"To Be Established!"

 "A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;" (Ecclesiastes 3:2 KJV)

  "And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me - everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you." (Philippians 4:8-9 NLT)

 So, having determined that, 'that guy,' the old man has been crucified with Christ, we must stop living in a pattern of defense and trying to keep that old man down; but instead, we bring to life the new man, which is powered by the Holy Spirit, and start being alive; living in a pattern offence and doing those things we are meant to do, called to do, and that spread New Life! 

 Basically, the word I see being shown here, if you want to get spiritual about what the Spirit says: "a time to plant," is the planting of the Word of God within our hearts. We need to feed this new man the Word; it is meant to be fed every bit of it, over and over, as if there is no life without the nourishment of God's Word; on a routine time and consistently, just as if you feed your body food.

 And then, "and a time to pluck up that which is planted," is you putting the seed that has been planted to work! In other words, it is not just something that grows, and then is something looked upon; it is to be plucked up and put to good use! The more you do with God has given you, the more you will live out the New Life that is within you! 

 When you do that, that old guy doesn't show up as much, and the New You will be established...

"So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus. Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God's grace." (Romans 6:11-14 NLT)