teachmevp

Romans 6:19-21 - “to iniquity unto iniquity” The general principle works across the board. One pleasurable indulgence, leads to another pleasurable indulgence. One serving of self, leads to another serving of self. Words spoken in haste, lead to other words spoken in haste, harmful words, to further harmful words. One sin leads to another sin, to iniquity unto iniquity. 
 Paul is exhorting us, as believers to bring our conduct in line with our identity in Christ. The believer makes the choice of who they will obey and you are a slave no matter what you choose. We serve the sin nature rather than our Savior, as we serve self rather than the Body of Saints to whom we are as equally and intimately joined, as we are joined to our Savior. 
 We were free from imputed righteousness before we trusted Christ as our Savior. You see, it is one thing to be righteous in the eyes of the world, many people have that kind of righteousness, but Scripture clearly distinguishes between the righteousness that people attempt to produce in themselves and that type of righteousness that is credited to a person’s account called imputed righteousness. 
 Human righteousness comes from self-interest-motivation, it is self-glorifying and unbelievers are under no obligation to serve righteousness. It should not surprise us to see what we see now and what we will be seeing in an increasing manner as time goes on in the world today. The unsaved world is simply serving the master they are under. 


Romans 5:9-10 - “much more” The goal of the apostle Paul is to establish us and every believer in the knowledge of our sanctified standing before God, our being in his son. These are “much more” security doctrinal passages that we find in this section of Romans, you will see Paul using that term over and over again. 
 Justification and Sanctification are “much more” assurance doctrines that Paul is giving us as to the security that we as believers have being placed into Christ. Paul wants to establish our minds in the “much more” assurance that we have, so we can have that stability of mind and stability of emotions. 
 This is security. This is who we are in Christ, we can not lose it. So, this is a “much more” doctrine when it comes to the establishment of the mind of the believer and the truth of their secure identity in Christ. You see, God could only grant a gift decree of the very righteousness of Christ to those God would be joining to his son, Jesus Christ. This is why our faith in Christ’s faithful sacrifice is essential. 


2 Corinthians 5:17 - Paul is not talking about a believer gaining sinless perfection at the point of their belief or at any other time for that matter. When Paul talks about “a new creature” he is not talking about sin in an individual’s life, he is talking about all that we once were in Adam, prior to salvation. 
 The issue for life everlasting is not what church you attend or to which denomination you belong or how religious you are, or even whether or not you are a good person in the worldly sense of the word “good.” The issue in eternity will be to which man are you related? Romans 5:19 is about identity, contrasting two men; Romans is really the story of two men and the people who are related to these two men.
 Do you have your identity in the first Adam, or do you have your identity in the second Adam, Jesus Christ. Once saved, we are no longer in Adam, at the very point of our believe we are that instant “in Christ.” In God’s eyes we are no longer who we once were, we are now the new creation, having been forever joined to our Savior.

Romans 2:3 - Arrogance! It is such a shame that so many people today are trusting in their goodness to get them to heaven. God is going to see you as having no need of the saving work of his son. The human race is guilty before God! God has decreed it! NO excuse will suffice to pardon it. Paul wants us to understand that there is no refuge in human goodness. 
 When we put our human hearts under the microscope of God’s truthful judgment, we are going to find out that we need much more than human righteousness to have a perfectly just standing before God. We need a Savior and Jesus Christ is that Savior! They have the responsibility of making a decision. I will believe it or I will reject it. God’s given them that choice; love does not force itself.
 According to Romans chapter one, God’s attitude toward ALL ungodliness and unrighteousness of the human race is being revealed in scripture. The guilty verdict that God has just declared upon the human race, do you think that you are going to escape that guilty verdict. Do you think for one moment that God is going to give you a non-wrath-worthy pass; that Christ needn’t have died for your sins; that your sins are of such a non-serious nature that you have no need of a Savior in the first place?
 The first characteristic of a self-righteous moralizer is Arrogance. Here is a person who is looking down their nose at someone else, yet they are doing the very same things in another form! It is a Son issue today, not a sin issue! There are many who will spend an eternity apart from Christ, because they refuse to accept what Christ accomplished on their behalf.

