You cannot walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing if you do not rightly divide. You must rightly divide the scriptures in order to know
• The gospel that saves today
• God's will for us today
• Our identity in Christ
Once you understand the basics, as taught to us in the foundational doctrines in Romans as well as more advanced doctrine all throughout the Pauline epistles, then you can walk correctly as a believer.
Colossians 1:10 says,
“That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;”
If you are preaching the wrong gospel, you are NOT "walking worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing," but are actually helping Satan with his policy of evil!
What is Satan's policy of evil?
When the Lord Jesus Christ saved Saul of Tarsus (the apostle Paul) it completely took Satan by surprise. Paul was Satan's top man, he was like an anti-christ in a way who was persecuting the early Jewish believers. However, the risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ saved and then sent Paul to be our Apostle for the dispensation of grace. This was not something that Satan was expecting! Satan believed that he was "winning" after he had the Lord crucified, and then again after he had Stephen stoned to death. He had no idea that God would temporarily set aside the nation of Israel and then form a whole new entity, the church the Body of Christ that would inherit the heavenly places! Because of the finished crosswork of Christ, Satan lost his earthly dominion and his heavenly dominion (Satan has corrupted both realms). Because of the change in programs, Satan also changed up his tactics. His policy of evil includes:
• Perverting the clear and simple gospel of us being saved by grace through faith alone in Christ and in His finished work of the cross (His death, burial and resurrection as atonement for our sins). Satan does this primarily by adding law keeping (keeping the Mosaic law) to the gospel and making people believe that they must do works for salvation or to maintain their salvation.
• Keep believers from coming unto the knowledge of the truth by having his false teachers preach a mixture of law and grace; mixing prophecy and mystery.
• Keep believers from maturing spiritually through the word, and allowing Christ to live in and through them, by distracting them with law-keeping religious works, carnal lifestyles, man's wisdom and focusing too much on politics and other worldly things.
• Having preachers that completely deny Paul’s apostolic authority.
• Creating modern Bible versions that make an effort to hide the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery (they hide other important doctrines as well), and that make people question the authority of God's word and his ability to preserve his word perfectly for us.
• Bringing various deceptions into the church, even sometimes into grace churches. Midacts Grace believers can also get caught up in false doctrines, pride, biting and devouring one another, carnal living, etc if we are not careful. Studying God's word rightly divided is important but so also is really meditating on the word of God so that it is not just head knowledge, but gets into our hearts so that we believe it and live it out. "Grace living" isn't just about rightly dividing the scriptures, which is how we are to study the Bible (and by that I mean the whole Bible not just Paul's Epistles), but also about really allowing Christ to live in and through us. If Satan can't deceive us with false doctrines, then he will try to get us to be prideful or live after the flesh in some other way that doesn't allow Christ and His word to live in and through you.
Basically, Satan has ministers of righteousness behind pulpits. This means that much of Christendom is under Satan's policy of evil, instead of living godly by following God's will for us.
If you do not understand God's will today, you will also be following after Satan's course for this world. Satan's course for this world is all of the above mentioned regarding his policy of evil but also includes:
• Other vain philosophies of men like evolutionary theory, athiesm, all false religions, newagism, etc.
• Idol worship through religion but also idolizing movie stars, politicians, royalty, historical figures, etc.
• Living according to our own fleshly desires - the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
• Satan's course for this world also hates traditional marriage, family and gender roles which are strongly under attack today. In fact its so bad today that some people are confused about their very own gender or are labeling themselves as non-human etc and teaching this to children.
Satan also wants to keep believers either living in constant fear, guilt and condemnation, or to be totally puffed up in themselves (narcissistic) or some kind of combination of the two. He does not want believers to mature through the word and then allowing Christ to live in and through us. The more that a believer today matures through the word in their lifetime, the higher of a position that they can then take in the heavenly places after the rapture. Once the higher positions are filled, that could be when the rapture takes place! So if we want the Lord to come quickly, we need to mature spiritually ourselves by daily reading and studying God's Word, believing it and obeying it and then teaching this to other believers so that they too will earn rewards for heaven. This also allows Christ to live in and through us here and now.
Its also important to really know who you are in Christ, or you will be walking after the flesh. We walk after the flesh when we are living very worldly or are putting ourselves or others under the law. We must read and study the Pauline epistles to understand our identity in Christ and how to walk in the Spirit. Whenever we choose to walk after the flesh, it's like wasted time and we don't earn rewards during that time. But, when we walk in the Spirit, we are earning rewards for heaven and allowing Christ to live in and through us. Walking in the Spirit is also important because it teaches those around us about God and His love, and it also teaches the angels who watch us about the manifold wisdom of God. We are really never alone. Christ, and the whole Godhead, lives in our spirit and the angels also watch how we live our lives. As believers, one day in heaven we will meet these angels in person and discuss things with them and we will judge angels. Also, we don't want to walk after the flesh because it grieves the Holy Spirit in us. The Holy Spirit would much rather see us living godly lives so that we bring glory to God and so that we will earn more rewards in heaven too. Our flesh likes to live worldly, but our new spirit doesn't. We groan within ourselves waiting for the redemption of our bodies so that one day we can live in glorious bodies without a sin nature. Even the whole creation groans waiting for this day and the day when the sin curse upon creation is lifted. Then, there will be no sin and even the animals won't kill other animals anymore (or humans) and all of creation can live peaceably together. All of creation today though suffers because of sin, so we should not want to walk after the flesh but to walk in the Spirit instead.
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