Rotten People Belong Here — Billy Strachan

I refused to join Moses in the singing of his favorite chorus. I was sinking deep in sin. Whoopee! That was Moses' chorus, you know, in the wilderness. One of his other favorites was, All myself is my strength, My starvation is me.

I will trust me and always be afluff. Praise myself, praise myself, I am struggling within. Praise myself, praise myself, I am still bound to my sin. All myself is my strength, My starvation is me. I will trust me and always be afluff.

True Religion and Righteous Conduct

Book entitled Daily Darkness. We are in G, in your outline, G. We've just seen in F, there is a true religion that's undefiled. And the emphasis is on occupying thyself in two ways. Practice being a benefit and a blessing to other people.

And secondly, a ministry to yourself. Keeping yourself unspotted from the world. And we looked in G at the fact that there are three ways in which righteous conduct, behavior, is seen. And the first one last night was in verses one to four.

Love Without Respect of Persons

True religion is evidenced in the fact that the person that practices it works it without respect of persons. A true religionist has a love for all men everywhere. Irrespective of color, creed, tongue, nation.

And this is a hard one for Christians to accept. Because you'll find that if you go Sunday morning to some places of worship, dressed rather tatterly, you'll find that people will not sit near you, or they'll be stopped at the door and asked if you can't go down the street and bother people at the other church.

I can remember on one occasion finishing a coffee bar week, and in the middle of that week, three hippies, long-haired gentlemen that were on drugs and drink, had come to Christ midweek. And they said that they wanted to come to church tomorrow.

And I said, no, don't, you'll scare them to death. Besides, they won't accept you. He says, but they're my Christian brothers and sisters. I said, I know, but they won't accept you. I said, you'd frighten them.

I've given you a Christian friend in the neighborhood that I think you should keep in touch with until such times as your spiritual growth in the Lord is such that they can take you in, and they won't frighten you, and you won't frighten them.

We want to hear you. I said, well, all right then, come. But remember, I've warned you, you may not be accepted. So the next morning, they came straight in, giving their hymn books and prayer books at the door, and they marched right down to the front row and bang, sat right under the pulpit, while all the stalwarts of the faith with their big hats and peppermints sat under the balcony at the back.

And you could tell that they'd never been in a service before. They did everything wrong. When people knelt, they stood. When people stood, they knelt. If you said the reading was from Genesis, they wanted to know who he was.

But they really listened. And you never saw three faces glowing so much. They never missed a word of the sermon. And yet at the door of the church afterwards, as I stood there with the pastor, the first gentleman up was a rather tall, coronerly-looking type with a waxed moustache and Homburg, rose in his lapel, rolled umbrella, natty little striped suit.

And he said, did you see what was in our sanctuary this morning? If we have anything like that in our church again, I, for one, am not coming back again. This is a holy place, the dwelling place of God where I come to worship my God.

Not to sit with that kind. It's not a dos house. It's a holy place. Now, that's all I'm saying. Good morning. So the minister turned and said, well, what are you saying? I said, well, you take him up on his offer, go home at lunchtime, write him a letter and say, dear friend, don't come back again.

You're an utter hypocrite. The church is a place for sinners. It's a place for rotten people. It's a place where the rotten people can come and find mercy with their God and get peace with God and begin to live with God.

It's not a society for the clean. And I haven't found a clean person in it yet. They've all got their Achilles heel, or if you want the biblical term, the thorn in the flesh. And every Christian has his weak spot.

And you may keep the outward appearance perfect, while the inside is just like a dustbin. And it's sheer hypocrisy to keep people away. And we sing the hymn, just as I am, I come. And we won't let them come just as they are.

Let's get a haircut before you go to the altar. We get it all the wrong way around. We tell people to clean up, to get introduced to God at church. You don't. You come to church and get introduced to God as a filthy lout in order to get cleaned up.

You've got to get it the right way around. And if you don't get it the right way around, you'll keep people from the kingdom. And too long the church has presented to people, join our society and we'll introduce you to God.

Have a bath, have a haircut, put on a nice suit, come to church next Sunday, and we'll introduce you to God. And it's not in the book. It's come to church, just as you are, irrespective of what condition you're in.

