It’s a simple principle: If God demands it, then do it. The response isn’t up to those who do what they are commanded by him to do.
No more slave to sin
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It’s a simple principle: If God demands it, then do it. The response isn’t up to those who do what they are commanded by him to do.
Ok , I do see some more of your comments where you said you have read the bible in the past and do still reference it now . Notice how you did need to reference it , keep reading the bible and the Holy Spirit will be able to bring the words of scripture to your mind when needed . The more I read the bible the easier it becomes for my memory and the Holy Spirit to work together .
Sure we do .
If English is your main language why wouldn't God use it to speak to you ?
That is where the Holy Spirit comes in , every born again Christian has the Comforter .
I need to reference it to explain others, using common for them meanings.
You know that human vocabulary is limited. Even sometimes languages have some words and meanings untranslatable to English directly.
When I pray or think deeper I don't use words. I operate by meanings. And I'm trying to be sensitive to hear meanings. My heart is praying wordlessly. Then I transfer it to words. But here's an important notice - I'm not using feelings. My human feelings can't understand God. The Holy Spirit gives understanding and wisdom. Feelings are not the source of wisdom.
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A little bit about me.Once in my life, I lost trust in a religious organization. Even though I understood that bad things were happening in the church and sins were committed by the leader, it was still hard for me to break away. I can understand how difficult it is to change the way you worship God and leave your brothers and sisters. Being part of a group is appealing. Leaving the herd is painful, despite the wrong teachings.The only thing that helped me was a personal experience with God. I recalled everything that was based on the relationship between God and me, and I promised to never follow a man or religion (ideology). I begged God to direct me and teach me personally, and He guided me to experience understanding. My first prayer as a free believer was about this: I know nothing, I’m miserable, I’m lost, and I have no trust in any information available. I still don’t trust anyone but God—not even John, Matthew, Luke, Mark, Paul, or whoever the authors were. God accepted my prayer. It is clear to me that God never chose anyone for their knowledge of scriptures.
So, it is okay for me to don't know something. For example, I don’t know about eternal life after I die. I didn't ask God about it strongly. It is belong to God. If there is something and He wants to give to me another life, I'll accept it. I focused on my current life, growth and responsibilities. I want to know His Will, and to His Kingdom to come. Even if no one else accepts it. My faith is simple, my way is simple too. If God didn't open to me something I don't say it is wrong, I say I don't know.
So, it is okay for me to don't know something. For example, I don’t know about eternal life after I die. I didn't ask God about it strongly. It is belong to God. If there is something and He wants to give to me another life, I'll accept it. I focused on my current life, growth and responsibilities. I want to know His Will, and to His Kingdom to come. Even if no one else accepts it. My faith is simple, my way is simple too. If God didn't open to me something I don't say it is wrong, I say I don't know.
Of course not. If it was true then Paul would not have had no need to write, work out your salvation in fear and trembling
Being saved doesn't mean "no more sin," but it does mean that sin can (and should), in time, become the rare exception rather than the rule in your life. This is certainly what Paul thought and expressed to the Christians at Rome:
Romans 6:1-2
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
Romans 6:6-8
6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
7 for he who has died is freed from sin.
8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
Weird stuff, eh? Very different than the common teaching about sin in the modern, western Church. More... radical, maybe? But what Paul's talking about in these verses is actually absolutely vital to Christian living. And so, he wrote about this "dead to sin" stuff quite a bit.
Galatians 2:20
20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Galatians 5:24
24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Galatians 6:14
14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
Colossians 2:10-14
10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;
11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;
12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
Colossians 3:3-5
3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.
If you don't understand well what Paul is talking about in these verse/passages you have no hope of properly walking with God. Instead, what most Christians in this situation do is resort to moralistic boot-strap theology that works at creating a veneer of spiritual success but is exhausting, frustrating and inevitably deeply hypocritical. Worst of all, none of it pleases God at all since it is accomplished from the wrong Power Source entirely.
