(Introduction)(Dial.1)(Dial.2)(Dial.3)(Dial.4)(Dial.5)DIALOGUE 6(Dial.7)(Dial.8)(Dial.9)(Dial.10)

(Dial.11)(Dial.12)(Dial.13)(Dial.14)(Dial.15)(Dial.16)(Dial.17)(Dial.18)(Dial.19)(Dial.20)

THE FIGHT AGAINST SIN

DIRTY_C: This changes all my points of view concerning the gospel. I thought we had to fight our way through to overcome our sins and I also believed it was useless to fight them off us. Why would I bother about them if I would never be victorious? Just to think of fighting sin every moment of my whole life simply puts me down. And if I don’t fight sin, I feel guilty. Feeling guilty about it makes me be bitter and gives me a bad temper. I always suspected there must be something more for us than what I am experiencing right now.

CLEAN_C: What you’re describing are the typical symptoms of most people who wander far from God and refuse to clean their lives thoroughly. If the blood of Christ doesn’t get a chance to make you spotlessly white, you shall always have the effects of it stamped in your face. It shall be visible to everyone around. It also happens to all those who try an alternative way, such as pretending, covering up or sleeping time away. Trying to fulfil without cleansing our lives, trying to live a heavenly life without having a real relationship to God is one of those alternative ways. And all alternative ways seem good to people and eventually end up in discouragement, disappointment and death. There is always a way that seems good to man. Paul talked about it and described the experience as someone who has the desire to fulfil and, yet, he sins more and more by trying to do good. People can try to be good, but they can't be good. He said it feels like having a body of death which leads the opposite way every time one wishes to be holy. Paul was describing people under conviction of the Law who would refuse to have a real relationship to Jesus. However, by meeting the requirements of a genuine life of faith, sin is crucified and we rise up into a new life, and we shall always be more than victors. I believe there is something worse that may happen to us when we refuse to cleanse our lives thoroughly. There is great danger by wandering without a clean conscience. Many simply do not realize it.

DIRTY_C: Tell me about it, please.

CLEAN_C: If we manage to live far from God for a long period, we learn a life of continual defeat which will lead us to believe victory is impossible. We shall be programmed to think defeat, to eat the bread of death and to find ways to have that kind of beliefs and thoughts multiplying themselves inside us. By having preferred a kind of life which brings confusion and causes pain, we shall always refuse to have it dead. In fact, many fear to put an end to that kind of living whenever they are put face to face with the possibility of exterminating it for good. It seems they feel sorry for an old life which kills them. People will rather become inactive and disgusted than give up the old life. Once that program of standing up for death and delaying or postponing life is installed in us, it shall function much like a virus does to a computer. That virus won’t come out and will always hinder the computer to function the way it should. People in sin fear to stop trusting self, and trusting self is the opposite of faith; they fear to give up what they have; they fear to go against what they know as experience; and they also fear to believe some other kind of life is possible. Blessed are all those who rebel against a defeated life and acknowledge that this is not what we have been created for. I have seen many blessed people saying something like this: “Oh, if this is all here is about this life I don’t see the point of living!” It sounds like suicide to many. In fact, it is like looking for a way to kill self for always. That’s where many start looking for the purpose of their life in this vast universe.

DIRTY_C: I understand. And what should we do to be able to deny a defeated life and to stop breeding it?

CLEAN_C: We must deny a life that denies life. It must be exterminated. First of all, we need to cleanse our past sins one by one and plead for forgiveness from people and God. Then, we must reach out to real life from the Lord. It must be real. We must hate lies and fables. If we have done that thoroughly and attain all that has been promised, then we must be prepared to renew our minds fully so we might know, step by step, what the good will of God is for our lives, Rom.12:1,2. The program of our minds must be renewed. Our system must be new. By cleansing our lives thoroughly, we become new from deep within and change our ways and ideas about everything we know. Not knowing that it is so easy to fulfil the law of love, is one of the major consequences of a life of sin.

DIRTY_C: You mean that after we are thoroughly cleansed we won’t need to fight to be victorious? That kind of life shall be ours to live?

CLEAN_C: The fight shall be different. The assuring ways of light will always teach us (if we indeed care to listen) that nothing can separate us from God. And it is truly so. Nothing can bring us to sin. Sin separates from God. However, Paul says that not even death can cause us to be separated from the Lord. Such is the victory. We learn how to use the weapons of light and lay down old weapons and old ways we have learned. It is a completely different thing to fight sin in the domain of light then it is to fight it in its own territory. “For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds”, 2Cor.10:4. We must unlearn old ways, then. The best way to lose a battle is to use those weapons that will benefit the enemy. And the way to lose a whole war is to lose many such battles.