And we'll introduce you to God and he'll give you what it takes to clean up. It's the other way around. I remember on one occasion going to a coffee bar and I saw a fellow come in and his head filled the doorway, at least his hair did.

And with a corny sense of humor like mine, I wondered if I could go up and put my arm around him and welcome to the coffee bar without losing my head inside his hair. So I tried it and walked up, put my arm around him and said, welcome to the coffee bar.

And I dug myself out of his hair and he looked sort of staggered at me and I brought him in and sat him down and brought him a coffee, put my hand on his shoulder as I put the coffee on the table and he turned around, looked up into my face and he was in tears.

I said, what's the matter? He said, you touched me. And I said, yes, I did. Was that wrong? He said, yeah, but you're a Christian and you're a preacher. And preachers haven't touched me in years. In fact, he said, I can't even remember when my father last touched me.

It's perfectly true. We're in a world of people, overpopulated, that can no longer communicate physically with each other without thinking it's sensual, erotic and filthy. And I said, well, I hope you're not upset by it.

He said, not really. He said, it just means you've accepted me like this. I said, well, I had to. You came in like that. So when I went up to speak, I thought, now I must get back and talk to him, but I didn't have to worry.

As soon as I finished, these mates picked him up, carried him forward, sat him in a seat in front of me and said, hey, he's going to talk to you about God. And I said, why is he going to talk to me about God?

They said, because we're going to make him, see. I said, why are you going to make him talk about God? He said, because for three years he's been like this. He has 10 O levels, 10 A levels and can't get a job because he won't cut his hair.

And he said, he said, he's gone to different churches all around the community and every time he goes, they kick him out to help him move on. And he said to us, the day and the hour that anything Christian accepts me just as I am, I'll talk to them about God.

And he said, you spoiled it tonight. You accepted him. We said, right, Charlie, you're on, you talk about God. So he was sitting there like a sheep ready for the slaughter. And so he said, OK, you might as well let me have it.

Give us all a religion. I said, well, I'm sorry. I hate religion. He's the preacher, isn't he? Yeah, who's the preacher? You're the preacher, aren't you? I said, yeah, I'm the preacher. And you hate religion?

Yeah. You're putting me on. How do you get the idea as a preacher that you should hate religion? I said, from God. Yeah. You're not going to tell me God hates religion. I said, you can't stand it. Are you a Jehovah's Witness or something?

How do you get the idea that God hates religion? I said, in the Bible. In the Bible? Yeah. I've never read that in the Bible. I said, you ever read the Bible? No. I said, that's probably why you've never read it.

So you show me that in the Bible. So I turned to one of the minor prophets. Read that. He says, I hate. Hey, he says, give me that. Who's speaking? I said, God. Through one of his prophets. Cool, look.

He hates the solemn meetings. He hates all the singing. He says, you know, God isn't as bad as I thought he was. He says, I've been in that opinion for years. I couldn't stick their solemn meetings and their long faces and their ceremonies and all their little ways of doing things and their songs.

And even I thought it was up the creek. Look, God agrees. I said, I know. He says, why? I said, because he doesn't want your religion. He wants you. He says, but every time I go to church, they stuff me with religion.

I said, that doesn't mean to say it's true. He said, but their whole book's full of religion. All the ten commandment things. I said, I know. I said, but they're there to tell you you can't be good enough.

I said, I know, I'm not good enough. I said, well, you're right for becoming a Christian. He says, but when I go to church, they tell me, you know, I have to stop doing this, that and the other thing.

I said, well, they're liars. He said, well, preachers have said it. I said, well, they're liars. He said, am I getting you right? He said, can I be frank? I said, if you want. He said, I mean, hey, Susie, Susie, come here.

And this dish came over. And he says, do I have to stop having sex with Susie to become a Christian? I said, no. He said, no. I said, no. He said, do you say that in church? I said, yes. He said, do they like you back again?

I said, not very often. I said, they'd like me to tell the lie they've told for years. And that is that if you stop having sex outside of marriage with this girl and come to church next Sunday, we'll introduce you to God.

I said, but it's not in the Bible. He said, but how about telling lies? I said, you don't have to stop telling lies to become a Christian. He said, but I've never heard this before. I said, you're hearing it now.

