Dealing with Sin

 Sin starts in the mind, at least that is my experience. I think something selfish or untoward about others. I might start verbalizing my thoughts, depending on that inner drive to get some attention or make my complaint (or boasting or whatever) known. I also might act on it, like avoid the person that upsets me, or be snippy with other people, or tell tales that are ought not to be told.

Most of the time I’m quickly aware of what I’m doing and want to make it right. Not always, but if joy is gone, I know that I’ve a need to confess. Here is where today’s devotional offers good advice. The verses about confession are clear:

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:6–10)

Even though I have known and made much of verse 9 being vital to spiritual growth, getting to it has a couple of detours. One is being surprised that I thought or did the selfish thing and am suddenly discouraged and want to give up thinking I will never able to conquer that thing, whatever it is. Usually a repeat.

The other problem is calling it an infirmity that is simply part of life and refusing to be candid and above-board about it. This is a reflection of Satan’s words: “Oh, it really isn’t so bad.”

Either of these two excuses is fatal to any real growth and progress in the life of holiness. The only way is to face the sad fact at once, call the thing by its right name, and discover, if possible, the reason and the remedy.

Rarely is the reason an infirmity. God promises to supply all my needs. I’m not physically infirm (blind, deaf, crippled, etc.) nor are we suffering poverty, difficulties with family or neighbors or in our church. I’m not lonely, afraid, depressed, nor struggling with anything more than a lot of ambition and less energy and time to take care of the necessities of being a wife, mom, gran, homemaker, etc. I am also thankful for God’s goodness and yet I still can be overcome with selfishness.

This says much about the latent power of that old dead nature. It does keep trying to rise again, yet Jesus declares it dead to Him and me alive to God. Such a war, yet that Word of God promises victory, if not now, certainly eventually.

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (1 John 3:2–3)

Again, life with Christ requires total honesty with Him and with myself. Sin is only a momentarily disturbance as long as I deal with it honestly. Today’s devotional reminds me that any failure, sudden or otherwise, is no reason for being discouraged and giving up all as lost. The integrity of what I believe is not touched by my failures. Because of Christ, this is my walk, not my state before God. The highway of holiness is not a place but a way. Sanctification is not a thing to be picked up at a certain stage of our experience and forever after possessed; it is a life to be lived day by day and hour by hour. I may for a moment turn aside from a path, but the path is not obliterated by my wandering and can be instantly regained. Such is the grace of God.

PRAY: Salvation is complete and assured. Not because of my performance but because of Your shed blood, Your grace and forgiveness. Jesus, You are the reason I live and my hope. Even when I stumble, You pick me up, dust me off, hear my prayers, and give me deep joy. For this, I love You and eagerly look to You, even when flat on my face. Thank You so much for all that You are and do.

Dealing with sin . . .

Hiding and covering them up are useless ways to deal with my sin. These tactics give me headaches, knots in my stomach and the reputation of being a hypocrite. It is very opposite to the heart of God. He has a better plan.

“O you who love the Lord, hate evil! He preserves the lives of his saints; he delivers them from the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name!” (Psalm 97:10–12)

Dealing with sin is about loving God. On a human level, if my hubby asked me to have supper ready for 6:00 so he could get to a 7 o’clock meeting, and I totally ignored him, what does that say about my love for him? If my children are sick or in trouble and I went shopping rather than going to their aid, what does that demonstrate?

Loving God begins a new way of life. One of the changes is a total shift in my opinion of evil. While it drags at my pant legs like an annoying stray dog, hating evil means not stooping to pet it, not feeding it, not thinking it is attractive. While a swift kick cannot rid me of sin like it might discourage that stray, God gives the solution, from both the Old Testament and the New.

“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” (Proverbs 28:13)

“If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:6–10)

Clearly any hiding or concealment does not fool God. This tactic usually does not fool others either. The solution is confessing or ‘saying the same thing’ as God says about sin. Nor can I deny it lest I fall into self-deception and lies.

The promise of God is forgiveness. It requires confession, but it also requires the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus died to pay my penalty for sin. God does not forgive in an arbitrary way but only on the basis that Jesus has satisfied His wrath and taken upon Himself God’s righteous judgment of sin. This is important. Hatred of sin begins with God. He knows what it does to us; it separates us from Him and that is not what He wants. It also destroys our lives.

Today, Tozer writes about persecution. Sometimes we are opposed because of a godly life, yet the opposition may come because of an obnoxious personality or other traits that irritate people. Tozer points at Christians who hide their unpleasant traits behind verses of Scripture. He also mentions that a believer might live without doing what we might call the “biggies” like murder or adultery, but can be guilty of greed, self-righteousness, or other ‘socially acceptable’ behaviors. That believer might even be unaware of this, nevertheless, those sins will turn others off to God even more than more visible sins.

For me, this is important. I’ve said that God begins pruning with a large axe, then uses pruning shears, and finally goes at me with a small scalpel. His hatred of sin is there only because of His love for me, His desire that I am blessed and become all that He created me to be.

^^^^^^^^

Jesus, You know the sins I need to confess before I know them. You are so gracious to expose them to me at the right time so that I will hate and confess them. I realize this is a life-long process, but with each confession comes forgiveness and cleansing. I also am lighter, can see more clearly, have greater energy for the things that matter and am able to drink more deeply from the water of life. You are such a great blessing. Thank You from the depths of my heart.

