Ron Dunn Podcast - Walk In The Spirit

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

Ron Dunn preaches from the sermon series on the Lifestyle Of The Spirit

If you'd open your Bibles to the book of Romans, the 8th chapter, Romans chapter 8, and I'm going to begin reading with verse 4 and read through verse 13. Romans chapter 8, verses 4 through 13. And this fourth verse gives us the purpose for which God sent his Son to live in the world a perfect life, to fulfill the law of God for 33 1⁄2 years, and then to offer his life as a sacrifice for our sins upon the cross. And the purpose for which all of that was done he reveals to us in the fourth verse, in order that the righteousness of the law, or the righteous demands of the law, whatever it is that God demands of us, that all that God demands of us might be fulfilled in us who

walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 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. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh." Now Paul did not finish that sentence, but the thought is we are not debtors to the flesh to live after the flesh, but we are debtors to the Spirit

to live after the Spirit. But it is in reality an unfinished sentence. For in verse 13, If we live after the flesh, ye shall die. But if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. There has arisen in the past few years a terminology that has become the favorite of a great many people in mass media and other means of communication other than television and newspaper. And this terminology is the gap.

There are all kinds of gaps today. There is the credibility gap. I heard a man saying that everybody in Washington ought to be removed because there is a credibility gap there. I thought to myself, we can take everybody out that has lost their credibility and put somebody else in who has no more credibility than them. It seems that everybody today believes everyone has lost their credibility. Nobody believes anybody. And there is a big credibility gap. And then there is a generation gap. And then there is a communication gap. And all kinds of gaps today.

I want to speak to you about another gap that is real in the spiritual world, in the spiritual realm. And the more that I go back to places that I have been before, I discover that this gap is alive and very well. And it is causing a great deal of frustration and confusion and disappointment in the lives of many Christians. And I call this the realization gap, or a reality gap. And by that I mean that there is on the one hand what we do possess in the Lord Jesus Christ, but there is, there seems to be, there seems to be a gap between actually realizing or actually experiencing what we do in fact possess in the Lord Jesus Christ.

There seems to be a great gulf fixed between what the Bible says we are and what we really are in fact. And I have become more conscious of this as we have been studying the 8th chapter of Romans because in the opening verses of this 8th chapter, the Apostle Paul makes it very clear that anybody, everyone who is in the Lord Jesus Christ, that they have been set free from the law of sin and death,

that the power of sin and death has been atrophied in their life. They have been set free. There is no prison term. There is no slavery. There is no carnal affection any longer. They have been set free. And if you are in Christ Jesus, then you have been set free from the power of sin and death in your life.

And that's what the Bible says. And it says it dogmatically without reservation. It doesn't exclude anyone. If you are in Christ Jesus, then you have been set free from the power of sin and death in your life. Now, there's only one thing wrong with that, and it's this, that it's not true. You know, the Bible keeps saying a lot of things that it's hard for us to believe because we do not see them to be true in the experience of most Christians. Because while the Bible keeps saying a lot of things that it's hard for us to believe because we do not see them to be true in the experience of most Christians. Because while the Bible on one hand says that those who are in Christ Jesus have been, in fact, simply because they're in Christ, have been liberated and set free from the power of sin, most Christians I know aren't experiencing that.

For instance, another example would be what Jesus said to the woman at the well. In John chapter 4, he said, He that takes a drink, if you'll just take one drink of the water that I give you, referring to eternal life, you'll never thirst again. Now, that's a tremendous promise. It's a universal promise without exception or elimination. And it simply says this, If you will receive Christ

and if eternal life becomes a part of you, you will never, never thirst again. There will be absolute contentment and satisfaction. And yet, if you'd be honest this morning, many of you would stand up and say, Preacher, I'm sorry, but I have to be honest, that is just not true in my life. I've been saved for many years, but I have to be honest, that is just not true in my life. I've been saved for many years, but I have to confess this morning that I am still continually

thirsting. There is still a great deal of discontent and dissatisfaction in my life. Paul says later on in this eighth chapter of Romans that we are all, again no exception, we are all more than conquerors through him that loved us. Most of the Christians that I know are more than conquered and are not living up to what the Bible has to say. Again, another verse, 1 John 5, verse 4 says, This is the victor that overcometh the world, even our faith.