DIRTY_C: I understand. But, I am still confused about something. Tell me: do we fight or does the inner fight cease altogether?

CLEAN_C: We fight yes, but it shall be a different fight altogether. We shall rest and always be assured our Lord will stand up for us no matter what. We shall know that we can overcome without a chance of defeat if we stick to the Lord and His will all the time. He will fight for us continually. "For since the beginning of the world Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen any God besides You, Who works for the one who waits for Him", Is.64:4. Our main fight is to stay close to Him. If we abandon the weapons of darkness forever as well and learn to make the best use of the weapons of light, we can’t even think of defeat. My opinion is, we won't think defeat. The idea won’t cross our minds, not even for a moment. The most difficult task we shall face is to adapt and to be conformed to that life - to live a kind of life where we shall be more than conquerors. We won't be used to it until many years after we started to experience it for real. Could you live such a life as if you have never experienced any other before? That’s the main challenge we need to face right from then on.

DIRTY_C: Where must we start? Where does that life begin? How shall I know I can take hold of it and stick to it all the time? It seems to me more like a Holy War.

CLEAN_C: First of all, we must know we shall never overcome the love of the world, of the music of the world, or anything from hell by living still in it. We offend God and will be powerless because of it. We cannot approve any of it anymore. We cannot be sustained by the Lord loving or approving any part of the world or of its environment. What surrounds it must promptly and assuredly be denied as well. We need to walk out of that territory. Let the enemies of God (all sins) come and defy us in God's territory. Secondly, we need to be trained to use the weapons of light and those only. And the main strength of that life shall be putting in the light and exposure. We need to be ourselves and ourselves only all the time. Everything must be clear and transparent every moment of our lives. We must know that appearance is the opposite of transparency. We should never again fear to be ourselves, since it is the Lord who has changed us and shall stand for us anywhere, anyhow, all the time.

DIRTY_C: You mean, for each kind of life there are also kinds of weapons we must learn to use. I mean, there are weapons of death and there are the weapons of light and life, right?

CLEAN_C: Yes, that is right. You have summoned it up very well. The kind of life we live engraves its ways in our beings from then on and those ways shall always be responsible for its own maintenance. Ways cause us to live the kind of life we become used to. We heard Jesus teaching to pray that things be done here on earth the way they are done in heaven. It means the ways are more important to learn because people always do according to what they are and have learned to be. However, in the domain of God, we are not programmed, but become rather spontaneous and alive in every aspect of our lives. And that shall only work if we are dead to the ways of sin and if Jesus abounds in us. And to have sin exterminated and dead, all we need to do is to have it completely exposed in the light and follow the Lord as He leads. You may not follow as He doesn’t lead. Even if an accuser comes to you, once a sin is put in the light, accusations shall cease. Besides, if God shall be with us, who can or will stand against us? One of the weapons of darkness we do not need to use anymore is self-defense. In the Light, God shall stand for us sooner or later, one way or another.

DIRTY_C: But, it is difficult to know which weapons belong to darkness and which don’t. It seems to me it is very difficult to discern what I may do, or use, and what not. I wish I could become like a child when it comes to doing. Children seem so simple and do things promptly. I don’t find it easy to be that way, especially when it comes to the things and the commandments of God. When I look at people like you, I hate myself for not being better than you guys.  

CLEAN_C: Another weapon darkness puts into our hands is competition. You cannot compete with others since the life God gives you to live is exclusively yours and there is no one like you. It so works that each child of God needs to be himself and himself alone. Imitations, competition, admiration along with each kind of suchlike attitudes are either fruit of ignorance or of darkness, which amounts to the same. People in the world do not pretend to love the world because they really love it. In the Kingdom of God, it must be an eye for an eye of that: you cannot pretend there anymore. The way it used to be in the world, it must work towards God also. When you look at people who live a godly life and you try to be as they are through imitation, you will only become a hypocrite. God won’t accept that offering from anyone of us because He has a life for each one of us and that offering is dead in itself. Sooner or later, dead ways shall cause people to give up on God because they find out it doesn’t work with them as they supposed it would. Besides, we can never depend on the public opinion to learn the things of the Lord. We must be totally depended on Him and on Him alone. Even if it is a normal thing in the world to try to be like others or even better than them, it never works that way in the Kingdom of God. The least is the greatest with God and no one will ever be able to change that. This is why Paul talks so much about “the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus”. He even warns us against departing from such simplicity.

