True Worship of Jesus Christ (continued)

Does your worship have true spiritual life, or is it as dead as an idol?

Through Jesus Christ came the promise of the Spirit of life: God's Holy Spirit. In order for the true Holy Spirit to reign in the heart of the individual, their personal spirit must yield full control to him.

"Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Romans 6:12-13

I am NOT talking about modern-day, so-called Pentecostalism where people get taken by a strange spirit and jibber-jabber and claim the Spirit of God. God does not cause people to act strange, nor does God force his Spirit on anyone, nor does he give his Spirit to someone who is still sinning. Jesus Christ saves completely from sin and then one can receive the Spirit of life, God's Holy Spirit into a new holy vessel. If one that had the Holy Ghost sins against God, the Spirit of God (the true Spirit of life) leaves because they no longer are letting him reign on the throne of their heart.

What I am talking about is the new life that Christ gives us when we completely yield to God to serve him. Our old way of living that produces sin (spiritual death) must stop! Yes, our own way, that still includes sin, spiritually only resembles the deadness of idolatry - even though we may call it "Christian".

"What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. 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? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness." Romans 6:15-18

Which leads us back to the main point, true life must be in true worship, and the Spirit of God is what we need for life! If we have the outward form or resemblance because of a knowledge of God's word, but don't allow his Spirit to have full control over our very choices and purposes - then all we will have is the resemblance, or image of the true, but without the life. In other words, the resemblance of a dead idol, or idolatry.

There is a spirit that attends idolatry worship (just like it does in modern day Pentecostalism) but that spirit cannot produce true life by true holiness. It produces a "form of godliness" but it is not the real thing.

"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." II Timothy 3:1-5

Being a religious worshiper, yet still living under the power of sin, will only produce spiritual death. Therefore the image you will resemble is that of a dead idol and not the living God. God wants us to be a resemblance to the true living God, by the power of holiness working through our life by Jesus Christ.