Should we still hunger for the presence of God since we have the Spirit within? It's funny because often the same people who say you shouldn't hunger also say things like they don't fast they just feast. But how do you feast if you're not hungry? The way I see it is, to use an example, is that I don't hunger after my wife in order to be married to her, I hunger after her because I love her and I want intimacy with her. We don't seek God or hunger for God for union - we already have that, we hunger after Him or seek Him for intimacy. Hunger and seeking has to be involved. Walking in the Spirit and deep intimacy with God is not just automatic. If it was then every believer would be walking in the Spirit and intimacy with God 24/7 but this is definitely not the case. We have to do something about it, which I believe God loves and responds to! Sometimes in all the busyness my wife and I cannot spend much time together. I think something would be wrong if I didn't start hungering for her! The more I'm away from her the more I hunger for her and long for her. It doesn't mean that I feel like we're not married anymore. If my hunger is to be married to her again then my hunger is wrong! But if my hunger is simply because I want to spend time with her and be close then my hunger is appropriate and good! Hunger is healthy in a relationship.
When hungering is based on a misunderstanding of grace then obviously hungering is wrong. If a believer feels they have lost their union with God and therefore they must hunger and seek him to get it back then they are misguided and their hungering is wrong. Or if they think the more hungry they are the more it will earn a good response back from God and cause him to receive them more, that's wrong.
Regarding "we don't have to hunger for the presence of God because we have the Spirit within". It sounds good in theory but in practise it generally leads Christians to becoming very dry and not actually knowing the Holy Spirit. There's a big difference between having the Spirit within and walking in the tangible presence of God. Many Christians have the Spirit within yet never experience the transforming presence of God. They mostly just have a cerebral understanding of the Holy Spirit within. I'm a grace person who has the Holy Spirit within yet I still hunger and seek the presence of God! The thing that many people don't understand is that walking in the Spirit is not automatic, you have to "get in the Spirit". The natural default setting of this world is to walk in the flesh (body and mind realm). We live in the flesh realm (physical and mental) and interact with this world and other people through the flesh realm. Even though we are spirit beings and have access to the spiritual realm we still have to get in the spirit. The default setting of all Christians is to be in the flesh until they actively get in the Spirit. There's no need to argue about Scripture on this one as it is simply what we observe happening all over the world. It's only those believers who get into the Spirit that walk in the Spirit. To get in the Spirit involves worship, prayer, praying in tongues, encountering God's presence, aligning our hearts with Christ and His Gospel, feeding on good spiritual food - (the anointed Word with revelation), soaking in God's presence and renewing our mind. So to stop Christians from hungering actually just puts them in a passive position and will have them fool themselves thinking they're walking in the Spirit when actually they're just in the flesh. Getting in the Spirit is an active thing. It involves hunger. It involves seeking! Now the better our understanding of grace is the easier we'll be able to get in the Spirit because we're not going through all our Old Covenant lists of things to do in order to get right with God or get back in fellowship with God or get righteous again! We simply step straight in! And then go deeper and deeper into the Spirit and presence of God! I've tried not hungering and I've tried hungering and by far hungering is better! Stay hungry for the presence of God and enjoy walking in the spirit with Him on a daily basis.

Our sins were a debt in our spiritual bank account that we had no way of clearing. One day the demand would be made upon us to settle this debt or be cast into a fiery prison. What a fearful thought knowing a hellish reckoning is coming without a single hope within ourselves of avoiding it! Our only hope is that someone else would reconcile our debt for us. Then enters Christ who settled our debt by becoming our sin for us and then giving us his perfect righteousness. In Christ God is no longer counting our sins against us! The written record of the debt of our sins that stood against us was taken away. This means the account was not only paid in full and satisfied, but it was also shut down and removed, never to be opened again! There is no sin account with your name on it in heaven anymore! There is no place where sin can be recorded against you ever again. Your account was taken away and nailed to the Cross in Christ (Col 2:13-14). We have a new account now and it's called the gift of His righteousness. This account is an inheritance we have received. We didn't earn it and it is therefore not dependent upon us in anyway. It is full and overflowing with God's righteousness. Sin cannot affect it, it can't drain it, it can't diminish it. This account is given and maintained by grace and not our works. It is managed by our heavenly mediator and advocate, Jesus Christ (1 Joh 2:1-2). It stays as perfect and full of righteousness as much is God is perfect and full of righteousness!

