How To… II

“So kill your earthly impulses: loose sex, impure actions, unbridled sensuality, wicked thoughts, and greed (which is essentially idolatry)” Col.3:5 [VOICE]

Paul urges us to put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within. So how do you put to death [kill]? Two practical scriptural ways of killing;

#1. You hand it over to the Holy Ghost. You put your life on the altar and you surrender that thing or desire to the Holy Spirit. You say to the Holy Spirit, kill this thing, and consume this thing. And guess what? He will. I assure you it will be a very painful process but He will kill it.

#2. To mortify, you deprive of power. “So kill (deaden, deprive of power) the evil desire lurking in your members [those animal impulses and all that is earthly in you that is employed in sin]…” Col.3:5 [AMP]. You deprive anything that is an appetite of power by refusing to feed it and by starving it to death. There is this man that does dog fights with his two dogs, let’s call them lucky and bingo for the purpose of this illustration. The day he bets on lucky, lucky always beats bingo. And the day he bets on bingo, bingo always beats lucky. And he had taken all the money from the other people that used to bet during the dog fights. So they approached him seeking to understand if he connives with the dogs and as such knows which one will win. He said its simple, the day I want lucky to win I feed lucky and I starve bingo and vice versa. Similarly, whatever you feed will grow, whatever you feed will be strong. If you feed your flesh, it will be strong. If you feed your spirit man, your spirit man will be strong. You cannot feed the two, feeding one will deprives the other of life and that is what it is to mortify and put to death.

What does it mean to Put off? The word put on and put off is used figuratively to mean to wear and remove clothing. You have a garment on you, to put off means to go through the pains of undoing the buttons, taking it off your head and put it away. To put on means going through the pains of taking the piece of clothing, wear it, and do up the buttons if it is a shirt. Why is this important? “Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming” Col.3:6. I know there is a lot of teaching out there that says you do not need to repent of your sins anymore because Jesus has died for you. I have heard a televangelist say repentance is in the Old Testament that and that we are under grace, and the whole church shouted grace. What? Of course you are under grace but if you sin repent that is what grace is about. “Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming”; Thank God this is the New Testament.

Prayer: Holy Spirit, I put my life on the altar before You Lord and I ask that You will kill every earthly impulse in me and feed my spirit man, in Jesus Name.