Weird. No one is forced into celibacy. It is on their own free will. That would be equivalent to saying single people always have abnormal sexual thoughts. LOL.

Hi,

Actually, can Christians eat foods that have been used to worship idols?

or hold joss stick?

Hi Unknown Warrior,

Can you please explain the context 'stumble' here?

what does it mean to cause a person stumbles by seeing a Christian eats foods that have been used to worship idols?

thank you.

Thank you for the clear explanation, Unknown Warrior.

How about offering joss stick to ancestors? Is it OK to offer joss stick to ancestors when in my mind, I know very clear that they aren't gods? it's just as an act of respect more than worshiping.

What should we discuss about? The application? Method?

I felt that applications and methods are not as important as knowing the Spirit first. Knowing the Spirit will determine how we experience it.

When the apostle John in 7:39 uses the words, "the Spirit was not yet" and "has been glorified", he was not referring to the Spirit in His eternal existence (with the inner life of God; it is concerned with God’s relation to us). Rather, John is referring to the Spirit in the exact sense that he presents Him in chapters 14 through 16, as the reality of Christ in the believers.

This is far different from the notion of a representative of Christ or worse, just the power of the Spirit. We have not seen that the Holy Spirit is the Triune God. The Spirit is the realization of Christ, who as
both God and man offers Himself as the life, supply, and satisfaction of His believers.

When Christ tells His disciples that He is not leaving them as orphans, that He is coming to them (John 14:18), He does so in the context of telling them that the Spirit of reality will come to indwell them (John 14:17).

So, when the Spirit comes, Christ comes; Or in other words, Christ comes as the Spirit. When John speaks of the glorification of Jesus, he is referring to a glorification that makes Christ real and available in the believers, so that He Himself can first quench their thirst and ultimately flow forth from their innermost being in a way that manifests God and glorifies Him. His glorification means His passing through death and resurrection and His coming into the believers as the Spirit of reality for their living. He became the indwelling Spirit as the reality of Himself in us.

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So in Romans 8, we walk according to our human spirit that is indwelt by the Spirit (v. 13). We set our mind on the spirit (v. 6). Then spontaneously, we shall by the Spirit put to death the practices of the body. For example, we are tempted to talk unnecessarily long in our phone call. Or we spend too much time reading a newspaper but our time with the Lord cannot compare with it. These are practices of the body that need to be put to death.

The walk whether it is prayer, singing, praying over the word, reading the Word, praying in tongue etc etc should "switch on" the "scientific" law of the Spirit of life. Then, we can put to death in v. 13. Also, there is a dispensing of the Triune God as divine life (vv. 10, 6, 11).

If those activities that we perform do not touch or contact the Spirit of reality, they are just vanity and religious fleshly doing.

Also, we follow the leading of the indwelling Spirit (v. 14) and be led by the Triune God Himself as the Spirit. Then as children of God (v. 16), we live, act and move according to the divine life in our spirit. The Spirit will witness in us, telling us that as child of God, we should not do certain things, say certain things or act certain ways.

We live not by some kind of power or representative that is "detached" from the Triune God. Rather we and Him have one life and one living in the Spirit which is the reality and application of the Triune God Himself.

......
Cheers! 

My bad that was a typo. "We have seen that the Holy Spirit is the Triune God." XD

At least someone was reading ... and I am grateful ... I suppose:P