Romans 7:24 - “O wretched man that I am” do you suppose Paul would want us to believe that we can produce through our fleshly efforts, what Israel was totally incapable of producing through their fleshly efforts, or for that matter, what Paul knew that he could never produce through his fleshly efforts even after his conversion. Paul never used the word fruit in connection with any believer as being the product OF that believer. 
 You can set yourselves apart all you like behaviorally, you can start any number of things and cease doing any number of things in order to gain holiness before God, but you will do no better at reaching that goal then the foolish Galatians, who were themselves flirting with the idea of progressive sanctification. 
 Paul did not praise them for their gallant efforts to become more holy people through fleshly production, he gave them a name, he called them foolish people! We can do great wonders when it comes to relative righteousness, but measuring up to God’s standard of righteousness, none of us will ever do so apart from God decreeing that to be so. 
 “Look at where I was, look at where I am now,” that is famous among many groups that are meeting today, and they have to have a testimony by a person showing the other people there where they were and how far they have progressed. The capacity of the human race to EARN the measure of righteousness that belongs to God is “Zilch.”

Galatians 3:1-3 - Having been taught by Paul, these people begun in belief, but then some false teachers came along and these sealed saints became confused in their thinking. These people were saved, but they reverted to a walking after the flesh identity; not a identity in Christ. 
 The problem with the foolish Galatians was not the fact that they were slipping back into a sinful lifestyle. The problem with the foolish Galatians was incorrect thinking. They were slipping back away from the reality of grace and back into a works for righteousness to maintain a righteous standing with God concept. 
 They knew about the crucifixion, they knew about the resurrection, and they knew what it had accomplished. They had been foolishly duped, the law was never successful at making anyone good before God, it was not given for that purpose. They needed to be straightened out where their thinking was concerned. 
 Paul provided the correction by asking these people if they knew the source from which their new identity had been derived. Did it come from first believing or from later doing? Let us remain in our minds with that concept and not move away from that in our thinking. Paul is saying, “Do not let your thinking become foolish thinking and go back to dealing with God according to rules and regulations.”

Romans 6:3 - “know you not” when you trusted Christ as Savior, something happened that took place outside the realm of your sensation, outside the realm of your feeling. People oftentimes base their salvation and their relationship to God on their emotions. From Paul’s perspective, these people are “walking after the flesh.” 
 They are walking in relation to the flesh, thinking that their relationship with God is based upon either the feelings of their flesh (emotions) or the capacity of their flesh to produce righteousness through their performance. One of the main purposes of worship, as some people define it, is to get a touch from God; to get the emotions at a peak. 
 They feel close to God when they are in a situation that stimulates their emotions. They find themselves on an endless quest for emotional satisfaction, because they relate their closeness to God upon feeling. Paul wants us to recognize that Justification and Sanctification are not based upon feelings at all. 
 Feelings are not an outward demonstration of an inward manifestation, as some would have us believe. Justification and Sanctification has nothing at all to do with a religious physical formality, it is rather, a reality, and Paul wants us to understand that and appreciate it as being true!

Galatians 2:16 - The faith “OF” Jesus Christ, his faithfulness, not ours. Israel’s labor of love under the law contract was a system of performance according to demand. They had to deal with their neighbors according to a strict system of rules and regulations. The law told them how to deal with one another. The law had apprehension as a motivating factor. 
 Understand love “agape” has much more to do with attitude in action, than it has to do with emotions direction that does what’s in the best interest of another individual. This is a work of righteousness. No one has ever measured up to the labor of love as Christ expressed that work of righteousness during his walk on earth. Christ not only fulfilled the outer demands of the Law Program, he fulfilled the inner demands as well.
 Christ always did the will of the Father, he never went contrary at anytime to the will of the Father. God’s design was that Christ fulfill the law, so God could join us. To be in Christ, joined to our Savior, requires that you believe that something happened to the sins that Christ died for. God raised Jesus Christ from among the dead as proof that the payment Christ made for all the sins of the world was sufficient to satisfy God’s justice where the sins Christ died for are concerned. 
 Our labor of love under the Age of Grace has had the apprehension aspect removed entirely. We are to serve others today based on how God expressed his love to others through Christ and what God accomplished for them, who God made them and us to be in our Savior by joining us to our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Romans 8:12-13 - We do not owe anything to this flesh, because it will never please God. That is why our flesh is going on down to the dust and God is going to give us a new body. Our fleshly production did not gain us our identity in Christ in the first place, and it certainly can not gain us heaven. If the works of our flesh did not contribute to getting us save, how can the works of the flesh play a part in keeping us saved. 
 How will we die if we live after the flesh? If we live after applying rule-keeping to our righteousness, we are going to be functionally dead when it comes to the production of fruit in our lives. Paul was functionally not capable of producing any fruit that God could accept, he died functionally when he tried to apply law-keeping to perfect his flesh. 
 If we are trying to satisfy God’s justice on a daily basis or however by conforming to a standard of rules and regulations, we are going to find that just the opposite becomes true in our flesh. We are going to find ourselves constantly focusing on the flesh. The milk of self-righteousness will sour under the divine heat of God’s justice. It is either an issue of God’s righteousness, or it is an issue of self-righteousness. 
 Living after the flesh, from a functional pony of view is taking the credit yourself. Walking after the new nature is recognizing the source of the fruit. To walk in the new nature is to take the credit away from yourself. You realize that God is not looking at how well you adhere to any standard. God is not looking at your production. God is not looking at your behavior in order to view you as being in favor with him. God is looking at your identification with his son, and at what his energizing power from on high is producing IN you. 