Some people erroneously think that when they sin, that very sin appears in their spiritual bank account and their righteousness account goes down respectively. They believe that through repentance and asking for forgiveness that sin disappears from their account and causes their righteousness account to go back up again. They live in fear of their accounts not balancing and receiving the due consequence from God. They believe that as long as their account doesn't balance their relationship with God is compromised. If they die with an unreconciled account their is fear of what may happen. Some believe their salvation may be lost, others believe their will be other consequences. Surely this is bondage, legalism, self righteousness and a recipe for God's people to live fearful and insecure and outside of the perfect love of God which casts out fear. Surely Jesus did not die for this kind of a complicated accounting nightmare. What about all the sins committed that we may not even consider sins yet God does?, or the ones we forgot about? I'm sorry but if your righteousness is not perfect because of even a single one of your sins affecting it that you failed to clear from your account, you are NOT going to heaven! Thank God our sins cannot affect our spiritual account anymore! If you think you must maintain your righteousness through the transaction of repentance and asking for forgiveness then you are no better off than Israel under the law covenant and your eternal destiny is as unstable as theirs was. You've merely exchanged animal sacrifices with the act of repentance and asking for forgiveness and given them the exact same value.

I thank God that grace is not like that! There is no part of salvation that is our doing! Not getting it, nor maintaining it! In Christ we have a new spiritual bank account and it is full of His unending righteousness and grace. The old account of sin is gone. God made it this way! Religion cannot accept this because it still wants to offer some kind of a sacrifice or performance to get rid of sins. But faith believes what Christ has done and that it's a perfect, complete and finished work! Its our inheritance as sons of God. Not by works but by grace alone through faith in our wonderful and perfect saviour, Jesus Christ!

Watch Ryan's Youtube clip explaining John 15 in context:

John 15:1-6 verse by verse in context:

"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser."

A reference to Christ as the Messiah and that God is His Father. Jesus was declaring that life is only found in Him and that He was sent by the Father. There is no other source of true spiritual and eternal life. This is something that greatly offended the Pharisees and religious people because they refused to believe Jesus was the Messiah and therefore rejected Him. In doing so they were rejecting the Father as well. The Father sent the Son, and if you reject the Son you cannot have eternal life and the Father, the Vinedresser will remove you from the Vine.

2 "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away;"

God removes every branch that is not properly connected to the Vine. If someone is connected to the Vine then they will produce fruit (see vs 5). If you're not connected to the Vine you cannot produce fruit. Fruit here is simply true spiritual life as opposed to spiritual death in the flesh. It is not different gradings of spirituality that you better hope measure up - that's flesh, that's performance! It's simply a matter of being in Christ or not.

Bearing fruit is simply a question of being in Christ or not? If you are connected to the Vine then you don't have to try and bear fruit, fruit is the consequence of being connected to the Vine. Its righteousness and eternal life that comes from Christ. Fruit is Christ's righteousness and His eternal life flowing through you the branches. If you are not connected to the Vine then you are spiritually dead and unable to be righteous or have eternal life within yourself. Flesh cannot bear true spiritual life, aka fruit. And the Father, the Vinedresser removes those who are spiritually dead. This is a warning to those who are rejecting Christ not a threat to make believers insecure.
This isn't about gradings of spirituality that determines whether you stay saved or not. This is about "are you spiritually alive" or are you "spiritually dead?" or simply "are you in Christ or not?"

"and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit."

The branches that bear fruit are the ones that are in Christ. They share in the life of the Vine. The Father prunes these ones, and the context is with His words or rather with the message of Christ. In other words the Father cuts away our confidence in the flesh so that the life of Christ can flow through our lives and produce the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Flesh cannot produce true spiritual life and must be cut off so that the life of Christ can flow through us and manifest in the fruit of the Spirit. I love how this isn't about self effort but about yielding to the Father and trusting fully in Christ!

3 "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you."

His disciples were already clean or pruned (same word), which is to be set apart, because they had received Christ's word and believed in Him as opposed to those who had not received His word and were not clean or not set apart (sanctified.)

4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me."

We are to find our life in Christ. He is the source of all true spiritual life and fruitfulness - not the flesh. Outside of Christ is death. Jesus is not trying to build a big doctrine here of the ability to lose your salvation if you don't stay in the Vine. He is simply encouraging His disciples to source their confidence in Christ because that is the supply for all true spirituality, life and fruitfulness.

5 "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing."

Again Jesus is reinforcing the need to have faith in Him and not self effort as the Pharisees and unbelievers do. This is the contrast Christ repeatedly made throughout His earthly ministry.

6 "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned."

This is to those who do not find their source of life in the Vine, Christ. These are those who are trusting in the flesh and not Christ. Who are not truly connected to the Vine. They are not abiding in the Vine. They cannot produce true spiritual life. They will eventually be cast into the fire - a clear reference to hell. Only those who have faith in Christ will be saved. This is not a threat to believers that if they don't continue in Christ they'll lose their salvation. Yes it sounds a bit like it and you could make it say that but that does not carry the heart and the context of when Jesus is saying.

