The Discipline Of Love and The Pursuit, Perfecting, and Practice Of Holiness

Two things are required of us as Christian believers in order to live a life of victory over sin. We must trust in God’s divine assistance (grace), and we must train ourselves in the Spirit-led covert disciplines of Christian consecration.


When a parent tells a good child to do something, or not do something, the child obeys because he wants to please his parent. When a parent tells a strong-willed child to do something, or not do something, the child ignores the command because he wants to please himself. Speaking hereditarily, I believe that a strong-willed child, or a child who is habitually disobedient to his parents, is most likely displaying the symptomatic outworking of his great grandfather Adam’s sin of independence against the word and will of God.


Now it is true that if a parent has proven to be an untrustworthy person in a child’s life, the child will have a more difficult time trusting and obeying him/her. And even if the parent is worthy of the child’s trust, if the child perceives that the parent is untrustworthy, he will have a difficult time trusting the parent and will trust more in his own will than his parent’s will.


Perception is everything, and perception is often clouded by deception as in the case of Eve. Her vulnerable perception came under attack through the Serpent’s deceiving her in the Garden of Eden by questioning the validity of God making good on his warning that the day she or her husband ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. Buying into the Serpent’s deception resulted in her act of disobedience and rebellion against the word and will of God. When she offered the forbidden fruit to Adam, he ate from it too, disbelieving the validity of God’s stern and severe warning. All human beings have suffered the consequences of their sin from that point onward. The things that made Adam and Eve susceptible to the Serpent’s deception was the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.


Unlike Adam, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Child of the Father, trusted in His Father’s will instead of His own throughout His life and at the most crucial and critical time in human history. Specifically, He chose to do His Father’s will instead of His own will in the Garden of Gethsemane. From the point of that decision in the garden, Jesus set His face like a flint to go to Jerusalem and “drink the cup,” allowing Himself to be crucified on Calvary’s Cross for the sins of the world. Prior to that time, Jesus had already overcome Satan’s deceptive temptations in the wilderness, at the end of a forty-day fast, when He rejected Satan’s offer and renounced the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, proclaiming “It is written,” and “Get thee behind Me Satan.”


Jesus Christ choosing to trust and do His Father’s will instead of His own will, or Satan’s, has resulted in the salvation of every human soul who would choose to receive Him into their hearts by faith, believe on his name for their justification, continue in Him for their sanctification, and finish in Him for their glorification. This is why the Apostle Paul called Jesus “the second Adam,” and this is why I preach that Jesus Christ, the strong Son of God, is our second chance to “get it right” as a human race.


Again, the way we “get it right” and gain the victory over sin is through trusting in God’s grace found in His Son Jesus Christ, and by training ourselves in the Spirit-led covert disciplines of Christian consecration. These covert disciplines of Christian consecration are fasting, praying, giving, and meditating in God’s word in order to do His will instead of our own wills, especially when faced with satanically inspired temptations, tests, and trials in our lives.


I recommend that you begin an in depth study of covert fasting, praying, giving, and meditating in God’s word, and most importantly put into practice what you learn. A good resource for all of these subjects is Derek Prince’s ministry website. When you visit his website, go to the category listed “Resources For Living.” I recommend that you thoroughly research this listing and then purchase and study the books and tapes on these subjects. Derek’s website can be found and accessed through our links page. May God bless you in the discipline of love, and in the pursuit, perfecting, and practice of holiness.