Sin In Our Life

[Soldier4Christ]

 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.

[nChrist]

"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."

[nChrist]

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)

[nChrist]

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.

[nChrist]

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.

[nChrist]

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.

[nChrist]

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!"