Galatians 5:22 – But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

Galatians 5:23 – Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Hey all, new blog today. Talking about temperance vs self control. I hope this blog is helpful and clear. Because check your Bible… if your Bible has “self control” substituted for “temperance” you know you’ve got a dodgy Bible. And well… you should already know that anyway… the Authorized King James Bible is the only version that claims to have God’s preserved word. If God cant preserve his word, we then don’t have God’s word do we? How can he preserve YOU? How can we trust his word if we are not sure we’ve actually GOT his word? It’s a joke. And our faith is destroyed. Because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. God’s faithfulness to us is more important than our pathetic attempt at faithfulness to him. He is a big God. Bigger than our puny little minds. Preservation is just as, if not more, important as inspiration. So you can read it, and know that you are reading God’s preserved, sure, accurate, faithful word TO YOU. God’s pretty good and faithful huh? Reading and submitting to and obeying is building your house upon the rock.

Self control is not a fruit of the Spirit, but temperance is. Self control is WORK, it’s YOU doing the controlling. If you’ve been taught self control, you’ve been taught wrong. Look at the word “self” in “self control”. That should be a hint. It’s you controlling yourself, instead of being tempered by the Holy Spirit. One is YOU doing something, the other is the Spirit of Christ IN you doing something. And if you are in self control land you are set for a life of futility, struggle and despair. Because you cannot win. I know because I’ve been in self control land. You’re fighting your own utterly wicked, unsalvagable, unsavable sinful nature. You can’t win. And there’s no rest. God doesn’t overhaul our sinful nature at salvation, at conversion, he creates a new man in you. It’s a new creation, a new creature, born of God. The flesh is going down, and death is victorious for a saved person… O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? … in fact we long to be with Christ, to be set free from our mortal frames. Death is scary… yes… it’s horrible, but just like the angels came and carried Lazarus to Abraham’s bosom… God gives us grace when the time comes, the Bible says the death of his saints are precious. He keeps our tears in his bottle. God will help us when the time comes. But if you are unsaved, there is no victory, no comfort, in fact it just gets WORSE!! just straight to hell, and in torments, wailing, gnashing your teeth forever… the fire that is not quenched. It’s horrible.

Let me ask you. How does you restraining yourself go? How’s that working out for you? Doesn’t work out well for me. I know from personal experience. Because we all have a sinful nature. It’s a NATURE. So you can control a nature a bit, but it’s still your nature. You can even tame vicious animals, but they’re still vicious animals. Look at accidents with people taming beasts… that turned on them… because at the end of the day they’re still vicious beasts. Look at a dog, you can clean it, wash it, put it inside … but when it pukes it will still go back to it’s vomit. Because no matter what… it’s still a dog. If you are unsaved, you can clean yourself up, go to church, dot the “i”s and cross the “t”s, but you’re still unsaved. You’re still not born again. You are not in Christ, Christ is not in you, and you are none of his. That’s humanity today, and Christendom today. We fatten ourselves for the slaughter. We nourish ourselves, we feed without fear. Revelation 3:17 – Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.

In fact, if you are not born again, you are reprobate. Only God can illuminate and turn around a reprobate mind. I have no power to. I cannot change you. 2 Corinthians 13:5 – Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? Are you reprobate in your thinking, in what you do, and are and how you live? Reprobate means not enduring proof or trial, not of standard purity or fineness, disallowed, abandoned to sin, abandoned to error, rejected… lost to grace. Ironic that people often claiming God’s grace have in fact been lost to God’s grace. They know nothing of it. They haven’t received his grace at all. Life proves whether we are reprobates or not. Life is a proving ground. 2 Corinthians 6:1 – We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.

So let’s look at our own lives. We can live morally, good, but have no victory. Maybe that’s a sign the Spirit of Christ is not in you. You’re either born again or not. Yes or no… no limbo… no “working on it”… no middle ground. His life, his life that did no sin, that fulfilled the law, that did the will of his Father (is our life just doing our own will or is it HIS will?… really?) … his life that had power over sin, hell, death, the grave… is his LIFE in you… how can he live in you and make no difference to you? To your thinking, to how you live, act and do? Where’s the transformation? Where’s the life and light? Light should be sprung up in you. Isaiah 60:1 – Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.

