Flesh, Mortifying

A key to overcoming our sins is learning when to deny ourselves. Christ plainly declares that those who desire to follow Him must deny themselves.

Our outward works show what we believe, what we worship, and what we aspire to become. Apart from God, all human works activities are potentially destructive.

How many of us go through life with our noses to the grindstone? Real life comes as a result of giving our own.

Beyond the fact that our Savior Jesus Christ was crucified on a cross of some sort, He used its imagery to instruct His followers: He bids us to take us our cross and follow Him. David Grabbe analyzes what Jesus' command would have meant to those who heard. . .

All the medieval 'seven deadly sins' could be categorized as a facet of lust. God designed us to have proper desires, just as His desires are always proper.

David Grabbe, claiming that the command to take up the cross has been sullied, tainted, and moreover smeared by Protestant heretical syrup, insists that the venerating of the cross (explicitly violating the Second Commandment) pre-dated Christianity by sev. . .

John Ritenbaugh, reminding us that God does not do things uselessly, and certainly does not need our physical goods, examines the role of the offering and sacrifice rehearsed at each Holy Day. The nouns offering and sacrifice derive from two separate Greek. . .

Our pilgrimage to the Kingdom will not be easy; we will suffer fatigue from difficult battles with serious consequences. We fight the world, Satan, and our flesh.

The most formidable foe in our spiritual battle is the flesh. We must mortify, slay, and crucify the flesh, enduring suffering as Jesus Christ exemplified.

Christ warns that we must do everything possible to annihilate sin - surgically going right to the heart or mind: the level of thought and imagination.

John Ritenbaugh reminds us that we do not have immortality as a birthright (the lie which Satan told Eve), but that God is the sole source, making our relationship with God and God's judgment the most important focus of our life. One common denominator in . . .

John Ritenbaugh explains the significance of "the fellowship of His sufferings" and "being conformed to His death" (Philippians 3:10). Christ's death had both a substitutionary and a representative aspect. The former pays for our sins, . . .

We are in a perpetual state of war on three fronts: (1) against Satan the Devil, (2) Against the world, and (3) against our own flesh. The most dangerous battle at hand is against our own flesh where we least expect treachery and where we have become the m. . .

True Christianity is no cakewalk into eternal life, but a life and death struggle against our flesh, the world, and a most formidable spirit adversary.

Martin Collins points out that our Savior has a tender spot for those who are weak in the faith but are doggedly struggling to hold fast to what they believe. People sometimes unfairly brand others who display a one-time weakness, as in the case of "D. . .

Like the marriage covenant, counting the cost is the most serious part of the baptismal agreement, not something to be taken lightly.

Christ's sacrifice was not merely substitutionary, but representative, with Christ giving us a pattern for life - mortifying our flesh and putting out sin.

John Ritenbaugh points out that Jesus Christ, through His voluntary humility (giving up all the perks of being God), has given us a model of the mindset that we need to have in order to attain membership in the family of God. Paul, desiring the Philippian . . .