Love God And Sex, Andre Cronje [great novels to read TXT] 📗

swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh through much wantonness, those that were clean, escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they are the servants of corruption. For by what a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage. For if after they have escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the righteous way, than after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it happened to them according to the proverb: The dog turned back to his vomit and the washed pig to her wallowing in mud.

Awake you sleeper and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. Walk circumspectly not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Now be you not unwise but understand what the will of the Lord is. If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on earthly things. You are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life will appear, then will you also appear with him in glory. So, mortify your earthly body with its fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affections, evil desires, and covetousness which is idolatry. For this reason, the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience. In which you also once walked when you lived in them. But now put off all this anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, and filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him. Turn now at my reproof and watch me pour out my Spirit on you, and make my words known to you.

Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him. Let him know, that he which converts the sinner from the error of his way, will save a soul from death, and will hide a multitude of sins. But he who covers his sins will not prosper. Confess and forsake them and you will find mercy. Reckon yourself to be dead to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ the Lord. Let not sin reign in your mortal body, to obey it in the lusts. And do not yield your member as an instrument of unrighteousness to sin, but rather yield yourselves to God, as one who is alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. Yes, sin will not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. To whomever, you yield yourself and obey as a servant, his servants you are, whether to sin unto death or to obedience unto righteousness. Present your body to God as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God for you. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling as you pursue holiness that you may see God. But thanks be to God, you were once the servants of sin, but since you obeyed from the heart Christ doctrine it has delivered you, and. have made free from sin, that you can become a servant of righteousness. As you have yielded your members as servants to uncleanness and iniquity, even so now yield it now to righteousness unto holiness. For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and a servant to God, you have your fruit unto holiness and its end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. So, put you on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts. Be not overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. I know that in me that is, in my flesh, dwell no good thing. For too will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good that I want, I do not, but the evil which I do not want, that I do. Now if I do that which I want not, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death? But I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord that with the mind, I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

5. Victory Rewards

5. Victory Rewards

For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his doings. By his iniquities will the wicked himself be taken, and he will be held with the cords of his sins. He will die without instruction and in the greatness of his folly will he go astray. God is light, and in Him is no darkness. If you say that you have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, you lie and do not do the truth. But if you walk in the light, as He is in the light, you will have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from all sin. If you say that you have no sin, you deceive yourself, and the truth is not in you. But if you confess your sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive your sins, and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. If you say that you have not sinned, you make Him a liar, and His word is not in you.

Having precious promises, dearly beloved let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in fear of God. No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. But God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but Jesus said, that whoever looks at a woman and lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So, if your right eye offends you, pluck it out and cast it from you. For it is better that one of your body parts perish and not your whole body be cast into hell. Job made a covenant with his eyes, as not to look on a girl in any way that would affect his heart. Jesus taught you to pray: Father lead us not into temptation but deliver us from all evil. David said I was almost in all evil in the midst of the assembly and congregation. But his divine power has given you all things that pertain to life and godliness, by the knowledge of Him who has called you to glory and virtue. To you is given exceedingly great and precious promises that by them you may be a partaker of his divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. So, give all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to fraternal kindness charity. For if these things are in you and abound, you will neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation for the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, walks around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Whom you resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren. What is my hope, joy, and crown of rejoicing? Is it not you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? In the hope of eternal life, which God who cannot lie, promised before the world began. For every man that strives for mastery is restrained in all things. They do it to obtain a corruptible crown but we for an incorruptible. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive a crown of glory that does not fade away. Christ did not come in the form and nature of an angel, but the seed of Abraham. For in all things, it was necessary for him to be made the same as his brothers, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in matters pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he has suffered being tempted, he can help them that are tempted. Blessed is the man that endures temptation. For when he is tried, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to them that love him. I am crucified with Christ, yet I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Now is laid up for you a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to you in that day and not only to you but also to all of them that loves his appearing. These things I have spoken to you, that in me you might have peace. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed, we are perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken, cast down, but not destroyed. Always bearing about in the body the dying of our Lord Jesus. For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in your mortal flesh. You are of God, little children, and have overcome because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. For whatsoever