A book publisher, walking and talking with Chesterton one day, said of a mutual acquaintance, "That man will get on; he believes in himself." Chesterton writes:

"I said to him, 'Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Supermen. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.' He said mildly that there were a good many men after all who believed in themselves and who were not in lunatic asylums. 'Yes, there are,' I retorted, 'and you of all men ought to know them. That drunken poet from whom you would not take a dreary tragedy, he believed in himself. That elderly minister with an epic from whom you were hiding in a back room, he believed in himself. If you consulted your business experience instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter. Actors who can't act believe in themselves; and debtors who won't pay. It would be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail, because he believes in himself. Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness. Believing utterly in one's self is a hysterical and superstitious belief...' And to all this my friend the publisher made this very deep and effective reply, 'Well, if a man is not to believe in himself, in what is he to believe?' After a long pause I replied, 'I will go home and write a book in answer to that question.'"

The Church has been ripped off. There’s a roaring lion out there seeking whom he may devour, but we’ve spent years promoting the half-gospel of “Jesus died to pay your sin debt” and have downplayed the total lordship, power, and authority of Christ over our lives (me in Christ) and His power in and through us (Christ in me) that is free for the taking.
 
Like many of you, I read a lot. Sometimes that just involves standing in the bookstore and skimming books I don’t want to buy, especially anti- or substitute gospels. I continually see powerful Christian principles being marketed in success literature. I saw one the other day in a Franklin-Covey store that was about taking our thoughts captive, not allowing negative, fearful, or anxious thoughts into our consciousness. Of course, it wasn’t “taking our thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ.” But the principle was there, minus Jesus.

Another principle I've seen is “act as if.” C.S. Lewis talked about this in Mere Christianity. “Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already.” He then distinguishes between the bad kind, where pretense is there instead of the real thing, and the good kind, where the pretense leads up to the real thing.

So Lewis says we are to “dress up as Christ,” which is a totally Biblical principle. And in so doing, he continues, we immediately begin to see ways in which we are not being our real self. Christ is there “at that moment beginning to turn your pretence into a reality.”

The success book mirrors this: “One of the great strategies for success is to act as if you are already where you want to be.”

This ripping-off has been going on for years. New agers like Blavatsky talk about developing “the Christ-consciousness,” that constant awareness of our true identity. But of course without coming through the Cross, dying in Christ and resurrecting in Him and being implanted by the new life, they are merely exalting the old, false, satanic life of Eph 2:2. I said to a fellow Christian in that Franklin-Covey store, “You can be successful all the way through life right into Hell.”

Of course most of these books I’ve looked at and read talk about doing good, giving to charities, and all that, but that’s just a sugar-coated second death. Most of these success principles and many of the new age books are just a thick coating of truths hiding a big lie to keep people from entering the Kingdom of God.

Now, there will likely be those who take me wrongly, but I’m not saying success literature is bad. There are several great books that have helped me change bad, disorganized habits into good ones. But that’s another story.

As Christians, we have been given an ancient Power. This power is greater than “he that is in the world.” Should our lives not reflect and resound with this ancient power? Shouldn’t miraculous life change, victory, and the overcoming life of Christ within us be the norm? If this isn't our experience, we must ask ourselves, “Why not?”

A powerless church, a mere-forgiveness church, allows the devil to rip us off, letting him sugar coat his big lie with wonderful truths because the world doesn’t see us living from our true selves in Christ. We have mistakenly thought we have to live the Christian life - by our effort and programs and techniques. We’ve grumbled and complained, and been unbelieving about this powerful, conquering Holy Spirit that lives in us. This Overcomer, Christ Himself, lives inside each of us, and if we just begin to let Him do His work by trusting in Him it will change everything. The Hebrews could have entered the promised land and taken it over years sooner if they'd just trusted the God who wanted to be powerful on their behalf. Life change doesn't have to take a long time.

“He that abideth in Him sinneth not.” If we are abiding, we'll love God and love people. We’ll be bold, strong, true-hearted. It’s not a works-trip, or a prompt to more effort. It's a fact: it is impossible to abide in Christ and at the same moment be sinning. Simple, childlike abiding in Christ by faith will give the life change we - and the world - are looking for.

New Instructional DVD from Acutab.