DIRTY_C: It surprises me to see how simple these things seem to work out with you.

CLEAN_C: Admiration is another weapon of darkness. People who admire others are refusing to walk the way themselves. They will rather applaud and boast about other’s works. Flattering is the usual way of admirers. You can see that when they talk to people they admire. And flattering people are also able to be critical in the proportion they admire. It just works that way. A tongue that flatters and is smooth in criticism towards others. Admirers have a smooth tongue. Beware of flatterers! Flatterers deceive themselves because they believe they are pleasant people. They deceive themselves through hypocritical feelings. God warned us against making any likeness of what is in heaven or earth. Every kind of likeness is a lie. It won’t work out in the kingdom of God. The simplicity that is with Christ is the only way through which God’s things are meant to work. Whatever is not real, is not coming from the Lord.

DIRTY_C: You believe I can change that way? I mean, can I be that spontaneous and that simple when it comes to the things of God? Shall I love them to that point?

CLEAN_C: Believing you can’t is another weapon darkness uses to intimidate and discourage you from the ways of God. Unbelief says it is impossible to live that way; and even when it says it is possible, it seeks a way to imitate and feign. And what Jesus gives us is real life. He teaches us to live that way as well, since it is a new way we have never walked it before.

DIRTY_C: What do you mean He teaches us?

CLEAN_C: He teaches you the way any child is taught. Whenever we teach a child, we form it. Children learn by being practical about things. The life of God works much the same way with every one of us who never experienced the new ways of God. We shall learn a practical way of a new life of our own, step by step, day by day. People have in their minds that studying the things they suppose are from God is what it is all about. But, God’s things are practical. Learning theology won’t make you a man of God. God doesn’t work in us through dogmas and such things. Since He is able to work His life in us for real, He won’t uphold hypocrisy. God sees hypocrisy as He sees idolatry because both are likenesses of what could be for real. Don’t children learn the ways of their parents and adapt themselves to them? We also learn from our Father if we see Him - if we see Him.

DIRTY_C: I believe I can already do many things the way they should be done.

CLEAN_C: If what you are saying is true, it is good. We may believe something that is not true just as easy as we may believe something that is indeed true. Wrong believing is something any person can do because he can believe. We are made to believe God. Far from God we are able to believe still, but in lies. That is the main reason the Christian world is so confusing nowadays. They believe in certain things which could work out were they indeed living near God. They would work out easily and with no force near God. It could be a normal life to everyone who calls himself a child of the living God. Unfortunately, it it is not that way anymore.

DIRTY_C: I am stunned and without words. It seems everything I say receives a harsh response from you. It feels to me I do nothing right. Will you always have some arrow pointed at me?

CLEAN_C: Another weapon darkness uses against us is feeling accused by those who speak the truth and by the way they speak, especially when they ought to speak that way. Then, it shall be easy for the devil to send some deceiving people to comfort, advise and to deviate you to their side. Beware of feeling accused by truth. Truth makes people well even when they don’t feel well about what they hear. Spiritual health is not a symptom - it is a fact. Will you ever stop feeling accused when you hear truth? There are many who would rejoice by hearing these things, you know? Why can’t you be one of them? What is so wrong with you? Would you feel happier if I told you some lies and comforted you through them? You are the one who accuses yourself - not what I say. You said you would like to be that way yourself, and yet you resent what is being said here. Can you explain that to me?

DIRTY_C: Let’s leave strife. I am tired o fighting. Let me see if I understood correctly what you have been saying. The conclusion I came to is this: I can’t fight having burdens on me, but need rather to expose those burdens, even those I don’t see or don’t regard as burdens. Exposure is able to eventually turn me into a saint and a simple conqueror. Is that right?  

CLEAN_C: Yes, that is right.

(Introduction)(Dial.1)(Dial.2)(Dial.3)(Dial.4)(Dial.5)DIALOGUE 6(Dial.7)(Dial.8)(Dial.9)(Dial.10)

(Dial.11)(Dial.12)(Dial.13)(Dial.14)(Dial.15)(Dial.16)(Dial.17)(Dial.18)(Dial.19)(Dial.20)