I have been encouraged tremendously by this post.

The aposle Paul clearly describes this battle in Romans 7:15-25. Even though we have been given a new (divine) nature upon receiving salvation, every christian still has to fight the flesh (sin nature) that resides in us. The everyday battles that we face when our flesh wars against our spirit should bear witness with our spirit that we are not better than anyone else, and that apart from the grace of God, there would be absolutely nothing godly about us.

And thanks!

Only those who are truly owned by Christ see themselves as the rest of the world. I am just like my unsaved next door neighbour. I am just like my athiest friend. I am in no way better than her in thought, word or deed. I am entirely ungodly today.

It is only pride that can make us think we are any better than anyone else! I used to have that pride, even after I was saved. This is why I so agree with you when you say
“We may be granted ability to forsake gross outward sin, we may be granted restraining grace for a season to try us, for us to see where our hearts really are, but what do we see because of it? Has the eye salve been applied, that we may see that we are ENTIRELY ungodly? Or are we lukewarm in our perception of self?”

Many who proffess Christ with much zeal are blind to this truth! As you say trust Christ and leave the rest to Him. Amen. Thats all we can do, learn from Him and take His yoke, so many times we are so heavy laden by the yoke of legalism, but if only we trust Him.

Those who shout you cant be truly saved if you cant submit to Christ as Lord and all the rest of it, its just that they desire slavery to freedom. They desire to be in bondage, they know not the grace of God. Therefor they despise and mock those who are sons, the true Bride Of Christ, that is neither of the Lordship Camp or of Easy Believism Camp. They are the Bride Of Christ!

Here is some follow-up fodder on the matter.

http://www.e-grace.net/ilsrs.html
http://www.dtl.org/salvation/article/guest/lordship-1.htm

A bland and neutral definition of the term which is actually a relatively new invention being only 50 years old.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lordship_Salvation

PS: The Lord has made many opportunities for me to preach in the church foyer or parking lot, that is why your husband ought not invite those of us he considers dangerous/persuasive types into his church. We are dangerous to the status quo in religion and the persuasiveness which comes only by Holy Spirit works equally well in bathroom or the pulpit.

, hunger for Gods word, transformation of life…with scripture references listed along side of each…what I am saying is that it is not all focused on manifestation of sin in your life…it focuses on your entire life…yes, David sinned grieviously but Davids life was lived with a love for God and with sorrow and repentance and with humility and a regard to do what was right in the sight of God….
…..like I said, there are those that are legalistic as well as those who are antinomion but they do not represent all who do or do not believe in LS….I get that you are speaking to a certain group..

Better off to just truly love Him, trusting Him to work out the rest

AMEN
if anyone loves me he will keep my word and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him John 14:23
we can trust Him to work out all of the things we have been discussing..

What exactly is the will of God? And how do you know you are doing it?

what I see in scripture: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks for this is Gods will for you in Christ Jesus…1Thess 5:16-18
His will is for us to trust in His Son

Now, as to your next post about my husband, thank you for answering his question, he has graciously allowed me to have this conversation with you, against his better judgement, no doubt but I will say that we invite all to the church building, not all preach teach and serve but all are invited to come hear the word of God, and no this is not what my husbands response to you would have been, these are my words…I cannot hear your tone in your post so I may have taken that the wrong way…I certainly didnt feel love, humility or peace when I read it but I could be wrong…I spoke to the evidence earlier, I know some preach about evidence of blatant ongoing unrepentant sin as being a need to examine yourself in the light of scripture because scripture says that…I know they also preach the glory of God the Love of Christ, the love of others the fruit of the spirit, they preach it all not just sin manifestations…I have enjoyed our conversation and it has given me alot to ponder and I see a need to be careful about coming down too heavy on one issue above another…I know that if something is being percieved in a negative way then it must be examined in the light of scripture….as far as our original post on the dual nature I will continue my study as it is something i never even gave a second thought…I wish you peace and joy in your walk with the Lord….

Summed up reasonably well here.
http://www.realtime.net/~wdoud/topics/sinnatur.html
Or here
http://www.gracenotes.info/topics/sinnatur.html

Edit to add:
An excellent example of the moral ascetic was Jonathan Edwards. If you read his resolutions you found he had very high aims, yet for something so base as the sake of vanity he shaved his head and wore a wig to fit in with the bigwigs.

He is a brother in Christ, but moral asceticism of his resident sin nature often got the better of him, which the Lord made manifest in his vanity.

Might as well add this as well.
http://www.fashionencyclopedia.com/fashion_costume_culture/European-Culture-17th-Century/Wigs.html

Answer to his question: Trichotomy with dichotomous natures.

It is always fascinating to watch a heretic justify his heresy as ‘not so bad’. Almost akin to asking Hitler’s opinion of his eugenics program.

Nevertheless instead of just saying he was wrong, and denouncing the heresy properly, he goes into how Augustine was so humble in reconsidering his own ‘little errors’ attempting to attribute that humility to himself. He just never gets any better…. The Devil has his counterfeits for nearly every grace of God, the only one he has not been able to counterfeit closely is humility.

Theologically speaking, by denying the two natures in man Macarthur attributes man’s sin after regeneration to the Holy Spirit instead of to man. To propose that there is something in man’s new nature that sins…. thereby attributes that sin to the nature put forth of the Holy Spirit in the second birth. Your nature is that which you are born with, the first nature comes by natural birth, the second nature by spiritual birth.

Define submit.

As ‘submit’ is currently defined by LS advocates you have to write Solomon out of heaven, David out of heaven, the smoking Spurgeon out of Heaven, the fat Moody out of heaven, the list gets pretty long….

These men did not submit to the will of God when they overate, smoked, killed, and idolized, yet they loved God and each of these men are His. The LS interpretation of Matt 7:21 would have them cast out of heaven, but we do believe these men are children of God, therefore the will of God must be something different than that proposed by LS advocates.

Better off to just truly love Him, trusting Him to work out the rest.

http://www.theinvisiblechurch.ca/edify/What_is_Love.html

What exactly is the will of God? And how do you know you are doing it?