September 25, 2009
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Are You Dead Enough? by Joy Pollard
We began the Bible study with a volunteer lying on a table covered with a shroud. Joy stated things to the “dead” body – “You are ugly. Nobody loves you. You are stupid. You are bad. You are nothing to me. I don’t love you. Hurry, hurry, hurry, there is an emergency.” After each of these statements the “corpse” did not move, respond, or answer back. Why? Because it was dead.
Colossians 3:3 AMP For [as far as this world is concerned] you have died, and your [new, real] life is hidden with Christ in God.
If we are dead enough there won’t be any hurt feelings, alarm, wounds. But none of us are dead enough. Things still affect us. We need to move from death to life (in Christ). Man had to die to go from death to life, but you don’t have to die to get into life.
Romans 5:19-20 AMP For just as by one man’s disobedience (failing to hear, n]’>to be in My Father’s house and [occupied] about My Father’s business?
But then Luke 2:51-52 AMP And He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was [habitually] obedient to them; and his mother kept and closely and persistently guarded all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom (in broad and full understanding) and in stature and years, and in favor with God and man.
Notice that it says that Jesus went with them and became HABITUALLY OBEDIENT. After He became habitually obedient, then He increased in wisdom and understanding and favor with God and with man.
Romans 6:5 AMP For if we have become one with Him by sharing a death like His, we shall also be [one with Him in sharing] His resurrection [by a new life lived for God].
When Jesus was resurrected there was so much power that 500 graves were opened and those who were once dead were seen in Jerusalem, that was like the leftovers from the power of the resurrection – the crumbs from the tables that the little dogs fed on.
Romans 6:6 AMP We know that our old (unrenewed) self was nailed to the cross with Him in order that [our] body [which is the instrument] of sin might be made ineffective and inactive for evil, that we might no longer be the slaves of sin.
Our old, unrenewed self needs to be nailed to the cross, so that our body is ineffective and inactive for evil – we need to be dead and then evil has no pull over us. Our feelings will not get hurt, we won’t be anxious, or worried, or mad.
Romans 6:7-8 AMP For when a man dies, he is freed (loosed, delivered) from [the power of] sin [among men]. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
Colossians 3:3 AMP For [as far as this world is concerned] you have died, and your [new, real] life is hidden with Christ in God.
Our real life is hidden with Christ in God.
Joy then mentioned the movie the Matrix, where people were living in a world with the appearance of real life, but they were really in test tubes hooked up to a machine and a computer system. These machine and computer produced sensations are what they perceived as life. Only a few were free and not in the Matrix.
The world is our matrix, and our real life is hidden in Christ with God. The dead person stays dead.
Romans 6:9-10 AMP Because we know that Christ (the Anointed One), being once raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has power over Him. For by the death He died, He died to sin [ending His relation to it] once for all; and the life that He lives, He is living to God [in unbroken fellowship with Him].
We can have that unbroken fellowship, our relationship secured in Christ. We can be that same creation that death has no power or authority over us. Jesus took the keys to death and hell, and we only give the enemy power by agreeing with him.
Romans 12:1-2 AMP I APPEAL to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you].
In the New Covenant we willingly sacrifice our fleshly lives, but in the Old Covenant animals were killed and burnt on the altar of sacrifice. What happens in our lives is that we sacrifice ourselves to God, but we get off the altar of sacrifice too soon. We get off once it starts hurting, not realizing that the nerves are peripheral, and once those nerves are dead, we won’t feel the pain. We need to stay until it stops hurting. God wants to say, “WELL DONE good and faithful servant. God is not interested in medium rare. Spiritual death is voluntary. We need to ask God for the grace and power to endure. By grace we can stick it out. If it is by our flesh, we won’t be able to.
The wages of sin is death. If you work for the devil he signs the paycheck, and he signs it one way – death, death to finances, death to peace of mind. Many in the world are working for the devil’s team. We have a choice – volunteer for God’s team or work for the devil.
