Monday, January 14, 2013
1/14/13
Take Your Position (Part 1)
The Art of Sinning
My (at the time) 4 year old daughter received a beautiful Bible for Christmas. I had promised her when she began reading we would get her a “big girl” Bible. She was so thrilled to open her purple “leather” Bible that had her named engraved in silvery letter on front. Now we are committed to help the little ones "hide the Word in their hearts..."
I was reading to her Genesis Chapter 4 and it was discussing the offerings both Cain and Abel brought, and the Lord’s response to them. Genesis 4:6-7 says, “6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why are you looking so sad? 7 Do what is right. Then you will be accepted. If you don’t do what is right, sin is waiting at your door to grab you. It longs to have you. But you must rule over it.”
Such a simple and straightforward way the Lord spoke to Cain. He addressed Cain’s anger, his sadness and told him how to be accepted and told him also a warning of what would happen if he continued to allow his burning anger, jealousy etc to reign. We are not under the old covenant of law because Jesus, The Lamb of God offered Himself. Praise God! But sin is still something we must overcome.
Romans Chapter 6 goes into wonderful detail about being slave to sin or a slave to righteousness that leads to holiness. A meaty chunk in Romans 6 says this, “12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! 16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.
I want to focus in on verse 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. The apostles taught, people received and the Spirit transformed. I have heard some wonderful teaching on having something legally and having something experientially. Those who confess Jesus is Lord, believing in Him, His work at the cross, and His death and resurrection, have a legal standing before the Lord. They no more belong to the devil and they inherit eternal life. There are promises in the Lord that are ours legally, but have we taken hold of them experientially, by obedience?
Legally- adj. Of, relating to, or concerned with law. Experientially- adj. Relating to or derived from experience.
In short to walk experientially is to walk in the promises, to experience the promises. Our legal standing will never be taken from us. There was a legal agreement made between you and God because of our mediator Jesus’s blood signed our covenant; our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life; it is our legal position. However, it is possible to never take hold of promises of the Lord because of our walks. This is often times a confusion point for grace versus works. We are saved by grace alone; there is NOTHING we can do to earn it. But there is now a journey for us as Christians. Attaining a life that the Bible speaks of is something we walk. Where is our experiential position in the Lord? How does this echo in eternity?
We must know and understand we live in a spiritual world, with a very real and spiritual enemy. Satan hates us; he knows he can’t have your salvation but what he then goes after is your inheritance of promises; both in this life and for eternity. If he can trap you, paralyze you, blind you with anger, bitterness, lust, jealousy, pride, addictions etc then he knows you will not live a fruitful life in the Lord while on this earth. You will have minimal impact in the Kingdom, and he knows when you come before the Judgment Seat of Christ (not the White Throne Judgment) when we are rewarded according to your works while on the earth that we will fall short of what we could have had.
2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
Matthew 16:27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.
Practicing sin is very different than sinning. As we walk in the Lord, we WILL sin. We will lose our tempers, we will have bad thoughts, we may be jealous, manipulate others, victimizing ourselves, struggle with a hidden or secret sin. But if our response when we do sin is acknowledging it as sin and asking the Lord for forgiveness as changing our choices, even if we slip several times God sees our heart attitudes and works with us in it; disciplining us and refining us and we will have areas of sin we have truly overcome experientially!
It’s so clear to understand the natural effect of practicing something; eating right, exercising, studying, a sport, a hobby etc. We all know the saying, “practice makes perfect”. Now let’s apply that to sin.
Practicing something means you aim to get better at it. The practicing of sin can be the honing in of skills like cutting people with your tongue, manipulating others to get your way, lying, cheating, boasting, even fear by not taking your thoughts captive and making them subject to Christ. But it’s never dealing with the sin; it is instead making it stronger by practicing it., making excuses for it, blaming others for it; whatever the tactic it's never dealt head on with. Just as a muscle gets bigger and stronger so will what you practice. If you practice righteousness, you will overcome. If you practice sin, it will overtake and imbalance your life and you will find yourself not living a victorious life of the promises of God, but instead a life of frustration, failure, broken relationships and repeating cycles.
As God continues to illuminate those areas, point His finger on something what do we do with it? We can see our own cycles by the same "problem" but with new people or new circumstances. Do we cry and complain to God how hard it is, how He doesn’t understand? Bargaining with Him; if He would give us “so and so” we would then do “such and such”? Or do we yield and even if it hurts, is difficult or we don’t understand, we still obey?
That is a life of overcoming! The rewards are not only for this lifetime. They echo in eternity. I will discuss that more in the next article but I want to encourage today the life on this earth. We as Christians are an example whether we want to be or not, or think we are or not. We are examples of who God is, we are to be His lights for others, we are to point to Him. Today if you would get before the Lord in a time of silence would you examine your hearts and allow God to speak to you?
To glorify God means to correctly represent Him to the world. We will all continue to sin and fall but to humble ourselves and confess our sin and allow change in our hearts we will glorify God. It’s a continuing journey. Are you walking forward or are you standing in opposition to God, refusing to yield your life? Simply stating the promises of God will not produce the fruit, but the walking in obedience. Simply stating your "legal" stance is not enough, faith without works is dead. Walk it out experientially. Overcome.
Lord, we need you. We thank You for the work that You have already done at the cross so that we can walk in the promises. Help us today Lord to be broken before you, if there is any area in our lives of “practicing sin”, please reveal it to us. Lord we desire to correctly represent You to this world and to others in the Body of Christ. Give us an understanding of overcoming and the promises we can have in this life and in eternity. In Jesus name, Amen.