Now, I used to read that verse and would say to myself, well, that's the reason I'm not overcoming the world, I just don't have enough faith. If I could just work up and pump up enough faith and bring myself to the place where I can believe real hard, I'll be able to overcome the world. And I thought that he was speaking there about the amount of faith, about the quantity of faith. And then one day I did what Jesus tells us to do. He tells us to continue in his word, and I continued in the word, and it just threw my Christian life all out

of whack. Because the very next verse says, who is it that overcomes the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? Now that fouled things up for me, because, you see, as long as I thought that the victory that overcame the world was a super kind of faith that we got after a great deal of struggle and working and learning, well, I could excuse myself. But he goes in the very next verse and says, the faith that I'm talking about is the simple faith of believing that Jesus is the Son of God. And so what he's saying is this, if you believe that Jesus is the Son of God. And so what he's saying is this, if you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, then you're overcoming the world.

And that poses certain problems because most of us in this place this morning do believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but most of us aren't overcoming the world. So there is a realization gap. There is a great gulf fixed between what God says we are in the Word and what we are in fact in our daily life. I want to share with you a principle that is illustrated in this eighth chapter of Romans

and is illustrated throughout the Word of God. And it's this simple principle of appropriation. The principle of appropriation. The principle of appropriation. In other words, by that I mean simply this, that even though you do possess something in the Lord Jesus Christ, God has given it to you by an act of His grace, you do in reality possess that in the Lord Jesus Christ, you must, in fact, you must take that and appropriate that and experience that in your own life. The experience of being literally set free from sin and death is yours in Christ Jesus, but you will never experience unless you learn how to take it, to take what is literally yours, or as one person has expressed it,

to possess what you already possess. For instance, let me illustrate it this way. The Bible tells us that when Jesus died on the cross, he died for every man. He died for every man. John says, John the Baptist in John 1.29, as he saw Jesus coming to him, said, John 1.29 Behold the Lamb of God God that taketh away the sins of the believers. And that's not what he said. He said, He that taketh away the sin of the world, the world, believers and unbelievers,

he has taken away the sin of the world. And then you turn over to 1 John 2 and verse 2. Writing to Christians he says, And Jesus Christ is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." Now what those Scriptures are teaching is simply this, that when Jesus died on the cross, it was a universal atonement. That when he died on the cross, he died for the sins of every man. That every man's sins, whether he's saved or lost, have already been paid for.

And a man will never be lost in hell because he drinks or murders or lies. John chapter 3, the Bible says, He that believeth on the Son is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already. Why? Because he has not believed on the name of the Son of God. There's only one thing that condemns a man, and it's not his sins as we call sins, as drunkenness and thievery and murder and riotous living. It is simply this, that he refuses to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He has already by his death on the cross paid for the sins of every man. Does that mean that every man is automatically saved?

Not so. It means simply this, that every man's sins have been paid for, redemption is his, but he must by faith, by committing his life to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, he must take what Christ has already provided for him. It doesn't mean that every man is automatically saved. The same thing is true about the people of Israel entering into the Promised Land. It's very interesting as you read all of those scriptures that have to do with that. God continually tells them it's already theirs, but it's not. When Joshua finally goes into the land, God says,

Now, every place you put your foot down, I have already given it to you. And in Hebrews chapter 3 and chapter 4, he's saying that the people had the possession, but they never possessed it because through unbelief, through failing to take and appropriate what God had for them in Christ, they never experienced. And so you see, if you're in Christ Jesus, you are set free from the power of sin and death. You are given the power to live as God wants you to live. But that doesn't mean that you're automatically living that way. You must personally, in your own life,

learn to appropriate, to take, and to possess what is yours. Now, let me show you what he's saying here in these verses. He says, There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Now look at the fourth verse. He's talking now that Jesus died on the cross. In the third verse he says, for what the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned in sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled

in us. Now, if there was a period there, we might be in trouble. Because if there were a period there, it would simply say this, that simply because Jesus Christ died on the cross, you are having fulfilled in your life daily, continually, everything that God demands. But that's not what it says. It says that's why Jesus died, but it's only really happening in the lives of those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

You see, Jesus died in order to set us free from the power of sin, in order to enable us to live such a life that God was pleased with, but it is only happening and only being experienced in the lives of those who, in addition to being in Jesus Christ, are also walking not after the flesh, but have learned to walk after the Spirit. And so it is only as you and I come by faith to walk after the Spirit, to allow the Holy Spirit to make real what Jesus Christ has purchased for us, only then do we bridge that realization gap.

