“Empowering the abused woman to recover with God's truth"

“Spirit, Soul, Body” by Andrew Wommack Quotes Chapter 8, “Standard Gospel Questions”

Serious questions usually start coming right about now. “What are you saying? God will love me, and I won’t lose my right standing with Him no matter what? Do you mean I can just go live in sin?” Paul dealt with this same thing! “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” (Scripture bolded by Andrew) (Rom. 6:1). The answer, of course, is “God forbid” (Rom. 6:2).

Unless this question comes up, you aren’t preaching the same Gospel as the Apostle Paul. He dealt with it four different times! “What am I saying? Do we continue in sin? God forbid!” Even though you have to explain what you mean, it should be a logical question.

Nobody interprets most churches today as saying “You can just go live in sin” because they’re busy preaching so hard against it. This question never even comes up! Typical teaching today ties God’s love and acceptance to your performance. Therefore, these messages given “in the name of the Lord” produce a works-righteousness (self-righteousness based on your actions) in most believers. The Bible doesn’t teach that God accepts or rejects you because of your actions; it teaches that your actions can never be good enough!

God’s Word says He accepts you based on whether your spirit is righteous or not. That spirit doesn’t become righteous through your good actions and attitudes. Righteousness comes through confessing Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. As you are born again, God gives you this brand-new spirit. Righteousness is NOT based on your actions!

The next question people ask is, “Are you saying it doesn’t matter how I live?” No, that’s not what I’m saying. Paul continues in Romans 6 giving two reasons why a Christian should live holy: 1. Your new nature desires it, and 2. You don’t want to give the devil access to your soul and body through sin. How you live doesn’t affect your spirit’s righteousness, but it greatly affects your life (bolded by me).

Sin’s Strength

If you are truly born again, God has changed your nature. “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?” (Rom. 6:2-3). You are no longer a child of the devil who loves to sin. You do still sin, but it’s not your nature anymore. Your spirit has been changed, and you no longer enjoy it. Every born-again believer has a built- in desire to live holy (1 John 3:3). You might not be fulfilling it, but it’s there! Preaching the Law—legalism and religious works—actually strengthens sin (1 Cor. 15:56). The Law makes you sin more by causing you to lust for the very thing that’s forbidden. That’s why God gave it! Mankind was being destroyed by sin, but we deceived ourselves into thinking, I’m pretty good! God answered, saying, “Oh, you think you’re okay? Let Me show you what the real standard is.” The Law made sin come alive so you’d recognize your need for a Savior (Rom. 7:9, Gal. 3:24).

Since I can’t give a detailed explanation of this truth here, I’d like to recommend to you The True Nature of God (bolded by me). In that teaching, I expound much more on this particular point. You’ll discover how God, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8), can act so differently toward mankind from the Old Testament to the New. Without understanding how everything changed when Jesus Christ came, you’ll think God is schizophrenic. I assure you, He’s not! The Lord’s purpose in sending the Law was to make you bow your knee and confess, “God have mercy on me! I can’t do it. I can’t break this sin!” The Law wasn’t given to help you overcome sin. It was to show you that sin had already overcome you!

The Law actually strengthened sin and gave it so much power that it would effectively remove the deception that you could ever get rid of sin on your own. Religion, however, turns it around and says, “The Law was given to help you overcome sin.” That’s just not true. If you’re truly born again, you have a desire to live for God. “And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). There will be varying degrees of this purity manifest in your actions and thoughts, but every born-again person seeks to purify themselves.

Sin gives Satan access to your body and soul. “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” (Rom. 6:16). Satan wants to bring death into your life any way he can—sickness, disease, poverty, shame, depression, discouragement, and all sorts of other nasty things. Why give your enemy an opportunity to come against you? As a Christian, you don’t have to live holy in order for God to accept and be pleased with you. However, your actions and attitudes do determine how you get along with other people. That’s why it’s still to your advantage to live a holy life!