1 Timothy 6:9 - “they that will be rich” Do you see how the entrapment takes place? Those who are bent on satisfying the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life fall into a snare, in that they become addicted to the manner in which they satisfy those lusts. Without any concern whatsoever for keeping your service to those lusts at bay, then serving those lusts will entrap you, such that it will become increasingly more difficult for you to do. 1 Corinthians 9:27
 Paul was not talking about being wealthy; nothing wrong with being wealthy. Paul was talking about those with an insatiable desire to become wealthy, their sin lies not in being wealthy, but in coveting riches. They fall into temptation and a snare, the addictive entrapment. A person who covets wealth, makes that their goal in life, can be easily swayed by the sin nature toward dishonesty, and dishonesty can become a lifestyle, rather than a one-time event. 
 Whatever, or whomever, you choose to serve, you become a servant to, a slave to that person or to that thing, you are going to become enslaved to that which you choose to put yourself in servitude. Choose to serve sin and you can soon become addicted to the manner in which you have chosen to serve sin. That is the principle. Romans 6:16
 Paul goes on to say, they fall into many foolish and hurtful lusts (not only harmful to themselves, but hurtful to others around them) which drown men in destruction (“damage” whether it be physical, mental, emotional, or functional, and damage to a person can take any number of roads) and perdition (total waste or ruination) of that individual. Paul is talking about what those who pursue the satisfaction of the sinful lusts of the flesh reap to themselves, not from God, but through that to which they are reaping. 
 


Romans 8:29 - Do you grasp the full scope of what predestination means if you are a believer? Think about this for a moment, God has predetermined something where you are concerned once you believe Paul’s good news message and God’s mind is not going to be changed on this. 
 Now if you are a believer, what does that mean to you that God pre-decided something? God did not predetermine to cause some individuals to belief unto eternal life. God predetermined to conform everyone who believes to his son, Jesus Christ. You the believer are to be conformed to the imagine of God’s son!
 God in his infinite wisdom pre-decreed that every believer would be joined to his son, fully identified with his son. God also pre-decided that you the believer would be blessed with all the blessings and privileges of an adopted adult son. God decided in advance that you the believer are to be the praise of the glory of his grace. Ephesians 1:4-6
 You are predestined to these outcomes, God has pre-determined them simple as that, God’s mind is set. You see God wants us to praise him for all these things and he certainly wants us to thank him for all these things, because he has pre-determined these outcomes for you, for ever believer. God wants us to rest in these things.
 


2 Timothy 3:7 - Pride will not let us swallow our own pill. You see, on one hand traditions die hard, some people are never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, because they fear learning. Knowledge of the truth may cause them to have to change the truth they have been standing on for who knows how long, and that is a frightening thing for lots of people. 
 It is a fearful thing to think we may have been wrong all along, much easier for many people to avoid learning then change in mid-stream. Pride is a tremendously powerful force, money can be a factor. Money and power go hand in hand in the mind of carnal people, which actually leads us to the real reason from Paul’s prospective some are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 
 People living in the realm of the flesh, focusing more on the things of the earth and the desires of the flesh than on the things of God. Yes, both pride and money fit within the carnal category. To be carnal is to centered, concerned with personal stature with the things that satisfy fleshly desires and emotional needs. 
 There are pastors out there who have come to the knowledge of the Word of God Rightly Divided who refuse to take a stand on the distinctiveness of Paul’s ministry and Paul’s message and all because in their minds they have too much to lose if they do. Could they only see what they truly have to gain, if they do. 
 