LIMITED TIME ONLY! The first 50 orders of the DVD on RonBlock.Com will receive a free, bound, autographed copy of Ron's long out-of-print Traditional Banjo Workbook, comprised of over 40 tablatures of Earl Scruggs solos and 25 J.D. Crowe solos from recordings and live tapes. ACT NOW when the bonus workbooks are gone, they may not be back!

From the Acutab site:
There aren't many banjo players more widely heard, or who have performed before more people, than Ron Block. Working with Alison Krauss & Union Station since 1991, Ron's distinctive banjo sound has become nearly as much a part of the group sound as Alison's voice. Ron has taught in a limited number of worshops, but this is his first instructional DVD of any kind, offering a detailed look at his unique approach to the banjo.

This 2 DVD release from AcuTab begins with Ron explaining how he learned, and what resources have been useful to him, plus how he looks at both left and right hand patterns. AcuTab's John Lawless leads him through a discussion of several topics, including tone production, Ron's use of bends and chokes, how he arranges solos, and improvisation.

Ron goes into great detail about his practice routine, showing examples of exercises and drills he uses to stay in shape. He discusses how to use a metronome in your practice, with several examples. He also describes a number of guitar techniques and concepts which have informed his banjo playing, such as working within "boxes," or blocks of frets, and learning to visualize and play scales and patterns both vertically and horizontally. The meat of the DVD is in the songs Ron teaches, which are played in a number of keys and tunings. You'll learn Cluck Old Hen, Tiny Broken Heart, Man Of Constant Sorrow, I'll Remember You Love In My Prayers, Everytime You Say Goodbye, Bright Sunny South, My Poor Old Heart and Smashville. Each song is played with a band before Ron breaks it down lick by lick, and is then shown (medium and slow) in a split screen orientation.

Three screen orientations are available for the split screen sections, based on whether the left or right hand is of greater interest - or seeing them both at equal size. Two audio mixes are available for the band sections: normal, and banjo-heavy.

"Being in love," that intoxicating feeling, is sublime, heady. It elevates us, changes our perceptions of the world, of our present, of our future. Our heart sings. Our dreams for ourselves ring with angelic voices.

But it can't last; it isn't meant to. It's like learning an instrument. We hear an acoustic guitar and want to play it. There's excitement at the beginning, the potential, the thrill. The learning process begins - and soon we find "this isn't easy." Playing an instrument requires commitment, focus, determination - and a whole lot of time.

The halo melts away. It is at this point that our will must engage - the will to believe, to faithe, to trust that we do love it even if we don't feel it.

If we try to hang on to that halo we won't advance. If we cling to that in-love-ness, the mere feelings, we will be using our will to cling to the mere romance of it rather than being propelled into deeper knowledge and proficiency. We'll continue to romanticize - and we'll be disappointed time and again as our largely illusory dream slams up against reality.

I'm not knocking those in-love feelings. But feelings come and go, and yet love doesn't have to.

I've often heard people say the Greek word "agape" means "God's love." But it doesn't, since John 3:19 says "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved (agape) darkness rather than light." That means they were wholeheartedly committed to darkness. Their love was a choice of their will.

That's what God's love is. It is the wholehearted, committed giving of Himself even at His own expense.

The story is told of the great violinist Itzhak Perlman having a female fan approach him and say, "I would give my life to play like you." His reply? "Lady, I did."

Marriage can be a lot of work at times. It is a giving over of oneself to a partnership, a union. That's going to be costly at times, because to say "Yes" to one thing is to say "no" to many other things. For me to be committed to playing music means all of my work/hobby time is taken up with those things. I don't have time to be a great photographer or fly model airplanes as well.

We vow to love, honor, cherish, till death do us part. That's costly to the flesh that wants to do what it feels. Our flesh wants to avoid pain and find pleasure. That's natural; that's just the way the flesh is. Jesus, in the days of His flesh, attempted to avoid the pain of the Crucifixion there in the Garden.

But if we, like Jesus, recognize that we are not meant to be flesh-driven, that pleasure and pain are both included in the package, it will take much of the sting out of sorrows; This is going to be very hard at times, but in Christ I am filled full with everything I need to follow through.

