldn’t cure because it was too personal, beyond human intuition and perception. And until I faced what that meant in order for that part of me to die, I would continue to give myself over to the seductress of my soul—thinking I didn’t want that attractive person to look at me the way they did by which invoked sexual fantasies, but it happened because of sin… “So I must be safe, right?” Wrong! As innocent as it might be to experience the chemical and neurological processes of my reproductive and intellectual organs doesn’t mean I’m not guilty of committing adultery in my heart by turning what was innocent into a conscious fantasy where pleasure is performed until release, a proclivity to doing it over and over and over again.
The seductress of your soul might look like a number of different things: perhaps it is wanting something that someone else has, or perhaps fulfilling something that someone else doesn’t have or hasn’t experienced, or perhaps it’s the fact that the conscience convicts what is off limits and not understanding why will drive you absolutely insane until you find it out? I think we could go on and on in addition to scenarios, but I don’t think that wise, said facetiously. I think—or at least hope—you get the idea.
If you want to escape from the seductress of your soul you’ll need to first confess to the Church, that’s the first act of repentance and it might be multiple times, but don’t underestimate your faith in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. By “Church” I mean two or three witnesses of a congregation in the Body of Christ. These people will be governed by the Holy Spirit for the sake of your forgiveness and accountability moving forward in your new life.
Without genuine christian accountability in your life you’ll fall all the harder into your sin you’ve just escaped from, so do not think you can win against evil without God, it is impossible without God!
(1.) How fatal the consequences will be. What fruit will the sinner have of his honey and oil when the end will be,
[1.] The terrors of conscience: It is bitter as wormwood,v. 4. What was luscious in the mouth rises in the stomach and turns sour there; it cuts, in the reflection, like a two-edged sword; take it which way you will, it wounds. Solomon could speak by experience, Eccl. 7:26.
[2.] The torments of hell. If some that have been guilty of this sin have repented and been saved, yet the direct tendency of the sin is to destruction of body and soul; the feet of it go down to death, nay, they take hold on hell, to pull it to the sinner, as if the damnations slumbered too long, v. 5. Those that are entangled in this sin should be reminded that there is but a step between them and hell, and that they are ready to drop into it.
Good morning reader… it might not be morning by the time I finish this writing but that’s alright. I pray all is well. I’m feeling much better today, a little sore throat and some coughing, but my strength is coming back! That’s good news! I’m thankful to rest even though it’s not in my nature to rest like this, I don’t like being isolated. I’m a dagum peacock and I need to fly!
Alright, I’m thinking we continue on the “breakthrough” journey.
In the previous post you’ll get an idea of the functions for our body, soul, and spirit, that make up our entire Person (Being) – and I want to go deeper starting with what I’ll probably refer to a lot as mine and your “machine”, the body.
This is where I hope to bring back full circle my experience as an engineer (salvational engineering) to provide the reader with a unique perspective when applying diagnostics to a person’s spiritual well-being and eternal salvation. I also believe this framework will be an excellent resource; having the knowledge of the truth is very important, but what good is an engineer with knowledge of the truth yet without the skill of love to apply that knowledge to a machine broken by lies? The engineer is useless without the skill of love and tools to apply his or her knowledge of the truth!
"NOT WITH INK" 