{"id":228,"date":"2008-12-08T08:04:37","date_gmt":"2008-12-08T13:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidcprice.wordpress.com\/?p=228"},"modified":"2008-12-08T08:04:37","modified_gmt":"2008-12-08T13:04:37","slug":"spiritual-anarchy-1-john-31-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/spiritual-anarchy-1-john-31-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual Anarchy – 1 John 3:1-10"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve been following this running commentary on 1 John<\/a>, I’m sorry I was unable to post on Friday or Saturday.\u00a0 Friday I was out of town and could not get on a computer and Saturday we had a break-in at the church and my day was tied from early til late (and I choose not to post on Sunday).\u00a0 I thought, then, I would cover passages over the last few days since they all cover the same idea.<\/p>\n

As I alluded to in the last post, freedom from habitual sin is possible through the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 What John goes on to say is that it is not only possible, it is imperative.\u00a0 In very strong terms, John equates habitual sin with spiritual anarchy…lawlessness.\u00a0 He points out that in Christ there is no sin and someone who continues in sin is not of Christ, but of the devil.\u00a0 Strong stuff.<\/p>\n

It is important to differentiate unintentional sinning with habitual sinning because of our sin nature.\u00a0 We are prone towards sinning in our carnal or natural self (before Christ).\u00a0 Since we have been redeemed from our sin nature, there is freedom from the eternal consequences of sin, but our sin nature still exists as long as we are in this world.\u00a0 Thus, sinning is something we will always struggle with this side of Heaven.\u00a0 That is why Paul talks of a war within in Romans as we battle to overcome that sin nature through the power of the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n

If, however, there is no battle and I continue in the same sin over and over again (especially to the point where there is no conviction from it, which eventually happens), John argues that as evidence for a massive spiritual problem:\u00a0 the marks of a counterfeit disciple.<\/p>\n

Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 <\/span><\/a>Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 <\/span><\/a>No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s <\/a><\/span>seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. 10 <\/span>By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, <\/a>nor is the one who does not love his brother.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We need to go back to 2 Corinthians 5:21 which states, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”\u00a0 Amazingly, in Christ, we actually become<\/em> the righteousness of God.\u00a0 This means that righteousness is not just something that we do<\/em>, it is who we are<\/em>.\u00a0 If we are not living a righteous life (not talking about perfect, but Christ-centered; not merely adhering to a moral set of rules but heart-motivated lifestyle bent towards right and Truth), we are in serious need of submitting ourselves before the Father and asking Him to bring a spiritual over-haul and to rescue us from the penalty of spiritual anarchy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tTweet<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’ve been following this running commentary on 1 John, I’m sorry I was unable to post on Friday or Saturday.\u00a0 Friday I was out of town and could not get on a computer and Saturday we had a break-in at the church and my day was tied from early til late (and I choose…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[20],"tags":[85,683,684,138,693],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3jKZO-3G","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":224,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/is-it-a-wonderful-life-1-john-31-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":228,"position":0},"title":"Is it a wonderful life? 1 John 3:1-3","date":"December 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"How many times have we wondered what it will be like when those of us who have trusted in Christ will enter into heaven?\u00a0 Some of the popular notions include wings, essentially becoming angels (ala It's A Wonderful Life), or spiritual beings with no real form or physical identity.\u00a0 Others\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "PSI (Personal Spiritual Insight)"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":198,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/psi-words-in-the-end-are-still-just-words-1-john-15-10\/","url_meta":{"origin":228,"position":1},"title":"PSI – Words, in the End, Are Still Just Words – 1 John 1:5-10","date":"November 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It is a popular notion, as Americans, to call ourselves Christians.\u00a0 Ask just about anybody, regardless of lifestyle, beliefs or politics, and they will tell you they are Christian.\u00a0 This just points to the fact that the word, \"Christian,\" has become meaningless.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, many would hold\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian Living"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":252,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/a-new-kind-of-test-1-john-41-5\/","url_meta":{"origin":228,"position":2},"title":"A New Kind of Test – 1 John 4:1-5","date":"December 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Up to now, the tests in 1 John have been for us.\u00a0 We have been given tests to demonstrate whether or not Christ really lives in us and if we are really following after Him.\u00a0 Now, the tables are turned. Testing the spirits is a vital operation that we must\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "PSI (Personal Spiritual Insight)"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":208,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/be-encouraged-1-john-212-14\/","url_meta":{"origin":228,"position":3},"title":"Be Encouraged! 1 John 2:12-14","date":"November 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes we just need encouragement, don't we?\u00a0 It can seem like the whole world is on our shoulder and if one more thing happens, we're going to snap.\u00a0 I love this little section where John just pours out encouragement on his readers.\u00a0 In essence, he simply says, \"I'm writing to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "PSI (Personal Spiritual Insight)"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":233,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/tough-love-1-john-311-15\/","url_meta":{"origin":228,"position":4},"title":"Tough Love – 1 John 3:11-15","date":"December 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Man, John just pulls no punches, does he?\u00a0 Listen to some of this: \"Whoever does not love abides in death.\" \"Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.\"\u00a0 Tough stuff, but I read it very appreciatively. Sometimes we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "PSI (Personal Spiritual Insight)"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":202,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/who-do-you-look-like-1-john-21-6\/","url_meta":{"origin":228,"position":5},"title":"Who Do You Look Like? 1 John 2:1-6","date":"November 26, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In 1 John 2:1-6 (including verse 6 because it ends the sentence), there is another test to knowing whether or not you are a child of God.\u00a0 I love this because John demonstrates that there\u00a0are observable indicators as to whether or not our faith is real.\u00a0 In a world where\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian Living"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}