Hia Sis Lisa. Praying that you and Josef are well.
Sis, I don't see where you disagree with my two posts, but I'll stretch what you've said out a bit further.
We are not to only choose to "walk in the spirit", but by doing so, we are "IN His Image", while we are doing so and just "us" when we're not.
The "flesh" is not just blatant sin, but our 'wills' in All things and decisions.
Can even be our 'good deeds'.
It is so much more than just not "following after the flesh" in the sense of "sins".
It is the being transformed into His Likeness or Image.
You've mentioned the one main "how" --- to seek Him until you Love Him with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength and others as yourself.
To seek until you find Him.
Tozer put it across rather well I believe.
Sis, "salt" makes people thirsty for HIM.
We must watch our words in order to make anyone thirsty for that actual "personal relationship with Him and a reality of 'experiencing' having been in His Presence."
Just capitalizing "DIE" won't help Sis. But to draw us to The Lovely One, so that we want to be with Him in the closest way and in that way, we will desire nothing less but to be in His Presence and transformed into His Image.
One cannot "die" until we fully Love Him more than ourselves and not until we've sought Him with all of our might.
Since Deut. 6, our relationship with Him has all hinged upon our Love for Him.
And walking in the spirit is just that stopping and waiting to ask His will, moment by moment or minute by minute. It's not just the cesstation of what most call "sins". The goal is to be like Him, in the Holy Spirit's power. Without Him, we can do nothing.
Well, "The Lord knows them that are His."
By His Foreknowledge, He knew who would seek Him until they love Him and be faithful unto the end, because of that love.
He knows all of our hearts and how we each individually feel about Him or how much we [i]experientially[/i] Know Him.
His Sheep that "[b]hear[/b] His Voice and Follow and will not follow another."
I don't believe He is nervous at all.
He knows already who are His and who will follow Him until their death or the resurrection.
He said, "If you Love Me, you'll keep my commandments." How much more simpler could He have said it? But He is also the Author and finisher of our faith and He who began this good work, will finish it, in those whom He did foreknow, He did predestine to come into the Image of The Son and who would have a heart that seeks Him out until they truly 'find' Him.
Heb 5:11 Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing.
Heb 5:12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be [i]the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.[/i]
Heb 5:13 For every one that useth milk is unskillfull in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
Heb 5:14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Heb 6:1 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,
Heb 6:2 Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
Heb 6:3 And this will we do, if God permit.
It's time we moved into the deeper things I pray.
Of being salt, that makes all people thirsty for more of JESUS-Himself.
If we're still struggling, we just need to ask ourselves if we've sought Him hard enough to find Him, because if we have, we'd Love Him with a passion and desire to be more and more like Him. The beatitudes speak of this process.
That's the/His Goal - to be like Him and not just some sort of moral code [u]only[/u].
If it's done in the flesh alone - who gains?
Being careful not to throw out His Word, that He [i]will[/i] have a people and how He works to keep them His own and His plan to transform them into His Image.
He already knows 'who' will be faithful [as a Spouse would] unto the end, by love/spirit and not by the flesh. Gal 3.
Sis, I prefer we not use those words "they", as if any of us have "attained", but I prefer "we" in discussing anything remotely resembling "perfection" - As Paul -
Php 3:8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
Php 3:9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
Php 3:10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
Php 3:11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Php 3:12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Php 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
Php 3:14 [u]I press[/u] toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Php 3:15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
HE is worthy!
