Are you saying that if one does not have 'the baptism with the holy Spirit' experience, they are not saved?
Gids
If one finds themselves like Paul in Romans 7......
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Gids
CharismaticLady
Well-Known Member
Not the meaning it has been given today with the "evidence" of tongues. I don't believe that. I call the baptism of the Holy Spirit the experience they received in Acts 2 and 4. Jesus said, "wait in Jerusalem" and "you shall receive POWER when the Holy Spirit comes upon you." Receiving the Holy Spirit is the born again of the Spirit experience. I'm not a denominationalist with their lingo.
Romans 8:9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God indwells you. And if you do not have the Spirit of Christ, YOU DO NOT BELONG TO HIM.
So, yes. we must receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit to be saved/belong to Christ. It is the same as saying we MUST be born again and receive a new nature. It is all the same thing. Though Acts 4 can be an extra filling for boldness for those who minister. Acts 4:29-31.
Acts 1:5
for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
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CharismaticLady
Well-Known Member
I see that the Spirit has left the building. Pentecostal churches have become boring to me, and the same false doctrines of the Reformation are being repeated there. I've even had a dream that it wasn't anything more than a social club, and for me to depart from there - and I did. I came back a couple years later, but saw additional false teachings, and left again. So I know where you are coming from and agree. I'm not sure what you are questioning, except that I know that in 1977 I received the power baptism of the Holy Spirit for boldness, and ministry, and all my prayers from then on have been answered, whereas absolutely none of my prayers in the first 30 years of my life produced anything, but finally questions if God actually existed.
Now whether there will be another wave of the Holy Spirit, please show me where you see this in scripture, as I would like to see it. I've seen many prophets on programs like Sid Roth's It's Supernatural say the same thing, but no one uses a scripture text to show me what is being fulfilled. Can you? I'm not asking you to debate this, just show me where you are seeing this in Scripture, and what do you call the outpouring in 1906 at Azuza Street? I've always thought of that as the latter rain, and the apathy I'm seeing even in prior on-fire churches as the great falling away before the Antichrist is revealed from 2 Thessalonians 2:3.
Unfortunately I can find only about a handful of people that are hot, as in either hot or cold and not lukewarm. One of them is @2nd Timothy Group we've just met. He is like a breath of fresh air, and cool water to my thirsty soul. I've really felt lonely on this forum and all the others I've been on. Another is a man at the food bank that preaches for about an hour before we go back to our cars. He was the first person that actually spoke truths that I agreed with that align with what God has taught me, so I started going to his church, a tiny Methodist church of about 20 people. He told me about when he was baptized in the Holy Spirit and it was very similar to my own. But I missed fellowshipping with people after church like back in the 70's. Another time I was in a private Bible Study group I heard about at the swimming pool, but what I shared was not accepted by them, but one of the ladies told me of some pamphlets she was getting from a church in Texas and she didn't understand his teaching either, anymore than she understood mine, but he and I taught the same thing! So I signed up to receive his free books and pamphlets, and they have been a blessing as I've been able to agree to everything he teaches. Nothing is new to me. Another person that God has told to not teach anything except what God has taught him. It is obvious we have the same teacher, because I threw out everything denominational, just like he did years ago, and prayed that God reveal to me the meaning of everything in His word. And I have unlearned tons, and the truth is so much brighter. Sometimes as I write a response on the forum, He will download a truth and I'll type it. Then copy it into a document of the things He teaches me.
Now if you don't want to tell me about why you believe the latter rain is future, that's up to you. I won't be mad, just disappointed as nobody I've asked has been able to. It would be lovely that there will be more than a handful of people that abide in Christ and He in us. I hate debating with those unwilling to drop their teachings that tickle their ears, and want to be filled with God's Spirit.
I went and looked at the post of mine that you were responding to, and it wasn't on the latter rain, but the second filling for boldness. So now I don't know what you were not agreeing with, you didn't really address the first baptism and the second filling, or release of power.
apostles - first John 20 - Jesus blew on them the Holy Spirit.
followers - Acts 2 - gifts of Mark 16:17-18 for individual use.
apostles - second filling Acts 2 Peter was filled with boldness and prophetic knowledge and preached that Acts 2 was the fulfilling of Joel 2.
followers - Acts 4:29-31 gifts of 1 Corinthians 12 for ministry and profit of all
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@CharismaticLady I do strongly believe in the new birth (John 3) and the coming to indwell of the Holy Spirit is the great significance of Pentecost, Acts 2.