Because when you get saved, you are actually FREE. Free to do good now. Because being born again… it’s a new creation… a new creature… A NEW NATURE. You love God. You’re changed forever. Have you got the love of God IN you? Do you love truth? You come to the light? Where are you at in relation to God’s word? Do you even want God’s word? Does it have any place in your life? Jesus said It is written… he lived by the word of God… he obeyed the word of God… he knew it back the front, inside out… you know why? Because he IS the Word. It’s time to wake up. If you are saved, it’s his life IN you, it’s just WHO you are, not what you’re trying to be. Instead of being in slavery, you now have a new nature. 1 Peter 2:24 – Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

When we are born again we are baptized into Christ, into his death, burial and resurrection. Romans 6:18 – Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. There is an old hymn (There is a fountain filled with blood) which says… saved to sin no more. We still do sin, and fight sin, and have battles, but salvation is a new creature. Our flesh sins, and cannot but sin, but the Spirit in us, the new creature born of God is sinless! So we have an internal battle. The Spirit lusts against the flesh and the flesh against the spirit, they are contrary… we say just as Paul said… O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?! Jesus will. It’s about Jesus Christ… start to finish. Once we get saved, we don’t get over him… we don’t grow up on Jesus… become independent of him. Many people say as a child I was a Christian, but I grew up. It’s bull. It is Jesus that sees us through to glory, he is and never stops being our all. And Jesus is stronger than your flesh, your life should be changed if you are saved, there should be proof if HIS LIFE is in you as you claim. People get hung up on a verse that he that endureth to the end shall be saved… and think it’s we’ve got to keep doing good works to the end or we’re not saved. No, it’s Christ in you that endures to the end. If you are truly saved, you will endure yes… but because of Christ in you… YOU will faint and fall, but Christ in you, who is always faithful, will endure in you.

You need to be born again or all you’ve got is your sinful nature. Doesn’t matter how well you dress it up… doesn’t matter what you do, how you live, how moral, how reformed… you are still UNSAVED, unregenerated, unborn again and heading to hell! Galatians 6:15 – For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. 2 Corinthians 5:17 – Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

It’s an uphill battle if you’re trying to be a Christian and yet are not born again, if you have not got the Spirit of God in you. Without being born again you are not in his kingdom. But there are many impostors. There are many impostors in the kingdom, who are not of the kingdom.But… Matthew 13:41,42 – The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. It is scary stuff. What about the parable of the net… also in Matthew 13… many people are caught in the net… both good and bad… but at the end of the world the bad are severed from among the good, and thrown away. Are you IN God’s kingdom? Matthew 22:12 – And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. It’s time to stop fooling ourselves and get serious with God… why gamble with your soul?

So, you can be an adult, you can be moral, you can exercise great restraint. But it doesn’t actually change who you are. Your nature, our nature is still the same. And it stays, even in someone who’s saved. It’s called the old man, the flesh… and we’ve got it with us until we die. It never gets better. It is not getting saved. That’s why we must be born again… being born again is a separate new creation inside us, perfect, sinless, born of God. It’s a miracle.

Without the Spirit of Christ you cannot be set free from sin. You cannot have victory. There is a reason the new birth is called spiritual circumcision. Because it is a separation, a cutting away, a distinction between. Just as separate as light is from darkness. Does your life show any separation… not religious garbage self separation, but separation unto Christ, because he’s in you? Your life should be one of being transformed into the image of Christ, of going to Christ’s side, of being drawn out of this world and all corruption and wickedness and emerging from our past life, our past way of thinking and understanding. You should not be the person you were IN TIME PAST. Hebrews 6:9 – But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.

You see, when you are born again, God carves out a habitation for himself in you, in your spirit. You are spiritually circumcised. A new creature is born inside you… born of God… completely separate from your flesh. You become spiritually alive unto God. What was lost in Eden is restored. You become the temple of God. A habitation of God. God living in us. So we are exhorted not to defile that temple. We have a new nature inside us, but at the same time we still are in the body, we are encased in the flesh and it’s nature. The Bible says we have this treasure in earthen vessels. So it’s a fight.

Many people worship Jesus with their soul, but Jesus said they that worship him must worship him IN spirit and in truth. You must be born again of the Spirit of God. Are you alive unto God… is there that vital connection? Are you quickened, are you spiritually alive? Or blind, dead, darkened, separated from, an enemy of God and under condemnation?If you are saved, what does his voice sound like? Is it a still small voice? Or do you prefer the wind, the earthquake, the fire… you need emotions, feelings, experiences, senses. Does he lead you contrary to, or guide you to and in accordance with God’s word? Is there conviction of sin? Fear of the Lord Does he lead you to the water and blood of Christ… is the water and blood in your life… applied to your life… a reality? Remember in 1 John 5 the Bible says the Spirit, the water and the blood, the three witnesses in earth, AGREE in one… they agree in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot  claim the Spirit but live a life rejecting the water and the blood in word and deed. Many people do deal with “spirits”, but not the Spirit of God. Not the Spirit of truth. Make real sure of the spirit you’re dealing with and hearing from. Get in your Bible, it’s how you test and try the spirits.