He said, tell me I don't have to stop telling lies to become a Christian. I said, no, you don't. Stealing. I said, you name it. You don't have to stop it to become a Christian. He said, well, that's the opposite I've ever, ever heard.

From Sunday school. And I've been in Sunday schools where we're always taught you to stop stealing. You wouldn't see God. I said, what's wrong? I said, if it depended on you stopping stealing, lying or having sex with your girlfriend to get to meet God, you'd never meet God because you can't stop it.

You're too weak. I said, and the great message of the Bible is this. God says, they hate you. Come in and meet me as an immoral person. And I will give you what it takes to stop it. You don't stop it to meet God.

You meet God to stop it. You don't stop lying to prove to God that you're acceptable. You're acceptable to God through the work of Christ and the cross to get the power of the life of the Lord Jesus in you to stop you from exercising what you are by basic nature, a liar.

And all this business of flipping people into suppressing by self effort every evil they've ever practiced in order to get a wee introductory card to heaven is downright untheological. It's not in the book.

The word of God tells us that we are totally depraved. We have no power. We cannot break sin's dominion. We cannot stop doing the things that are wrong. But Jesus Christ came and died in the cross and bore the punishment for our inability to keep God's law.

And if we will come and say, thank you for dying for us, we are forgiven for our inability to keep God's law. We then receive a living, ever present, present tense, dynamic savior in our lives to empower us to stop doing what we were doing before.

That's the gospel. Woe betide you if on personal work you spend half of your counseling session telling people when they suddenly reveal to you their own personal life, now you have to stop that if you're going to become a Christian.

There's no prerequisites. There is a genuine repentance of hating the fact that you are like that and a willingness to want to be better, but also an awareness that there's no other way to change that creature other than by receiving Jesus Christ as your personal savior into your life and to get the power you need to become different.

And the tragedy is we take that untheological idea straight into Christianity. We get you converted one night and then from there on and in Bible class, we're still preaching the same old thing. To be spiritual is to stop doing this and stop doing that and stop doing this and stop doing that and then you'll become spirit filled.

Stop 120 rotten things and you are ready to be filled with the spirit, to be controlled by Jesus. Get yourself all ready to be holy and you'll never be ready. You'll never be ready. You come just as you are.

Freedom From Sin and the Donkey's Deliverance

Just look in Mark's gospel chapter 11. There's a little story there. It's commonly known as the triumphal entry to Jerusalem. Very often we're so wrapped up seeing Christ in his entry to Jerusalem and triumph, we miss the vehicle that brought him into Jerusalem and that's the donkey.

And may I say just before I take you through this little section of God's word that should there be any similarities between the donkey and you, those similarities are purely intentional. Remember, this isn't any old donkey.

This donkey was known to God 750 years before it walked the earth because it was prophesied a way back in the Old Testament, 750 years before this very day that Jesus Christ would enter Jerusalem riding in the back of a donkey.

And if God knows a donkey's gonna be born and what he's programmed for that donkey is after it's born in life to glorify God and present Christ to people, he knows that much about you Christians. And when they came nigh to Jerusalem unto Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, he sent forth two of his disciples and he said unto them, go your way into the village over against you.

Just that one over there. You see, I know where everybody is. I know where you are. Where a donkey is, I know where you are. And as soon as you be entered into it, tell you where you'll find it just as you go through the door of the city.

You shall find a colt tied. And I'll tell you the condition it's in when you get there. It's gonna be tied. It's not free, it's tied. And yet I know what I want to use it for on the earth but the only thing is at the moment it's under the ownership of another owner.

And it has been since birth and he's got it tied. And no man ever sat on it. It's never been controlled. And I want you to take it two messages. Emancipation, loose him. Secondly, bring him to me. If that's the gospel to a donkey, it's the gospel to us.

Liberty from the dominion of sin and brought back not to a denomination, not to a system, but to a living person, Jesus Christ. And if anybody says unto you, why do you this? Say ye that the Lord hath need of him and straightway he will send them hither.

And they went their way and found the colt tied by the door without in a place where two ways met and they loosened. It was in the very threshold of the city. It could go one way or the other to make its mind up, coming to him or away from him.

And certain of them that stood there said unto him, what do you loosing the colt? And they said unto them, even as Jesus has commanded, and they let them go. And they brought the colt to Jesus. Where had it been?