The devil will try to get to us, to cause us to feel that something is a necessity, that we need that old way of relating, that old thing. He wants us to think that we can give up everything, but keep one little part. Often we are afraid, if we give up that one part, what the alternative will be. We say, I trust God in all these areas, but I am keeping that one part for myself. We want it my way, because God’s way seems to be taking too long. It all boils down to who’s in charge.
Romans 6:11 AMP Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus.
Our new, real life is hidden with Christ in God. We break relation with sin. Sin may show up for awhile, but the connection is broken and you can say, “I’m not having this thing this time. You can’t run me any more. See you. What you are saying, I’m not going for.”
Joy told us that she went through her cancer unsaved. God healed her, unsaved, so that later he could save her. After that, once she was saved, the devil tried to bring her cancer back. The devil will try to repeat every attack that worked in the past, hoping to find a weakness. On Joy’s 50th birthday she planned to ask Pastor Don to transfer the counseling anointing to her, and right before her 50th birthday the cancer tried to come back. Joy recognized the attack of the enemy and realized it was trying to take her out and shut her down, she laughed at it and told it that it could not have her. The cancer left her.
Nahum 1:9 What do you devise and [how mad is your attempt to] plot against the Lord? He will make a full end [of Nineveh]; affliction [which My people shall suffer from Assyria] shall not rise up the second time.
The cancer could not rise up a second time.
Romans 6:12-13 Let not sin therefore rule as king in your mortal (short-lived, perishable) bodies, to make you yield to its cravings and be subject to its lusts and evil passions. Do not continue offering or yielding your bodily members [and b]‘>faculties] to God, presenting them as implements of righteousness.
Soul – mind/will/emotions. There are cravings, imprints of power, but we do not have to yield to them, we give ourselves and yield ourselves to God.
1 Peter 2:24 AMP He personally bore our sins in His [own] body on the tree
Everyday, multiple times a day, we get to make a choice and determine what will be dead and what will be alive, what things that are buried will we resurrect?
Romans 6:17-18 AMP But thank God, though you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient with all your heart to the standard of teaching in which you were instructed and to which you were committed. And having been set free from sin, you have become the servants of righteousness (of conformity to the divine will in thought, purpose, and action).
We want to conform to divine will. Anyone sitting in this house (Living Word Chapel) is without excuse, for we are taught well the truth of the Word.
Romans 6:19-23 AMP I am speaking in familiar human terms because of your natural limitations. For as you yielded your bodily members [and d]‘>faculties] once for all as servants to righteousness (right being and doing) [which leads] to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But then what benefit (return) did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? [None] for the end of those things is death. But now since you have been set free from sin and have become the slaves of God, you have your present reward in holiness and its end is eternal life. For the wages which sin pays is death, but the [bountiful] free gift of God is eternal life through (in union with) Jesus Christ our Lord.
The wages of sin is death and we have received the gift of life everlasting. The more dead we are in the flesh, the more resurrection power we have. The slave is a bondslave – in the Old Testament a slave that was well treated by his master, who liked the master’s household, when that slave’s term was up, the slave could choose to remain forever in that master’s house. He would have a awl pierced through his ear to the doorpost, and that would signify that he wanted to remain forever a servant to his master.
We are slaves of righteousness, and as such, sin does not own us. It is voluntary, but if we choose to be slaves of righteousness, sin dies. We need to agree and put our ear to the door. It is your choice to make the commitment.
Ephesians 1:22 – 2:6 AMP And He has put all things under His feet and has appointed Him the universal and supreme Head of the church [a headship exercised throughout the church],b]‘>joint seating with Him] in the heavenly sphere [by virtue of our being] in Christ Jesus (the Messiah, the Anointed One).
As far as the world is concerned, you died. Your new real life is hidden in Christ in God.
Praying that this teaching blessed you as much as it has blessed me.
Heather
