05_02 How to Let Jesus Stop You from Sinning

The second document, #05_02, How to Let Jesus Stop You from Sinning, is the
practical application of Jesus’ answer to the question, “How shall I inherit
eternal life?” I hope that you will be really enlightened by this insightful
look at our common failure to overcome temptations in our life! The “sealing”
is absolutely dependent on this understanding! Read and heed!

Scripture Text: Revelation 3:20 – 22.
Title: How to Let Jesus Stop You From Sinning.

The counsel to Laodicea, the final church era, is followed
by the prescription from Jesus designed to Create a cleansed people. While
He is cleansing the Sanctuary of the record of forgiven sins, He is also,
through the work of Holy Spirit, cleansing the soul Temple of each willing
person, so that they can be sealed and enabled to proclaim the “loud cry of
the third angel.”
Very few people have ever experienced what He wants to accomplish in
every one of us, because we fail to apply His prescription for our healing.
Have you ever sat down and carefully considered how Jesus can stop us from
sinning, so that He doesn’t have to just keep on forgiving us without
effectively saving us from sin?
I believe Jesus is waiting for us to do this, and apply what we learn.
When we do, then He will be able to cleanse us and seal us so that we can
stand in this final work of the church – without sin.
Ask a believer in Jesus who is addicted to cigarettes and alcohol if
the plan of salvation, as he understands it, is saving him. He will admit
that it is not. He cannot, so far, overcome. His sins are, if we consider
these alone, only sins against the laws of nature, but all sin needs the
same prescription. So, I will use such a person for my illustration of how
the plan of salvation really works.

Where to start? Let’s get our first glimpse of His prescription, which
is right after the counsel to Laodicea, the last church. Revelation 3, v. 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.”
The emphasis here is a Covenant relationship.
To “sup” with Him, is to partake of the Covenant Meal.
This is not just the idea that you will eat all your meals as if He was
sitting there with you. The wording is specifically pointing to the Covenant
Meal.
In the Covenant relationship, we begin with repentance for all sin,
followed by baptism and the making of our Covenant with Jesus. “I don’t want
to sin, any sin, any more! I need Your Holy Spirit in me to help me overcome
sin as Jesus overcame!” If we don’t make that decision, and choose to make
our Covenant in baptism, we will be lost! Period.
“The wages of sin…is…death.”
Peter proclaimed, Acts 2, v. 38, “Repent…and be baptized, every one
of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins.”
Be baptized. Make your Covenant with Jesus. At Sinai, Jesus gave the
Jews His Law in Ten Commandments. For His side of the Covenant, He said,
“If you will obey My voice indeed, and keep My Covenant, then you shall be
a peculiar (special) treasure unto Me above all people…and you shall be
unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.”
For their side of the Covenant, all the people answered together and said,
“All that the Lord hath spoken, we will do.” Exodus 19, vs. 5, 6, and 8.
The Jews have failed miserably to keep the Covenant. But so have we. Almost
all people try to keep the Covenant by their own power!
God says that won’t do. “For finding fault with them, He saith, Behold,
the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new Covenant with the house
of Israel…Not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers in
the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt;
because they continued not in My Covenant, and I regarded them not, saith
the Lord. For this is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, saith the Lord; I will put My Laws into their mind, and
write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be
to me a people.”
God wrote His Laws in our hearts, by revealing His love for us by
giving us His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him might not
perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16
Since that great act of love, we really want to keep His Law, and try really
hard! But we still fail, miserably. We haven’t got His prescription right,
yet. We declare, with the apostle Paul, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall
deliver me from the body of this death?” His answer comes from God,
immediately, and he proclaims, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

“…the carnal mind [self-centered] is enmity against God: for it is
not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are
in the flesh [carnally minded] cannot please God. But you 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.” Romans 7:24,
25; and Romans 8:7-9.
Let’s skip back to Acts 2, verse 38. I deliberately left out the last
part of that verse. Peter proclaimed three things in God’s prescription for
salvation. Repent [of all sin], be baptized [and thus make your Covenant
with God], and thirdly, “and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost!
For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar
off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”
“If you love Me, keep My Commandments: and I will pray the Father, and
He shall give you …the Spirit of truth…you know Him: for He dwells with
you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to
you!” John 14:15-18.
People, most of us haven’t yet found access to that gift! It is “even
the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is
made manifest to his saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches
of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is, Christ in you,
the hope of glory!” (Heaven!)Colossians 1:26, 27.

