Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Keep In Step With The Spirit (PT-1)

Galatians 5:16  
"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, 
and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh;"
  
    No man was ever more conscious of the tension in human nature than Paul. For Paul it was essential that Christian freedom should mean not freedom to indulge the lower side of human nature, but freedom to walk in the life of the Spirit. He gives us a list of evil things. Every word he uses has a picture behind it. Lets start with, Fornication; it has been said, and said truly, that the one completely new virtue Christianity brought into the world was chastity. Christianity came into a world where sexual immorality was not only condoned, but was regarded as essential to the ordinary working of life.  
   Impurity, is used of that ceremonial cleanness which entitles a man to approach his gods. Impurity, then, is that which makes a man unfit to come before God, the soiling of life with the things which separate us from God. Wantonness; It has been defined as "readiness for any pleasure." The man who practices it has been said to know no restraint, but to do whatever is desired. Josephus ascribed it to Jezebel when she built a temple to Baal in Jerusalem. The idea is that of a man who is so far gone in desire that he has ceased to care what people say or think
   Idolatry; this means the worship of gods which the hands of men have made. It is the sin in which material things have taken the place of God. Witchcraft; this literally means the act of  administering drugs and given of magical potions. It can mean the beneficent use of drugs by a doctor; but it can also mean poisoning, and it came to be very specially connected with the use of drugs for sorcery, of which the ancient world was full of.
   Enmity; the idea is that of the man who is characteristically hostile to his fellow men; it is the precise opposite of the Christian virtue of love for the brethren and for all men. Strife; originally this word had mainly to do with the rivalry for prizes. It can even be used in a good sense in that connection, but much more commonly it means the rivalry which has found its outcome in heated arguments and disputes. Jealousy; this being from which our word zeal comes and was originally a good word. It meant effort to match or surpass the desire to attain to nobility when we see it. But it degenerated and became to mean the desire to have what someone else has. A wrong desire for what is not for us.
Amen! 

Reading: Gal. 5:16-21
Ref: HG SB
May God Bless You
And Your Family
Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.
The Cross Life Ministry




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