Romans 1:17 - “For therein,” inside that gospel message is good news concerning a righteousness that far exceeds the righteousness of any person, no matter how righteous appearing that person may be. The righteousness spoken of in what Paul calls “the gospel of Christ” is no less than than the perfect righteousness that belongs to God himself. 
 Paul went on to tell us that the person who would have righteousness freely attributed to their account, is the person who has believed something, and it is an issue Paul said of faith from two different perspectives, “from faith to faith.” The first “faith” in that expression is a reference to the faith OF, or belonging to Christ himself. 
 So it was ultimately Christ’s faith that allowed God’s justice to remain intact, as God declares an unrighteous believer to be righteous. You see, apart from Christ’s faith and his faithfulness to carry out the Father’s will based on that faith, there would not be anyone perfectly righteous to whom God could join a believing sinner. 
 Just as Christ never doubted the will of the Father, the Father never doubted the faith and faithfulness of his son. It was God’s plan to use the faith and its resultant faithfulness of the son of God in the ultimate glorification of the human race who would take him at his Word. The Identity of believers to Christ is that which allows God to remain just when he credits those with righteousness with that which belongs Christ, who is perfectly righteous.

1 Timothy 1:15 - Paul was not only first in line when it came to dispensing the Grace of God, Paul was also foremost in crime when it came to murdering the saints of Israel’s earthly kingdom program. If Paul was at Pentecost, would Paul himself, if he took part in stoning Stephen for believing the message given at Pentecost, would he have been a blasphemer at Pentecost? 
 In Paul’s pre-grace zealousness, he would have been a foremost rejecter of any notion whatsoever that Jesus was Israel’s messiah or that Jesus had risen from among the dead. First in line, first in crime are apt descriptions for the Apostle of Grace. Paul is the chief pattern of God’s grace to all, he is the foremost example. Paul was certainly the first person to be an exhibitor of the long-suffering Grace of God, in that Paul called himself a blasphemer according to his very own testimony. (1Timothy 1:13) 
 We need to understand that even though Paul was saved, Paul still considered himself to be a sinner. Paul understood the word: Sin. And Paul understood that word meant to come short of the righteousness belonging to God himself. The word “chief” in this passage is the Greek word protos, were we get our English word prototype. 
 Not only does prototype mean the first in a sense of time, prototype can also mean: a foremost example. Paul is the foremost example of the impossibility, the total impossibility of gaining righteousness before God through the performance of the flesh. The source of our righteousness! What is it: personal performance or identity in Christ?
 


1 Corinthians 6:11 - And such were some of you, Paul is going back to this list in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. “Were” some of you, not that you did these things, you WERE these things. No doubt the carnal saints of Corinth would of found themselves there on this list. Paul is not bringing this list to their attention in order to frighten them with The Second Death. 
 Paul is bringing to their attention the fact that God is now no longer viewing them apart from righteousness that belongs to his son. If Paul had ceased writing after going through this list of deplorable practices, then we could safely assume that continuing to do these things after believing the good news message would result in a reversal of the offenders salvation or as some teach, perhaps even a lost with a connect with God that must somehow be restored. 
 But that is not what Paul is saying here at all. Paul is telling these carnal saints at Corinth that the reason these detestable deeds had not and could not result in a lost of their salvation or their fellowship with God for that matter, is because as Carnal as these Corinthians happen to be, they have a holy standing with God through their identity with his son. 
 And the gift decree of righteousness belonging to the son had been totally and permanently credited to the account of these carnal believers to their account in heaven at the point of their belief. Little wonder that right after listing all these deplorable sins, the apostle Paul follows up immediately with 1 Corinthians 6:12. None of these things can send a believer to The Second Death, they are definitely things all believers should avoid.

