Achieving the Victories in Our Lives

By Thomas Denegre

Reading from Genesis 3

Spies are the most dangerous people as they can possess the secret knowledge to win wars or destroy nations. Just as equal, God warns us in the Book of Hosea, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6)   Jesus also warned us that “the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come to bring life, and bring it abundantly.” (John 10:10) Our Lord so much desires us to have an abundant life because “the truth (Jesus) will set you free,” (John 8:32) from oppression, self-imprisonment, despair, falsehoods, and self-destruction.

Are you ready to accept knowledge to save you, and give you the victories in life you desire?

Considering this hidden knowledge, I learned the fall of man was due to his lack of knowledge in his strengths, his weaknesses, and the wiles of the enemy.  As a former U.S. Navy Commander and pilot we were required to study “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu.  Written over 2,000 years ago, the military strategist stated, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” So, lets begin by learning more about our own self to enable more victories in our life.

In the beginning God said, said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.” (Gen 1:26). We know God has three attributes Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.  In the same way, man was given three attributes; spirit, soul, and body.  For the Apostle Paul states, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thes 5:23)

The spirit, soul, and body of man contain their own attributes. One must understand how these attributes work together along with their given priorities; otherwise we are doomed.  When God breathe life into Adam, he gave him spirit and life. Man’s spirit is eternal (yes, we are eternal entities) and designed to be in life-union with God.  Our spirit has three attributes; communion, intuition, and conscience. In addition, our soul has three attributes; mind, will, and emotions.

When Adam walked with God, he was walking spirit-to-spirit with Him. Adam lived in a state of innocence whereby his spirit controlled his soul and body for he knew no shame when he was naked.  Then the fall of man occurred. “So, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.” (Gen 3:6) Letting down their defenses, pride (self-centeredness) entered Adam and Eve which enabled their body and soul to dominate their spirit. They ran away from God as the death of their spiritual relationship with God brought fear and shame.  Sadly, they entered that lying business of political correctness by claiming to be victims and blaming someone else for their own responsibilities. Some things never change.

Today we are fortunate because we can have our sins forgiven when we run to the Lord with repentance and humility. Thankfully, our savior Jesus the Christ gave us this grace from Calvary.

Today’s world is no different, we see the enemy attacking our spirit, soul and body to severe our spiritual relationship with God.  If our spirit is not in life union with Jesus (John 15) then our lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6) will doom us to a sinners’ life. Here are just few ways the enemy can attack us.

·         Take this beauty cream and you’ll look ten years younger (vanity)

·         She is so much prettier than I am (envy)

·         I can’t take my eyes off that person at the gym (lust)

·         I make my decisions based on my conscious views and not by the Word of God (rebellion)

·         If they stand that way politically, then they must be evil (anger)

·         I want my pound of flesh.  I want my revenge. (unforgiveness)

·         By my title, (vice president, elite college graduate, doctor, software programmer) I am better than you (pride)

·         I trust my bank account not God (greed)

·         So, I weigh 300 pounds.  Food is my comfort (gluttony)

·         Hey, I deserve to live on welfare all my life. It’s not my fault. (sloth)

The natural order of life is for us to walk in life union with God and have His words live powerfully within our mind and spirit (John 15:7). By this manner, our spirit will control our soul which then controls our body and not vice versa. By living in the spirit, we can be assured of our victories through Jesus our Lord.

Paul the Apostle states this very well; “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. (Rom. 8:5-6)

“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” (Gal. 5:16) “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” (Gal.5:22-25)

MAN’S SPIRITUAL ATTRIBUTES

·         INTUITION – Knowledge from the Holy Spirit - 1 Cor 2:11

·         COMMUNION Worship in the spirit - John 4:24

·         CONSCIENCE – Cleanses our consciences Heb – 9:14

MAN’S SOUL ATTRIBUTES

·         EMOTION - The believer and emotion – Matt 22; Affection – Ps 42:1; Desire – Psalm 73:25; A life of feeling – 2 Cor 5:7; The life of faith – Rom 1:17

·         MIND - The mind a battlefield – 2 Cor 10:5; The vulnerabilities of a passive mind – 2 Cor 11:3; The way of deliverance – Col 3: 9; The laws of the mind - Rom 8:6

·         WILL - A believer’s will – Luke 22:42; Passivity and its dangers – 2 Tim 1:7; The believer’s mistake – Hosea 4:6; The path to freedom – John 8:32

MAN’S BODY ATTRIBUTES

·         BODY - The believer and his body – 1 Cor 6:13; Sickness – Matt 8:17; God as the life of the body – John 10:10; Overcoming death – John 11:25-26

Did Jesus Really Say They Would Certainly Die?

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. …

And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Genesis 3:1-7, 22-24

Do you ever get confused about what Jesus really said? Do you ever question the severity of the consequences if we ignore what he said?

I have. I know others who have. It seems the serpent always begins with the same tactic ...

Did Jesus really say, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me”?