Often these verses get used to try and scare believers into action for God in fear of not producing enough fruit with the consequence of losing your salvation. But this is most certainly not what Jesus was communicating. In fact that is the exact opposite of what he was saying. He wasn't trying to whip up people's flesh and get them earnestly seeking to produce fruit by sheer willpower and white knuckle sweat and effort. He was trying to get their faith and their confidence in Him and see to Him as their source of true spirituality and fruitfulness in life.

1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Click here to watch my full sermon explanation of 1 John 1:9 (37 minutes, HD)

Or Short Youtube clip explanation (1:47sec).

 Question:

Is this verse speaking to believers or unbelievers?

This a very important distinction. If it's speaking to believers then it means when we sin we become unrighteous again until we confess our sins and are forgiven again of our sins. If that is true then Jesus dying on the cross didn't deal with all of our sins. I don't know about you but I believe that the Cross was powerful and effective enough to deal with all of our sins!

1 John 1:9 was written to believers but for unbelievers.

In order to understand any scripture you have to ask 3 questions:

1) Who was it written to?

2) Why was it written?

3) How does it apply to us today?

The book of 1 John was written to believers but parts of it were written to address the error of Gnosticism which in part is not believing in the existence of sin.

1 John 1:6-10 is addressing people who don't believe in the existence of sin. They are therefore considered to be "walking in darkness" or a lie and are therefore not

saved.

Two key verses that show us this context are:

1 John 1:8 "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not

in us."

1 John 1:10 "If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is

not in us."

If you don't believe in the existence of sin you cannot be born again. Your belief undermines the Gospel by removing a need for a savior. If there is no sin then there is no need for a savior. Why would you call upon a savior that you don't believe you need? If you don't believe in sin then you don't believe you need the blood of Jesus to cleanse you from sin. This is the description of those who are walking in the darkness of a lie. If they were to come into the light by confessing or acknowledging their sin then the blood of Jesus would cleanse them of that sin as verse 7 and 9 explain:

1 John 1:7 "But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin."

1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Notice how both verses say that we are cleansed from "all" sin. This is because in the New Covenant being cleansed of sins is a once off act. It's not an ongoing act as in the Old Covenant. In the Old Covenant the blood of bulls and goats were continuously offered and could only cover sins but in the New Covenant the blood of Christ was offered once for all and it removes sins! (Hebrews 10 explains all this.)

Hebrews 10:10 says that through the blood of Jesus we have been made holy once and for all.

Hebrews 10:12 says that Jesus offered one sacrifice for all sins for all of time.

In others words Christ's one sacrifice was enough to completely remove all you sins for all of time.

His sacrifice was superior to the Old Covenant sacrifice in that it doesn't need to keep being offered in order to keep covering sins. It was offered once to completely remove sins!

That is why 1 John 1:7 and 9 are clear references to someone who is not born again, that if they would acknowledge their sin and their need for a savior then God is faithful to forgiven them and cleanse them of, not just their past sins, but all of their past and future sins once and for all time!

That is why chapter 2:1 says that if you do sin you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. An advocate is someone who speaks on your behalf and pleads your innocence. Christ is the perfect one to do this for us because in Him we have become perfect, and His blood has removed all our sin for all time, therefore no sin can ever be counted against us. We have a new legal status in Christ that says "not guilty", "not condemned" and He is our advocate and our defense that pleads our legal status – even if we do still sin! Of course this doesn't mean it's ok to feel free to go and sin. The first part of the verse says "I write this to you so that you don't sin, but if anyone does sin we have an advocate..."

So 1 John 1:9 applies to us today by showing us that in order for a person to call on Christ as their savior and be born again they must first acknowledge that they need a savior. Once they do that then He is faithful to forgive them and cleanse them of all unrighteousness. 

It applies to us by showing us that in order for a person to come out of darkness and lies they must see the truth of themselves and of Christ.

It applies to us by showing us that it's not ok to just consider everyone a brother or sister since those who walk in the darkness have yet to come into Christ and become a brother or sister. We must help them come into Christ by showing them truth and not to agree with them in their deception.

So when you do proper hermeneutics of 1 John 1:9 it becomes abundantly clear that it is not to be applied to a believer saying they have to be continually forgiven and cleansed of sin, since this completely undermines the very heart of the Gospel and the sacrifice of Christ. But it is to be applied to unbelievers who don't believe in sin and therefore do not cry out to a savior to forgive and cleanse them of all sin.

Lets be responsible with Bible interpretation so that we don't put people under the Old Covenant but help them walk in the wonderful freedom and power of the New!