Romans 12:10 - A synonym for the word “preferring” is the word “deference.” Showing deference means putting another person’s interests above your own interest. If preferring others above self is the measure of our love for God, how many of us can truly say we love God with ALL our heart, ALL our soul, ALL our mind? How many of us love others more than we love ourselves? 
 We do not show deference, we show preference, and the problem is that the one most often preferred in the life of everyone with a sin nature, is self. Whose love was it that restrained our apostle? Was it his love for God, or was it God’s love for Paul? Isn’t serving one another love? 
 Love is serving others, but notice here in Galatians 5:13, “by love serve one another.” In other wards, by love we are to love, does that make sense? Isn’t that an interesting construction? Through the instrumentality of love, we are to love others. Through the instrumentality of who’s love, is it our love for God that helps us love others or is it God’s love for us that helps us to love others? 
 Our reasonable service is a reflection of our appreciation for the fact that the sin question was forever settled. The root cause of our sin is that we love our self and we will not allow anyone to taint that self view. We interpret everything through the sieve of self. We relate what others do, we relate what others say in accordance with their actions and their words substantiate the way we desire to see our self. This is the idolatry mind-set. 
 Maturity is all about the degree to which you participate in the increase of the Body of Christ unto the deifying of its self in love. The degree to which you participate in that which brings unity to the Body of Christ and edifies the believer to that degree you can consider yourself to be mature. It is much more than taking in knowledge, it is a renewed mind.

Romans 6:11 - We need to be focusing on our new identity. Where do you reckon? In your mind. Take an inventory of the facts, to count it up and consider all of the facts and then to come to an appropriate conclusion based upon those facts. Paul is going to great lengths here in Romans Chapter 6 to make his case, that people who fail to conduct themselves properly, fail to understand properly. 
 That is Paul’s point here in Verse 11, he places the emphasis when it comes to grace behavior on helping us to perceive ourselves in the new identity that is our right now, being IN Jesus Christ. Paul wants us to see ourselves as God already sees us. We need to be focusing on our new identity. 
 You have to know something, to count up the facts before you can come to an appropriate conclusion based upon what you know to be true. That is why knowledge is absolutely essential. If you have drawn an improper conclusion, Paul would say it is because you have failed to properly consider all of the facts. 
 Anyone who teaches that God accepts you or blesses you on the basis of how well you dress up the old man up in Christian clothing, or on how well you make the old man perform, that person fails to properly understand that the old man no longer exists in the eyes of God. They spend all of their time trying to perfect the old man. 
 Reckon ourselves to be now and forevermore alive unto God, we cannot lose it. Behavior did not put us there, behavior cannot take us out of there. Christ will never again have to die for our sins and likewise, we can count on the fact that we will never die for our sins. When Paul tells us to put on the new man, he is not asking us to dress up the old man, he is simply asking us to recognize that the old man no longer exists in the eyes of God. See yourselves as God sees you.

Romans 6:16 - If sin leads to death, obedience would lead to life is what we would conclude, but that is not what Paul said. Paul did not use life in opposition to death. Is it possible for a believer to sin and have those sins lead to death? Yes! We know that an unbeliever’s sin leads to death, so the universal principle that sin leads to death is true. 
 How then can a believer die? They can die physically, death can come in many different ways. If you decided every morning to drink a fifth of whiskey, what are you going to do to your body? A believer can die functionally in that they can serve no further useful purpose here on earth, no heavenly purpose on earth to those to whom they become an ambassador. 
 Galatians 6:8 - We can take this as a general principle. Life, in the physical sense, comes from making proper choices. Death, in a physical sense, can come from making improper choices in our lives. If we continue in a sinful lifestyle, and we continue not bringing the flesh into subjection, we can count on that lifestyle to take a toll on us. 
 Choices have consequences. The choices we make with serving self have an effect on others which will affect us. Death can take place in so many ways, it could be emotional, it can be relational. We do not need to start pointing at particular sins, but if we are a slave to sin, whatever sin we are serving, the sin that has us in bondage will exact its toll on our flesh. 
 You did not free yourself from sin, God did that in response to Christ’s faithfulness and your faith in Christ faithful sacrifice to have resolved God’s justice where your sins are concerned. You became a servant to the righteousness that is already yours, but some of us servants do not do a very good job of serving, do we?

