(Romans 6:6) “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin;”
To stand the test of time, to endure, to undergo whatever it may take to stand upon the finished work of Calvary; who will finish, and who will fall by the wayside? All pressing questions I now have probing my brain, so many different stories with so many voices in this world of ours. If it was not for the Spirit of God, how lost and opinionated we would all be. In ourselves we love to explore the hype of Christianity; somehow we have that built into us. Be warned, if it has not be written and then expounded on by the Apostles, we must hear warning bells no matter how appealing and cuddly the story may seem. We must give earnest heed to the apostles teaching, they have been single out by God to bring us His mind on so many issues pertaining to life and godliness. We must fight again the driving temptation to hanker after voices which seem to have more of an appealing story for us to follow. Whether their stories bear relevance or not to our lives, we have what we need and that is the “Canon of Scripture”. It is complete and as it has pleased our heavenly Father, let it also please us! Let us become leaches hungry for God’s word, so hungry in fact that instead of reaching for books written by authors of today, we would begin to instinctively reach for the Bible, books in themselves can teach us a phenomenal amount, so books can be very good for our spiritual wellbeing, however as some may have a positive effect, bad books, those full of opinionated ideas of what the scripture does not teach have been penned to tickle our ears and can unsettle many who are young in the faith. The power of the pen is greater than any fighter jet or atomic bomb, it moulds and shapes peoples understanding, but as good a help as it can be, the opposite is just as true, be cautioned! “For the time will come when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts;” (2Timothy 4:3)
Even autobiographies need to be viewed with much caution; I have written my own story and am in the process of deciding whether to correct some wrongs in “my story” or to let it rest, once again that great well balance preacher Charles Spurgeon helps us reason with a sound mind. This is what he has to say about our past lives, prior to us repenting and finding forgiveness; “Our sins must be put to death with every circumstance of shame and self-humiliation. I must confess I am shocked with some people whom I know, who glibly rehearse their past lives up to the time of their supposed conversion, and talk of their sins, which they hope have been forgiven them, with a sort of smack of the lips, as if there was something fine in having been so atrocious an offender. I hate to hear a man speak of his experience in sin as a Greenwich pensioner might talk of Trafalgar and the Nile.
The best thing to do with our past sin, if it be indeed forgiven, is to bury it; yes, and let us bury it as they used to bury suicides. Let us drive a stake through it, in horror and contempt, and never set up a monument to its memory.
If you ever do tell anybody about your youthful wrongdoing, let it be with blushes and tears, with shame and confusion of face; and always speak of it to the honour of the infinite mercy which forgave you. Never let the devil stand behind you and pat you on the back and say, "You did me a good turn in those days."
“Oh, it is a shameful thing to have sinned, a degrading thing to have lived in sin, and it is not to be wrapped up into a telling story and told out as an exploit as some do.”
"The old man is crucified with him." Who boasts of being related to the crucified felon? If any member of your family had been hanged, you would tremble to hear anyone mention the gallows; you would not run about crying, "Do you know a brother of mine was hanged at Newgate?” Your old man of sin is hanged; do not talk about him, but thank God it is so; and as he blots out the remembrance of it, do you the same, except so far as it may make you humble and grateful.”
“EVERY new man is two men—every Believer in Christ is what he was and not what he was—the old nature and the new nature exist at the same time in each regenerate individual. That old nature the Apostle calls a man, because it is a complete manhood after the image of fallen Adam. It has the desires, the judgment, the mind, the thoughts, the language and the action of man as he is in his rebellious estate. He calls it the “old man,” because it is as old as Eden’s first transgression. It is as old as we are. It is the nature born with us, the natural depravity, the fleshly mind which we inherited from our parents. It is tainted by the old serpent and bears within it a dread propensity to his old sin.” (C.H.Spureon)
With those thoughts in mind let us rather leave those things that are behind us, let us not dwell on them where possible and let us run this race with diligence, cleaving onto every word of God, let our focus shift from one another and rather let us be captivated by CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED, let us remember His exploits as they will help us live more godly in Christ!
“The old old story it is ever new, the old old story praise the Lord its true, how Jesus died for me as well as you, the old old story praise the Lord it is true.”
Paul the Apostle teaches us this very clearly; “Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13)
The model we should aspire to is the legacy Paul left us and this is His legacy, “For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” (1Corinthians 2:2)
Signing off
Tyrone
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