In the end what we find, whether in marriage or guitar playing or following Christ, is a deeper halo, not our dream for ourselves but "God's idea of us when He devised us" (George MacDonald). We finally find the identity, and the daily expression of it, that we were made for. That's real satisfaction and fulfillment.

It's false humility - really self-righteousness - to go around sin-conscious. Not only that, it's a slap in the face to the One who cried, "It is finished," and to Paul, who said, "And you are complete in Him." That sort of sin-consciousness, where we go around thinking, "I'm sinning. I'm always sinning. Why? Because I'm a sinner" becomes a rationale for more sinning.

To the contrary, "It is God's will that you should be holy." This holiness is burdensome to us only because we think "I've gotta do it," when really it is Christ who is our holiness - not positionally or "in God's mind" but actually, a present-tense, here-and-now holiness that is totally accessible to us at any time through the channel of faith. If we are tempted to unholy attitudes or actions, we can recognize our oneness with Christ - that He is living in us in an indivisible union through which everything that He IS belongs to us, and everything that we are as vessels belongs to Him.

But in order for this communication of His life to flow we let go of an independent "I" that has to perform, and we recognize that it is Christ Himself in us who is our Life. We also let go of the idea that there is an independent "I" in us that runs around and commits sin.

Righteousness is the possession and character of one Person, God, expressed in His Son, Jesus Christ, and given to us as our own possession not as a thing to be possessed but in the Person of the Holy Spirit.

Likewise, sin is the possession and character of one person - Satan. He is the originator of it; he was the one who said, "I will be my own god; I will rule myself." Jesus said to the self righteous, "You are of your father, the devil, and his lusts you will do." They weren't doing their own lusts, but Satan's.

1Jo 3:2-10 illuminates this:

"Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother."

After this passage John delineates what it looks like to live from Christ; it's loving in deed and in truth, not just in words. But it's really Christ loving through us. "And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment." As we rely, believe, trust, exercise faith in the name - the power, authority, uniqueness, identity - of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, we love one another. Because it is His love coming through us.

Think about it - John here flies in the face of much modern theology of "I sin because I'm a sinner." Believe me, I used to live in that consciousness on a constant basis - the life of Romans 7. John is here showing why a believer cannot sin and feel ok about it. It's because we are committing spiritual adultery, having a form of godliness but denying its power by saying "Jesus died to pay my sin debt" and then not relying on His indwelling Life.

When we sin, we are really allowing our humanity to be used by the devil for his sinning.

When we 'righteous', we are allowing Christ to live through us.

Behavior is produced by the identity we are believing in, relying on - the identity we are "giving ourselves to," if we want to use God's symbol of the marriage union.

As blood-bought, blood-washed believers, when we give ourselves to the sinner-identity, we are committing adultery with Satan, with the subsequent fruit of it: Sin. We are saying, "I am an independent self. I choose good and evil." And what happens with that false identity is that Satan gets his marionette strings hooked into us and works us like puppets - from the outside in, since we're believers. We're committing spiritual adultery when we sin.

When we give ourselves over to the One who gave Himself for us, believing, trusting Him, relying on Him and the new Name we have been given in this marriage union - His very own Name, with all its attendant authority and power, love, security, worth, and meaning - when we give ourselves to this One, He begets righteousness through us.

That's the essential fact on sin and righteousness. They do not originate in us. We give ourselves to one or the other in Satan or Jesus Christ, and they produce through us.

This is not dualism. God and Satan are not equal powers. Satan is under Christ's feet. Defeated. But God wants us to appropriate that defeat at the Cross by faith - by relying on Christ. We take "a willed share in our own making," as George MacDonald said. That willed share is Faith.

To make sure I'm clear, our choice really, as believers, is between reliance on the Holy Spirit which indwells us, or reliance on the constant stream of satanic thought that assails us from the outside. For instance, the satanic stream says that we are accepted when we perform well - that is, when we behave, we are acceptable. But God says He has "made us accepted in the Beloved." Well, those are two contradictory statements, and we've got to rely on one or the other. If we rely on the satanic stream (which is put into our minds from the outside, as believers), we will be continually trying to perform well in order to gain acceptance. Contrariwise, if we trust in God's Word, that we are "accepted in the Beloved" we will live more and more from that acceptance, His acceptance, and our actions will spring forth not from a desire to be accepted, but from the trust that we are already accepted in the Beloved. Thus our doing comes from be-ing, rather than be-ing from doing.