Romans 8:1 - There is THEREFORE NOW, the Now pointing back to the reality of our justification and our sanctification. Based on justification and sanctification, Paul often uses that word “therefore” which means he is ready to draw a conclusion. Paul took us through justification through faith, telling us how God has dealt with that problem of sin. And, then he took us through sanctification, the issue with sanctification is not about sin, but about perfection; God perfected us, made us as equally righteous as God himself. 
 Now, Paul draws it all together, based upon the fact that you are already sanctified, already IN Christ, there is now no condemnation for you. If God sees you IN Christ and he sees you as being complete in your identity with Christ, totally identified with Jesus Christ in every aspect of Christ’s life and relationship with the Father, to condemn you who are IN Christ, would be the same thing as to condemn Jesus Christ. Colossians 2:10
 There are those who say the final portion of Romans 8:1 where it says, “who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit” should not be there at all. However, the thought of not walking after the flesh, but after the spirit does indeed appear down in Verse 4 and is in the manuscript of the Majority text, so that idea is a valid idea. So, rather than ignoring them altogether, why not just explain them. 
 Walking after the flesh is not talking about committing sins, but with placing one’s confidence in the capacity of their flesh to provide righteousness through performance. Rather than having Christ’s righteousness freely imputed to their account, the person who is walking after the flesh is the person laboring under the false notion that they can earn their righteousness through their performance. They are laboring under the false notion that there is capacity in their flesh to be right before God, that is precisely what Israel was doing.

2 Corinthians 7:1 - Why in the fear of God, because we have the Judgment Seat of Christ to which all those sealed in Christ will be present. This is every believer’s responsibility, we should conduct ourselves in a manner conducive to the job that God’s given us. It is our ambassadorship of the message of reconciliation, how am I to conduct myself given my ambassadorship?
 Ephesians 4:1 - Your calling has not changed, it cannot change, so conduct yourselves in accordance with your calling. We are called to peace, this is how believers are to relate to other believers, but walk worthy of the vocation that belongs to you, because God has freely given it to you. How can those who have been justified freely, sanctified in Christ, how should those people be conducting themselves? 
 Colossians 3:14 - Agape is action love. There is a difference between upon and addition to, because when you put on love, you have simply taken all the seven states of mind listed in Colossians 3:12-13, and you have put movement to the attitude. Agape is the functional life of underlying attitude. Paul is saying I have given you the attitude, now let’s put feet to the attitude, grace attitude in action. 
 God never intended subjective feelings to be a replacement for objective truth, that is why he’s given us his Word. Only when inner peace lines up with the written Word of God Rightly Divided are we headed in the proper direction. Philippians 4:6-7, so when it comes to the peace department, God does NOT lead independently of the Word. So, we not only have peace with God, we can enjoy the peace of God, who shall keep our hearts and minds through Christ in every circumstance that we face.

The dispensing of the grace of God. You see, God does not bring armies of insects on people today, he is not sending calamity of any kind on people today, whether it be by climate disaster, financial upheaval, or whatever else might be attributed to God’s hand of judgment on a Christ rejecting world. Why?
 God is NOT imputing people’s sins unto them today, because he imputed them to somebody else. Why all the turmoil and distressful circumstances in the world today? It is the age of sin, it is sin in the world, and sin playing itself out; the natural consequence of the sin of the world. 
 The apostle of the age of grace, delivers to us the truth that God is not bringing special judgments on the world today. The things that are occurring in our world today come as a natural result of the sin-cursed world in which we live, not from special judgments. 
 God is not trying to get even with people today because of their sins, and he is not calling down some special bad thing; some adverse situation, in order to teach certain individuals a lesson. God does not teach through special judgments during the Age of Grace, he teaches us through his written Word today. 
 Paul says, “It stablished us.” It stabilizes believers today, it is the Word that does the stabilizing work of God, so that we are able with the Word, hold up under what is happening today. God has given you what you need to endure whatever you face in this life, whether it be best circumstances or worse circumstances from our perspective. We take it in, it sustains us and builds us up, it fortifies us.

Knowing you are complete in Christ, how would love operate? God’s will for you is to be mature not only in the knowledge of his Word, but in the application of that knowledge through the avenue of love. Knowledge finds expression through our behavior. To serve Christ today, you must serve the earthly manifestation of Christ’s Body. 
 Knowing you have perfect righteousness in the son, how should you operate positively on behalf of others? Knowledge and love application of that knowledge is the idea behind growth, one without the other is entirely useless. Separation from the world means, growth requires something where the believer and the world is concerned. 
 A coin accomplishes nothing till it is spent, practical holiness is the hallmark of maturity; maturity demands it, you can not be mature apart from it. Practical holiness is that which will get you rewarded at The Bema Seat of Christ. Love will never show up empty handed where Bema Seat rewards are concerned, love always edifies and unifies. 
 To worship at the altar of the flesh, is to allow experience to trump truth, and to allow experience to trump truth, is to allow emotion to trump truth, and when experience becomes king in a person’s life, experience is determining that person’s doctrine, rather than that person’s doctrine determining the validity of their experience.