And then as we learn to walk in the Spirit and to walk after the Spirit and to live in the Spirit, then everything that God has said of us will become experientially real and true in our daily lives. Now I want to suggest to you three words that I think sum up what it means to walk in the Spirit and how to live in the Spirit and how to walk after the Spirit. Three words. The first one is this, it's the word discovery. This is where it begins.

I'm speaking this morning to a Christian who knows that he is in Christ Jesus, he knows that he is saved, there is absolutely no doubt about it, but his own Christian life is denying the fact that he is in Jesus Christ. And everything he reads in the Bible that is true of him is not true in his daily experience. What is the first step in learning to walk in the Spirit? It is simply discovering. Discovery. What do I discover?

I discover something. I discover that in verse 4, it does not say that the law or the righteous demands of God is fulfilled by us. Did you get that as we read it a moment ago? It doesn't say that the righteous demands of a holy God are fulfilled by us. Did you get that as we read it a moment ago? It doesn't say that the righteous demands of a holy God are fulfilled by us. They are never fulfilled by us. They are fulfilled in us, it says, and there's a vast difference. And what he discovers is this, that even though he is saved, even though he is in Jesus Christ, he still is unable to live as God wants him to live.

But he discovers that God has given him someone who indwells him, which is the Holy Spirit, and this Holy Spirit's task and ministry is to fulfill all that God demands in us. And so everything that God the Father demands of me, the Holy Spirit who indwells me says, I will fulfill it. I will do it. I will obey it. And so I must discover, first of all, that I can't, and secondly, that he can. I have to, first of all, discover that even though I am saved and even though I am in Christ Jesus, I still am powerless to in my everyday life and simply by my own efforts satisfy all the demands that God makes upon my life. I discover that I am still just as unable to live the Christian life as I was before

I was saved. And the only difference is that before I was saved, there was no indwelling Holy Spirit to live it for me. And now the righteousness of God is fulfilled not by me, never can be fulfilled by me, but it is fulfilled in me. The Holy Spirit is fulfilling in me all that God demands. That's the first step, is discovering that fact. All right, the second word, the second step is decision.

Decision. Once a person discovers that, and usually that discovery only comes out of desperation, I'm finding more and more that God meets me at the point of my desperation. And until I get desperate about something in my Christian life, the light of God rarely breaks in upon me. And it is only as I am so desperate because of my repeated failure that the Lord enables me to make this discovery. He waits until I get desperate, because you see, if He told me about it before, I wouldn't think anything

about it. It wouldn't mean anything to me. Until I have learned over and over again that I am absolutely unable to live as I ought to live, I'm not going to listen to God. I think this is the reason, and many people ask me, why don't we learn this immediately upon being saved? Why is it that we seem to all have to go through a wilderness experience? Well I think the reason is that so many of us are like the Apostle Peter. If the Lord told us we couldn't, we wouldn't believe him. And so God has to convince us through repeated failure.

And finally when we get so desperate, then God says, I believe you'll listen to me now. I want to tell you something, you can't do it, but I can, and the Holy Spirit indwells you and if you'll learn to walk after him and live in him, you'll be all right. When I come to that point of desperation, then I make the discovery, and that leads to a decision. What is that decision? It is simply an act of my will. You notice he says that we are to walk after the Spirit.