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The rejection of the sin-nature may happen as a consequence of repentance, yes. But simply rejecting the sin nature doesn't make it go away. For the Christian person, the sin-nature cannot be dealt with effectively simply by rejecting it (whatever this means), but by faith "reckoning yourself dead to sin and alive unto God" (Ro. 6:11; Col. 3:5). The Christian life is a life of faith, right? We "walk by faith, not by sight," Paul wrote (2 Co. 5:7) and this means standing by faith upon the fact of your death with Christ and the resulting separation from the Old Self that happened. This is vital to do because the Old Self is the ultimate source of all your sin (Ro. 6:6) and if you don't stand by faith in what God has done to free you from the Old Self, you'll collapse under its power.
What's the Old Self? Who you were before you were saved, in rebellion toward God, focused on the flesh and its impulses, and focused only on the temporal rather than the eternal (Phil. 3:18-19). From this person you've been separated by God in your union with Christ in his crucifixion, burial and resurrection (Ro. 6:3-10). You've been freed, then, from the power of sin, the Old Self, and never again have to yield to its call.
Where do you find the Spirit?
He's God and is, therefore, in all places. He will come to reside in you when you trust in Christ as your Savior from God's just wrath upon your sin and yield to Christ as your Lord (Ro. 10:9-10; Tit. 3:5-7; Ro. 8:9-13).
How do you follow the Spirit?
This is what happens naturally after you've yielded up control to him, which you must do every time you realize you've left his control to follow your own will and way (or are about to). Submission to God, conscious, explicit and persistent, is the only dynamic within which you can truly walk with God. (Ro. 6:13-22; Ro. 8:14; Ro. 12:1; Ja. 4:6-10; 1 Pe. 5:6).
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Sister-n-Christ
Well-Known Member
1John 3:9
“No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning"
We are no longer condemned in our sin.
We are no longer in that carnal natural mind of sinner. We are reborn in Christ,so imagine wilfully sinning while right beside him.
We are conscious of what sin is. And his spirit leads us to right-ness/righteousness. It is a learning process.
Noitalever
New Member
Today, a long awaited day,
Has been a very profitable day
In the Spirit of God, for me.
I never doubted for one minute
This day would not come to me
The Lord is my God.
Behold
Well-Known Member
Wonderful Things happens when you are born again as a Christian.
Here are just 2.
1.) All your sin is forgiven, foever.
2.) The Law and Commandments that defined your sin as sin, and you as a sinner........is gone.
This means that what previously could define you as a Sinner..........can't anymore.
The born again is.. "not under the law........but under GRACE"
"Jesus is the end of the law for RIGHTEOUSNESS, to/for everyone who believes"... (A Christian).
Where does the Christian exist, forever?
= In the Kingdom of God........and that is this..
"where there is no LAW......there is no SIN (Transgression) found"..
This is why Romans 4:8.. and 2 Corin 5:19 tell the CHRISTIAN that God will never charge you with sin, ever again.....not ever.
You pointed to His Spirit. Does it mean that if you commit sins you're not guided by The Holy Spirit and follow flesh? More precisely, when you losing connection with Spirit you eventually ending up returning back to flesh, right? Like in the parabel - an empty and clean house eventually will be occupied by someone ("sinful spirits").
Big Boy Johnson
Well-Known Member
They love sin more then they do the Lord and if they die like that they go to hell.
See Gal 6:7,8 - if you sow to the flesh you shall of the flesh reap corruption
Corruption = no longer in right standing with the Lord.
The false teachers will be along shortly claiming you can live in sin and still be right with the Lord but they are speaking what the devil teachers not what the Lord teaches in His Word.
Big Boy Johnson
Well-Known Member
Romans 6:16
Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
Here's another verse that proves man has free will (the calvinists hate Romans 6:16 since they cannot explain it away)
So each of us decides if we are going to be a slave to sin, or submit to the Lord turning from our sin
Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
Here's another verse that proves man has free will (the calvinists hate Romans 6:16 since they cannot explain it away)
So each of us decides if we are going to be a slave to sin, or submit to the Lord turning from our sin
Why do Christians who are "dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ" (Ro. 6:11) still live by the flesh (or sin)?