There is a difference in what the Bible calls the flesh and what it calls the old man, these are not the same terms. The flesh, we all have that bent towards satisfying the lust of our flesh toward serving ourselves. We all have the flesh to contend with, it is alive and functioning in everyone us, none excluded. 
 Paul would have us understand while we still contend with our flesh, our sin bent, God eradicated our identity with it as far as our righteous standing before him is concerned and our identity in the Bible calls that the old man, that is gone, crucified. 
 So, while we continue to have and will continue to have to contend with the flesh, God no longer sees us in our identity with the flesh. God’s sentence on the flesh was not reformation, it was total eradication. That sentence was carried out when we died with Christ. God had no intention of repairing the old man. 
 Christ had to crucify our identity with the flesh, the old man. Paul wants us to agree with God to reckon our identity with our flesh as dead and gone. God has no plan to clean the old man up and make the old man more presentable, his intention was to kill the old man. 
 Every believer is standing in the gift degree of righteousness, the very perfect righteousness as God’s perfectly righteous son. If your life is hid with God in Christ then how does God view you? God views you in his son. If God’s energizing power from on high resides in every believer, no believer out of the loop, then how many believers are in the flesh? None!

Maturity is all about the degree to which you participate in the increase of the Body of Christ unto the deifying of its self in love. The degree to which you participate in that which brings unity to the Body of Christ and edifies the believer to that degree you can consider yourself to be mature. 
 It is much more than taking in knowledge, it is a renewed mind, it is taking in that knowledge, that knowledge might be put to use. Doctrine governs the intellect; the intellect governs the will; the will governs the emotions. There is one basic principle we can apply to every situation in our life, will Christ be magnified in my choice. 
 Give up serving self and that will be the best service to self you could ever give yourself, you will find true freedom and joy to be the ultimate result. We serve others today motivated by appreciation in the fact that God loves them, we are intricately joined to them, just as we are joined to Christ. 
 The law had apprehension as a motivation factor. Our labor of love under the Age of Grace has had the apprehension aspect removed entirely. We are to serve others today based on how God expressed his love to others through Christ and what he accomplished for them, who he made them and us to be in our savior by joining us to our savior. 
 Self is that which stands in the way of growth completeness, the idolatrous mind-set of people. Every believer has a part to play when it comes to that which edifies and unifies the Body of Christ, but attitude is that which instigates action. When it comes to maturity, Paul begins with the inter thought life, never with the outward action.

We have things happen in our lives, we have negative things happen in our lives as believers, but the same negative things happen to non-believers. There is no testing, no temptation taking place today such as is not common to all the human race. 
 Forgiveness is all upfront, it covers all and you stand in the eyes of God having trusted in what our Savior accomplished on our behalf. You stand more than forgiven, you stand JUST in God’s eyes. Too many people are trying to Christianize the flesh, we are suppose to change our thinking, it all starts with our thinking. 
 Love, the behavioral glue that binds together the believer to other members of the Body of Christ, that is how God designed the new creation in Christ to operate. Love is the attitudinal adhesive God intends to keep the Body of Christ functionally smoothly and operating efficiently and effectively. Love is the bond that both unifies and edifies the members of the Body of Christ.
 Satan would have you think your salvation is not complete. Satan would have you believe, Yes, Jesus died for your sins. Yes, he was buried. Yes, he was raised from among the dead, but your justification was not complete. So Satan would have you believe there is still forgiveness that must be obtained from time to time on the installment plan.
 That is Satan’s gospel. Some people go weekly to get absolution for their sin, some groups do that nightly. Some people wear that forgiveness belt around them all day long, less they cross that imaginary line they have got in their mind, where they might cross that line and God changed his mind and cast them away. You are justified because of Paul’s good news, but what gospel have you believed? God would say, “You are already forgiven, why you coming for forgiveness?”