Grace and Truth
Bible Ministries

The criterion for spirituality is accurate doctrine; the criterion for pseudo-spirituality is emotion

In our study of the unique spiritual life of the Church Age believer when we stopped last time we were looking at Rom 8:1-8; and we had stopped with Rom 8:3-4;

"For what the (Mosaic) Law was powerless to do, in that it was weakened by the flesh (OSN), God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and for a sin offering He judged sin in the flesh, in order that the legal requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."

The legal requirement of the Law is that we stand perfect before God. The filling of the Holy Spirit fulfills that legal requirement of the Mosaic Law.

Carnality or OSN control of the soul and spirituality or the filling of God the Holy Spirit are shown here to be mutually exclusive absolutes. The law of the sin nature is carnality. The law of the Spirit of life is spirituality.

Rom 8:5; "For those (believers) who are according to the flesh keep thinking about the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, keep thinking about the things of the Spirit.

This contrast is illustrated in Gal 5:19-23;

Rom 8:6; Consequently, the thought pattern of the flesh is (carnal) death, but the thought pattern of the Spirit is life and peace,"

The results of the carnal believer's thinking is contrasted with the results of the spiritual believer's thinking. Rom 6:23;

Decisions in life are made on the basis of carnal norms and standards from the old sin nature or on the basis of spiritual norms and standards from the filling of the Holy Spirit.

You are not stuck with your present way of thinking. Once you start to think with doctrine, you are a different person. Application of doctrine to experience changes your personality. Momentum from spiritual growth changes your personality.

You become what you think about. Prov 23:7a;

Rom 8:7-8; "because the thought pattern of the flesh is hostile toward God; for it is not subordinate to the law of God, because it is not able to do so. Furthermore, those who are in the flesh (controlled by the sin nature) cannot please God."

We see from this that it is very important for believers to recover from carnality (OSN control or of the soul). The mechanics for recovery from carnality is the use of the rebound technique. Rebound is the technical term for recovery of fellowship with God and recovery of the filling of the Spirit.

The first time a believer sins after salvation, he loses the filling of the Spirit and fellowship with God and apart from rebound the believer begins to quench or grieve the Spirit.

Loss of the filling of the Spirit means the believer is outside the divine dynasphere and his soul is controlled by the OSN. God the Holy Spirit and the OSN both indwell the body of the Church Age believer so the major issue for the Church Age believer is who will control his life by controlling how he thinks.

The believer's volition is the guard at the gate of the soul. The old sin nature presents constant temptations to the soul, and our volition chooses for or against those temptations.

When first saved, the Holy Spirit enters us into the divine dynasphere through the filling of the Spirit so He controls our soul. The first time we choose to sin we relinquish the control of God the Holy Spirit to the OSN and the OSN controls our soul and we become carnal.

The origin of all sin is the volition. It is not sinful to be tempted. It is sinful when your volition gives in to the temptation and commits the sin. So your volition decides at any given moment whether you are controlled by the Holy Spirit or by your old sin nature.

When controlled by the OSN, you must use your volition to recover your status inside the divine dynasphere so that the Holy Spirit is again in control of your soul. This recovery requires the choice to use the rebound technique of 1John 1:9;

Recovery of fellowship with God is trans-dispensational so it is the same in the Old Testament as in the New Testament.

Psa 32:5; "I acknowledge my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide. I said, `I will acknowledge my transgression to the Lord.' And You forgave the iniquity of my sin."

1John 1:9; "If we acknowledge our sins to God, He is faithful and righteous with the result that He forgives us our (known) sins and He purifies us from all wrongdoing (the unknown sins)."

All the sins of human history were imputed to Jesus Christ on the cross and judged by the justice of God the Father. Christ's work provides for salvation and restored fellowship with God.

The way of salvation is faith in Jesus Christ. The way of spirituality is to cite or name the known sins in our life that took us out of fellowship with God. This is the only way we can reenter the divine dynasphere by recovering the filling of the Spirit where God the Holy Spirit controls our soul.

The sins we cite have already been to court and were judged. Therefore, 1John 1:9 says we simply "homologeo" our sins, which means to cite a courtroom case, to name something, or to acknowledge.

Every believer is a priest and represents himself before God. So in the privacy of their priesthood, the believer simply names the sins that have been committed, and "God is faithful (God always does the same thing) and righteous to forgive us our sins and to purify us from all unrighteousness." This is the only way anyone can ever be spiritual.

Apart from the rebound technique, we would be carnal from the first time we sinned after salvation and there would be no capacity to function in the plan of God for our lives, no spirituality, and no protocol plan of any kind.

There has to be a grace system for recovering fellowship. Yet just as there are so many false Gospels that add human works or gimmicks to faith in Christ, there are also many erroneous ideas of what we must do to be spiritual.

If anything is added to faith in Jesus Christ, there is no salvation. People want to help God, but God doesn't need our help. Just as He provided everything necessary for our salvation, He likewise provides everything necessary for the recovery of spirituality after salvation.

Spirituality is therefore a matter of consistently using the rebound technique. As long as we live on this earth, we will continue to commit sins. This means we must also understand what sin is so we can identify personal sin in order to acknowledge it.

We will not reach sinless perfection in this life. The closest we come to perfection is positional sanctification that we receive at the moment of salvation where we are entered into union with Christ.

At salvation the Holy Spirit indwells your body, 1Cor 3:16; The filling of the Spirit is the Holy Spirit controlling your life. The indwelling is permanent 1Cor 6:19-20; regardless of your spiritual status.

The believer who is out of fellowship is described in 1Cor 3:1-3; and Rom 8:5-8; as being carnal.

 

© Copyright 2007, Michael Lemmon Bible Ministries. World Rights Reserved.  This document was created on 4/15/2012