Tied around its neck to a peg in the ground and it could walk forward and it could walk back. It couldn't go very far. It was limited in its liberty. And it walked itself in a little circle till it made a rut.

Every step in that circle, it knew it by heart. There was nothing new in life. I've been there before. Boredom. Frustration. Emptiness. Nothing fresh. Everything the same. And it was walking round and round even over its own dung.

Just living in dirt and filth. And I'm sure its tail and its coat and its feet were just as dirty. And what does it say there? And the disciples loosed him. And they gave unto him a packet of soap powder and said unto the donkey, Clean thyself and we shall take thee to the master.

You know, it's as frustrating for a donkey to try to scrub itself with soap as it is for you to try and clean yourself up for Jesus Christ. They brought it to Jesus as it was a smelly old donkey. Straight from its pit.

Straight from its rut. And they brought it to Jesus. And what happened? They cast their garments on it. Covered it up. Here's one of your big cover-ups in the Bible. You know what the Bible teaches us about Jesus Christ?

He is your robe of righteousness. He covers you up. So that people no longer see the dirt. Only you know it's there. And that's what some of you have forgotten. That it is there. That the shadow's there.

You've been suppressing the dirt. You've been trying to brainwash yourself into the fact that since receiving Christ and receiving his righteousness that's covered you and hidden you from public view to being what you really are.

You've tried to believe that you're no longer what you really are and that that's gone because everybody else sees you as righteous. You've said to yourself then the other thing's gone. It isn't. It's underneath it.

You've never changed. You're the same today as you've always been. But it's the righteousness of Christ that covers you. It's an imparted righteousness. No demands here to clean up. Just to receive, come to Jesus and receive the covering.

And they cast their garments on him and then he sat upon him. Because that's one of the reasons we don't like coming. We hate being sat upon. It means he's got to become the boss. And many spread their garments in the way and others cut down branches off the trees and strawed them in the way.

And they went before and they that followed cried saying, Hosanna, what a lovely little donkey. Isn't it maturing? You can easily see it's a Christian donkey now. And everybody went home praising God that now they had a marvellous donkey in the town.

Was that the outcome? They said, Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. What did the public see? Jesus on the notice. The donkey. That's how it should be. Because it's a perfect gift that cometh down from the Father above with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning.

Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth that we should become a first fruit of his creatures. And if God's prepared to have all that for a donkey and from morning until night change the whole of its life to free it from the dominion and ownership of another owner, cover all its dirt and use it to glorify him and take him to people to the extent they forgot the donkey and just noticed the saviour.

I'm sure that's kind of what he's got in mind for us. And nowhere was there a demand for the donkey to become clean enough for Jesus. And yet it staggers me the people that are under the pressure of having to maintain by self-effort a certain standard of behaviour in their local church in order to be qualified by the local believers as being spiritual.

Quite honestly, how many of you have been under such pressure? Hands up. Pushed by your peer group to keep to a certain line by sheer determination and grit of teeth to become spiritual. Do not take a tree in our garden at the moment that looks just like a dead twig and tie on lovely green leaves on the outside and pretend that it's fruitful.

They won't last. Out in the autumn and pull the leaves off. You know what you do? You leave them alone. Other powers other than human powers and the tree's power gets the old life off. And if you leave it long enough to the spring there's a new life comes through the branches and pushes what's left off.

And produces a new leaf. You won't recognise this place if you stay through to spring school. You'll be staggered at the beauty of the flowers. You keep your eye on that herbaceous border out there along that wall and along this wall and just watch the stuff beginning to come up now.

By mid-summer it's this height and full flower all along both sides. Don't have to go around encouraging it. We whip it. Pressure it into growth. The life inside takes care of the problem. No matter how much we persecute that herbaceous border never died out in all the years we've been here.

Oh and we persecute it. In September we cut some of them back. Prune them down a bit. Chop roots off. Chop old leaves off and stuff. You know you can really hack it at about but it still grows. Can't stop life.

And if you allow the Lord Jesus to become your saviour he'll take care of you. He'll do the changing. He'll give the power. He'll be the one that will say now I'm giving you what it takes to be different.

It won't be self-effort. Remember the hymn we sang? Not what I am, O Lord, but what thou art. That and that alone can be my soul's true strength. It's what you are in me, not what I am for you. That's the thing that makes the difference to your Christian experience.

