Reader...
Christ said....."apart from me you can do nothing"
He is explaining that if you try to be good, try to stop sinning, then you are TRYING TO DO THIS in YOUR POWER, by YOUR WILL, as "striving".
It’s not trying to do it on our own.
It’s the Holy Spirit who gives faith when the word is heard, the Holy Spirit who convicts us of our sins and tells us to repent,
and the Holy Spirit within the believer that believers have the daily choice to continue to walk in the spirit, or yield to temptations of the flesh and live sinfully.
The following that I’ve posted on other threads explains clearly, what we as believers are told God EXPECTS us to do as Christians:
Eph 4:17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord,
that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.
Eph 4:18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.
Eph 4:19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
Eph 4:20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!—
Eph 4:21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus,
Eph 4:22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,
Eph 4:23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
Eph 4:24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Eph 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.
Eph 5:2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Eph 5:3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
Eph 5:4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.
Eph 5:5 For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
Eph 5:6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
Eph 5:7 Therefore do not become partakers with them.
Heb 12:14 Strive for peace with everyone,
and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
Heb 12:15 See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;
Heb 12:16 that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.
Heb 12:17 For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
2Pe 3:11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved,
what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,
Remaining in Christ requires bearing fruit, per
John 15where Jesus states He is the vine,we are the branches, and if we bear not fruit we are cut off of the vine of Jesus as a dead branch and burned, and sanctification is a continuing process based on NOT doing something, (and not doing something isn’t a work), and that something we are required to NOT do, is commit the sin of sexual immorality, as part of sanctification, to whit:
1Th 4:3For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;
1Th 4:4that each one of
you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor,
1Th 4:5not in the passion of lust like the heathen who do not know God;
1Th 4:6that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.
1Th 4:7For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.
1Th 4:8Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
In your post salvation Christian walk, your works will keep you from heaven - if you continue in works of the flesh (sin), as Paul warns us many times - and it’s what you DON’T do that is your ongoing sanctification, which is avoid sexual sins, aka works of the flesh.
We are told to control our bodies and avoid sexual sins, what you no doubt claim is legalism, but it’s scripture.
1Ti 5:11 But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry;
1Ti 5:12 Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith.
1Ti 3:6 He must be mature in the faith, so that he will not swell up with pride and be condemned, as the Devil was.
1Ti 3:7 He should be a man who is respected by the people outside the church, so that he will not be disgraced and fall into the Devil's trap.
Jas 5:19 My brothers, if one of you wanders away from the truth and somebody brings him back,
Jas 5:20 you may be sure that whoever brings a sinner back from his wrong path will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.
1Pe 4:17 For the time is comethat judgment must begin at the house of God: and if itfirst beginat us, what shall the end beof them that obey not the gospel of God?
1Pe 4:18 And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
