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WRITE A DISCUSSION ON: “THE SUBTLETY OF LEGALISM” SHOWING HOW BELIEVERS MAY SLIP INTO LEGALISM AND WHAT THEY CAN DO TO PREVENT FALLING INTO IT.

Definition:
Legalism is much more subtle and serious than we can imagine. Legalism is seeking to achieve forgiveness from God and acceptance through obedience to God. In other words, a legalist is anyone ho behaves as if they can earn God’s approval and forgiveness through personal performance.
Legalism can also be seen as a strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code of life. Galatians 5:1 “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” KJV
In Christian theology, Legalism (or Nomism) is a term, applied to the idea that “by doing good works or by obeying the law, a person earns and merits salvation This has been criticized by certain Christian tradition such as conservative Anabaptists who have said that being a disciple of Jesus means being obedient to New Testament commands such as head covering, feet washing etc, as crucial evidence that an individual has repented or has yielded to Christ”

How Believers can slip into Legalism
It is very easy to get prideful and start thinking legalistically and making up rules God did not give us. The following are some of the ways believers can slip subtly into legalism:
• When one focuses only on obeying bare rules, thereby destroying the context of God;s love and redemption.
• When you justify yourself by comparing yourself to others always.
• Always pointing out someone else’s sin publicly
• You read your bible to get a check mark rather than to meet with God.
• You refuse to forgive others
• You separate your spiritual life from your natural life.
• You love the praise of men and reject the truth tellers who come into your life.

How a believer can prevent falling into legalism:
A believer should recognize legalism as an opposition to grace, Galatian 5:1 – 4: Legalism is a Yoke of bondage, this means to be under the powerless regulations of religion. We were saved through grace not by our works. Jesus Christ paid the price for our salvation. He has finished the work. We cannot add anything to it.
We can fight legalism by doing the following:
• Focus on the part of the bible that emphasize God’s grace. Don’t read passages that tells you to do good works out of context
• Be conscious of the fact that, God is not the one telling you to try harder. Roman 4:3-5. Verse5: “however, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness” NIV.

• Recognize that, your salvation is not based on your ability to perfectly keep the law, instead, it is through faith n Jesus Christ, who fulfilled the law on our behalf. Only the grace of God provides the means for us to experience forgiveness, restoration and internal transformation.

• As a church do not focus on rules that may or may no reflect biblical truth.

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WRITE A DISCUSSION ON: “THE SUBTLETY OF LEGALISM” SHOWING HOW BELIEVERS MAY SLIP INTO LEGALISM AND WHAT THEY CAN DO TO PREVENT FALLING INTO IT.

Definition:
Legalism is much more subtle and serious than we can imagine. Legalism is seeking to achieve forgiveness from God and acceptance through obedience to God. In other words, a legalist is anyone ho behaves as if they can earn God’s approval and forgiveness through personal performance.
Legalism can also be seen as a strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code of life. Galatians 5:1 “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” KJV
In Christian theology, Legalism (or Nomism) is a term, applied to the idea that “by doing good works or by obeying the law, a person earns and merits salvation This has been criticized by certain Christian tradition such as conservative Anabaptists who have said that being a disciple of Jesus means being obedient to New Testament commands such as head covering, feet washing etc, as crucial evidence that an individual has repented or has yielded to Christ”

How Believers can slip into Legalism
It is very easy to get prideful and start thinking legalistically and making up rules God did not give us. The following are some of the ways believers can slip subtly into legalism:
• When one focuses only on obeying bare rules, thereby destroying the context of God;s love and redemption.
• When you justify yourself by comparing yourself to others always.
• Always pointing out someone else’s sin publicly
• You read your bible to get a check mark rather than to meet with God.
• You refuse to forgive others
• You separate your spiritual life from your natural life.
• You love the praise of men and reject the truth tellers who come into your life.

How a believer can prevent falling into legalism:
A believer should recognize legalism as an opposition to grace, Galatian 5:1 – 4: Legalism is a Yoke of bondage, this means to be under the powerless regulations of religion. We were saved through grace not by our works. Jesus Christ paid the price for our salvation. He has finished the work. We cannot add anything to it.
We can fight legalism by doing the following:
• Focus on the part of the bible that emphasize God’s grace. Don’t read passages that tells you to do good works out of context
• Be conscious of the fact that, God is not the one telling you to try harder. Roman 4:3-5. Verse5: “however, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness” NIV.