Well, who would want to believe that? Now the faithful adherents of every religion outside of Christianity are separated from God. But Jesus really said it (John 14:6). They will certainly die.

Did Jesus really say, “If you do not forgive others their sins, your father will not forgive your sins”?

I once had to teach this verse to a fifth-grader. We began by talking about some of the bad things that could happen to him in school. He carried on for a long while about his righteous anger at the suggestions and the many creative ways he would inflict his wrath on his enemies if such things came about. This verse stopped him cold. Jesus really said it (Matthew 6:15). Those who live in anger and unforgiveness will certainly die.

Did Jesus really say, “If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned”?

Not according to a few Bible studies I’ve attended. Once saved, always saved is a far more comforting doctrine and the easier the path to that label “saved” the better. After all, who wants to consider the possibility that our self-deceived loved ones who said the sinner’s prayer and then went right back to sinful living aren’t going to be with us in Heaven? But Jesus really said it (John 15:6). Those who do not remain in him will certainly die.

Did Jesus really say, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven”?

This verse came up at a Bible study I attended, and one of my friends was so unsettled by it that she decided to stop thinking about it and pretend it didn’t exist. But Jesus did say that (Matthew 7:21). There are those who think they know the Lord who will certainly die.

To some up all this dreariness, here’s what Jesus said: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)

No More Blame

Romans 5:18 (MSG)
Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! 

Too many times I have pointed to Adam and Eve and declared, "It is all their fault!"  Countless times I looked at their disobedience, their selfish behavior as the reason I am so unhappy, or so uncomfortable, or so distraught. Placing the blame for my evil heart on our first ancestors is not only ridiculous, but unfair.

The truth is, if I were in their place, I probably would have done the same thing, and that, is a sobering thought. Why would I think today, that my heart's motives would have been purer than Eve's? What makes me any better than she? I never considered this probability before.  Were I in Eve's shoes (so to speak), I most likely would have behaved in the same selfish fashion. 

The comfort in all this is nothing would have changed the next steps. No matter if it were Eve or me, Jesus would still come into the world to redeem the sin. God's love for us knows no bounds and it isn't dependent on how we act. God love's us with an everlasting love.

The love Jesus has for us is the love He expects us to show others. We are to extend grace and also to pursue those who don't yet know Him.  We are to share all we have, including our faith and salvation with those who are still blind to Jesus' love  and grace.

Romans 5:12-21

As deceived as Eve

“I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.  For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.”
2 Corinthians 11:3-4

“She was deceived by the serpent's cunning.”  If Eve had a tombstone, this could well be its epitaph.  For this is how she has been remembered; it is her tragic legacy.

I don’t think Satan uses serpents much anymore, other than to scare the bejeebers out of us, perhaps.  Oh, he’s still hell-bent on leading us astray, but he's deceived plenty of people by now and he is more than pleased to use them to dupe more dupes!  Including you and me if we’re not careful.

So let’s sign the guest register at the First Church of Corinth, settle into a comfortable pew and consider Paul’s warning against three false promises: a different Jesus, a different spirit, and a different gospel.

We don’t often hear reports of a “different Jesus,” per se.  Our “different Jesus” is the one we create in our image by bending, stretching and twisting the Biblical Son of God like a toy-box Gumby until he looks the way we think he should look.  But God intends that we be conformed into the image of his Son (Romans 8:29), not the other way around.  And his complete Word is the complete authority on his Son.

Jesus is God, come in the flesh; any assertion to the contrary arises from a “different spirit.”  In one of the Bible's great “trinity” passages, Jesus instructed his disciples: “... I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. (John 14:16-17)”  And it is so crucial we follow this Holy Spirit of truth, that John warned against “different spirits,” even giving us this litmus test by which to discern among them: “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. (1 John 4:2)”

As Paul told the Galatians, “a different gospel ... is really no gospel at all. (Galatians 1:6)”  Only Jesus fulfilled the gospel announced in advance to Abraham (Galatians 3:6-9) and to the prophets (Romans 1:1-4).  Only God himself in human flesh could fulfill the rigid demands of the Law.  Only Jesus’ blood could remove our sin; only God's life could atone for our life.  This being true, there is, as Paul said, no other gospel; indeed, perfection needs no other “good news.”

Winding its way throughout eternity is the Word of God.  God displayed its authority upon speaking it.  Satan acknowledged its authority by twisting it.  Eve recognized its authority in misquoting it.  Moses and the prophets submitted to its authority when writing it.  Jesus attested to its authority by declaring it, living it and fulfilling it – everything “that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms. (Luke 24:44)”  And when we trust in its authority, it proves to be our rock, our safe place amid the tempest of deception.

As our wacky world turns wackier, let us not be as deceived as Eve.  Rather, let us hold onto these unchanging truths: there is no other Jesus; there is no other Holy Spirit of truth; there is no other gospel.

Our God is true to his Word.  We have it on good authority.  We can trust it with our lives.

[Today’s reading is 2 Corinthians 11:1-15.  For NIV, click here.  For The Message, click here.]