Are the two mutually exclusive? Do you think Jesus would consider smoking pot to be a sin?
You pose the most ridiculous questions to me, that really can't be answered, except by a person involved. It is conviction from the Holy Spirit that reveals a sin, and being open to His voice and gentle prodding. God doesn't yell!
I smoked pot. Jesus still loves me. Was it Him giving me permission, or was it me just ignoring Him?
Neither, I think. I don't believe I was sinning when I was getting high. You obviously do. I can therefor assume you want to play God, or His authorized representative.
I KNOW the Holy Spirit, FRiend, and you are not he!!
While having taken a few hits, I have designed some magnificent homes, which I built and made folk very happy. As afore noted, I have been tested and was able to excel when examined to et my contractor's license. Was it pot?
I wasn't " stoned" as you probably relate drunkenness, but I was more aware, and my mind was more creative. The ideas flowed from my mind, like a river, and the end result was more efficient or grand, due to my usage of that "demon weed". I could recall things that were hidden or murky in my memory.
I have been in Federal Courts four times as a pro se Plaintiff. I successfully prosecuted three of them against monies owed to me( took home some $$$), and the fourth was against my state whereby a regulation was changed due to my challenge. IOW, I won all four cases, and in every situation, I was standing in front of a judge after having smoked that "demon weed" I have no formal legal training. I was up against the state Attorney General, in the last one. but was I sinning? I am pretty sure I was not. I am still saved by the blood, regardless.
Jesus or pot? What a stupid, puerile attempt at attacking my morals and ethics. Jesus is my Lord and Savior. He is my Goel, and my Lord. His death set me free from sin... and when He wishes, He makes it clear the things I should not do. I don't smoke the stuff these days, but I could, as long it causes nobody to stumble.
This article makes broad claims. IMHO, and brings out the Gestapo FReeper element who can't handle the freedom they see in others. It's much easier to rely on black and white laws. It is much more difficult to allow God to reign in your life.
I won't bother to post to you again, because you demonstrate an authoritarian mindset that can never accept what God has offered for me. I only offer these anecdotes because of the misrepresentation herein by so many legalists. I live as Paul describes, as a man no longer under the "law of sin and death", but instead choose to allow the Holy Spirit to guide my days. I am His.
Gotta go, as we are starting a new project here tomorrow, and I am on the other side of the world where it is 10:30 at night. I will pray for you to understand what God can do, when one allows Him to become personal and close-up.
Romans 7: excerpt and comment by Mike Blume- This is most scientific in a very spiritual manner! He called that something in his flesh by the name of "sin". And since he realized that exerting his flesh to work only stirred "sin" up, he had better find a different way in which to see the good deeds come forth through him. All he could think of was to call on God to deliver him from the flesh which held that sin! And that was exactly the answer!! (Romans. 7:24).
He realized that he, himself, delighted in the Law. But another law existed which he then discovered. And that Law warred against the good law that was in his mind, which he willed to obey. And this newly discovered law was actually bringing him into captivity to the Principle of sin.
When He called on God for help, God delivered him through Jesus Christ's death on the cross. Its as though we died to be free of the old cruel husband, since he wasn't going to die (Romans. 7:2-4). And we died, but yet lived on to enjoy the freedom from the old man that our deaths provided. How can this be? Well, we died by faith, believing that Christ died instead us.
So, Paul said God delivered him in Romans. 7:25.
And another Law that existed, which he then found to be the answer, was the reality of the effort to believe and thus walk after the strength of the Spirit rather than the strength of the flesh. And so long as we rely upon God to deliver us through faith in the fact that we died with Christ, we remain above the law of sin and death above that newly discovered law that explained why he could not do good. We must continually realize that we need to rely upon God's Spirit to keep us above sin, and not rely upon our weak human power of self effort to stop sinning.
As much as the law of aerodynamics teaches us that our presence in a certain shaped vehicle that is operating a certain way will keep us above the law of gravity and thus cheat the law of gravity, we can cheat the law of sin and death. And this higher law, the law that cheat sin and death, is called the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. We must be in Christ as much as one would need to be in an airplane to escape the law of gravity. And we are in Christ by having faith in His death for us! And that is what we must understand when we pray and close our prayers saying, "In the name of Jesus Christ."