If we choose to live in the appetites of the flesh we truly will die when we die physically, because the life we have been living, even though it is Christian in name, is mortal and not eternal. All that has been our life on the earth will perish with the ceasing of our heartbeat. We will be left a naked spirit—similar to Adam and Eve when they died. We will be made manifest at the Judgment Seat of Christ and will receive the things done in our body. Whether or not Christ will choose to restructure our personality and bring us into His new heaven and earth is His decision entirely. The Father judges no individual but has committed all judgment to the Lord Jesus.

If we would attain the resurrection from the dead we must be diligent in following the Spirit of life into putting to death the sinful, rebellious deeds of our mortal body.

Notice that the Holy Spirit leads us in putting to death the works of our flesh. We put them to death through the Spirit of God.

The tribes of Israel were not required to fight in order to escape from the power of Pharaoh—God did it all for them. But the tribes did have to fight in order to enter Canaan.

We Christians did not have to fight in order to escape from the authority of Satan's kingdom; Christ wrought the redemption by Himself on the cross of Calvary. But we do have to fight in order to enter eternal life in our mortal body. We must put to death the satanic lusts that dwell in our flesh. Through Christ's power we are enabled to overcome the power of Satan.

Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. (Hebrews 4:1)

I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. (Jude 1:5)

The Apostle Paul was pressing with all his strength toward the goal that God had set before him. Also, Paul warned the churches repeatedly that if the saints did not put to death the deeds of their body they could not inherit the Kingdom of God.

The Epistles of the Apostles, and the four Gospel accounts as well, are filled with dire warnings concerning the consequences of continuing in sin after we have received Christ as our Savior.

For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. (II Peter 2:20)

And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 25:30)

The New Testament does not offer a gift of Kingdom glory to every individual who makes a profession of Christ as Savior. Rather, the New Testament teaches in many places that the saint must exercise total diligence in pressing into his inheritance.

To be continued.