Tag Archives: good and evil

Christian Soapbox

FROM MY CORE – ESSAY 4

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So what did I mean by… “But that does not mean we continue to find ourselves in sin.”? The Bible is an awesome recourse for us to explore what the Source reveals to us about sin. While the Bible is a recourse, it is not the Source convicting us of sin, and please test me by checking—John 5:39-47 & 16:5-15. The Bible functions much like a collection of school books, a tutorage for the person learning about their soul in relation to sin, and God (Gal 3:23-29). I can add scripture verses all day supporting my delusions—as though the Bible has that authority—but the Bible does not have authority to give anyone eternal life (John 5:39-47). It is the Bible that contains the Scriptures testifying about Jesus coming to us in His Father’s name with His Father’s power, to give us life by receiving Him—the Source. This brings me back full circle to the initial question—So what did I mean… ? I mean that the Holy Spirit is our Source to find ourselves in the Lord our Savior, Jesus Christ.

It is the Holy Spirit who convicts us of sin:

7 But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the [a]Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counselor, Strengthener, Standby) will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him (the Holy Spirit) to you [to be in close fellowship with you]. 8 And He, when He comes, will convict the world about [the guilt of] sin [and the need for a Savior], and about righteousness, and about judgment: 9 about sin [and the true nature of it], because they do not believe in Me [and My message]; 10 about righteousness [personal integrity and godly character], because I am going to My Father and you will no longer see Me; 11 about judgment [the certainty of it], because the ruler of this world (Satan) has been judged and condemned.

John 16:7-11 (AMP)

But how do I keep from sinning? How do I stop finding myself in sin? How do I do as Christ instructed, like when He said to the woman found in adultery… “Go. From now on do not sin any longer.” (John 8:11)? What do you think Jesus meant by that? And how do I remain healed after Jesus tells me—like He told the man He healed—“See, you are well! Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” (John 5:14)? What do you think Christ meant by “…or something worse may happen to you.“?

Do those instructions apply to you and me right now, tomorrow, next year; … at the day of the Lord (1 Cor 5:1-5)?

[I pray you, the reader, will experience these posts and this blog as a safe place to comment; express yourself—with love in mind.]

I argue the worst thing to happen to someone who continues to find themselves in sin/s… is regression into possession of that/those sin/s as a lifestyle where many evil spirits are coming to reside:

24 “When the unclean spirit comes out of a person, it roams through waterless places in search [of a place] of rest; and not finding any, it says, ‘I will go back to my house (person) from which I came.’ 25 And when it comes, it finds the place swept and put in order. 26 Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in [the person] and live there; and the last state of that person becomes worse than the first.”

Luke 11:24-26 (AMP)

When I refer back to my previous essays—thinking about sin—I ask myself:

“What sin am I in?

Am I still in sin?

If so …

How?“

When and how does an unclean spirit come out of a person as quoted above?

What do you think?

DISCLAIMER:
Nathan Psychology: The study of oneself for righteous behavior, and my written perspective on the experiential process of edification to sanctification. What does it mean to be born of God, overcome the world, and be made new through faith in believing Jesus Christ is the way of my salvation? I’m discovering the path through spiritual discipline—

I die devotionals, Nathan Dooley

Do not enter or proceed | P4-V14

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A Father’s Instruction

Proverbs 4:14 

I die daily devotional.

13 Take hold of instruction; do not let go.
Guard her, for she is your life.
14 Do not enter the path of the wicked
And do not proceed in the way of evil men.
15 Avoid it, do not pass by it;
Turn away from it and pass on.

It’s these particular proverbs that impact me differently than others, and I think the reason might be because of what information I’ve gathered about people (including my wife) who have come to a place of belief where worthiness of the upright path is seemingly impossible, after all, we’re all sinners, so that answers that, right?

What I find peculiar about this wisdom is how Solomon didn’t keep it:

1 Kings 11:9 So the Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, 10 and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not follow other gods; but he did not observe (remember, obey) what the Lord had commanded. 11 Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Because you have done this and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant. 12 However, I will not do it in your lifetime, for the sake of your father David, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son (Rehoboam). 13 However, I will not tear away all the kingdom; I will give one tribe (Judah) to your son for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.”

Which seems to me that Solomon became much like that anointed cherub angel we read about in Ezekiel 28:

14 “You were the anointed cherub who covers and protects,
And I placed you there.
You were on the holy mountain of God;
You walked in the midst of the stones of fire [sparkling jewels].
15 “You were blameless in your ways
From the day you were created
Until unrighteousness and evil were found in you.

See… God… by His Word, gives us the path of wisdom and way of understanding, but not manipulatively; the choice to be and remain blameless in our ways is within our capacity to do so by the fact of God’s Word, His Spirit of fellowship with us who’ve died to sin for righteousness within. Jesus Christ didn’t die so that we would believe ourselves unworthy of obedience to righteousness, but died so that we might become worthy of His righteousness that reconciles us to God by fellowship with His Spirit alive in us today.

The responsibility we have to our precious gift of salvation is this faith filled proclamation—eternal life. The Lord our God is not sitting idle as though a throne of stone, but because Jesus Christ is the Son of God at the right hand of power, our Father in Heaven—Hallowed be His Name—the Kingdom is come, and His will… finished on the cross …be done. What more need be said?

1 John 5:11 And the testimony is this: God has given us eternal life [we already possess it], and this life is in His Son [resulting in our spiritual completeness, and eternal companionship with Him]. 12 He who has the Son [by accepting Him as Lord and Savior] has the life [that is eternal]; he who does not have the Son of God [by personal faith] does not have the life. 13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God [which represents all that Jesus Christ is and does], so that you will know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that you [already] have eternal life.