And some of you have just got a bit exhausted trying to be good. I tried to be good one morning. I never tried it in the afternoon. But it didn't work. And Jesus said I'm prepared to give you the power.

I'm prepared to manifest my goodness to you if you'll just let me. So remember that. And this will help you to accept other people. This will help you to have a true religion without respective persons.

Whenever you see the crummy guy enter into church from now on, you're the first to go up and put your arm round him. Even if he's smell. And just simply say, boy, when God gets a hold of this guy, just think, he's going to really make a difference in it.

And try to be as patient with others as God is being with you. Just remember how long it's took him to get you where you are. And if you're honest, you have a long way to go. Yet the funny thing is as soon as we get somebody converted from a rather distasteful background or from another class, we expect overnight that they should move up a class.

And be tasteful. Learn to put up with all the babyhood, dirt of a newborn babe in Christ until Jesus Christ changes them. True religion works without respective persons. It accepts everybody and lets them grow in the Lord.

Welcoming Converts Through Practical Mercy

I went to one church in the south and they didn't have a pastor. And they asked me if I'd care to stay afterwards to a church meeting. And I said, yes, but I can't legislate because I'm not your pastor.

I'm only a visitor, but I'll sit. And so the deacon got up and said that some lady in the village had suggested she wanted to become a member of the church and would we admit her to baptism and member of the church.

She'd come to Christ through listening to a Billy Graham program or a decision on the radio. And boy, the women in that church got to town on her. Not yet. Oh no, she's not ready for it yet. Not for full membership and baptism.

Certainly not. I don't care if she's given a testimony. Have you seen her house? Healthy. Hadn't even put two curtains on the window to look the same. And have you seen the condition the kids are in? Dirty.

And the place is dirty. And they tore strips off her. And I had been visiting some of the homes of some of these ladies sitting in all the finery in church. And as a visiting preacher to any home, I usually get to three rooms.

My bedroom, the lounge and the toilet. Doors are kept closed. And on occasions, some of those Christian homes, the door has opened into a bedroom. You'd think a bomb hit it. And I knew that. And one lady in particular that was really hammering, one of her doors had opened and I had seen in that the rest of the house was a mess.

So I said, well, I wondered if I just might ask some questions. And they said, well, go ahead. I said, if any of you ladies from the church ever thought of bringing her into your home and showing her all through your houses what a Christian home should look like.

You ever thought of just sort of flinging open the bedroom door and saying, there, that's a Christian bedroom. That's a Christian laundry. There, that's a Christian lounge. And if you women ever thought of stopping having your little midweek meeting, your cup of tea and talking about the local gossip of who got married and who died and said that next week we won't bother having a meeting, let's go down with scrubbers and buckets and clean the house out for us.

Nobody's mentioned her husband. Who does he fit into this? Oh, he's a drunkard. I see. So how does she get the money to feed them? Well, she goes out and works to get the money to feed the kids. I see.

So she's working all day and comes home tired. Yeah. Has to contend with a drunken husband and get children off the bed. Yeah. Don't you think that might account for the dirt in the house? I say, how about this youth group?

Instead of playing table tennis on Friday night and spending more money on billiard chalk, why not buy a couple of rolls of paper and go down and paper the woman's house? Dye the cup and show her how to bake.

You ever thought of that? Express their faith and trust in Jesus Christ and ask for baptism as fast as the Ethiopian eunuch who dived off his chariot and jumped in the water. She's entitled to the waters of baptism in this church.

And Jesus Christ will make the change. So they put it to a vote and quite a few folks got up and left immediately. Didn't like the idea. But there was enough left to vote her in and to say, yes, she could have baptism and be admitted to the church.

But we don't like it, do we? We've got to keep up the show. And it matters more what you look on the outside than what you are inside. And there was even wavening hags, absolutely devoid of love inside, but all fine outside.

And they wouldn't admit her to their fellowship because she wasn't clean enough. My suggestion was that they should go down and show her how to live. And they didn't like that either. It works without respect to persons.

God's Choice and Love for Sinners

Number two, it works with God's choice in mind. Righteous behavior works with God's choice in mind. Verse five. Listen, my beloved brethren, hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to them that love him?