I don't know about you, but every walk that I take begins with a step. Every walk begins with a step, begins with an initial act of my will. It begins with a decision to say, all right, since I can't and He can, I will allow the Holy Spirit to dominate my life. The little prepositional phrase, walking according to the Spirit, the word according is a Greek word that has the idea of domination. In other words, there is something dominating us, there is something controlling us, there is something that has sway and dominion over

us and so it controls us and we walk according to the Spirit. We walk dominated by the Spirit. You see, throughout this passage the apostle Paul is comparing and contrasting two ways of living. A man can live after the flesh or he can live after the Spirit. I think we'll better understand the word flesh if we'll just change it to the word self. A man can live after self. He can be dominated by what he wants, by his own high ideals of himself. He can be dominated by his own affections, his own ambitions, his own will, or he can be dominated by the Holy Spirit. And there

must be a decision where he says, I refuse to let myself dominate me. I refuse to walk after the flesh, and I choose to allow the Holy Spirit to dominate me. Now, I'm not saying that we live by willpower. I know a great many Christians who are trying to live the Christian life by sheer willpower. And there is a great deal of difference between an act of the will, whereby we choose to allow the Holy Spirit to control us, and simply living by willpower. And I'm afraid that many of us are living by sheer willpower when we think that we are living by the Holy Spirit. We don't have time, but if you will read the 7th chapter of Romans, you will find there

the testimony of a man who was living by willpower. He says, I have the will to do what is right, but not the ability. And he said, With my mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh I serve the law of sin. And some of us, by sheer willpower, are trying to please God. We admit that we're failures, we admit that we live in defeat, and we have the standard of what God wants of us, and so we say, all right, I am determined, I am determined to be all that God wants me to be. I'm going to grit my teeth, and I'm going to strengthen myself. I'm going to do whatever is necessary. By sheer willpower, I'm going to resist. I heard a man say to me the other

day, he said, you know, preacher, he said, I can resist everything but temptation. And I believe there's a great deal of truth in that. And that's the same with me. I can resist everything but temptation. And you know, I can come and I can say, all right, Lord, I've fumbled the ball. I've blown it again. I've messed up. But I tell you this time, Lord, you just give me one more chance and I promise you I'm going to make it this time. And I do fine until there's temptation. I can resist everything. I'm not talking about living by willpower. You know what is the difference between living by willpower and living by an act of the will? It's the difference between pushing a car and starting the motor. And there's a lot of difference. I think the difference is illustrated by a story I heard, and you may have heard it,

about a farmer who was way back out in the farthest part of the country you could get. Finally, he made one of those rare every few months trips to town to get a new saw. His old fateful saw had just worn out. And so he went into the hardware store and he said, I need a new saw. His old fateful saw had just worn out. And so he went into the hardware store and he said, I need a new saw. I've got to clear some land. And the man said, well, let me show you the latest thing. Let me show you this new chain-linked saw.

He said, I've never seen one in my life. He said, I guarantee if you'll buy this, you'll cut down trees ten times as fast as you've been able to do with that old saw. And so the farmer bought it, went out, came back in about three days. He said to the man, he said, I want my money back. Here's your saw. It's no good.

He said, what do you mean? He said, you told me that I could cut down trees ten times as fast with this new saw as I could with the old saw. He said, I've been working on one tree for three days and haven't got it down yet. Saw won't work. The man said, Let me see that saw a moment. So he turns a little button, primes it, takes that cord, pulls it, and that engine comes alive. And the farmer says, What's that noise?

I know some Christians that have taken the power of God and they are just trying to work it by hand, trying to live their Christian life. And then, brother, when God really gets a hold of them and they learn to walk in the Spirit, they say, What in the world is that noise? I never knew that there was a motor in that thing. I never knew there was power in that thing. I never knew that there was something in that to sustain it. That's the difference between living by willpower

and simply living by an act of your will. Living by willpower is taking that saw without the motor running and trying to cut down the tree. An act of the will is where I choose to let the saw do its own sawing and simply start the motor. Living by willpower is taking a car and pushing it to where you want to go. An act of the will is simply saying, I can't push the car. The car can run itself. It's self-sustained, self-sufficient. And the act of the will is you start the motor and allow the car to do what it can do and what you cannot do. And that's simply a decision.

I choose, I decide to no longer try in my own strength, by my own efforts to satisfy the demands of God. I'm simply going to allow the Holy Spirit to do it for me. Well, that leads me to the third and final thing. The third word is discipline. Discipline. Sorry about that. I tried to find a real nice sounding word that wouldn't scare you off.