If you are not born again, this never happened to you. You are yet dead in your sins. You can be as moral as you want, you’re still the same dirt inside. Nothing’s changed. Romans 8:9 – 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. You are either his… or NONE of his. And that same dirt will come out, no matter how well veiled it is. That’s why we have to be born again. It’s not enough to stop sinning, you have to repent and get saved. People stop doing wrong, but still go to hell, because their sins haven’t been dealt with and forgiven and washed and cleansed by Christ’s blood. Your best efforts are garbage.

And we are born again not by ourselves, not of ourselves, we don’t wake up and say I’m going to get born again today! No, it’s a work of the Holy Spirit. John 1:13 – Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. It takes the Father drawing you. It’s the power and work of God… It takes divine power to create a new creature in someone. The Bible says the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. You want some power? You need some power of God in your life? You need a change made to your monotonous, cyclic, inevitable, futile, powerless existence? Get to the cross… kneel at the cross of Jesus and behold the Lamb of God slain for you, his blood and water that flowed from his side at Calvary. John 6:44 – No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.  Salvation belongs unto the Lord. That’s why when the Holy Spirit moves on your heart you should respond. It is scary… what if God is finished with you? If God doesn’t draw you, you CANNOT come. John 7:34 – Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come. John 6:65 – And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. It doesn’t excuse you though. We have responsibility. Seek God. Set yourself. Pray to him. Humble yourself. Plead with God. For mercy. Seek God while he may be found. Repent of your sin and believe the gospel.

John 5:38 – And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Does God’s word have place in your heart. Jesus comes to you and you receive him not. John 5:42 – But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. In truth, you will go to hell not because the Father didn’t draw you, not because you weren’t loved, but because you refused, you rejected, you chose your own way. You loved sin, lust, pride more than God. His word had no place, found no good soil in your heart.

He that HATH the Son hath life, and he that HATH not the Son hath not life. We can rabbit off that verse… but what does it mean… how can you HAVE the Son? Well having the Son means you don’t have intellectual belief, but heart belief, saving belief, belief that has RECEIVED Jesus Christ. You don’t know OF him, you don’t know ABOUT him, you KNOW HIM. It’s a reality to you. It’s person. It’s a possession. You’ve taken HOLD… just like Jacob who did not let the angel of the Lord go at Peniel until he blessed him. Don’t let go… if you are unsure… WRESTLE with God… don’t let him go… DO NOT LET GO. If you are born again, you HAVE the Son. He is with you and lives in you. Don’t let God go when he deals with you. Wrestle if you have to. Wrestle with God.

We should live in resurrection power. 1 Corinthians 15:17 – And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Our whole life hinges on Jesus not just dying for us, but living for us. His resurrection is what declared him to be the Son of God WITH power. Because he lives, we live. And his Spirit, which he has given us, quickens us, makes us alive to God, draws us nigh unto God. Remember because Jesus is at the right hand of the Father right now, thus we can draw nigh unto the Father. Jesus is seated in heaven, and we having his Spirit, we can draw nigh to God. Through him, because of him, by him. That’s why Jesus had to go away. He is the way, the truth, the life. It’s not just words on paper that sound good. Unless he’s with the Father, we can’t be with the Father. Our ability to go to the Father depends on him begin with the Father. He IS the MEDIATOR, the Bishop, the Great High Priest of our souls. He is the Shepherd, that great Shepherd of the sheep. He is the Good Samaritan.

Christ is either in you or not in you. There’s no middle ground. He’s either there, or not at all. Not partly there. Yes or no. You can “self control” as much as you want. You can restrain yourselves… and people are good at that. The flesh can want to do good. To live moral. To put on a show. But doesn’t matter how much you polish a turd, it’s still a turd… the saying goes. A pig is still a pig, a dog is still a dog. And someone who’s not saved, who’s not born again, unregenerated… is still just that despite all the religion, despite all the painting up yourself you do. And we do paint ourselves up a lot, to try and appear what we are not. Guess who did that in the Bible? Jezebel. 2 Kings 9:30 – And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window. Jezebel did a bit of painting. Judgement was coming, severe judgement, but she tried the disguise business to con Jehu. But she was still wicked, nasty Jezebel, and she still got exposed and killed. We need to stop painting ourselves, our sin up and get to the cross and deal with it. Get some blood of Christ in and on our lives… get some real cleansing.