• Recognize that, your salvation is not based on your ability to perfectly keep the law, instead, it is through faith n Jesus Christ, who fulfilled the law on our behalf. Only the grace of God provides the means for us to experience forgiveness, restoration and internal transformation.

• As a church do not focus on rules that may or may no reflect biblical truth.

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The divine grace which God shows towards humanity will be observed by angels. Moreover, the ministry of angels did not stop with the ascension of Jesus. Angels were also busy ministering to people after the time of Christ. During his early days, when the church was growing, angels were seen to be ministering to God’s people, and the church is a testimony to angels of the wisdom of God. Angels witnessed the beginning of the Church. The presence of Angels continued to strengthen the apostles as they went about their first work and undertook their first missionary journeys.
When the Lord ascended into heaven, two angels were amid the apostles to remind them of their duty “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” Acts 1:11.
There are many deep lessons for us in the Acts of the Apostles, not in the least of which is the intimacy and active cooperation between the angels and the early Christians. It should be a model for us as we undertake our missions for Christ and his church.

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WHAT ROLES DID ANGELS PLAY IN THE LIFE OF THE EARLY CHURCH AS SEEN IN THE BOOK OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES?

Angels are the messengers of God, They played a significant role in the life of the early church as seen below:
• Angels provide Protection and Deliverance to the Apostles.
In Acts of the Apostles 5:19 -20 “But at night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said, 20 “Go, stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life.” NKJV. That night, an angel intervened to protect the apostles and set them free.

• Acts 10: 1 – 3 There was a man named Cornelius who lived in Caesarea. A devout man who feared God with all his household. An Angel came to him as an answer to his prayers. The Angel instructed him to send for Simon Peter who would tell him the message of Jesus Christ.

• Acts 12:11 “11 And when Peter had come to himself, he said, “Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent His angel, and has delivered me from the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the Jewish people.” An Angle helped to get Apostle Peter out of jail.

• Acts 27:23 – 26. An Angel encouraged Apostle Paul when he faced a storm on his way to Rome. “23 For there stood by me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve, 24 saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must be brought before Caesar; and indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you.’ 25 Therefore take heart, men, for I believe God that it will be just as it was told me. 26 However, we must run aground on a certain island.”

• Acts 12:23 NKJV. “Then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give glory to God. And he was eaten by worms and died”. The evil and wicked king Herod was killed by an Angel, because he did not give glory to God, and so the angel struck him dead.

• Acts 8:26- 28 NKJV. An Angel appeared to Philip and directed him toward the Ethiopian eunuch Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is desert. 27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship”

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Reply to Paul Praise

Thank God for hearing your prayers and for giving you another chance to be what you are today. Your experience has given me an insight. Although, yours was in the university, but my son is still in secondary school. He is 15 years old and in SS1 because we made him repeat JSS twice. Just this afternoon, I was discussing with my husband, that I regretted that action because it did not yield any positive result. His result has not improved, rather, he is feeling too old in his present class. You cannot catch him reading, instead of reading his books, he will be writing songs. He has been made the head of junior choir in our local church and that is all that interest him. We tried to encourage him to be serious with his academics and that he has all the time to be what God says he will be in the future. I know that the grace of God is sufficient for him indeed. We are all products of his grace. According to Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 5:10, KJV “But by the grace of God, I am what I am and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain…”

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I quite agree with your point that, God is the Father of spirits but man is the means to beget another man. You also said the soul of man can only be created by God’s creative ability and in that state, his creation is perfect. It is also true that the human soul isn’t created in thousands and stored up for a body to assume them. that the laws of procreation which must be triggered by man as designed by God must take place for a soul to exist. You said It is through this means that a human soul can be created. That the human soul takes on a sinful nature from birth is a function of the means set by divine laws which are already condemned.
I want to add that, according to Genesis 2:7, God did not make a body and put a soul into it like a letter into a white or brown envelope. God formed man’s body from the dust and breathed divine breath into it. God made the body of dust to live the dust did not embody a soul, but it became a soul.
Although some argue that a living soul begins when the human embryo first begins development before birth. It is worth noting that the bible does not support any of these positions.