RESOURCE

Proverbs 4 (NASB)—blueletterbible.org | biblegateway.com

COMMENTARY

Chapter 4

Matthew Henry (P4-V14) Commentary
Here is,

  • I. The caution itself, v. 14, 15.
    • 1. We must take heed of falling in with sin and sinners: Enter not into the paths of the wicked. Our teacher, having like a faithful guide shown us the right paths (v. 11), here warns us of the by-paths into which we are in danger of being drawn aside. Those that have been well educated, and trained up in the way they should go, let them never turn aside into the way they should not go; let them not so much as enter into it, no, not to make trial of it, lest it prove a dangerous experiment and difficult to retreat with safety. “Venture not into the company of those that are infected with the plague, no, not though thou think thyself guarded with an antidote.”
    • 2. If at any time we are inveigled into an evil way, we must hasten out of it. “If, ere thou wast aware, thou didst enter in at the gate, because it was wide, go not on in the way of evil men. As soon as thou art made sensible of thy mistake, retire immediately, take not a step more, stay not a minute longer, in the way that certainly leads to destruction.”
    • 3. We must dread and detest the ways of sin and sinners, and decline them with the utmost care imaginable. “The way of evil men may seem a pleasant way and sociable, and the nearest way to the compassing of some secular end we may have in view; but it is an evil way, and will end ill, and therefore if thou love thy God and thy soul avoid it, pass not by it, that thou mayest not be tempted to enter into it; and, if thou find thyself near it, turn from it and pass away, and get as far off it as thou canst.” The manner of expression intimates the imminent danger we are in, the need we have of this caution, and the great importance of it, and that our watchmen are, or should be, in good earnest, in giving us warning. It intimates likewise at what a distance we should keep from sin and sinners; he does not say, Keep at a due distance, but at a great distance, the further the better; never think you can get far enough from it. Escape for thy life: look not behind thee.
Christian Soapbox, Journal, Nathan Dooley, Psychology

“…who takes away the sin of the world!”

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Read Me First

“The next day he *saw Jesus coming to him and *said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”—John 1:29

—(Elijah) John the Baptist 
Matthew 17:11 And He answered and said, “Elijah is coming and will restore all things; 12 but I say to you that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” 13 Then the disciples understood that He had spoken to them about John the Baptist.

MY FOCUS

As I focus on these journal entry posts, I learn and understand more about myself and my deepest concern, the salvation of souls. Ever since I’ve heard and believed in the gospel, the question of whether someone is saved or not has always been at the core of my desire to understand. More on that in other posts.

In my previous post, which is a building block to this one, I wrote, “God didn’t create me to be good or evil, or even to be as in-between—under the curse of sin as a sinner while alive by the grace of God to exist separate from Him (And thank God for that!).” Which has compelled me to expound.

GOOD OR EVIL, OBSERVE:

  • Thinking about whether God created me to be good or evil?

I don’t think God created me to be good or evil, meaning there is a difference between ‘knowing good and evil‘ and ‘being good or evil‘. God saw all that He had made, then declared it ‘all‘ as … ‘very good‘; that didn’t mean that what He created innocent from the knowledge of good and evil to be limited by that innocence as programmed robots without risk, eating that fruit to have the knowledge of good and evil, of which existed altogether in harmony with the Lord God in the garden of Eden.

So sin existed in consequence of God warning Adam and Eve not to eat, or surely they would die (Genesis 2:17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”), and since Adam and Eve ate that fruit we all die because God means what He says; God is Holy and Just to execute the punishment deemed worthy of those attributes against His enemies. When mankind disobeyed God, we became enemies of God that reaps the consequences of that disobedience, and so therefore, we all suffer death.

1 Corinthians 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

CREATED AS A SINNER?

I’m confident that God didn’t create me to be a sinner, which was what I meant by “in-between”—forever separated from God in the prison of death and Hades if it had-been that Adam ate from the tree of life (Genesis 3:22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—) to live forever in the consequence of our due penalty and present state of death; It would be miserable if this world of suffering … is without end, (Revelation 1:18 and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.).

Thank God for Jesus taking away the sin of the world!

  • Thinking about what it means to be separated from God?

I know that I’m separated from God through knowledge gained by experience in this flesh and blood of sin and death under the grace of God (1 Corinthians 15:26 The last enemy that will be abolished is death.) by guilt that is incapable of inheriting the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:50 Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.). Truth testifies to the death that I am dying as the last enemy to God yet to be abolished by the return of Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.).

SO AGAIN I SAY!

THANK GOD FOR HIS LAMB!

So all that to say that when Jesus took away the sin of the world at the cross as the Lamb of God, all entered into a new covenant of which saves us through faith.

The gift of God does not come without responsibility, that is to say, without repentance; repentance is experienced through much discipline by the Helper—the Holy Spirit (John 14:25 “These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.). (John 16:6 But because I have said these things to you, grief has filled your heart. 7 But I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I am leaving; for if I do not leave, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 8 And He, when He comes, will convict the world regarding sin, and righteousness, and judgment: 9 regarding sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 and regarding righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you no longer are going to see Me; 11 and regarding judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.).

Who is the ruler of this world?

I’ll leave that to build on in the next post.

Matthew 17:11 And He answered and said, “Elijah is coming and will restore all things; 12 but I say to you that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” 13 Then the disciples understood that He had spoken to them about John the Baptist.