The Bible says the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life. The Bible also says the Lord is that Spirit. Because without the Spirit of the living God we are dead. We are dead RIGHT now. Completely alienated from God, walking and living in the vanity of our own dark minds and hearts. And when you get saved, you get all of him or none of him. Period. We can turn over new leaves, resolve to do better, and live the Christian life in the energy of our flesh. But there’s no spiritual reality there. It’s dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Rituals, traditions, going through the motions. Sure, we really try hard and we try hard to convince ourselves of our own sincerity and goodness. We want to believe stuff that’s not true about ourselves. We really want to believe things a lot more than that’s what is true. We have infinite capacity both to will, and want, and to actually believe lies. We lie to our own hearts, we even lie to the Holy Ghost. Acts 5:3 – But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? That’s a bad place to be, when you’re lying to your own heart and lying to God.

Remember, this thing is actually alive, its not just words on paper. 2 Corinthians 3:3 – Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. Are you spiritually ALIVE? Right now, is the Spirit of God in you? Bearing witness with your spirit that you are a child of God? Giving life to you? Quickening your mortal frame? Are you living in resurrection power? Is your mind illuminated, enlightened? Do you hunger and thirst for God’s word? You love truth? You see clearly? God in you, Christ in you, the hope of glory? Forgiven, saved, sealed, redeemed and washed in the blood of the Lamb? Philippians 3:20 – For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Colossians 3:1 – If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. This thing is alive folks, it’s not dead religion.

Is the life of Christ in you? Do you have fellowship with God through him? Is your mortal, weak, infirmity compassed frame quickened by his indwelling Holy Spirit? Ephesians 2:1 – And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. The whole Bible makes sense. 1 Peter 3:18 – For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. If the Spirit of Christ is in you, you are alive, you have eternal life right now. And you have the promise he will never leave you. Matthew 8:7 – And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. John 14:18 – I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. It’s not mystical, it’s not sensual, sure we are emotional creatures, but God’s voice is a still small voice, and God’s voice is found in his word. What he’s saying to you is written down, the the Holy Spirit bears witness of Christ, he’ll get you in the word and guide you in accordance to the Word of God. Come to him. Come to Jesus Christ. Come and see! John 4:28,29 – The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?

The Bible says in 1 John 5 …. He hath hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. That is the record. It is the record of God. He keeps good records. It is the heavenly witness, God’s witness. God says that. And his word is the only word that matters. And it applies right now. If you have him, you have life right now. Come to him. John 6:37 – All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. He won’t cast you out… quite the opposite, he’ll give you life and life more abundantly. Romans 8:11 – 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. Wow. Is that our reality? Is your mortal body quickened by his Spirit dwelling in you? This thing is alive.

So after all this… are you living in self control, or is the Spirit of Christ working temperance in you. Tempering you? Don’t be deceived. Don’t deceive yourself. Is your life really just you, and you living in your own dead energies trying to produce it all, trying to work it all up. Do you have true rest? Do you have HIS life in you? Do you know his peace, his joy? Are you at peace with God? Have you been reconciled to God through Jesus? Self control and temperance are VERY different. Remember, the fruit of the Spirit is Christ in you bearing the fruit. If you are saved, born again, his Spirit will temper you, he will produce change in your life, he will bring forth fruit in you, you just bear his fruit, it’s that simple. We just bear his fruit. You cannot bring forth fruit except you abide in him… because it’s his fruit. It’s no wonder Jesus said in Matthew 11:30 – For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. It truly is. Being saved, set free, having true liberty is not a copout to sin, we are free from sin, we are free indeed. Free to do right, to live right, to obey God. Because we love him, because we want to, because it’s our NEW nature. It’s not an effort, a work, a performance. It’s our NEW NATURE. New Creature. New Creation. It’s WHO WE ARE. We can and should grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus.

Has the grace of God abounded unto and upon you? Not the false grace, the grace taught today which is not grace, but the true grace and mercy and compassion and longsuffering of God. Jesus is at the door, knocking, he is even outside the church in the letter to Laodicea, in whose times we are now living. We’re so busy, we’ve kicked God out. No wonder it’s empty and dead, despite our best efforts to prop it up, and why the church resembles something like the scene when Israel was worshipping the golden calf while Moses was away… You want to hear from the Spirit? It says in Revelation seven times in the letters to the churches – He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Do you have an ear to hear? And ear that hears and receives? Does Jesus’ voice find a home in your heart? Does the seed find good soil? Jesus says in Revelation 3:20 – Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. For us who are saved, we cling to this. Revelation 22:20 – He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Blog Christ Christian Flesh God Gospel Holy Spirit Jesus Lord Self Control Spirit Temperance