Tag Archives: sin

May 25, 2017 · 5:30 AM

Controlling Anger


One thing I’ve learned is that every sin lives within me, and I’m capable of committing any of them. The sins living within each one of us is just waiting for the right circumstances to show up and it will give us the opportunity to commit them. I learned this one night while I was very angry and bitterness was growing in me. The thought and desire to murder was so strong in me that it frightened me. I never believed I was capable of such a thing until that moment. Like Joseph in Potiphar’s house, I ran and didn’t look back.
Anger is a powerful emotion that can tempt us to do the unthinkable. It is a dangerous emotion that desires to control us. It is like a furnace burning within us that continuously heats up the more we feed it. It begins to consume our mind, our thoughts and eventually our lives. I was at the point that I couldn’t sleep. My anger was burning so strongly that every time I closed my eyes to sleep, all I could imagine was the situation that created my pain and my heart would begin to race. I began to be consumed with how I could get revenge. 

Let me be clear, anger in and of itself is not a sin. It is an emotion that God has given each one of us. I believe it becomes sin when it begins to control us. Psalms 4:4 says, “Don’t sin by letting anger control you. Think about it overnight and remain silent” (NLT). Too many times we have a knee jerk reaction of retaliation when we get angry. We scream, we curse, we throw things, we fight or do something else. The Psalmist here suggests that instead of reacting, we should proactively step away, remain silent and think about it. 

Many times in my life, my anger hasn’t frightened me away from sinning. Instead it has lead me right into it. As Christians, we need to understand that uncontrolled anger leads to sin. Instead of letting it have its way, we need to step away, think about it overnight and remain silent. In many cases, our anger will dissipate and we will be kept from sinning. It is possible to be angry and sin not as the scripture says. We just need to learn to be proactive with our anger instead of reacting with it. 

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May 3, 2017 · 5:37 AM

Consequences 


When I was little, my mom said, “Don’t touch that. It’s hot.” What did I do? I touched it and got burned. When I got a little older, she said, “Don’t eat mushrooms in the back yard.” What did I do? I fed them to my younger brother and I got spanked. A few years later, she said, “Don’t talk that way.” What did I do? I said a few choice words and got my mouth washed out with a Ivory soap. Each time I disobeyed, I suffered the consequences of those actions whether it was through her punishment or the physical result of disobedience.

In the Garden of Eden, God said, “Don’t eat of that tree in the middle.” What did they do? They ate from the tree and were kicked out of the garden. God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments. What have we done since? We’ve broken them and suffered the consequences. In my own life, I’ve known what God has said, and I’ve lived in violation of the way He has said to live and I’ve suffered the consequences.

Several years ago, while suffering with the consequences of my choices, God was using them to try to bring me back into right relationship with Him. The more I pushed back, the more it seemed I suffered. I eventually surrendered, but had to live with the consequences. The pain of that time has been a constant reminder to me to follow God’s will and plan. Do I do it all the time? No. I still disobey at times, but those times are getting fewer and I’m learning to repent faster.

All of us face the consequences of our sins. It’s designed to help us remember to obey much like my punishments when I was younger. Psalm 119:71 says, “My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees” (NLT). We don’t like the suffering from our consequences, but it helps us remember in the future to walk in obedience to what God says. God sets life and death before us. Oh that we would obey His Word and choose life. It’s a much less painful route.

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January 23, 2017 · 5:39 AM

Abandoned 


To abandon someone is to quit supporting them or to give up on them. If you’ve ever been through some of life’s toughest circumstances, you know what it’s like to be abandoned by some of your family or friends. You find out that there are people in your life that you can count on, and there are people that you can’t. When you’re looking for advice, a place to regroup, or just a shelter from the storm, some people that you seek out will abandon you. Some of the ones who you thought would support you through thick and thin give up on you.

David was a person who knew a thing or two about being abandoned. He was forgotten by his father, disrespected by his brothers, shamed by his wife, chased by the king, and dishonored by his son. The people in his life that he should have been able to count on, turned their backs on him at some point in his life. He knew a thing or two about rock bottom. He looked for those he could count on in times of trouble.

In all of his searching, there was one who never abandoned him. God. David wasn’t a perfect man either. He cheated on his wife, had a man murdered, and did some unthinkable things. Yet when he sought after God, he knew that no matter what he had done, God would not abandon him. He knew that there was nothing he had done that God couldn’t or wouldn’t forgive. When others gave up on him, God never did. In fact, God said he was a man after His own heart. 