This is a great question! In answer to it, check out the following:
Not living according to the flesh, not sinning, is not a matter of just believing enough that you are "dead to sin and alive unto God." Faith is definitely a vital part of the "way of escape" from sin, but it's not "the whole enchilada," so to speak. Every sin no matter what it is invites the Christian person to think and do two things:
1.) Deny who s/he is as a "new creature in Jesus Christ" (2 Co. 5:17).
If you've been born-again spiritually, you've taken on a whole new nature and identity. You're a joint-heir with Christ (Ro. 8:17; Eph. 2:6), an adopted child of God (Ro. 8:15), fully redeemed, justified and sanctified in and by Jesus Christ (1 Co. 1:30). You're a temple of the Holy Spirit and are "not your own, you've been bought with a price" (1 Co. 6:19-20). If you've trusted in Christ as your Savior and yielded to him as your Lord, you've been "washed and renewed" by the Holy Spirit, spiritually united with Jesus in his death, burial and resurrection (Ro. 10:9-10; Tit. 3:5-7; Ro. 6:1-6; Ga. 2:20; Col. 3:1-9, etc.).
When a temptation confronts the Christian person, they are, at bottom, being invited by the temptation to live in denial of all of these things (and many others not mentioned). The Christian who lusts, or rages, or overeats, or indulges an addiction, or commits any sin, is always doing so in denial of who they really are as a person who is "in Christ," freed from the power of the Old Self, sin and the devil.
But, as one man has well put it, "The me I see is the me I'll be." If my conception of myself, my identity, is not formed by what God says is true of me as His child, I will default to the Old Self identity I had before I was saved and from that identity only sin arises (Ro. 6:6; Ga. 5:17; Ro. 7:18; Ro. 8:5-8).
2.) Deny God's place in his/her life (Ro. 11:33-12:1).
Every temptation also always invites the Christian to deny God's authority and rule in their life. He ought always to be seated upon the "throne" of one's heart, and when He is so enthroned, when He is in control of the entire person, He leads them ever deeper into the "Promised Land" of their spiritual inheritance in Jesus Christ. As a result, the Christian who is constantly under God's authority and control, grows more and more holy, more and more liberated from the World, the Flesh and the devil, in their daily living.
How does a Christian properly, truly come under God's will and way? By conscious, explicit submission to Him (Lu. 22:42) throughout each day. God will never force Himself upon anyone, compelling them to live as He wants them to. No, they must agree to His control and change of them, which they must do by submitting to Him, yielding themselves to Him as a "living sacrifice" throughout every day (Ro. 6:13-22; Ro. 8:14; Ro. 12:1; Ja. 4:7-10; 1 Pe. 5:6).
Submission to God's will and way is not a special tactic for moments of temptation, however. It's the normal state-of-affairs for the born-again person - or, it ought to be. There's no other position one can take relative to God except as His dependent, submitted inferior. He's GOD, after all, our Superior to an indescribable degree. And so, the Bible describes God's children as children, branches in the Vine, sheep to shepherd, vessel for the Master's use, disciples to Teacher, and so on. To be in a relationship with God always necessarily requires that we are so in constant deference to, in constant submission to, His will and way.
When, then, the believer takes up their own will and way, watching something foul on t.v., or using rotten language, or lusting wickedly, or hating someone, or neglecting study of God's word, or attendance at church, or showing kindness and patience to others, etc, they have ceased to be under God's control and are in the position of a rebel until such time as they return to a place of conscious, explicit submission to Him again. God will not fill rebels with Himself, or exert His power in them (except to convict them of their sin). No, so long as the child of God remains in rebellion to God - the only position they can be in other than that of submission - God is their opponent (Ja. 4:6-7; 1 Pe. 5:5-6).
