How wretched? Very wretched

Romans 6:14 (KJV)  “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”  with  “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”  Romans 7:24-25

It doesn’t say “ who shall deliver me from the body of this sin and death” just death, sin was dealt with completely at the cross, don’t become the cross’s enemy!  (Philippines 3:12-21)  I was, am and ever will be delivered from sin in You; the LORD Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:7 ; Colossians 1:14) it’s a promise as sure as You are to me, “sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.” 

I have to learn how to allow God to have control of my alive spirit (once saved, born again, being in Christ) to work with my dead flesh filled with sin (Romans 7).  Sin is defeated only by my conscious allowing, a decided freewill choice to believe God, a continual working out (Philippians 2:12-13) of my alive spirit to be used of God in truth to defeat what my flesh demands. Trust in the Lord with all my heart, lean not to my own understandings, acknowledging You in all that I do and You will guide my paths; from Proverbs 3.  

I, in and of myself cannot see the sin that is in my dead active flesh; God knows the way of truth, He is truth, His “Word” is truth (John 17:17); to work through my now alive spirit to defeat that sin in my flesh through grace and truth (John 1:14; full of grace and truth). Also Ro 12:1-2, 10:17: if unfamiliar with these verses get your Bible and read them, they are pertinent here.  Remember Isaiah 28:10-13, if not go and read it also.

Eve and then Adam’s sin was thinking that they could, exercise their knowledge of good and evil, not needing God, which they did through unbelief, but lacked an omniscience knowledge of how to deal with good and evil, in having died spiritually.  Sin then is compounded in that when that received knowledge of good and evil came, they lacked the knowledge of all these which have to be learned, truth, righteousness, goodness, love, and other attributes of God to combat the knowledge evil and exercise good; that is impart why we need Him, and by knowing Him can learn true truth from His perspective found in His Word, but we have to accept the revealed knowledge and wisdom of truth, to be accepted only through faith: believing God. Is not that what “growing in grace” is about?

We start to receive those attributes, when we believe the gospel: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:” 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.  Those attributes are received back as we grow in Christ, that were lost being in Adam, dead, by believing in Jesus; but it takes us the rest of our lives to even start to understand how the attributes of God are worked out in us, teaching us what it means to be truly alive in Him.  Sin: lack of God in our life till born again, is so devastating we are just the opposite of who we were intended to be.  Then before believing, not having God’s life in us, never having it, life,  apart from God, which only God can reveal, that’s why it’s so important too trust, learn, understand, believe and allow God too, being what we were never created to be or do in the first place.  We do not receive this ability before faith but only through faith.  It is just as hard for us to go to, as for Adam to go from, what was lost in sin, maybe more so.

Adam, before sin, was completely dependent upon God, I don’t think Adam was aware of his need of God, not having lost life yet.  Adam had never experienced God’s absence and what that would entail, being once removed.  Adam and Eve didn’t have the omnipresence, omnipotence or omniscience presence as God does; but only received the knowledge of good and evil.  In taking on that knowledge of good and evil by not believing God (the day you eat there of!!!) they were unaware of what would be lost in the receiving of it, good and evil.  Much like when Adam had seen that Eve had eaten but yet was still standing, still physically alive.  Adam hadn’t any understanding of spiritual life/death; spiritual life as seeing it was something to the point of his disobedience, he had never been without, he wasn’t omniscience.  The moment he partook (quit believing God) he immediately realized something dramatic had occurred but not what. I believe during the course of the next 930 years he had yet to fully understand what was lost, but daily experienced the consequences of that decision.  How can I then in my much shorter life span expect to learn it back, and all the more so, when I fight against God by continued unbelief although saved.  I believe God has through time, has slowly revealed what was lost to mankind by allowing mankind to experience what that loss entails; but by only being in Him (1 Corinthians 2:6-16).  But through faith I can increase more and more by believing God daily in my life; the question is and always is, How much of God does james want?  Paul said well: “Be ye followers of me, even as I 

also am of Christ.”  1 Corinthians 11:1.  And equally so:  “Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”  Philippines 3:17-21.  

When they received that knowledge of good and evil they only received the part that killed them, not the knowledge of how to use it but only the knowledge of: not the part which was alive unto life which they already had being alive spiritually but now dead after.  That’s why God had to provide that means of life again to the dead Adam to make it again available to man what only He, God, must provide of Himself through the man Christ Jesus, for God is that life, God cannot die nor be killed; again the need for one who could die both spiritually and physically, to be the payment for sin, often called atonement; Jesus, the Christ, Messiah, God Lamb.  Then to be raised again to Life, everlasting life that can be received by believing (faithing, trusting, knowing) who God is and what He came to do in the body of Jesus the Christ for those who do believe.

 Thank You LORD Jesus for loving me, giving me Your life.  LORD it is exciting to read Your Word, to have the anticipation of “What are You going to reveal to me this time?”  Then to read with that expectation, knowing I’m actually seeing the mind of You in Word.  That You just didn’t give us a thought or an idea but the very inter workings of You.  Thank You for Your Word I can hold, read, meditate on, think on, discuss, waiting of that blessed day when You will return and take Your body, us, the church to be with You forever.  In Jesus’s name, Amen  . . . . . . . . .