"IN" Jesus Christ

The idea of not walking after the flesh is a concept that speaks not to a person’s behavior, but to a person’s belief, not to our manners, but to our mindset. When we believe what Christ accomplished for us where our sins are concerned, we are as just as we will ever be in the eyes of God at that point. Sin has no more effect on us; it cannot change our relationship with God because we are in Christ. Those who are “IN” Jesus Christ are those who are NOT walking after the faulty assumption that their righteousness is related to their performance. Those who are “IN” Jesus Christ are those who place no confidence in their flesh, but understand that “in their flesh dwells no good thing”. 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, but the sin nature has not died. Do we need to change our minds about the seriousness of sin and God’s answer to that serious dilemma we find ourselves in? Yes, we do. God has been longsuffering in holding back his wrath because he hopes that we will consider his goodness through his son, his goodness on our behalf and flee to his grace. God wants us to change our mind about who we are from fleshly perspective apart from Christ.

God’s Reconciliation of Man, read more about it at godsreconciliation.blogspot.com...

Originally posted by newnature
The idea of not walking after the flesh is a concept that speaks not to a person’s behavior, but to a person’s belief, not to our manners, but to our mindset. When we believe what Christ accomplished for us where our sins are concerned, we are as just as we will ever be in the eyes of God at that point. Sin has no more effect on us; it cannot change our relationship with God because we are in Christ. Those who are “IN” Jesus Christ are those who are NOT walking after the faulty assumption that their righteousness is related to their performance. Those who are “IN” Jesus Christ are those who place no confidence in their flesh, but understand that “in their flesh dwells no good thing”. 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, but the sin nature has not died. Do we need to change our minds about the seriousness of sin and God’s answer to that serious dilemma we find ourselves in? Yes, we do. God has been longsuffering in holding back his wrath because he hopes that we will consider his goodness through his son, his goodness on our behalf and flee to his grace. God wants us to change our mind about who we are from fleshly perspective apart from Christ.

God’s Reconciliation of Man, read more about it at godsreconciliation.blogspot.com...

Good thread. I have a question for you. Is it as much a sin to commit wickedness as it is to be self-righteous in judgment of others? Now I don't ask you this because I think this thread is self-righteously judging others. I think you did a great job outlining the truth. Here's the problem with truth. It's a two edged sword. On one hand, it has the power to change the angle of heel which is the same heel that Christ uses to change the authority of Satan in Genesis 3. On the other hand, it has the power to condemn our self-esteem if we are wicked. A problem rooted in Self-esteem will cause fear and fear causes all the problems associated with running from truth. We often reject what we do not understand and bias offered by the self-righteous condemnation of others only worsens the problem. Westboro baptists are a good example of self-righteous indignation on the end of wickedness lacking truth. Judging the homosexual lifestyle above that of other sins is the same. We would allow a divorced man to serve in a church, but run the homosexual out of the aisles with judgment. Do you see where my question heads?

So, the question is with the wickedness of judging others, while at the same time, knowing that wickedness must be not only condemned, but offered a remedy of justice. Where do we find God's expectation in this and where does God sit on this issue of judgment? Do we love the sinner but hate the sin? Do we judge the sinner by our desire to bring them down or is their sin our opportunity to show compassion and express the truth by our own lives lived? I have my own answer. What would yours be? I think the last few sentences offer a good remedy. How do you connect this to our own actions as believers?

reply to post by newnature

Sin has no more effect on us; it cannot change our relationship with God because we are in Christ.

It does if we actually commit sins.
What this blog post that you are copy and pasting as a forum post is doing is forcing people to see their humanness as "sin" that is so serious that they are doomed, no matter what they do.
Then the solution is offered by the author that you can be saved by correct thinking.
Part of this recommended thinking seems to be abandoning yourself to sin, as if you can detach your mind from your body, and inside this imagined safe cocoon, you can somehow be righteous by deluding yourself into thinking that it doesn't matter what your body is doing because it is hopeless to think that it could do anything but sin.
My advice is to readjust the definition of sin to what you could do that would completely disqualify you from ever being saved, as in entering Heaven at some future point in time.
Those actions would be serious things like murder and robbery. If you are not doing those things or others at a similar level of destructiveness, then what is left if your humanity, which is, as long as you live, something that you are stuck with.
What the author of this copied blog post seems to me to be doing is similar to what the writer of the John letters in the New Testament was dealing with, people who thought that by correct knowledge, they were saved, and did not concern themselves as to what they were actually physically doing, so that they were committing sins but not regarding them as anything that they needed forgiveness for.
I believe this blogger is overwhelmingly influenced in his theology by this theoretical concept of substitution, both a substitutionary death to pay for our sins, and a substitutionary righteousness that is somehow credited to our account, neither of which is taught in the New Testament.

reply to post by newnature

The idea of not walking after the flesh is a concept that speaks not to a person’s behavior, but to a person’s belief, not to our manners, but to our mindset.

Well i do agree, yet i want to say that a person's behavior is based upon what sort of spirit they have in them. What happens in the mind, is affected by our spirit. A carnally minded person, has a carnal spirit and their behavior will be towards pursuing the pleasures of the flesh and self gratification.