That's just one example. It's really countless, the ways in which we can choose to trust God or trust the satanic/world thought-stream. Satan tried his tricks on Jesus in the wilderness - "If you are the Son of God, prove it by A, B, and C." Well, if you know you're a good doctor, or CPA, you don't have to go around proving it - you just have to go on being it. So Jesus knew He was the Son of God, and didn't have to prove it to anyone (even His brothers tried to talk Him into that).

The old man - Rom 6:6 in the NKJV says, "knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin." Thayer's Lexicon says "The death of Christ upon the cross has wrought the extinction of our former corruption." That's because our former corruption was to be a vessel of wrath - that is, a cup filled with the spirit of Eph 2:2, "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." (apeithia, literally, "the unconvinced"). When He died on the Cross, Romans 6 says, we died with Him; He was "made sin for us" because the spirit that inhabited and indwelt us was, through us, put in Him, so that He might die to it for us; when He died, we were in Him, and we died - that old, false union. When Jesus' dead body was reactivated by the Holy Spirit, raised from the dead, we were reanimated by the Holy Spirit and raised from the dead. God "has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." (2Cor 5:21)

In either instance (the Adamic man of Eph 2:2 or the new creation man of Rom 6) the cup is the same. It's just cleaned out by the Blood and then the real Landlord comes in, instead of the usurper.

After conversion it's a matter of, through reliance on the Holy Spirit, clearing out sinful habits learned under the old landlord. That's why we're to "put off the old man" and "put on the new man." Because, as Col 3:3 says, "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds.." He's just got finished saying, "Since you were raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God." Paul is echoing Romans 6 here. We "put off the old man" and "put on the new" by faith in the fact that the old man is dead and cannot revive; we put on the new man by believing" if any man is in Christ he is a new creation; old things have passed away."

That's how righteousness is by faith - we rely on God that the thing is, because God said so; that reliance connects us to Christ's power within us, and God expresses His righteousness through our daily lives (think of grapes or olives being squeezed to express the wine or oil). But we've got to stop believing we have to achieve a righteous state of be-ing by performance.

This is an email exchange with someone who wrote to me on my site. It's good food for thought and heart if you've got a few minutes. I've been told this is a little bit like "Who's on first?" but there's a lot of light that can be generated by thinking about this idea.

His question: "I have a fair grip on the concept that independent self is a lie, but notice that Norman Grubb and others maintain that I/we must choose to believe either the lie or that we've been made perfect, etc. Question: Who is this "I" that chooses? If Christ, I would never be deceived. If false self , I will always be deceived. Looks like insofar as choosing, there is some independence there. Any thoughts?"

Answer:
I do believe in a inner chooser. But an independent "I" that must try to be good or that can do evil in and of itself, no. I'm the manifestation of what I choose to rely on; "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."

So there is a self, a human spirit, a chooser. But it's not an independent self that can act autonomously; it can only manifest the life of another.

This takes us from being intrinsically good or bad and makes us neutral in and of our human selves, not evil except as the manifestation of Satan's evil; Jesus said, "You are of your father the Devil, and his works ye shall do." The Pharisees didn't perform their own works; they did the Devil's. Satan was reproducing himself through them, his quality of life. On the other side, Jesus said, "I can do nothing of Myself," meaning His humanity was a neutral vessel, incapable of doing good or evil. And He went on to say, "The Father in Me does the works." Likewise, for us, Paul says, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling (sounding like it all depends on us), for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good pleasure" (recognizing that it all really comes from Him).

We make these faith-choices daily. For instance, with my family: Am I going to trust that Christ lives in me, that He will Father my children, that He will Husband my wife through me? If I am harsh with them, the reason is not that I'm bad or evil; the reason is that I am not trusting Him, relying on Him, and instead think that I have to control the situation with "my own" thinking, reasoning, emotions. But really that independent "I" is a lie - there is no "my own." It's Satan or God; if I am going to trust "myself" I'm really falling for Satan's lie of independent "I" that can choose to be an originator of good or evil.

