Originally posted by karoly aczel
Take your time and please do. I would like to attempt to demonstrate that taking responsibilty for ourselves is better than leaving it to
Jesus.
Having said that, not everyone is the same and if its going to stop someone from doing something heinous then, by all means, take refuge in Jesus. Whatever works.
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Take your time and please do. I would like to attempt to demonstrate that taking responsibilty for ourselves is better than leaving it to
Jesus.
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"Leaving it to Jesus" as you say, certainly does not mean not taking responsibility.
Think of a car with power steering. The technology of hydrolics adds power to the activity of the driver's arms. There is still the responsibility of the driver to turn the wheel in the proper direction.
This is a limited but useful analogy of
"walk by the Spirit" or of
"Abide in Me and I in you" or of
"set the mind on the spirit" or of
"those who are led by the Spirit".
The New Testament speaks many times of the Christian being
empowered in the grace which is in Christ Jesus.
The analogy stops at the point of thinking that the indwelling Holy Spirit of Jesus will empower one to do the wrong thing. But the analogy holds in that the Holy Spirit will
"empower" the Christian as she turns her will in the direction that God within her is moving.
This does require responsibility and that is why there is a
"judgment seat of Christ" reserved for those who are saved eternally through Christ, yet still need to be judged according to how they lived by Christ.
Paul from experience taught the Christian to utilize the indwelling Holy Spirit to
"put to death" the lustful practices of the body. Paul spoke of crucifying the fallen flesh with its passions and its lusts. There is no way you can read Galatians, Romans, Colossians, Philippians or any New Testament book and ascertain that it is abandoning human responsibility.
I am responsible to merge my being with Christ. Your concept of an irresponsible "leaving it to Jesus" is a warped one at best. Leaving it to the Triune God mingled with man is more the reality.
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Having said that, not everyone is the same and if its going to stop someone from doing something heinous then, by all means, take refuge in Jesus. Whatever works.
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Here is what you should consider about your relationship to God. Suppose from this moment on, from now on, you were to live a perfect life ... what about the record of your life UP UNTO this moment ?
God has a record of your deeds, your words. It is infallible. It is undisputable. It is without any fictitious additions. It is irrefutable.
Look at the clock. Every minute is bringing you closer to the moment when before God you will stand. And God will say, "This is what you did. This is what you said".
Even if you were to live totally righteously from this day forward you still have the sins of before to answer for. Now you may consider "leave it to Jesus" to have been the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Because God knows the result of your responsibility before His holiness, His eternal perfection, is too heavy for you, He has provided Christ too obliterate your record in His act on the cross. He knows that you will never make it before His glorious holiness and His eternally perfect righteousness.
Now the cleansing of my sins, known and unknown, past and future, intentional and unintentional, excusable and not excusable, public and private, heinious and light, any and all my sins ... that I leave to Jesus to carry up in His body onto the cross.
No amunt of living perfect from today on (which is unlikely that you can) will cleanse away your sins of yesterday.
For my sins, justice has already been imputed on my behalf. Justice for my sinful life has been carried out in Christ on Calvary. That I leave to Jesus entirely. And I will tell God that I stand before Him clothed in the blood of Jesus - my ONLY merit, my ONLY standing, my ONLY covering before Him.