{"id":341,"date":"2009-12-10T07:10:21","date_gmt":"2009-12-10T15:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wordpress\/?p=341"},"modified":"2009-12-10T09:02:36","modified_gmt":"2009-12-10T17:02:36","slug":"the-offering-of-the-natural-12-10-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=341","title":{"rendered":"The Offering of the Natural 12-10-09"},"content":{"rendered":"
December 10, 2009<\/div>\n
The Offering of the Natural<\/div>\n
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It is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman \u2014Galatians 4:22<\/div>\n
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Paul was not dealing with sin in this chapter of Galatians, but with the relation of the natural to the spiritual. The natural can be turned into the spiritual only through sacrifice. Without this a person will lead a divided life. Why did God demand that the natural must be sacrificed? God did not demand it. It is not God\u2019s perfect will, but His permissive will. God\u2019s perfect will was for the natural to be changed into the spiritual through obedience. Sin is what made it necessary for the natural to be sacrificed.\"Picture<\/p>\n

This is a parallel to Oswalds’ statement that we often sacrifice the best and accept the\u00a0 good when we accept the natural. We must give up the natural in order to revceive God’s best; the supernatural….JDV<\/em><\/p>\n

Abraham had to offer up Ishmael before he offered up Isaac (see\u00a0Genesis 21:8-14<\/a> ). Some of us are trying to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God before we have sacrificed the natural. The only way we can offer a spiritual sacrifice to God is to “present [our] bodies a living sacrifice . . .” (\u00a0Romans 12:1<\/a> ). Sanctification means more than being freed from sin. It means the deliberate commitment of myself to the God of my salvation, and being willing to pay whatever it may cost.<\/p>\n

When we commit ourselves to God,\u00a0( are at the end of ourselves)\u00a0and let go of our own ideas and thoughts about what is right or wrong,\u00a0\u00a0 God is then\u00a0free to live supernaturally in us. JDV<\/em><\/p>\n

If we do not sacrifice the natural to the spiritual, the natural life will resist and defy the life of the Son of God in us and will produce continual turmoil. This is always the result of an undisciplined spiritual nature. We go wrong because we stubbornly refuse to discipline ourselves physically, morally, or mentally. We excuse ourselves by saying, “Well, I wasn\u2019t taught to be disciplined when I was a child.” Then discipline yourself now! If you don\u2019t, you will ruin your entire personal life for God.<\/p>\n

God is not actively involved with our natural life as long as we continue to pamper and gratify it. But once we are willing to put it out in the desert and are determined to keep it under control, God will be with it. He will then provide wells and oases and fulfill all His promises for the natural<\/strong> (see\u00a0Genesis 21:15-19<\/a> ).<\/p>\n

Oswald would say that in order to come to the end of ourthe end of ourselves we must sacrifice and be obedient. We can also come to the end of ourselves through our pain and suffering through our wrong decisions and difficult times..however IF we are honest seekers after “ther truth ond reality of the cross” we will come to give up ourselves and become more obedient and disciplined; one way way ot the other.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December 10, 2009 The Offering of the Natural It is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman \u2014Galatians 4:22 Paul was not dealing with sin in this chapter of Galatians, but with the relation of the natural to the spiritual. The natural can be turned into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":343,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions\/343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}