This faith-choice is our only real action. It is an inner choice that then manifests itself in our outer actions. We connect either to Christ within ourselves (believers) or to Satan shoving his thoughts into our heads. We follow Christ, trust, rely, and so manifest His life - or we do it "my way" which is really Satan's way.

This cuts a lot of bull out of "the Christian life" and brings it down to brass tacks: Trust God, every moment, rely on Him - and if you choose against that, you're trusting not 'you' but Satan. Because there is no independent 'you' that is capable of goodness - or evil - in and of your human self.

Like a lamp that can plug into Light Power or into Dark Power - it has to plug in in order to have power. But it chooses which power. Jesus in Matthew 6, after giving what is known as "The Lord's Prayer" contrasts the two different ways of seeing, one satanic, the other godly. When you fast, don't fast like the hypocrites, letting everyone know what you're doing (the satanic self-righteousness, wanting to appear good); instead, fast in secret, and the Father shall reward thee openly. Don't lay up treasures on earth (the satanic desire to have security in an idol, something other than God); instead, lay it up in heaven; Paul said in Colossians 3,, "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God." Wherever your treasure is (in Christ, or in Satan's way of thinking), there your heart will be also. And so we make Christ our treasure - by choice, by faith, by reliance.

And then Jesus says this: "If the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness." C.S. Lewis wrote in The Silver Chair that "you are most under the power of an enchantment when you do not think you are enchanted at all." We can be operating totally under fleshly effort, the satanic mindset, and have no idea that we are doing so. The light of the body is the perception; that's why we've to "renew our minds" (Rom 12:2), because in seeing things God's way we are transformed from glory to glory. Jesus in Matthew 6 is telling us to use God's way of thinking and allow no other.

That's choice - faith-choice. And when we make that choice, to one side or the other, God - or Satan - flows.

Why is all this important to know? Call me crazy, but if more Christians knew this there'd be a lot less sin. It's not as fun when we realize that we are giving our minds, souls, bodies over to Satan temporarily when we sin, and that it's really him doing the sin through us. Not possession, but puppetry. And when we express righteousness - love for God and others - we are manifesting the nature of our indwelling Husband, our Captain, our King - and our Father, so spiritual pride that Satan attempts to shove into our minds after doing something good becomes a non-issue.

We have to make a distinction in our minds between what Scripture says and what we think it means. That's humility - recognizing that we can be wrong (even if, no, especially if we have years invested in our wrong interpretation).

Paradoxically, we keep the Scripture superstructure in our minds. That's one reason it's important to read/study/memorize Scripture. It builds context in our minds, and through that context begins to more and more interpret itself.

For instance, in the Matt 5-7 passages Jesus sets a higher standard than had ever been seen. The Pharisees were good at outer righteousness, but who could stand against this idea of having an inner righteousness even in our thought life? Who could live up to this standard?

The answer is "No one." Of course, many try. But all fail. And some of the worst failures are believers.

And then we come across Romans 7, and other passages where Paul says things like "Christ is the end of the Law to everyone that believes." "You are become dead to the Law through the body of Christ…" and "Sin shall not have power over you, for you are not under the Law but under grace."

Many believers ignore these passages, or at best put a great big BUT to append their own interpretation onto Paul. Instead, as we mature, we are to put Paul together with Jesus, Romans with Exodus, etc. In order to do so we have to continually be able to let go of "what I think about this" and see what the synthesis of Jesus' or Moses' thought and Paul's thought does in our hearts. Jesus preached that if we hate someone in our heart, or sexually desire someone, we are sinning - breaking God's Law. And at the same time Paul says we are dead to the Law. What most people do is put Law and Grace together - we're saved by grace, and now we try to keep God's Law because we're grateful for what Jesus did. But Paul had no tolerance for mixing grace and Law - it's all based on grace, whether initial salvation, or the daily walk, it's all based on God sending His Son, first to die for us, and for us to die in Him, and then for us to live in Him, and for Him to live in us. That resident Power in us is the reason we are no longer under the Law, under "Do this and don't do that and you'll be holy." We're already holy in Christ, and all we need to do is rely on His power in us. In that reliance we rise, as George MacDonald said, to a region which is higher than Law, because it made the Law. That region is God's power within us, God living in and through these human cups. It's a life beyond "trying to be good" and "trying to keep the Law," becoming a life of simple, resting, trusting reliance on Christ inside us as our love, our peace, our patience, our purity - or as the O.T. says it, "The LORD our righteousness." "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling," as though it all depends on us, and then "for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good pleasure…" showing where the real Power to be and do resides.

