G.K. Chesterton said: “It is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, but that it has been found difficult, and not tried.”
Kudos to Real Christianity: completeness in Christ.
We learn basic, infantile beliefs: Christ died for us. Believe. Repent. Be saved. Enter God’s kingdom (John 3:3-8, 16). Live forever in heaven. Move from spiritual death (separation from God, Adam’s legacy) to spiritual life (reintegration with God). All true.
Meanwhile? Go to church. Do rituals. Study “do’s and don’ts.” Grow some. Try harder. Commit. Retrain the “old” man to act “Christian.” Pray that God blesses my agenda. Live “righteously” by human ability. “Don’t worry, be happy.”
Excessive milk makes inert religion. Is God fooled?
We are naturally entangled in a fallen, sinful world-system, propagated by Satan. We lust for pleasures, materialism, and egotism – the bases for all sin (1 John 2:14).
Paraphrased Bibles correctly translate the KJV’s “flesh” as “old sinful (fallen) nature” (NIV, LB, etc. – Rom 7:5, 8:1, 3, 5, 8, 12, 13). Paul (no slouch) seeks deliverance (Rom. 7:24).
I must die to that old self (Matt. 16:24:24, Mark 8:34-37); taking up and carrying, throughout each day, that device, from my new spiritual reality, on which I keep my old nature hanging: dead (Luke 9:23-25). It hurts. I exchange “life for me” for God’s agenda (Rom. 12:1-2).
Eternal “life” is free. “Life more abundantly” (John 10:10) costs me all “me-ness.” I cannot live this new life. Christ lives it in me (Gal. 2:20). Meat produces genuineness. Few partake.
Christians, please learn this proper worship: Total surrender to the Absolute One, or risk losing much.
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