You may have walked David’s shoes. Maybe you’ve been abandoned by those who love you or you’ve abandoned the things you know are right. Either way, if you will seek God, He won’t abandon you. Psalm 9:10 says, “Those who know you, Lord, will trust you; you do not abandon anyone who comes to you” (GNT). It doesn’t matter what’s been done to you or what you’ve done to others, you can find shelter, hope, and forgiveness in God when you seek Him out.

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March 3, 2016 · 5:30 AM

Sin Prevention

  
When I was in high school, one of my teachers had us open the cover of our Bibles. He then told us to write, “This book will keep you from sin. Sin will keep you from this book.” What a powerful message. Every time I opened my Bible, I read those words. They challenged me to read it daily so that I wouldn’t stray from God. To this day, I hear those words, even though I no longer open a physical Bible, and they challenge me.

When Moses was giving the final instructions to Israel, before they crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, he gave them instructions for their future kings. In Deuteronomy 17:18-19 he said, “When he sits on the throne as king, he must copy for himself this body of instruction on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. He must always keep that copy with him and read it daily as long as he lives. That way he will learn to fear the LORD his God by obeying all the terms of these instructions and decrees” (NLT).

God knew then that His instructions would keep us from a life of sin. He not only wanted them read daily, He wanted them to write them down too. Imagine if you had to hand write the Bible and then carry that manuscript with you daily. The time and effort that would take would cause you to value His Word more. Then reading it daily would teach you how to follow God’s path.

David, who would have written it out and carried it with him, wrote something very powerful in the longest chapter of the Bible. In Psalm 119:11 he wrote, “I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” David didn’t just read God’s Word, he hid it in his heart. He studied it, memorized it, and applied it. Were there times he failed? Yes. It was God’s Word that put him back in right standing with God.

He knew what you and I need to know. The more we know who God is, the more we see Him as a loving father who doesn’t expect perfection from us. He forgives our sins and loves it when we come clean. The enemy wants us to hide our sin like Adam and Eve, but God wants to create a clean heart in us. His Word will not only keep us from sin, but lead us to forgiveness when we do. Don’t let sin keep you from God’s Word. Let God’s Word keep you from sin.

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October 22, 2015 · 5:30 AM

Second Hand Religion

  
How do you know what is sin? Do you let your pastor decide that for you? Do you let your political party tell you what it is? Do you let society define it? Maybe you just go with what feels right to you. The fact is that none of these have the power to define what is right in God’s sight and what is wrong. There is only one source that defines what is sin and what is not. It’s the Holy Bible. God’s Word was written by about 40 people over the period of about 1,500 years. II Timothy 3:16 tells us that all scripture is inspired by God.

We know that even though it was written by so many people over such a long period of time, that it was all inspired by God. The beauty of God’s Word is that it stands the test of time and will remain relevant forever because human nature doesn’t change. The Bible looks at human nature, defines what sin is, but more importantly, shows us how to get forgiveness from it and how to avoid it. Romans 10:9-10 says, “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved” (NLT).

To avoid falling into sin, we must first know what sin is to God. James 4:17 gives us a simple definition of sin. It says, “Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.” If you know what’s right and then choose not to do it, then you’re sinning. The Bible is also filled with other things that it names as sin like lying, adultery, stealing, etc. at the heart of each of those and every other sin is that basic definition. You know there’s a right and a wrong and you’re willfully choosing the wrong.

So how do we avoid falling prey to our desire to do the things we want to do, but aren’t the right things? Psalm 119:11 says, “I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” If we want to know what sin is and also to have the ability to overcome it, we must put God’s Word in our heart. We must read it, understand it, meditate on it, and memorize it so that we can live the way God wants us to. It’s not up to other people to tell you what it says. It’s up to you to read it and to understand it. When it come to your eternity, don’t rely on second hand information alone. 

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November 3, 2014 · 6:46 AM

The War Of The Mind

This weekend, I heard the song “Courageous” by Casting Crowns. It had been a while since I heard it. There was one part that resonated in me. The line said, “In the war of the mind I will make my stand.” I forget sometimes that there is a constant war going on in my mind to decide who gets to control my thoughts. I’m the type of person who can get caught up in my thoughts so much that I don’t hear anything going on outside my mind (my wife can attest to this!). I can be looking right at you and not hear anything because of what I’m thinking.

