Laying Hold of Zoe Life
Topic: How to “Lay Hold” of Eternal Life
Greetings Sons of God:
1 Timothy 6:12: Fight
the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also
called and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses
Paul tells his spiritual son, Timothy to lay hold of eternal
life. What does it mean to lay hold of
eternal life? The word life is
translated Zoe so the life that we are to lay hold of is the God-like
life. Now wait, when we accepted Jesus
Christ as our Savior he gave us eternal life so that we can die and go to
heaven right? Yes, but if you take that
interpretation you will suffer, stress and have a life full of strife and all
you will say is “Lord take me out of here?”
or “come quickly Lord”. Paul was
telling Timothy to lay hold of eternal life NOW! Eternal life is not a after life experience
only. We are called to walk in this life
now! So how are we to “lay hold” or
seize eternal life?
Paul gives us nine ways to lay hold of eternal life and they
are all found in Romans 8:
1. Walk in the Spirit (vs. 1)
2. Spiritually Minded (vs. 6-8)
3. Dwell in Him (vs. 9-11)
4. Mortify the Deeds of the Body (vs.
13)
5. Be Lead by the Spirit (vs. 14)
6. Cry Abba, Father (vs. 15)
7. Love God (vs. 16 )
8. Conquering through Him (vs. 17)
Of the nine the one that we struggle with the most is
mortifying the deeds of the body. And as
I was studying this, this one really sets the pace for all the others. Let’s get a definition of mortification and
bring it to the spiritual. Mortification is the act of subduing one’s
bodily desires. So what are we
subduing? We are subduing the soul and
it’s desires to walk in eternal life.
Now when we
talk about mortification we must get a clear definition of what we are subduing
but most of all why. There is a fleshly
mortification that many do and I even have done it thinking that I was subduing
the desires of the body for the Spirit.
Fleshly mortification is driven by an unbiblical goal and the motives to
subdue your flesh are wrong. Let me show you some examples of wrong motives:
1.
Fear
of Hell
2.
Desire
to Go to Heaven
3.
Fear
of the Wrath of God
4.
Commendations
by Appearance
5.
Pride
6.
Lack
of Peace, Troubled Conscious
We should
have only one true purpose and desire to mortify the deeds of our body and when
we do it with this motive, it is pure and real and God honors this. The real reason to mortify the deeds of your
body is because “You Love God”. When
your love of God is your motive, your mortification is real and honored. We should desire to please him in every
aspect of our lives.
Romans
8:8: So then they that are in the flesh
cannot please God
1
Thessalonians 4:1: Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren and exhort you by
the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to
please God, so ye would abound more and more.
So to love
God must be our only reason we mortify the deeds of the flesh. Now the question
is how do we mortify the deeds of the Body.
Romans 8:13 tells us:
Romans
8:13: For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the
Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live
So the only
way we can mortify the deeds of the body if through the Spirit. Let me show you:
Galatians
5:16: This I say then, Walk in the
Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the
lust of the flesh
Isaiah 4:4:
When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and
shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit
of burning.
So we
mortify the deeds of the body through the Spirit when we obey and walk in the Spirit.
Peace and
Grace,
Calvin
Calhoun Jr.