Accidental Holiness

Knowing that I can relate to God based on the perfection, holiness, and righteousness in my spirit has set me free from sin— not to sin. In my flesh, I’ll never be completely perfect until I receive my glorified body. Yet, in the meantime, I can go ahead and relate to God based on who I am in my spirit. This makes my relationship with Him stable and secure. I’ve lived a holier life accidentally than most people have on purpose! Whenever these truths are taught, people criticize saying, “You’re just preaching this so you can live in sin!” You can’t accuse me of that because I’ve never spoken a word of profanity, drank liquor of any kind, smoked a cigarette, or even tasted coffee in all of my life! I’m not saying that coffee and booze are the same thing. There’s scripture for drinking coffee. Mark 16:18 promises, “If they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.” I’m just telling you that people can’t look at me and say the reason I preach this is because it allows me to live in sin. No, I live a very holy life.

I don’t live holy because I have to but because I want to. I don’t do it in order to obtain God’s blessing. I do it because He’s revealed this truth to me and changed my heart. I desire to live holy because it’s good for me. It helps me minister to others better, and it’s happier to live holy than unholy!

God would still love me if I lived in sin (because my spirit is changed), but I wouldn’t love me, and other people wouldn’t either. Sin offends God, but it also offends people. If you’re truly born again, He’ll deal with you as His child, based on your born-again spirit. But people won’t love you if you steal from them. If they catch you, they’ll throw you in jail where you’ll suffer, be confined, and hurt. You won’t have as nice of a life, but God will still love you. You’ll still be righteous, but you’ll also be stupid! (I’m not trying to be harsh, just blunt.)

Living holy doesn’t make God love you more, but it does increase your love for Him. Likewise, a lack of holiness won’t cause God to love you less, but it’ll definitely decrease your love for Him. Although God’s love for you doesn’t change, your performance directly affects your love for Him. Can you see now God’s purpose for holiness?

Come Boldly!

Sin is never a wise choice, but it’s also never an issue between you and God. He dealt with your sin—past, present, and future—when you were born again. You can come boldly before the Lord at any time—even when you’ve fallen short, even when you’re displeased with yourself, even when you’ve given Satan an inroad into your life. You can still come boldly into the very presence of God your Father and receive from Him because your spirit didn’t lose any of its right standing with Him!

The Word encourages you to come before the Lord when you need mercy and help! “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). Don’t just wait to come before Him until you’ve done everything “right.” You can boldly approach the Lord and receive grace to help when you’ve totally messed things up. Your heavenly Father has invited you to draw near to His throne at any time by faith in His Son and who you are in Him.

It’s your birthright as a child of the King!

(END OF ANDREW’S QUOTES FOR CHAPTER 8)

Are you ready to change your life? If so, here is the link to start – you can study on your own, by clicking here to go to the teaching of, “Spirit, Soul, Body.” Once on the site, you can choose if you want to listen via audio or watch the videos.

Or study with a group, like I am doing, by going to this link, creating an account, and finding an online or local study – the materials are furnished for you – there is an outline teaching, questions, and Scriptures, on the website, that you download after logging in and finding your study.

Here is the link for the group I am in – you can go to the link and register, but to download your class materials, you must create an account, and sign in (the material information is on top of the page). Then contact the Leader, Dennis Kerr, and let him know you just signed up for the class and ask him to send you the Zoom link for the class. We currently meet on Tuesdays at 4:00pm EST (Dennis is in Arizona and his local time would be at 2:00pm for the study) – next class, February 22, 2022, we will study Chapter 8 – this will be our eighth meeting.

Click the link below to review all study materials, which is the same as the first link, for “Spirit, Soul, Body:”

All “Spirit, Soul, Body” Resources

NOTE: Wherever there is bolding in this document and is not specified by Andrew that he did it, it was added by me. Also, highlighting, and Scriptures were bolded and linked to the text by me.

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God’s BLESSINGS to you all and your families!!

In Father’s Service,

Rev. Dr. Dorothy E. Hooks

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