Helping self by getting to Jesus

"Ye are not your own." (1Cor. 6:19) 

"Under grace....yield ye yourselves servants to ... obedience unto righteousness." (Rom. 6:15,16).

Sanctification, what an utter essential for joining the everlasting kingdom of the unfallen creation! And sanctification is the work of a lifetime, yes it is our work! "The expulsion of sin is the act of the soul itself." But, does that mean that we are in charge of expelling our sins? Does that mean we have it in our resources to muster up the power to expel sins from our soul? Can a soul under the spell of some overmastering temptation expect to gain the victory over that temptation? No. The victory must be gained before the temptation manifests itself.

An alcoholic can't think that he can hold a bottle of hard drink and be able to eskew deranging his mind. The only way to eskew deranging his mind is to eskew anywhere a bottle might exist, including any seductive advertising exists in regard to alcohol.

But, eskewing the presence of alcohol can only be successful if Jesus gives the conviction, and that conviction leads to repentance and pleading for His power to obey the conviction.

This is exactly what Paul did after all else failed. Over and over he hard charged his conviction and was rebuffed by his spirit hormones to cover. Nothing worked in terms of victory over the lusts of his flesh. Finally Paul surrendered in total helplessness. 

It was at the point of surrendering up sanctification that the Spirit of Christ appeared to him. Paul learned in a split second that the Spirit, the love of God Himself, and His Son suspended must be the active agent in our victory over sin. Being loved made all the difference in eskewing sins.

Being accepted in the Beloved, in the bosom of God with Christ, Paul could "mortify the deeds of the body". To will was now present with him, and how to perform the good thing he found the power to do it.

Only by Paul allowing Jesus to fit through a very small gap in his will when he gave up trying to get sanctified without the vision of Christ's body, did he get the power to overcome his lusts. Until that breakthrough he was nothing more than a Bible wielding megalomaniac. And the same will happen to us all if we try to follow his pattern and succeed in conquering .

a sin.

"The expulsion of sin is the act of the soul itself. True, we have no power to free ourselves from Satan's control; but when we desire to be set free from sin, and in our great need cry out for a power out of and above ourselves, the powers of the soul are imbued with the divine energy of the Holy Spirit, and they obey the dictates of the will in fulfilling the will of God." The Desire of Ages, p. 466.