Why do we not find access to the gift? It is because we fail to really
make our Covenant with Him as it must be worded! We fail to tell Him that
we don’t want to sin, any sin, any more! And we fail to really want His
Spirit, by which He overcame, living in us full time, so that we too can
overcome sin, and live the victorious life!
Then He can answer, “I will be your God!”

Now: Here’s the problem as I see it.
Say I’m the man who believes in Jesus, but is addicted to tobacco and
alcohol. I repent of all sin, and make my Covenant with Jesus by baptism. I
love Him and the Father for what they have done to reveal Their love for me,
and I really want to stop sinning so that I can inherit eternal life! Some
short time after my baptism, I crave a cigarette. Jesus promised me He would
give me His Spirit, the Holy Ghost, didn’t He? I claim His power in immediate
prayer.
A moment later, I take out my pack of cigarettes, and light one up.
Ahhh. Relief. … “Jesus, why didn’t You stop me?”
I conclude that Jesus didn’t give me His Spirit, despite His promise!
And every time I crave a cigarette thereafter, my conclusion is confirmed!
Then I want a drink. “Oh please, Jesus, help me!” But I reach for the
bottle, and I’m back in my familiar but terrible trap that is ruining my life!
“God failed to keep His Covenant with me and I am without hope!”
Isn’t that how it is for many people? Isn’t that how it is for some
friend or acquaintance of yours?
Is anything still wrong with the wording of my Covenant? Or did God
fail to keep His end?

The answer is in our free will.

God will not force our will and make us do His will! We must “work out
our own salvation, with fear and trembling.” When we make our Covenant with
Jesus in baptism, His Holy Spirit comes into our mind and takes the throne
in our mind. But when we reach for that cigarette; or for that bottle; we
shove Jesus off the seat of the throne in our mind, and He lets us take the
throne back! When we steal that item, or lust for that man or that woman,
when we get very angry and lash out at that person to hurt or even to kill
him, we shove Jesus off the seat of the throne in our mind!! Even Moses
was still capable of doing it, just before they entered the Promised Land!
It’s a choice, people! If we choose to do His will, rather than our
own, we shall have His power, right from the throne in our own mind! “Thy
will, not mine, be done!” That’s the choice I must make every time, to
overcome as Jesus Himself overcame!
“Work out your own salvation, with fear and trembling…” for we must
do only those things that please Him. Then, the rest of those verses can be
completed. “For it is God, which worketh in you, both to will and to do of
His good pleasure.” Philippians 2:12, 13.
Keep Jesus on the throne in your mind, minute by minute, day by day,
year by year, and you will be “sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,”…
“sealed unto the day of redemption!” Ephesians, chapter 1, v.13; and chapter
4, v. 30. Sealed, in this time of the sealing, just before the “loud cry of
the third angel” must be proclaimed, by us!

Pray with me. Lord Jesus, we have been blaming You for our failure to
overcome sin in our lives. But You weren’t failing to keep the Covenant.
Your promise, Father, to give the Spirit of Jesus to us, to be in our minds,
didn’t fail. We just didn’t think it through!
We didn’t take the time to understand that You won’t force our will,
and that’s why the plan of salvation wasn’t working in our lives. Please,
forgive us our Laodicean trait, and grant us the zeal to choose to let You
have the throne, right in our own minds, in every decision we make. We do
want to do only those things that please You. Through the name of Jesus,
our High Priest, we pray. Amen.

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