True religion, true righteous conduct, remembers, remembers and remembers. God's choice, he has designed the gospel to reach the poor in spirit, designed the gospel to reach the man that's poor in this world's goods, poor in this world's power, poor in this world's ability.

He's designed it in such a way that it can step down to the deep parts of depravity and bring a man up from the gutter. And don't ever forget it. And if you keep God's choice in mind that the gospel's for sinners, it should be evident in your behavior towards sinners.

And remember this, you have to hate the sin, but don't hate the sinner. Hate the sin, but love the sinner. Realize that many of them walk in utter darkness and don't even know what they're doing. I remember once visiting my own brother and his wee boy comes skipping into the room and asked his mother for a, what we call in Scotland, a jeely piece.

That's the heel of the loaf, the end piece of the loaf, spread thick with butter and jam. That's a doorstep, you know. And he came in and asked for a jeely piece, but he described the jeely piece with a few four-lettered words.

And his mother fetched him a belt that knocked her kid clean across the room and told him to get out. And she looked up at me blushing and says, I don't know where he gets it. Two or three minutes later, she was asking us to pass the loaf of sugar.

I know where the kids were getting it. They were learning it from their parents. But they had no idea that they were using profane language. They just don't know they're doing it. I can remember Grace, my wife, saying, boy, I never heard language like that in my life.

And I said, well, I'm glad you've heard it for a change. Now you know why I pray for them. Good, you've met it. But they had no idea they were doing it. Just natural. And you have to learn to love the sinner, but hate the sin.

And realize that if I can get this person introduced to Jesus Christ, he'll take care of that condition and that mess. God loves the sinner. God's at war with sin. It works with God's choice in mind. Number three, it works to fulfill the royal law.

The Royal Law of Love

It works to fulfill verses six to 13. But you have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you and draw you before the judgment seats? Do they not blaspheme that worthy name by which you are called?

If you fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, you do well. But if you have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.

For whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, do not commit adultery, said also, do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.

So speak ye, and so do as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy. And mercy rejoices against judgment. If you're going to be saved by obeying the law, you're going to have to do the law of it.

And you've got to remember this business about the law. There are those who say I'm under grace now. That means the law is out the window. That's not true. The Old Testament said of the law, this doing thou shalt get eternal life.

Thou shalt live. But nobody ever did it. So nobody ever got the life. But Jesus Christ did it. And the gospel is not this doing thou shalt get life. The gospel is acknowledge you can't do this. Come to Jesus Christ and he'll give you the life and the power to do the law.

And so you don't throw away a law. Jesus comes to fulfill the law. You receive within you the law keeper. You receive within you the only one that ever kept the 10 commandments and his name's Jesus Christ.

And there's not one jot or tittle of the law being thrown away. But you don't have to keep it at all to get eternal life. You receive Jesus Christ to get eternal life. But in receiving Jesus Christ, we should see you being a law keeper.

Why? Because you've got within you the law keeper and you can put the law into two statements. Look at Romans 13. Romans 13 verse 8. Oh no man anything but to love one another. For he that loveth another has fulfilled the law.

Can you credit that? He that loveth another has fulfilled the law. For this thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not covet.

And if there be any other commandment is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely the royal law, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

You could all have it all wrapped up in two statements. Number one, a right relationship to God. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul, with all thy body and have no other gods before him.

Then tie all the rest up in that one statement. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. And do you know why we've never loved our neighbor as ourself? Because we've never discovered. Because you've listened so much to so much preaching about crucifying self, death to the old self.

I must die daily for the you that God loves. And every time you read about death to the flesh, death to the old man, death to the old nature, death to the old self, get it right where it's meaning. That is a reference to the old ego.

That's with reference to the shadow. That's with reference to the real you inside that is opposed to God's law, that wants to be independent of God, that wants to do everything piggish under the sun. Stomp on, try to make yourself a zombie.

Don't begin to have a total disrespect for the personality that God expected you to be under his control. Because he wants you to love that person you ought to be, a complete whole personality, recognizing what you are and loving what you are when you're under the control of Jesus Christ.

And that will make your personality beautiful. That will make your personality wholesome, normal, acceptable, beneficial to other people. And if you start having a respect for yourself, you'll learn how to have a respect for other people.