CharismaticLady
Well-Known Member
farouk, what do you believe is the main purpose out of many of receiving the Holy Spirit?
Every believer who is born again - one and the same thing - is indwelt by the Spirit : Romans 8 indeed says, 'If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His'.
The Holy Spirit strengthens and keeps every believer, bringing the power of God in preservation and in fulfilling the believer's life purposes before Him.
2nd Timothy Group
Well-Known Member
Thank you, @CharismaticLady. Those are some mighty kind words that you have written. I am humbled, for sure. Anything good within me is not from me, but from our Powerful God in Heaven.
Like you, I no longer feel quite so alone in this world. And thank you for feeding me medicine instead of poison! Much appreciation.
Like you, I no longer feel quite so alone in this world. And thank you for feeding me medicine instead of poison! Much appreciation.
Romans 7 is simply a prelude to Romans 8. So no Christian should get stuck in Romans 7.
What it does tell us that not even an outstanding man of God such as Paul had experienced "the flesh" being eradicated. Yet we have some here claiming sinless perfection by misinterpreting certain verses.
The book of Romans is laid out in a logical fashion so that Christians can learn in depth what salvation is all about. At the same time Paul reminds Gentile Christians that they must not be high minded when thinking about unsaved Jews. God has a plan and purpose for both the Church and redeemed and restored Israel. Replacement Theology is false.
2nd Timothy Group
Well-Known Member
Yes my friend, this is indeed one of those Keystone Passages that demonstrate the requirement of Colossians 2:9-15. We are made whole and complete in Christ because of three things, the single most important is the lifting of the Curse of Adam and Eve. No person can be in Christ if they are Cursed, and Christ cannot be within His Father if He, Jesus has one of His Children within Him who is under the Curse. There is no sin in Him . . . period. For us to be in the Perfect Christ as Christ is in our Perfect God, we must be made perfect.
The last church that I attended taught that all humans are Cursed, but that the Curse has been disabled. Why do churches teach this nonsense? Because it allows and justifies sin. And if pastoral staffs allow sin, they never have to kick anyone out of their church. And if everyone remains sinners, and if giving cash helps to clear their consciences, then sweet . . . food remains on the table and children's educations will be paid for. Oh boy . . . I could go on and on!
Back to Day 297 in my studies. (John chapters 9 and 10 - Amazing teachings if we process them through Colossians 2:9-15. "You" get an entirely different meaning and scope . . . unbelievable, really!)
2nd Timothy Group
Well-Known Member
How can we misinterpret the fact that Paul credits the Sin Nature for his sin, yet in Colossians, he clearly writes that the Sin Nature is to be removed? Sorry . . . I'm not misinterpreting anything.
Romans 7:18, 25 NLT - "And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can't. ... 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin."
Compared to:
Colossians 2:11, 13 NLT - "When you came to Christ, you were "circumcised," but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision--the cutting away of your sinful nature. ... 13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins."
Careful of your judgments. (I don't mind being falsely misjudged, but God doesn't like it when His children are. Thus, "Vengeance is Mine.") Have fun with Colossians 2:9-15 - it'll change your entire life if a person is open to it.
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1. First of all the NLT cannot be used to establish doctrine. It is simply a paraphrase.
2. Secondly Colossians 2:11 must be interpreted properly in the light of all Gospel truth. So what does it really say? In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
3. This is speaking about regeneration -- the New Birth -- where spiritual circumcision means the creation of a new nature and a new creature in Christ. So Paul tells us in Romans 2:29: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
4. This corresponds to the New Birth as revealed in Ezekiel 36:26,27:
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
5. Does this mean that the sin nature -- the flesh -- has been eradicated? Not if you study Galatians 5.
Prayer Warrior
Well-Known Member
Very interesting discussion. One verse that means a lot to me is Galatians 5:16, which says “But I say walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.”
I see the Christian life as learning to walk (live) by the empowering guidance of the Holy Spirit. Kind of like a toddler learning to walk. And this walk can only be learned and lived by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus—His atoning death and His resurrection.
I like to compare walking by the Spirit to using a GPS system from which we get turn-by-turn directions and guidance. If we ignore the directions, we miss a turn and end up where we shouldn’t be. But if we submit to the Spirit’s directions, we stay where God wants us....