Most people I know, myself included, are afraid of discipline. I think one reason I failed so long in the Christian life is because I'm just too lazy. I think many of us are just simply too lazy to live the Christian life as it ought to be lived. We want the discovery and praise the Lord when we have it and we'll make the decision just simply too lazy to live the Christian life as it ought to be lived. We want the discovery, and praise the Lord when we have it, and we'll make the decision,

and then we forget about the discipline. If you'll notice throughout that passage he says, those who set their mind on the Spirit, those who walk and its present tense, those who keep on walking, those who discipline themselves. And then in verse 12 he says, we are debtors not to the flesh, we are debtors to the Spirit. There is an obligation, there is a discipline. In the Old Testament, when they brought their sacrifice to the altar and laid it on the altar, which was a picture of you bringing your life and laying it on the altar and letting God use it, the fire of God would fall and begin to consume that altar, begin to consume that sacrifice as it lay on the altar.

But as that sacrifice began to burn, there was the tendency on the part of that sacrifice as it began to burn to slip off the altar. And so as the sacrifice would burn, the priest would use flesh hooks to hold that sacrifice on the center of the altar to keep it from sliding. Now you and I can come and make a decision, and we can say, all right, I'm going to let my life be on the altar for God. I'm going to walk after the Spirit. I'm going to stop living the way I want to live. I give up my rights.

I give up everything, and I want to simply walk in the Spirit. I make that decision. But I want to tell you something. As that sacrifice of your life and of your decision lays on that altar and the fire of God is consuming it, there is always the tendency for that sacrifice to slip off center. And there must be the flesh hooks, the discipline to hold it on center. And if I just simply start the car and let it go, it's going to drift off center. But I have to put my hands on that steering wheel to hold it on the path.

And many of us, we make the decision, we get the thing going, we get it started, and everything is just great, and we don't know anything about discipline. We don't know anything about holding on to the steering wheel. We don't know anything about the flesh hooks that hold the sacrifice on the altar. And it begins to drip and slip and get off center. And we wake up one day wondering what happened to our commitment. College student last week said, I don't want you to talk to me about any of this business. He said, I have brought up in the Baptist church. He said, I've been to all the rev business. He said, I've brought up in the Baptist church.

He said, I've been to all the revivals. He said, every evangelist has his own little solution. And he'll stand up and preach. And every pastor has his own little solution. And I've gone down to the altar a dozen times and made every kind of commitment they've told me to make. And the most it's ever lasted is two weeks. And then it fizzles out.

He said, I'm tired of being let down. He said, I've had it. I don't want to hear about it anymore. You know what the tragedy is in that boy's life? Nobody ever told him anything about discipline. He has the idea that the solution is in the decision, that you just make a decision and that's the end of it. And once you make that decision, everything from then on out is going to be absolutely perfect. But the decision is not the end, it's simply the beginning.

Now let me very quickly share with you the twofold discipline that must be present in your life if you are going to walk after the Spirit and experience all that God says you can experience. First of all, he says, we are to mind the things of the Spirit. We are to mind the things of the Spirit. Verse 5, for they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the Spirit. Verse 5, For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit, they mind the things of the Spirit.

And so the first thing is this, I must mind the things of the Spirit. Now the word mind there means to have your mind fully occupied, to have your life fully occupied. It means to set your life upon an all-engrossing subject. It means to be fully occupied. It doesn't simply mean to think about spiritual things. It means to be fully occupied with your time, with your thoughts,

with your energy, with all that you are, to be fully and completely occupied with the things of the Spirit of God. The things that your preoccupations, your ambitions, your interests, the things that you expend your energy on. What do you give your life to? The things that take up all of your life and your time. Listen, if you come on a Sunday morning or Sunday night or in a conference and make a decision and say, I'm going to give up living in the flesh and trying to live the Christian life my way.

I'm going to make a commitment to the Lordship of Jesus. I'm going to allow the Holy Spirit to control my life. If you make that decision and then you let your time be occupied with nothing but watching television and reading the newspapers and going to the movies and working out in the yard and reading novels and just with secular things and you never are occupied with the things of God, reading the Word, meditating on the Word, praying, don't come to me and say, Preacher, it doesn't work. It doesn't work.

