Excerpt
There are many Christians who are fighting desires of the flesh and dealing with struggles in their everyday walk with the Lord who may or may not know that their hope is in the Word of God. If they knew His Word with a greater understanding, they would have the knowledge necessary to overcome and to be victorious over those things in their lives that keep them from becoming the vessels of honor that God ordained them to be. Many may or may not realize that the secrets to overcoming adversities — no matter what they are — is hidden in the Word of God, but they’re helpless to change their situation because of the lack of knowledge of God’s Word. There are numerous people across the face of the earth that truly love God and are tired of the superficial preachings that come over the pulpits, which fail to give them the hope and the teaching that will bring them to the place in God that their souls long for. God’s people are hungry for a Word from God that will give them a sure foundation to stand on.
A person who truly desires to serve God faithfully must know how to walk after the Spirit. He must know what God says is walking after the Spirit, and not what man says is walking after the Spirit. All of our victory is in walking after the Spirit. It is in walking after the Spirit that a Christian has power over his flesh and over sin.
Many Bible-believing Christians have fallen by the wayside simply for not knowing how to walk after the Spirit. They fight desires and passions of the flesh, and always honestly try to keep from committing them, but sooner or later they succumb to the allure of them. Even though they hate the very act they are doing, they seem to be helpless prisoners of their own lusts. Promising God and themselves that they will never do it again, they fall on their knees crying out to God for forgiveness, to go a day, a week, a month, or maybe even years free from the control of that sin, only to one day find themselves being drawn again by the lust of their flesh. They know that they’re heading in that direction. They know that they need to fight the desire to give in to their lust, but they seem to be in complete control of some outside force, pulling them into the very acts that they hate so much.
Soon the inevitable happens; they give in, they sin, and even in the middle of the very act of sinning, they ask themselves, “God, what am I doing? How can I be committing this evil again?” They may even ask for forgiveness during the very act of their transgression, but they know it is too late; the deed has already been committed. Even if they stop now, the damage has already been done; that sin has already been added to their account. And then when it is all over, many times they cry bitterly as they ask themselves, “How could I have done that? How could I have hurt my Lord and Savior that way, especially after I promised Him the last time I would never do that again?”
They burn with guilt, they wish they could reverse time so they could start all over and this time not do it, but they know that is not possible. They ask themselves, “Why did I do that again? How could this have happened? I am trying with everything that is in me not to sin, but this thing has control over me; it seems to possess me. But how can this be, when I’ve given my life to God? His Spirit is dwelling in me, or that is what the Bible says. God’s Word doesn't lie; the problem must be in me. I’ve been taught that if I walk in the Spirit, I will not fulfill the lust of the flesh, and I’m doing that. I pray, I read and study the Bible, I attend church, I fast sometimes and give to the church; what can be wrong?”
And as the questions arise, so do the insinuations from the enemy of our souls in their minds, telling them, “Well, you may as well give up. God won’t forgive you this time, not after you promised never to do it again. Maybe you were never saved, maybe you are not meant to be saved. God doesn't love you anymore, just give up.” Many times, if it was not for the fear of ending up in Hell, the very guilt of their actions would drive them to commit suicide, and many weary victims have done just that, though the road to suicide has many faces.
In this journey through this revelation, we will learn how to walk after the Spirit. We will also discover the benefits of walking after the Spirit. Moreover, we will learn that when the scriptures say to walk in the Spirit, they are in fact saying to walk after the Spirit. Though this may come as a shock to many in the religious world, especially ministers of the gospel, walking after the Spirit is not praying, it is not reading or studying the bible, nor is it going to church and giving to the church, neither is it fasting. All of these actions help us to walk after the Spirit, but they are not how we walk after the Spirit. Our efforts to walk after the Spirit are made so much easier when we do all these other works; they give us the insight, the strength, and the endurance needed to walk after the Spirit, but they are not in fact how we walk after the Spirit. If you are one of the victims described above, you will bear witness that when you fell prey to the lure of the flesh, you most likely were doing some, if not all, of these things, and you still fell!
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