No analogy is perfect, but this is how I see and live the Christian life. It’s simple—trust and obey the guidance of His Spirit in us. When we submit ourselves to the Spirit by HIS power, we do not carry out the desire of the flesh (sin nature).
I see the Christian life as learning to walk (live) by the empowering guidance of the Holy Spirit. Kind of like a toddler learning to walk. And this walk can only be learned and lived by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus—His atoning death and His resurrection.
I like to compare walking by the Spirit to using a GPS system from which we get turn-by-turn directions and guidance. If we ignore the directions, we miss a turn and end up where we shouldn’t be. But if we submit to the Spirit’s directions, we stay where God wants us....
No analogy is perfect, but this is how I see and live the Christian life. It’s simple—trust and obey the guidance of His Spirit in us. When we submit ourselves to the Spirit by HIS power, we do not carry out the desire of the flesh (sin nature).
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2nd Timothy Group
Well-Known Member
"Yet we have some here claiming sinless perfection by misinterpreting certain verses."
I find it ironic that you mention that some here are misinterpreting verses when you yourself are misinterpreting what I am sharing. LOL. Let me be clear.
I in no way espouse sinless perfectionism. There is a huge difference between sinless perfectionism, something man 'achieves' by effort, and being kept from falling, which is God doing what He promised to do, as we trust Him and look for Him to do in us by faith alone.
Ok, got it?
I think often that confusion about whether or not we can be brought to a place we do not yield to sin lies in the fact that the Bible talks about two "fleshes". On the one hand, we have fleshly bodies, under the curse. They have the propensity to sin, the desire to sin, and if left unchecked, will sin. The second flesh is the fleshly nature. It is the "spirit" housed in the fleshly body.
We confuse the two because before we were saved, the two fleshes were not separated. They were one. Totally intertwined. But now, as children of God, we are told that our old nature died when Christ died. Amen? This is what Paul tells us in Romans 6. He also tells us that we must know that when Jesus rose from the dead, we rose with Him to newness of life. We have brand new natures, yet still housed in fleshly bodies.
How do we know from scripture that this is true, that when the Bible talks about the flesh, it can be used either way? Romans 8. Here Paul tells us that we are no longer in the flesh and owe it nothing. What an amazing promise! We do not have to yield to sin when the temptation arises.
But this also leads to a conundrum. If this is the case, if we are truly new inside, why do we often still fall to the desires of the flesh? Should we not be walking in freedom? Indeed we should. But this is not our experience. What is the source of this disconnect between what is promised and what we are experiencing?
This is the real question of the hour for us. For as the days get darker and evil abounds yet more and more, temptations will increase. We are warned that in the last days, because iniquity shall abound, the AGAPE love of many will wax cold. Is there danger for a child of God? Absolutely.
So, how do we bridge the gap from positional 'newness' to seeing God actually keep us from falling? Is there a reason we have not been able to walk in the FREE INDEED Jesus promised would be ours? Yes, there is. But where is this gigantic fly in the ointment?
Again, we must go back to Romans 6 to find the answer. Right after Paul tells us the two truths we must know.... that we, the old us, our fallen nature, died when Christ died, and secondly, that when Christ rose again to newness of life, we too are new creatures, he then instructs us on the one thing we must do to 'activate' these truths in our lives in order to not yield to the temptations satan throws at us.
What is that instruction we have missed? He does not ask us to do some 'work' in order to escape sin's grip. No, He asks us to BELIEVE. He asks us to believe that those amazing truths are OUR truths, OUR posssession, right now, this very minute. This instruction, one I was blind to for decades, is found in Romans 6:6.
"Therefore reckon yourself dead unto sin and alive unto God."
If we believe we cannot escape sin's grip, we will find this to be the truth. Conversely, if we come into agreement with God and appropriate, by an act of audacious faith, our new nature, to our delight and joy, we discover the place in God where we abide in Him and actually do not fulfill the lusts. Why does this work? Because we have finally come into agreement with our God.
This is the act of putting off the old man, laying no claim to him any longer. He is no longer us. This is where we put ON our new nature, our armor, Jesus no longer with us but IN us.
As long as we are content with simply being forgiven, we remain in a place where sin can still cause us to stumble and this can harden our hearts. But when we finally come to the place Paul found himself, hating his weakness, longing to be free but unable to resist temptation, we are ready to have the eyes of our understanding enlightened to what God has made available to us. An overcoming nature that can and will resist satan and send him fleeing.
