6 And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. 7 Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.
continue to follow Him... I think that is a bigger problem than we really like to talk about... we need to spend time alone with anyone we are in relationship with... just like a human relationship suffers if you never spend time talking alone.. so does our spiritual one... we don't spend enough time reading our bible... and that is generally how God speaks... so how is He speaking if we aren't giving Him opportuntity.. our behavior doesn't have to get worse for us to slip out of relationship... although eventually that will probably happen too... sometimes I think this happens more than we realize... we slip away from the closeness we once had... and start to lose our peace.. start to lose our joy... start to focus on circumstance rather than God...
8 Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. 9 For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. 10 So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.11 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. 12 For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.
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. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.
charles stanley taught on this last week... before we are saved... our sinful nature is in control... but after salvation.. the spirit of God is living within us.. so we have power over sin... BUT we still have to choose to allow Christ to reign... and overcome the temptation to sin....
16 So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. 17 For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. 18 Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud, 19 and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it. 20 You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, 21 “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? 22 Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. 23 These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires.
many people in past times were literal slaves to someone else.. as we don't have that as a reality in our lives.. we don't really think about being slaves to anything... yet we are either slaves to Christ or to self/enemy.... we hold the spiritual powers of this world yet we are always thinking that we have no power at all... again pride goes before a fall... Lord let me never become prideful....
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