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I agree that Sin is not in the original creation. The Bible tells us in Genesis 1:27 “God created man in his own image” and this image implies personal holiness, righteousness, and freedom from sin God is not the author of sin, in his holiness, God is without sin or any evil. The age-old question of where and how sin began has been explored by so many scholars, yet none can give a completely definitive answer. As Christians, we should be grateful to God and satisfied with his sovereign will and grace. Romans 11:32 states “for God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all” God has chosen to save us through the blood of his son as a display of his sovereign mercy.
We also realized that, because we were converted from sin and washed through atoning blood, God is glorified in his son, and in the power that his grace provides, enables us not to sin.
A proper understanding of this has helped us in our Christian race. We know for sure that sin is not part of the original creation, nor was it decreed by the creator’s will. But the first man Adam and his wife Eve fell in the Garden of Eden and so sin began. Roman 5:12 states that, just s sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way, death spread to all people because all sinned.
The good news is in Roman 5:17 which states “for if because of one man trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ”. Hallelujah

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done

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The bible assures us of the following things about God’s unchanging nature. God will not change towards us with his promises. Any seeming change in God’s dealings is from humanity point of view not God. Every time God changed his mind it was in favour of man not against man. The scripture tells us about God relenting or repenting of what he said he would do, each instance is in regard to punishment, it is never a case of God promising to do something ood and then changing his mind. His promises to us will not be broken.

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The five actions demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ , teaching us the law, purifying the unclean, cleansing the temple, forgiveness of sins, shows his priestly vocation. Jesus Christ did not assign himself that title, but his actions are unmistakable. In His earthly life, Jesus acts like a priest and also offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins, In Hebrew 5, Paul explained how the high priest in Israel was a symbol of the real high priest, Jesus Christ how made the ultimate atonement for the sins of the whole world and then, entered into the presence of his father.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, doesn’t just fulfil the priestly role, he actually supersedes it with a greater eternal priesthood. Jesus accomplished the work of reconciling us to God.

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The five actions demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ , teaching us the law, purifying the unclean, cleansing the temple, forgiveness of sins, shows his priestly vocation. Jesus Christ did not assign himself that title, but his actions are unmistakable. In His earthly life, Jesus acts like a priest and also offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins, In Hebrew 5, Paul explained how the high priest in Israel was a symbol of the real high priest, Jesus Christ how made the ultimate atonement for the sins of the whole world and then, entered into the presence of his father.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, doesn’t just fulfil the priestly role, he actually supersedes it with a greater eternal priesthood. Jesus accomplished the work of reconciling us to God.

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In John 16;8 Our Lord Jesus Christ promised to send the Holy Spirit to convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement: here we see a three fold ministry that the spirit will perform in relation to the unsaved world, He will convict the world of sin, because they do not believe in him, of righteousness because he is going to the father, and they will not see him again and of judgement because the ruler of this world is judged.

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Jesus is the fulfilment of the Hebrew scriptures. The Book of Hebrews compares and contracts Jesus to key historical people and events from the bible. Through these comparisons, we see his superiority. He is greater than the Angles, the Torah, Moses, the promised land, earthly priests, sacrifices, and the covenant, He is the hope for a new creation, our eternal priest, and the perfect sacrifice. Although the author of Hebrews remains a mystery because even as learned as Origen, had to admit his ignorance of the true author. But the fact remains that the Epistle of Hebrews makes important theological contributions to the biblical Canon.

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the Old testament has a rich record of the work of the spirit, but he was not poured out on all flesh under the old covenant, instead some selected few were filled with the holy spirit of God for specific assignment; like Joseph, Daniel, Elijah, Elisha, Moses, Ezekiel etc

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The fall of man is really the transition from the state of innocence to the state of being guilty. It is generally believed that the fall brought sin into the word, thereby corrupting the entire natural world, including human nature, causing all to be born into original sin whereby they cannot achieve eternal life. But thank God for Grace which has been made available for us. God the father sent Jesus Christ to this earth, he died for us. He who knew no sin , gave his life as a sacrifice for us and redeemed us from sin.’1 Timothy2;6, ‘he sacrificed himself for all people to free them from their sins’. 1 peter 2;9 ‘But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. We have been redeemed. We are a new creation. Praise God.

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