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Title: Sin In Our Life Post by: Soldier4Christ on March 20, 2006, 12:07:15 PM When We Sin
When we sin, we do what we want to do rather than what He wants us to do. put ourselves above God. distance ourselves from the Father. damage my relationship with Him. damage our relationship with others. grieve the Father. hurt others. act as if we can make it on our own without God. assume on God’s grace. am on the path to destruction. discount God’s judgment. over-value momentary pleasures. sow seeds of sin into the lives of our children. block the flow of blessings from the Father. cut ourselves off from fellowship with Him. cannot be used by God. jeopardize His plans for my life. sow seeds that will produce a harvest. make it easier to sin again. dull my conscience. forfeit our reward in heaven. choose death instead of life. trample the Holy Spirit. say “no” to fellowship with God. love our sin more than we love Jesus. have been deceived. am responsible. cannot approach the throne boldly. bring guilt and shame into our life. become a slave to sin. turn away from the freedom from sin Jesus purchased with His blood. trample on the blood of Christ. am unclean. cannot serve as priest to my family. cannot speak to our family on the behalf of God. live a lie. will eventually be found out. feed the flesh. will be forgiven when we repent. will be restored when we return to the Father. Title: Re: Sin In Our Life Post by: nChrist on May 05, 2006, 11:52:03 PM "Is not Ephraim still my son, my darling child?" (from Winslow's, "The Burden Cast upon God") Perhaps a sense of backsliding from the Lord is your burden. You used to run well, walked closely with God, and loved to feed in green pastures with the flock and beside the Shepherd's tent. But you did not love the fold, and went away and walked no more with Jesus. And now the Shepherd has gone after you, and by the gentle moving of His Spirit on your heart is drawing you back with weeping, and mourning, and confession. Your departures are a grievous and a heavy burden, and like Ephraim you smite upon the thigh, and are ashamed, you are even confounded, and exclaim, "Turn me and I shall be turned, for You are the Lord my God." Come, then, poor backslider, you wanderer from the Shepherd's side, you truant from the fold, and listen to the tender, forgiving language of that God and Father against whom you have sinned. "Is not Ephraim still my son, my darling child?" asks the Lord. "I had to punish him, but I still love him. I long for him and surely will have mercy on him." (Jeremiah 31:20) Approach, you penitent soul, though a wanderer, still a son; though a backslider, still a child; and cast the burden of your backslidings upon Jesus, whose unchanging love and restoring grace are now gently and effectually drawing you back to Himself. "I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto Him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before You." Title: Re: Sin In Our Life Post by: nChrist on May 05, 2006, 11:56:46 PM Clasp that cross! Backsliding Christian, go at once to the cross! There, and there only, can you get your spirit quickened. No matter how hard, how insensible, how dead you may have become, go again in all your rags and poverty. Clasp that cross! Look into those languid eyes! Bathe in that fountain filled with blood! This will bring back your first love. This will restore the simplicity of your faith, and the tenderness of your heart. (Spurgeon) Title: Re: Sin In Our Life Post by: nChrist on May 05, 2006, 11:59:23 PM Come back! by Spurgeon- Whatever your crime has been, the Lord says, "Return you backsliding children of men, for I will have mercy upon you." He will not cast you away, poor Ephraim-- only come back to him. He will not despise you, though you have plunged yourself in the mire and dirt, though you are covered from head to foot with filthiness. Come back, poor prodigal, come back, come back! Your father calls you. Hearken poor backslider! Come at once to him whose arms are ready to receive you. Title: Re: Sin In Our Life Post by: nChrist on May 06, 2006, 12:03:58 AM Crush its viper head with the heel of our boot! (Philpot, "The Walk in the Fields and among the Vineyards") "Whoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me" Mark 8:34 To deny and renounce self lies at the very foundation of vital godliness. It is easy in some measure to leave the world; easy to leave the professing church; but to go forth out of self, there is the difficulty, for this "self" embraces such a variety of forms. What varied shapes and forms does this monster SELF assume! How hard to trace his windings! How difficult to track this wily foe to his hidden den; drag him out of the cave; and immolate him at the foot of the cross, as Samuel hewed down Agag in Gilgal. Proud self, righteous self, covetous self, ambitious self, sensual self, deceitful self, religious self, flesh-pleasing self. How difficult to detect, unmask, strip out of its changeable suits of apparel, this ugly, misshaped creature, and then stamp upon it, as if one would crush its viper head with the heel of our boot! Who will do such violence to beloved self, when every nerve quivers and shrinks; and the coward heart cries to the uplifted foot, "Spare, spare!" But unless there is this self crucifixion, there is no walking hand in hand with Christ, no heavenly communion with Him; for there can no more be a partnership between Christ and self, than there can be a partnership between Christ and sin. Title: Re: Sin In Our Life Post by: nChrist on May 06, 2006, 12:06:42 AM The great design of God (Thomas Reade, "The Believer's Path to Glory") It is one of the Lord's dealings with His beloved children, to make them feel . . . their weakness and His power; their pollution and His holiness; their nothingness and His all sufficiency. The more we are brought under the teachings of the Holy Spirit, the more we shall find the truth of this remark. It is the great design of God . . . to humble our naturally proud hearts, to bring down our naturally self righteous spirit, to root out our naturally idolatrous affections. Title: Re: Sin In Our Life Post by: nChrist on May 06, 2006, 12:11:44 AM What! Lord! after all that I have done! (Octavius Winslow, "The Lord's Prayer" 1866) "Only acknowledge your guilt. Admit that you rebelled against the Lord your God and committed adultery against Him by worshiping idols under every green tree. Confess that you refused to follow Me. I, the Lord, have spoken!" Jer. 3:13 God has laid great stress in His word upon the confession of sin. How touching His language addressed to His backsliding people, whose backslidings were of a most aggravated character; than which none could have been of deeper guilt, seeing that they had committed the sin of idolatry! "Only acknowledge your guilt." This was all that He required at their hands. "Only acknowledge." Poor penitent soul, bending in tears and self reproaches over this page, read these words again and again, and yet again, until they have scattered all your dark, repelling thoughts of this sin forgiving God, winning you to His feet as His restored and comforted child, "only acknowledge your guilt." "What! Lord! after all that I have done, after . . . my base returns, my repeated wanderings, my aggravated transgressions, my complicated iniquity, my sins against conviction, light, and love; do You still stretch out your hand to me, a poor, wretched wanderer as I am? Do You go forth to meet, to welcome, to pardon me? Do You watch the first kindling of penitence, the first tear of contrition, the first word of confession, 'Father, I have sinned!' Lord, I fall at Your feet, the greatest of sinners . . . Your power has drawn me, Your love has subdued me, Your grace has conquered me!" |