Remember, temptation is not sin. We still have fleshly bodies, right? BUT, we do not have fleshly natures any longer. If we confuse temptation with actual disobedience, satan will most definitely take advantage.
blessings,
Gids
Can we fall once we awaken to the truth and embrace it as our truth? Yes. Why? Well, we stand by faith and in the beginning, our shield of faith is small. Before us lies our good fight of faith, where we count it all joy when we fall into diverse temptations, for as our faith is tried, like an exercised muscle, our faith GROWS!
But make no mistake, God has promised that He WILL keep us from falling. He WILL cause us both to will AND to do of His good pleasure. He WILL make sure we are not tempted more than we can bear, and praise God, He WILL cause us to take the way of escape He provides.... every single time. Kept from falling, because our new nature keeps our fleshly body under.
In these last days, God is going to breathe on our faith and we are going to become unshakeable, victorious over the world, the flesh and the devil. And how will this take place? We are going to fonally combine the power of the blood of Christ with the 'activating ingredient'...
our testimony.
blessings,
Gids
But make no mistake, God has promised that He WILL keep us from falling. He WILL cause us both to will AND to do of His good pleasure. He WILL make sure we are not tempted more than we can bear, and praise God, He WILL cause us to take the way of escape He provides.... every single time. Kept from falling, because our new nature keeps our fleshly body under.
In these last days, God is going to breathe on our faith and we are going to become unshakeable, victorious over the world, the flesh and the devil. And how will this take place? We are going to fonally combine the power of the blood of Christ with the 'activating ingredient'...
our testimony.
blessings,
Gids
CharismaticLady
Well-Known Member
Well, if you won't accept Colossians 2, how about Romans 8:2? "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ has FREED ME from the law of sin and death." Enoch, who was freed from Romans 7 sin nature? Read further. But we are NOT IN THE FLESH (sin nature) but in the Spirit (divine nature 2 Peter 1:2-4), if the Spirit of God dwells within us. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Him."
If you walk in the Spirit you are not under the law or in the flesh, so nothing in Galatians 5:19-21 would appeal to you. Not sure why you can't accept this, but would rather advocate for being in the flesh and not inherit the Kingdom of God.
2nd Timothy Group
Well-Known Member
Well, if you won't accept Colossians 2, how about Romans 8:2? "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ has FREED ME from the law of sin and death." Enoch, who was freed from Romans 7 sin nature? Read further. But we are NOT IN THE FLESH (sin nature) but in the Spirit (divine nature 2 Peter 1:2-4), if the Spirit of God dwells within us. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Him."
If you walk in the Spirit you are not under the law or in the flesh, so nothing in Galatians 5:19-21 would appeal to you. Not sure why you can't accept this, but would rather advocate for being in the flesh and not inherit the Kingdom of God.
It's as clear as Living Water!
CharismaticLady
Well-Known Member
A paraphrase? It is the New Living TRANSLATION. That is a different Bible from the Living Bible, a paraphrase, but filled with understanding. I read the Living Bible a long time ago and when I came to Romans 6, it changed my life. I had never heard Romans 6 explained so clearly, and when I compared it with my NKJV, I could see that I had been merely skimming over anything I hadn't understood before. With the understanding came a complete revelation of what it means to be born again. And verses like Romans 8:1-9 that we are not in the flesh (old nature) is clear to those who have the Holy Spirit of Christ. Once you've received the Spirit, you don't even want to be anywhere else but on that narrow path walking in Him.
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2nd Timothy Group
Well-Known Member
Honestly, I was surprised it took this long to have the NLT demonized. The NLT helped to transform my life as I read Colossians 2:9-15. That said, the Blessed KJV is amazing for demonstrating the Doctrine of Circumcised Hearts . . . oh, and so does the Jewish Tanakh, which I suggest everyone read the next time they read through the entire Bible (hopefully in a timeline, chronological order.)
So . . . if we cannot use the NLT translation to ponder the Word of God, then we all had better stop talking, because there is far more Truth in the NLT than the mouth of any human. Just sayin' . . .
I've even had a Baptist minister mock and laugh in my face, in my own home, saying the same thing. It is shocking how these unsaved people can mock us, openly, and without any sorrow, remorse, or even regret in their uncircumcised Hearts. At least I was able to witness to a pastor that day!
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I do appreciate the KJV. Romans 8 shows that we do have indwelling sin, but the Spirit of God indwells the believer in Christ, and by the Spirit we cry Abba, Father and are enable to mortify the deeds of the flesh, by God's grace.
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