And if you have made a decision or a commitment in some time in the past, and it went along all right for a couple of weeks, and now it's fizzled out, and you've run out of gas, and it doesn't work, I can tell you one thing is true. You have not, you have not set your mind on the things of the Spirit. We occupy ourselves, we preoccupy ourselves, we let all of our time be given up with secular things, and then maybe at the end of the day or once a week we will give a little bit, a tip to God of our time, we will give a little bit of time, and then we wonder why it is somehow or another the sacrifice has slipped off the altar. We must mind the things of the Spirit. That simply means that we must be occupied with the things of God.

You say, well, how in the world is it easy for you? You're a pastor. You don't have to work. It's easy for you to be occupied with the things of God. But I have to go out into the business world and I have to work. I can't spend all of my time on my knees with my nose stuck in a Bible like you can, and you don't understand the Christian life at all. Paul writing to Colossians says, whatever you do, whatever you do, do it all in the

name of Jesus. You see, we separate the secular from the sacred, but Jesus says everything is sacred. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, 31, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God. And I'll tell you something, you may be selling shoes in a department store,

but if you let the Lord Jesus Christ sanctify that and realize that if you do it in Jesus' name, in Jesus' strength, conscious of Jesus, that selling of the shoes becomes an act of worship and an act of service. You may be a dentist, and while you're drilling on a teeth, you're serving the Lord Jesus Christ, and that work is an act of worship. You may be a housewife. I'll tell you something. You're not going to believe this, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Every time you pin a diaper on that screaming little baby, you can do it in the name of Jesus and it's an act of worship. Because you live with a Jesus reference to your life.

You live with a consciousness that all you are, you owe to Jesus. He dwells in you and you dwell in him. And it's not you that's living life, it's Jesus. I tell you, when we talk about Christ living the life through us, we're not talking about witnessing and preaching and praying. We're talking about going to work, working in the yard, washing the dishes, doing whatever is necessary that our life demands of us to do. It is everything in life that is to be done in the power and the energy of the Holy Spirit.

Minding the things of the Spirit is simply allowing our lives to be occupied with the things of God, with the things of the Spirit. Now the second discipline is this, not only to mind the things of the Spirit, but he also tells us in verse 13, to mortify the things of the flesh. Verse 13b-14, For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live. What does that mean? That means simply this, that I reject, I refuse, I renounce, I reject everything that is wrong,

everything that does not please God. I reject every sin, every habit, every attitude. I reject everything that is not pleasing to God. And I live a life of continual repentance. It's renouncing self and repenting of sin. That's mortifying the flesh. That's mortifying the deeds of the body. It is first of all saying, Lord, I reject, I renounce, I refuse to be involved, to give my time to anything, anything that you can't put your stamp of approval on. Now, I'd like to ask you a

question this morning, and I don't want you to stand up and answer it, but I want to know, have you, have you given yourself to anything this past week that you had some doubt as to whether or not Jesus could put his stamp of approval upon? How many times a week do you and I go someplace, do something, spend time in a certain way that we know Jesus Christ probably would not be able to put his stamp of approval on, that he would not sanction? Every time you and I do that, we dull our spiritual senses and take the cutting edge off of our Christian walk. And mortifying the things of the flesh is simply putting to death

everything in our lives and in this world that comes to our lives that we believe Jesus cannot approve of and sanction. And then when we do get involved in something like that, it is to repent of that, to turn from it, to confess it. It is the discipline of the Christian life. It is a walk. It's not just one step, but it is a walk and it is a matter of determining to discipline your life, to keep that sacrifice on the altar by discipline, to daily mind the things of the Spirit, to occupy your time, your thoughts, your energy with the things

of the Spirit of God, and to constantly, daily, to mortify the things of the flesh. And he says, if you do this, you'll live. You'll live. He said, I thought we were already living. I thought if a, if you do this, you'll live. You'll live. He said, I thought we were already living. I thought if a man was in Christ Jesus, he had life. I know, but I know a lot of Christians who have life that live as though they were dead. Their testimony's dead.

Their prayer life's dead. Their Bible study life is dead. The joy of the Lord is dead. Their worship ability is dead. Jesus said, if you mortify through the Holy Spirit, the deeds of the body, you shall live. The Ron Dunn Podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated, uploaded to the web, or resold without prior written consent. It is managed and operated by

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