To restore fellowship with God, the believer must repent of their sin, confess it to God, and consciously, explicitly submit again to His control (Ja: 4:6-10; 1 Jn. 1:9; Ro. 6:13-22). As the Christian lives in this way with God, the Spirit works in the Christian to change them, over time working in them what they then work out in their daily living (Phil. 2:12-13; 2 Co. 3:18; Eph. 3:16, Ga. 5:22-23, etc.. This change is very much like the growth of a branch in a tree that cannot be seen to grow in any particular moment but is growing nonetheless, its transformation often only evident in retrospect. Primarily, firstly, the work of the Holy Spirit is done in the realm of the Christian's desires, which is the primal "seat" of their thinking and conduct. He cools inflamed natural desires, dissolves sinful desires, and forms new, godly desires in the believer. This alteration of desire is, then, the first thing the truly born-again person will experience of the life and work of the Holy Spirit in them (Ro. 5:5; Ga. 5:22-23; 1 Jn. 3:14).
I realize I've written a lot in response to your question, but your question was an important one and deserved a thorough reply.
God's blessings be upon you!
It was worth of writing. Thank you.Why do Christians who are "dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ" (Ro. 6:11) still live by the flesh (or sin)?
This is a great question! In answer to it, check out the following:
Not living according to the flesh, not sinning, is not a matter of just believing enough that you are "dead to sin and alive unto God." Faith is definitely a vital part of the "way of escape" from sin, but it's not "the whole enchilada," so to speak. Every sin no matter what it is invites the Christian person to think and do two things:
1.) Deny who s/he is as a "new creature in Jesus Christ" (2 Co. 5:17).
If you've been born-again spiritually, you've taken on a whole new nature and identity. You're a joint-heir with Christ (Ro. 8:17; Eph. 2:6), an adopted child of God (Ro. 8:15), fully redeemed, justified and sanctified in and by Jesus Christ (1 Co. 1:30). You're a temple of the Holy Spirit and are "not your own, you've been bought with a price" (1 Co. 6:19-20). If you've trusted in Christ as your Savior and yielded to him as your Lord, you've been "washed and renewed" by the Holy Spirit, spiritually united with Jesus in his death, burial and resurrection (Ro. 10:9-10; Tit. 3:5-7; Ro. 6:1-6; Ga. 2:20; Col. 3:1-9, etc.).
When a temptation confronts the Christian person, they are, at bottom, being invited by the temptation to live in denial of all of these things (and many others not mentioned). The Christian who lusts, or rages, or overeats, or indulges an addiction, or commits any sin, is always doing so in denial of who they really are as a person who is "in Christ," freed from the power of the Old Self, sin and the devil.
But, as one man has well put it, "The me I see is the me I'll be." If my conception of myself, my identity, is not formed by what God says is true of me as His child, I will default to the Old Self identity I had before I was saved and from that identity only sin arises (Ro. 6:6; Ga. 5:17; Ro. 7:18; Ro. 8:5-8).
2.) Deny God's place in his/her life (Ro. 11:33-12:1).
Every temptation also always invites the Christian to deny God's authority and rule in their life. He ought always to be seated upon the "throne" of one's heart, and when He is so enthroned, when He is in control of the entire person, He leads them ever deeper into the "Promised Land" of their spiritual inheritance in Jesus Christ. As a result, the Christian who is constantly under God's authority and control, grows more and more holy, more and more liberated from the World, the Flesh and the devil, in their daily living.
How does a Christian properly, truly come under God's will and way? By conscious, explicit submission to Him (Lu. 22:42) throughout each day. God will never force Himself upon anyone, compelling them to live as He wants them to. No, they must agree to His control and change of them, which they must do by submitting to Him, yielding themselves to Him as a "living sacrifice" throughout every day (Ro. 6:13-22; Ro. 8:14; Ro. 12:1; Ja. 4:7-10; 1 Pe. 5:6).
Submission to God's will and way is not a special tactic for moments of temptation, however. It's the normal state-of-affairs for the born-again person - or, it ought to be. There's no other position one can take relative to God except as His dependent, submitted inferior. He's GOD, after all, our Superior to an indescribable degree. And so, the Bible describes God's children as children, branches in the Vine, sheep to shepherd, vessel for the Master's use, disciples to Teacher, and so on. To be in a relationship with God always necessarily requires that we are so in constant deference to, in constant submission to, His will and way.
