February 7 ~

Don't you know your bodies are members of Christ? ... Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price ... Strip off your old self ... as it follows the desires that deceive you ... according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience ... Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of ...
1 Cor.6:15 (Beck); 6:19-20 (RSV); Eph.4:22 (Beck); 2:2 (NAS); Lk.9:55 (KJV)

No independence of existence can
I claim to have, nor any other man!
Thou by Thy Spirit doth my body give
its breath of life. By Thee doth all flesh live!
But then my daily thought-emotion life
comes either into me by Jesus Christ
or by the foe (whose thoughts in me comprise
my curs'd old nature, old self, built from lies).
In Christ I either am, and God obey,
or, heeding Satan-Self, God disobey.
What counts with God at any given time
thus is what manner of a spirit I'm:
the old self's, which comes from the evil one;
or the New Self's, which stems from - is - the Son!

If he should take back his spirit to himself, and gather to himself his breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust ... be transformed by the renewing of your mind ... be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth ... "I am ... the Truth" ... "Abide in Me, and I you" ...
Job 34:14-15 (RSV); Rom.12:2 (NAS); Eph.4:23,24 (NAS); Jn.14:6 (Beck); 15:4 (NAS).

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