What causes a person to sin? It would
obviously have to be our sinful natures; by nature we are naturally sinful! We
were never taught to sin, which person has ever paid for a schooling program or
a course headed; “Learn how to sin with more effectiveness”? That would be
preposterous! We are born sinners and therefore need to be saved from it! The
skin of sin not so easily shed, a snake sheds its skin but under examination
the new skin has exactly the same components as its previous layer. We can try
as we will to attend courses full of varying ideas or even pay visits to shrink
after shrink and we may even learn to cover up our sin with more proficiency as
time moves along. For now, sin with all its cunning trappings is here to stay.
Did you know that God shortened the
lifespan of man for that exact reason, sin our downfall! “The LORD saw that the
wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he
had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said,
"I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man
and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I
have made them." But Noah found favor
in the eyes of the LORD.” (Genesis
6:5-8)
Take an alcoholic as our example, with
the help of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) he may well and truly give up drinking
for the rest of his life. A marvelous achievement! but will that free him from
his sin? It may free him from some of the sins associated with drinking, no
differently I suppose to a cocaine addict who now no longer behaves like he
once did whilst wired out of his mind. Certain sins will become more controlled.
Nevertheless, will that stop him from blaspheming if he was prone to do it
whilst drinking, or will he stop lying when in a deadlock, what of his thoughts,
will he now never have an improper thought about another woman besides his
wife? I think not! In fact I know he will continue to struggle in that area of
his life; we all will need to deal with sin and its viciousness on a daily
basis as it looks to trip us up in one form or another. Sin an enemy of God and
His holiness!
The Apostle Paul teaches us that in
Christ we have become new creatures and old things have passed away; “Therefore, if anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has
come.” (2Corinthians 5:17)
Why is it then that those outside of
Christ love to coin the phrase, “and you call yourself a Christian”! We as
Christians have been called to walk in a certain manner and yet we fail so
often, why? What is it that feeds sin and keeps it alive? Well obviously the
father of all sin, the devil plays his part, we certainly tend to overlook the
unseen and for that exact reason; the spiritual realm can’t nor ever will be
seen with the natural eye! Therefore those who are blind to it will never truly
understand, that is a given! However this does not excuse our sin, we have been
called to walk in Christ’s footsteps. The Apostle Peter gives us this
encouragement; “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of
the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the
Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may
see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” (1Peter 2:11-12) – Realistically as hard
as this may be to accomplish, we have been called by God to fight for this reality
in our lives. Forgive me Father God, how I have failed in this area of my life!
Nevertheless when I have breath I have hope, there is still daylight left to
rectify the areas of my life I have dismally failed in.
What a great gracious
God I serve, A God of forgiveness, a God of loving kindness, a Saviour who saw
it through unto the end, costing Him his life and all because I and so many
others needed rescuing! How easily we forget His struggles to set us free,
forgive us Father God! Whether saved or unsaved we have all received an
invisible mechanism called the “conscience” that affects the way we openly
live. Call it the “rudder of life”. It steers our lives to live in a certain
manner. But once those original boundaries have been severely seared, the
person who ignores their conscience will end up shipwrecked. What then are these
borders; I am persuaded that the boundary to our conscience is the Ten Commandments.
As children we all in
one form or another start with a purer conscience but then we live life, and
then some! Who can remember the first time they told a lie? It was a trying
time, but for some lying has become a way of life; their conscience has been
seared in that area of their life. “Now the Spirit
speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith,
giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in
hypocrisy; having their
conscience seared with a hot iron;” (1Timothy
4:1-2)
I know that my conscience has been seared in
certain areas of my life and it is my responsibility to wrestle in order to
find grace to have the numbness restored. Without it I will remain defeated!
But God has conquered all! My trust is in Him to restore what the canker worm
has eaten. So fight I must! I can remember being newly saved and being carried by
the Lord Jesus, an abundance of grace with very little effect the order of the
day; it was a happy go lucky time of my Christian life; very little seemed to
get in the way of my commitment to the Lord. But eventually the time of testing
arrived, no differently to a toddler having to take their first step. It wasn’t
the fall that was the problem; we all stumble and fall along life’s journey,
but it was the sweeping of it under the carpet of my conscience that has the decaying
effects later on in life, and then before long what once was unacceptable had
now become acceptable. Shocking!
I am sure I am not alone with this realisation to
the flaws we find in our Christian lives. Nevertheless we must not let these
areas get away from us and if they have we must find God’s grace to spool them
in. Sin has a natural way of playing itself out. However the Christian has been
afforded the opportunity to call upon the great “I AM”, the God who has no
beginning nor end as we understand it, the Christian can approach a throne room
full of His graces to help them overcome! They alone (Christians) have been afforded
this dependable privilege and all because of the wonderful obedience of their Saviour,
the Lord Jesus Christ!
The
reality of it all; when we sin, we place our own lusts (wants) before our
remembrance of what it cost the Lord to die for our sins! This is a very
painful thought! The Apostle James teaches us this; “What causes quarrels and
what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” (James 4:1) – He then hits home hard with this
truth; “You ask and do not
receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not
know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever
wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:3-4)
The
writer of Hebrews explains it like this and I think once we get a glimpse of
the point he wants us to grasp, it will most certainly help us in the days to
come with our ongoing struggles. “For because he himself has suffered when
tempted, he is able to
help those who are being tempted.” (Hebrews
2:18)
Sin
will continue to tempt us until our dying day!
With
those thoughts now in mind what will we do with them? “Therefore, as the Holy
Spirit says, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as
in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers
put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked
with that generation, and said, 'They always go astray in their heart; they
have not known my ways.' As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my
rest.'"” (Hebrews 3:7-11)
It
is the little foxes in our lives that can easily spoil the vine; they damage
the fruit to our lives… “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an
evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But
exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened
by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if
indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.” (Hebrews 3:12-14)
I am sure that we all
have areas in our lives that we are not overjoyed about, thank God for our
nagging conscience that keeps at us about the same issues in life. Today then
must be a day of reckoning as we sincerely look to straighten that which is
crooked, may God help us remember what it cost His Son to set us free from the
bondage of sin. It is the dog that returns to his own vomit, and we are
certainly not dogs, but children of the Most High! If we are indeed His children!
All glory and honour belongs to our King, praise the mighty name of Jesus Christ
our Lord, now and forever more, Amen!
Signing off
Tyrone
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