When, then, the believer takes up their own will and way, watching something foul on t.v., or using rotten language, or lusting wickedly, or hating someone, or neglecting study of God's word, or attendance at church, or showing kindness and patience to others, etc, they have ceased to be under God's control and are in the position of a rebel until such time as they return to a place of conscious, explicit submission to Him again. God will not fill rebels with Himself, or exert His power in them (except to convict them of their sin). No, so long as the child of God remains in rebellion to God - the only position they can be in other than that of submission - God is their opponent (Ja. 4:6-7; 1 Pe. 5:5-6).
To restore fellowship with God, the believer must repent of their sin, confess it to God, and consciously, explicitly submit again to His control (Ja: 4:6-10; 1 Jn. 1:9; Ro. 6:13-22). As the Christian lives in this way with God, the Spirit works in the Christian to change them, over time working in them what they then work out in their daily living (Phil. 2:12-13; 2 Co. 3:18; Eph. 3:16, Ga. 5:22-23, etc.. This change is very much like the growth of a branch in a tree that cannot be seen to grow in any particular moment but is growing nonetheless, its transformation often only evident in retrospect. Primarily, firstly, the work of the Holy Spirit is done in the realm of the Christian's desires, which is the primal "seat" of their thinking and conduct. He cools inflamed natural desires, dissolves sinful desires, and forms new, godly desires in the believer. This alteration of desire is, then, the first thing the truly born-again person will experience of the life and work of the Holy Spirit in them (Ro. 5:5; Ga. 5:22-23; 1 Jn. 3:14).
I realize I've written a lot in response to your question, but your question was an important one and deserved a thorough reply.
God's blessings be upon you!
And you make an effort every day, right? Not to correct feelings, thoughts or actions but to deny any attempts to be controlled by flesh and instead give your heart to God and His Spirit. Is your view of the Spirit had transformed? For example, did you start to realize that Spirit becomes you? Maybe not for whole day but more and more frequently.
I don't want to be a nice guy. I'm warning you. Base on your comment, I see that you don't know God's Spirit. You just posted someone else's conclusion and have no idea of the subject. Don't be irritated of this comment. Just pray to God without any opinions. Just say you know nothing and show me the way. Think this way - I can't earn grace by being Christian for years and spreading Gospel quotes to others. You just need to lost yourself before it's late. Become empty for God. Instead of knowing God from the Bible stories, rediscover God here and now in reality. What should be happened? You kinda know Christian ideology and can explain to others, when you face God you won't be able to explain even to yourself, because it is gonna be sooooo deep. No words can reflect it. If you find yourself not craving anything from this world (tasty food, movies, jokes, ladies, professional sport teams, alcohol, video games, any YouTube video, compliments, politics, justice for yourself, leadership, glory, etc.) you were awakened.
I see you are of "Other Faith." I didn't pay attention to this fact and so I wrote to you as if you were already a spiritually born-again person. Sorry about that.
Most of what I wrote to you can't make much sense to you if you aren't a Spirit-indwelt Christian. This is because it is the Holy Spirit who gives light to our hearts and minds so that we can fully understand God's truth. Without his illumination of your thinking, the things I wrote in my last post will be closed to you.
The New Testament tells me that I am unable, in my own power, to be who God wants me to be (Jn. 15:4-5; Ro. 5:6-10; Tit. 3:3-7). If a person is not "clothed in Jesus Christ," if they haven't yet "put on Christ" (Ro. 13:14; Ga. 3:27), there is no effort they can make that will satisfy God. This is because God's standard for all of us is His own perfection (Matt. 5:48). Since none of us are God, and can never be, we can never meet God's standard. This is why we so desperately need Jesus. He can be for us what we cannot be for ourselves. Because Jesus is God-in-the-flesh, he is perfect and so he is fully accepted by God the Father. All who have "put on Christ" by trusting in him as their Savior and submitting to him as their Lord (Ro. 10:9-10) are clothed, so to speak, in his perfection and thus are accepted by God (1 Co. 1:19-20; Eph. 1:6).
