Justification Stop one on the Mountain of God justified by faith part 6

Welcome to episode 175, In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 175. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I want to continue on the Justified by Faith, and we left off, and I kind of abruptly cut the last episode off because I looked up at the clock and it was working on 12, 13 minutes, and I knew I was diving into a place where there was no return in any 5 or 10 minutes. So I just wanna continue that talk, and we talked about being carnally minded, and I wanna go back to that scripture. And that's in Romans 8:7, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the Spirit who dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. And I want to go back to John. Remember the lesson where Jesus told his disciples to eat me and drink my blood? That is in John 6. This kind of hand in glove, this lesson. John 6:63, it is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life. Jesus is telling them in this difficult lesson that there's something you just got to take by faith. You are going to have to by faith eat my flesh and drink my blood. That's— you're gonna have to do it or you have no part in me. He's told his disciples that back in John 6, and he don't back down. He just looks at him, looks at the 12 disciples and says, do you want to leave also? Because remember, this is where a lot of his disciples left and walked with him no more. Jesus said to the 12, do you also want to go away? That is in John 6:67. Jesus just isn't going to back down from this because he is God, and it's impossible to please God without faith. It all kind of intertwines in together— Hebrews and Romans and John and Ephesians and Philippians. Can you see kind of how the Bible just kind of all weaves itself in together? And you You can't just teach one lesson without going to different parts of scripture, not to justify your angle on it, but to read the Bible and let the Holy Spirit teach you what he wants to teach you. That's why I read so much Bible. If you wanna know the truth, if you ever wondered, I wonder why he reads so much of the word of God? And it's because the word of God is where all the power is. The words that I speak to you are my opinion or what I think the Bible is trying to say to you,. But when I read the Bible with my superior reading skills, you are getting the word of God. And then the Holy Spirit, as I read it, and as faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God, as you listen to the word of God, then the Holy Spirit can make that word come to life to you. And he can give you a better meaning or appropriate that word to your life where you're living right now, because the Holy Spirit is everywhere all the time. So he knows right where you're living. He knows what you're dealing with. And when you hear the Word of God, what I'm trying to talk to you about may be what I'm going through, and then I'm using this example, my inability to stay focused while I'm driving and people are cutting me off. And when you're driving, you may go, "Huh, well, Greg Ryan would have got mad right here, but I'm not mad." We all have our own lives to live. And what I'm saying is, in my perfect— I am nowhere near perfect, But what I'm trying to do is use my imperfect actions as I follow after a perfect example. I'm just not gonna get hung up on the fact that I'm gonna make mistakes. You and I are both gonna make mistakes, and the quicker we can get over those mistakes and learn from 'em, the quicker we're gonna grow and move on to the next lesson. Because when we pass the test, that don't mean that we need to celebrate because we're not going to have any more tests. That just means, in my humble opinion, that we don't have to take that test again. Once we learn the lesson that God wants us to learn, I believe he moves us on to the next lesson. We may have to use what we learned in a previous lesson, of a life lesson, to then be applied to the next area of our life. And this justification is such a key is you have got to know that you are just like Jesus. Your spirit man is just like God, and that when God looks at you, he sees your spirit. If you ever wondered why you can mess up all the time and God still loves you, when I say that you are God's favorite, it's because God is looking at your spirit man, or looking at the person that he has made you or called you to be. He knows your potential. He knows how good you can be. He knows what an impact your life can have for his kingdom. And he's just wanting to encourage you to take those steps of faith, because the only way to walk out what God has for you in your life is by faith. Because I can promise you, the punk don't want you doing nothing that's going to bring God glory. The punk wants to steal, kill, and destroy. That's his only modus operandi. And I know I use that word a lot. I don't know why, I just kind of like it. If he had a business card, it's stealing, killing, and destroying. If there's any of that going on, that's the punk. Jesus in John 10:10, I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly. So Jesus, abundant life. Satan, steal, kill, and destroy. I have no idea why people would ever want to follow Satan, and I just think it's because it's wide gate and it's easy. Because you don't have to apply yourself. You don't have to read the Bible. You don't have to have people make fun of you. I mean, I get people— cue the eye roll— all the time. I get people telling me that I'm crazy and stupid for believing the Bible. Well, okay, we'll see. I mean, you know, it may take eternity to figure out if I'm right or wrong, but if I'm right, they're in a world of hurt. And if I'm wrong and there's nothing on the other side of this, then it ain't gonna matter. But I'm telling you, the way that God has changed me and my life and my family, I am right to follow the Word of God. I am living my best life.

I—

for 29 and a half years, I followed the punk. I didn't know I was following the punk, but I'd followed my own flesh. I followed my own carnal instincts. I was doing what Greg wanted to do. And I still do that a lot. I still— I'm not going to tell you that I've, I've arrived and I can just walk every step that I take every day is in the Spirit. That would be a total and complete lie. I maybe take 2 or 3 steps in the Spirit, and then the rest of the day I'm walking out my carnal walk. I don't know exactly how often that I'm walking in the Spirit. I think God's kind of like a perfect parent. Is he's not counting how many times I fall, he's counting how many steps I take. And the more I do and the more steps I take towards him— and that's the cool thing about God's word— is he said that if I draw near to him, he will draw near to me. So I take the first step and then God starts coming towards me. And let's read that real quick. Let's go to James 4. And there's a— there's— again, we're going to get a lot of Bible reading 4:1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 4:2 You lust and do not have; you murder and covet and cannot obtain; you fight and war, and yet you do not have because you do not ask. 4:3 You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4:4 Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, "The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously"? But he gives more grace. Therefore he says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Therefore submit to God; resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up. I just love James. He is more of a corrector of me. When I start reading James, it seems like he's always getting on to me or telling me to suck it up. This scripture kind of goes hand in hand with what we've been talking about, is that our body, our flesh, and our carnal mind and everything is warring. It's kind of— it's a constant war. And James is talking to believers, and he's telling these people, if you'll read James 4 all the way through, you know, it's where do wars and fights come from. Like, if we were all walking in the Spirit, you know, the fruit of the Spirit— love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness, and self-control. None of that has anything to do with wars and fights and jealousy. I mean, God's not going to be jealous if we're walking around in the fruit of the Spirit. So I just want to encourage you, we are called to live by faith. We have got to look at the Bible. We've got to read the Bible with an open heart, with our mind, will, and emotion, with our soul. We need to read it, but we've got to believe what we read. We can't just read words. We gotta see how we can apply this to our life and to kill the flesh man, to kill our carnal mind and our carnal senses. And no, if it's like the works of the flesh, if you go to Galatians and read, the works of the flesh are evident, and it's a big long list of all the nasty, gnarly things that your flesh wants to do. And you can kinda see that being played out for all these people that don't believe in God and think we're all fools. But all of the crap that they're doing is just biblical, but it's based on— they care less about God, they just care about themselves. And so they go out and do all of these works of the flesh and then blame us for being hypocrites and blame us for being insensitive. And it's a crazy— it's a crazy world we're living in. But let's pray real quick. God, I thank you so much for your word. God, I thank you for your correction. Holy Spirit, thank you for just leading me and guiding and correcting me where I need correction. And God, I pray in Jesus' name that if I've said anything to mislead this brother or sister that's listening to this, I pray in Jesus' name that you would clear it up. And Lord, show me where I mess up so that I don't do it again. Lord, we thank you, we love you, we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.

Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.