ttruscott wrote:
shnarkle wrote:For Christ to return requires nothing more than the awareness of a self that needs to be denied. Once the self is denied, Christ returns or is made manifest in, with, and through the new creature in Christ.
How do you fit our painful discipline in our being trained in righteousness,
Heb 12:5-11, into your paradigm?
Quite simply by pointing out that discipline conforms us to Christ instead of to our own selfish lives.
IF I am selfless, am I no more aware of who I am as an individual?
The word "individual" comes from the word "indivisible" and there is no division in Christ. Instead their is unity, and an awareness of the great I AM rather than one's self centered identity.
Or do I just do all from selflessness, nothing at all for my own good?
Nothing at all for one's own good as "our lives are not our own" anymore. Once one denies themselves they no longer live for themselves anymore. As Christ points out, "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it."
If I deny my sinful self, does that free me from the hold sin has upon me?
Of course. How does one sin without the self centered desire to sin?
How does Christ help me with that if denial is equal to the self destruction of that old self?
He points out that there is nothing that is too much for us to handle. We are never tempted beyond our abilities. The carnal man is incapable of doing anything except sinning. The death of the self or the carnal man ends sin. No self means there's no one left to sin. The inner man, the one who follows after the Spirit doesn't fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
If denying ourselves is the good that allows Christ to return to us, Paul seems to think what you suggest is impossible:
Not at all. In fact, he's pointing out that it is only when Christ is revealed that it can be possible. And there is nothing preventing that from happening except our selves. It is only impossible for those who think that their intentions or desires are enough. They are useless as they are simply desires and intentions. Jesus Christ isn't an intention. Christ isn't a concept to entertain our intellect. Christ is the image of God stamped upon all of humanity. The self can't see that image It is only Christ in you that allows one to see Christ in others and gives one the hope for salvation.
Rom 7:18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh; for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do. Instead, I keep on doing the evil I do not want to do. 20 And if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord![/quote]