Until this is the case, until you are "clothed in Jesus Christ," God's "way of escape" from sin is both unavailable to you and cannot be properly understood by you.
Anyway, do I make an effort every day? Well, I just work out in my life what God has first worked into me by the Holy Spirit.
Philippians 2:12-13
12 ...work out your salvation with fear and trembling;
13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
I can "work out my salvation with fear and trembling" only because God has first worked in me both the desire (the will) and the ability (the work) to do His good pleasure. If I try to make my own version of what God wants from my own self-effort, as most Christians try to do, I only end up with a fleshly counterfeit of what God would make in me by His own power and work.
The Holy Spirit works often through the word of God, the Bible, ordering my thinking and directing my actions by "bringing it to remembrance (Jn. 14:26) and illuminating its meaning to me (1 Co. 2:10-16; Jn 16:13). But he does this only as I remain submitted to him and study the Bible. If I don't know God's word well, I can't judge when I've strayed from His will and way, or when I'm about to do so. If I don't study Scripture carefully, I can't discern truth from falsehood and can't live in God's truth. So, it's vital to be submitted throughout every day to the Holy Spirit's control but it's also very important to be a student of the Bible (2 Ti. 3:16-17; Ps. 1; Ps. 119)
I don't ever become the Holy Spirit, or vice versa, because I can't ever be God. I'm a created being and this alone rules out my ever being as God is, who has no beginning, no Creator, existing as a necessity of His own being. Even if He bestowed all of His nature and power upon me, I'd still have been created and this, by itself, would eliminate me from true equality with God. Being the Uncaused Cause, no one has conferred on God any of His attributes and so in this respect, too, I would not be as God is, even if He bestowed all His divine attributes upon me. As a person who began to exist, I could also not claim to have always known everything, as God does. Even if He gave me His omniscience, it would not be as His is because I came to possess it rather than just always possessed it, like God does. In any case, this all just demonstrates the impossibility of ever achieving divinity. There are many more reasons besides that make the idea of becoming a god impossible.
So, then, I can't ever say that being conformed to the will and way of God, the Spirit, is to become God. He changes me to become like Christ but I will never be divine in the way that Christ is any more than a cat trained to be like a lion will therefore be a lion. In any case, as the Spirit does his work throughout each day, I am becoming more and more like Christ. How do I know? Well, I'd tell you, if we were face-to-face, to ask my wife what changes she's seen God work in me over the last ten years. She'd be talking with you a long time.
I know God is at work because when He changes me, He acts like the tide that raises all boats rather than working here and there on me, fixing one thing and then another. His changes in me transform all of me in a way that is across-the-board, affecting all of who I am at once (Ga. 5:22-23; 2 Co. 5:17). I'm also not exhausted by the work He's doing in me but find myself ever-more empowered spiritually rather than regularly depleted of the wherewithal to live as He wants me to and needing a "recharge" of my spiritual "batteries" (Isa. 40:28-31; Ps. 84:5-7). I also daily discover more about God as He works in me, not just more about myself, about my abilities and limits, which is all I learn about when I struggle in my own power to be godly. And so, my history with God is long and deepening every day, His priorities, power, and provision, His holiness, wisdom and patience, His grace and love, demonstrated to me again and again throughout each day. It's a marvellous life!
If there's one Great Secret I'd share with people, it is this: The Great Battle of the Christian life isn't to conquer myself but to stay constantly submitted to God. When I am submitted to Him, He conquers me and I am, then, truly conquered. And being truly conquered, I am truly liberated, also. But it's all His work, not mine, that He does only so long as I remain under His authority and control. See: Phil. 1:6; 2:13; 4:13; Ro. 8:13-14; Eph. 3:16; 6:10; 1 Thess. 5:23-24, Jude 1:24-25, etc.
