"Can You See?"

"This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die." (John 6:50 KJV)

  "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." (Romans 8:8-10 KJV)

 One of the first things I was aware of, when I first had Jesus in my heart, was that I could see things differently, especially my sin. Before I was saved, sin was really not a big deal; to be perfectly clear, most things that of the sins that I did, I did not even think of a sin, because for the most part, I did not really think that anyone was hurt by anything I had done. 

 Oh, what a difference Christ made in the way sin made me feel! Sin made me feel dirty; so much so, that if I ignored how it made me feel, not only did I remain feeling dirty, but I would begin to really not like the way the dirtiness made me feel; so much so, that may body would ach, causing me not to be a very pleasant person. 

 David spoke about this feeling, saying, "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long." (Psalms 32:3 KJV) Which basically means, he was not being very honest with himself, to admit that his sin was causing him pain, and realizing that he needed God's forgiveness to feel well again. Why do we hold off getting right with God? 

 Is it remorse that causes us to wait? Maybe it is just the guilt, as we feel as though we have offended God? If you are waiting for God to do something that makes you step forward, He already has by the way that you feel! That is the power of Christ dwelling in you, because that which is holy cannot deal well with sin! It took me some time to realize that; and shamefully, I still need to be reminded.

 Yesterday I heard part of a message from Pastor Mike. He spoke about how we are more likely to sin when we are victorious and on the mountain tops, then when we have failed and in the valleys. As I thought about how that actually looks, it is because we feel as though we have done something good, as if we have gained some kind of righteousness on our own. 

 If you have ever seen the movie, "Knight and Day," the, "with me, without me," thing is a very good illustration of what this actually means: the hand up is heavenly things, the hand down is earthly things: one represents the flesh, the other the Spirit. Can you see who the Me represents... 

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (Roman 8:1 KJV)