The true Christian discipleship includes a vigorous putting to death of the deeds of the body as the Holy Spirit guides us and gives us the power to do so.

If we say we know Jesus but are walking in sin, the truth is not in us. Now it is time for us to come to the Lord so that through His grace we may crucify our flesh with its perverted appetites.

The third area of sin is the self-will, the self-rule of man as he seeks accomplishment and rulership apart from God's plan for his life.

God is not in many of the religious, philosophical, and political strivings that are taking place today. These often proceed from the ignorance and presumption of the human soul. It is God's desire, rather, that we present our body to God a living sacrifice so we may be able to find the true will of God for our life, and then perform it.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. (Romans 12:1)

The greatest problem man has, the gigantic sin of the last days, is self-will. For four hundred years Western man has been convincing himself that man is the center of all things. Libertarianism, humanism, democratic government, freedom of expression, are all symptoms of Antichrist as well as of the False Prophet. Antichrist always proclaims, "I am God and there is no other god."

The Book of Revelation emphasizes the evil of Laodicea (churches tailored to the will of people), of Antichrist (man making himself God), of the False Prophet (miracle-working Christianity that is operated by the soul of man rather than by the Spirit of God), and of Babylon (man-directed Christianity). To trust in the world rather than in God is to sin. To indulge in the lusts of the flesh is to sin. But the greatest sin of all, the sin of the last days, is to perceive ourselves as God; to worship our own will.

Until we are successful, through the power and wisdom that Christ alone provides, in overcoming the three destructive forces that seek to dominate our personality and behavior, we cannot be completely reconciled to God. We can abide in the rest of God's Presence and will while we are battling through to victory, but we cannot enter the rest of the land of promise, the rest that is our inheritance from God, into our part in the plan conceived in God's mind from the creation of the world, until worldliness, fleshly lusts, and self-will have been driven from us by the Spirit of God.

Let us think for a moment about these three problem areas:

Loving the world and the things of the world.

Yielding to the lusts that dwell in our flesh.

Striving to create a heaven and earth in which we ourselves are central.

To be continued.