What to do about sin

In a dream last night, I realized something I’d not seen (or admitted) in the daytime; I’ve a very bad attitude towards another person, even to the point of wishing that person would die. I woke up feeling terrible and not at all happy with myself.

Should I be shocked? I know what God says about sin, but had not recognized this particular sin was in my heart. The Lord drives home the truth of today’s verse:

“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” (Romans 5:12)

Chambers’ devotional is pointed right at the problem. God’s estimation of humanity is based on the disposition of sin that began with Adam and has permeated all of us. Sin is that disposition to run my own life, be my own god, insist on my right to myself, rather than letting God change my life.

When theologians say that sin is total depravity, they are not saying that people are totally evil, but that this sinful selfishness has permeated every part of us. As Chambers says, this sinfulness “may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has the one basis, my claim to my right to myself.” It is that selfish disposition that produces sin.

Jesus pays no attention to whether people live according to “all the forces of evil in them” or are “clean living and moral and upright.” Rather than considering the “moral degradation of the one or to the moral attainment of the other” He looks at that sinful nature, that disposition to have my own way, do my own thing, even to save myself as I forget, ignore, or refuse the will of God.

Like the color of my skin, or my DNA, I am born with sin. I can cover it up, but I cannot change it. Only God in Jesus Christ through the Redemption worked on the cross can anyone escape sin’s condemnation.

Sin is a terrible heredity. No one can escape it. We all do sinful things, yet our sinfulness is not the final condemnation. Jesus came to die for our sin and grant us eternal life. Does that mean every sinner is set free from the penalty for rebelling against God? No, because the sins we do are not what separates us from God.  To this, Jesus says a most remarkable thing:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” (John 3:16–19)

When Jesus Christ confronted me more than forty-five years ago, He opened my eyes to what He had done to deliver me from a life of sin and the horror of sin’s consequences. The response called for was putting my faith in Him. Had I had refused, that would be what Chambers calls “the moment I began to get the seal of damnation.” Unbelief and refusing the remedy of Christ’s redemption is what separates sinners from God.

This morning I’m reminded that my sin is covered by the blood of Christ, but I am still fighting that selfish old nature. I’m to abide in Christ and be obedient, but still fight that sinful nature and sometimes go back to running my own life. When I do that, Jesus has this answer:

“If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:6–10)

The only remedy for sin after becoming a Christian is the same as it was before I became a Christian: admit that I sin; don’t try to hide it. Confess it to God and He is faithful. Because of Jesus Christ, He stands ready to forgive me, to purge that sinful hatred from my heart, and replace it with His love.

As soon as I do that, my sinful attitude begins to fall away — because Jesus keeps His promises.

Stay near the Cross

Another mark of the mind of Christ is a clear awareness that this world is a battlefield between good and evil. This is obvious, yet a battle often more subtle goes on in a smaller field. It is the conflict that goes on in my life between the flesh and the Spirit. Galatians 5:16–26 describes it . . .

Conflicting desires. “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”

Flesh can mean several things, but in this context, it is the “psychological aspect of human nature which contrasts with the spiritual nature.” That is, my flesh is about human reasoning and desires in contrast with those aspects of thought and behavior which relate to God and the spiritual life.

Conflicting choices. “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”

This passage does not say that if I am led by the Spirit, those desires of the flesh will go away. It does say that if I follow God’s leading, then the law of God no longer condemns me. However, this is not passive . . .

Conflicting Behavior. “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

The flesh has inordinate and evil desires. This list is obviously both, but not all of those fleshy desires scream out as being sinful. Nonetheless, if fleshy desires are followed, the end results are awful. God wants me to walk in the Spirit and follow His leading. When I do, then I have entirely different attitudes which produce godly actions instead of sinful deeds. The fleshy desires may pop up, but if my life continually being filled with the Spirit and I follow His leading, those desires will not become actions . . . but there is more.  

Continual Crucifixion. “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”

This is more difficult to express in understandable terms. “Crucify” is not used to describe anything else than being put to death on a cross. So how can anyone crucify their flesh? The implication is that by putting it to death those evil desires will be dead also.

The Bible is clear that God put me ‘in Christ.’ When He died, I died with Him. I am dead to sin and alive to God. But if certain sins persist in bothering me, I’ve not maintained repentance, which is clearly an ongoing need. However, repentance is painful and often difficult. My flesh doesn’t like it at all. In fact, I have sometimes longed for relief from that struggle and even tried to take that flesh down from the cross . . .  but when I do, it leaps to life.

Maintaining repentance means leaving it there. That is, if any jealous, or proud, or malicious, or impure thought invades my mind I must confess it and nail it up there with Jesus at once. If I begin to examine it or consider giving in to it instead of again declaring war on it, I will be in trouble. If I crucify the flesh, I cannot take a claw and draw out the nails.  

John says it this way: “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:6–10)

The cross of Jesus Christ is where the battle of good and evil were settled forever. Until our Victor returns, these skirmishes continue in the lives of His people. Yet our Commander in Chief has won the war and if I am going to win my battles, the Cross is the place where I must take them.