To clarify, we need a Scripture framework. Memorization, study, devotional reading. But our understanding of Scripture must be malleable, changeable, according to the new insights we gain through study. The Scripture framework - the unchangeable Word of God - is built up in our minds. That's good. But hanging onto "what my pastor said" or "my notes from 1983″ about Scripture - that's what I'm talking about. The hanging on. Pride. "I know what this means." That's the "theological superstructure" I'm talking about. We've got to have the humility to know we don't have all the answers - and neither does Calvin, Luther, or any other extra-biblical writer. They can be wrong as well - and are, at times. It doesn't mean we don't read them, or can't learn from them. That's part of humility.

Because we're studying transcribed eternal realities, which can only be illuminated by the power of the Holy Spirit, we've got to maintain the childlike attitude of the Bereans, and be willing to let go where necessary. Apollos, in Acts, had "the way of God" explained to him "more perfectly." That means he had to let go of some of his old thinking. For me, in the mid 1990s, that meant nearly the whole theological "what-I-know-about-Reality" superstructure had to come tumbling down. I still retained, of course, a total respect for the Bible as God's Word, Christ as the Son of God, the Trinity, and every other foundational aspect. But in that crashing down, the whole, practical "how do I live the Christian life" question has been turned on its ear forever. If God's reality is often backwards from the world's thinking, then we are going to experience reversals in our thinking as we get deeper and deeper into the written Word and the living Word. As we "renew our minds" (or "renovate our thinking") by the Word of God, it's going to shake up our theological frameworks. If it doesn't ever do that we're just using Scripture to justify our own thought-systems.

My daily Bible reading in the NT has reached Romans. The scope of that letter is amazing - it covers the entire Christian life, from sin and self-justification through God's justification by grace through faith. We read of our becoming dead to sin and alive to God (6), and then the struggle we go through as believers in trying to do good by exerting flesh-effort, showing how sin derives its false power over us through the Law (7). The remedy is to lay fleshly effort aside in favor of reliance on the indwelling Spirit (8), which transforms our lives into people who would even give up our salvation, if possible, for sinners. And that's where I am currently in my Bible reading - Romans 9. Powerful.

If we read the Bible with a childlike attitude, rather than coming to the text with denominational spectacles, and ask the Father to show us the food we need in the Word, we'll gain a lot of benefit and grow in leaps and bounds. Taking the Bible seriously is crucial, and by that I mean really counting what it says as Reality. Therefore when Paul says we're dead to sin, we choose to believe it, rely on it, faithe it When he says Christ is the end of the Law to all who believe (faithe), we take God at His Word. It's Fact. No ifs, ands, or buts. When the Bible says sin shall have no power over us because we're no longer under the Law (self-effort based holiness) but under grace, and that now I'm in the Spirit, with Christ Himself as my indwelling power to love God and others, we take it seriously, literally. It's Fact, period.

Now, I used to have a filter or theological framework in my brain that I filtered the Word through. It was based on human commands and teachings, and it diluted the power of the Word. Therefore, when Paul said, "Reckon yourselves dead indeed unto sin" I put a big huge BUT right there. "Ok, I'm dead to sin, BUT, not really. Positionally I'm dead to sin, but not actually (in my present tense experience). I'm not supposed to sin but I'm such a sinner, so I've got to try not to sin. But when I sin I can't help it because I'm a sinner." As George MacDonald said, "Round and round the great miserable treadmill of contradictions." We put those big huge Buts everywhere in Scripture that we don't feel it to be true. Another for-instance: "I'm dead to the Law, BUT it means the ceremonial Law. I've still got to strive in my effort to keep the moral Law." Paul deals with that in Romans 7 in his discourse on Law, and uses "Thou shalt not covet," straight out of the moral Law, for his text. And the Devil says, "But but but but but." The carnal mind, through the devious nature of Satan, is always trying to make out that God is mistaken or didn't really mean what He said literally.