The war of the mind and the battle for your thoughts is important. Your thoughts determine how you feel. When you first wake up, what thoughts go through your mind? That determines how you feel about the day. Then, the way you feel about things determines how you act. If those feelings are negative, you don’t want to get up, so you hit the snooze. If they’re positive, you get up ready to face the day. All of your actions, both positive and negative, begin with your thoughts. That’s why Satan usually attacks there first.

Think of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 3, Eve was minding her own business and satan came to her in the firm of a serpent. To create doubt, he asked, “Can it really be that God has said, ‘You shall not eat from every tree of the garden?'” When she explained they could eat from all the tress except one or else they would die, he went after her thoughts again. He said, “You shall not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened.” With those attacks on her thought process, she changed how due felt about the tree.

Verse 6 says, “And when the woman saw that the tree was good (suitable, pleasant) for food and that it was delightful to look at, and a tree to be desired in order to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.” Can you see the pattern? Her thoughts changed how she saw the tree. At first it was untouchable because God said. Thorn it became suitable and pleasant. Her attitude changed toward the tree. Now it became delightful and desired so she acted on those thoughts and ate. What was once off limits and she would have never considered became desired all because she lost the war of the mind.

I think that why Paul wrote in Ephesians 6 about the necessity of the Full Armor of God. In verse 11, he wrote, “Put on God’s whole armor [the armor of a heavy-armed soldier which
God supplies], that you may be able successfully to stand up against [all] the strategies and deceits of the devil.” As he listed out the different pieces of armor, salvation was a helmet. The helmet protects your head. It was symbolic of protecting your mind against the thoughts that come from the enemy to get you to do wrong.

If you’re struggling with the war of the mind, go to Ephesians 6:10-18 and read it. Put on the Armor of God so you can withstand the attacks of the enemy. God did not leave you helpless in this battle. He gave you this armor and the Holy Spirit to help you. Don’t buy into your thoughts that give you negative feelings and cause you to do things that you would have never considered before. Be honest with a close friend to have them pray for you and to hold you accountable. You can win this war by protecting your thoughts. You can stand up to the strategies and deceits the enemy brings. You don’t have to repeat Eve’s mistake.

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March 10, 2014 · 7:44 AM

Exposing Your Weakness

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Last week, a mentor of mine posted a video of himself working out. He held a barbell above his head and squatted multiple times. He then moved over to a chin up bar and did several chin ups. After that he went back to the barbells. He repeated the process until he couldn’t go on. I watched as he began to struggle. His arms twitched. He had to refocus and retry a few times as he got wore out. Finally, he stopped and walked off the mat. His caption said, “One thing Crossfit does, it exposes weakness in areas you might have thought you were strong in. But I love it!”

That phrase stuck out to me. Most of us want nothing to do with having our weaknesses exposed. We like to keep them hidden from others and pretend they don’t exist. We like to focus on areas where we’re strong and show that side to the world. We like to put our best foot forward and rarely let others see who we completely are. We’re afraid others won’t like us as much or will look down on us. Fear plays a big role in keeping our weaknesses covered up. Unfortunately, that fear is what keeps us from being more of the person God wants us to be.

Knowing what your weaknesses are and putting them in the open has a lot of benefits. First, knowing your weaknesses gives you direction and focus. It shows you exactly what you need to work on. Just because you are weak in an area of your life, it doesn’t mean you can’t get strong there. Don’t fall for the lie that it’s just who you are or it’s just in your nature. You are only weak in areas of your life to the extent that you allow yourself to be. You have the power to get strong in those areas if only you will push yourself. When you do, you will find other areas of weakness. Simply repeat the process.

Another benefit to exposing weakness is that it opens you up to accountability. As long as you hide your weakness, it will eat away at you and hold you hostage. The moment you expose it and ask others to help, you set yourself free. You are free from the mind games it has played with you and used to keep you down. You are free to work on that area and to get help. When you allow yourself to be vulnerable enough to say to someone else, “Here’s where I’m weak. I need you to hold me accountable and to help me beat it,” you begin to turn that weakness into a strength. You begin to take control over it instead of letting it have control over you.

In Psalm 139:24-24, David prayed to God and said, “Investigate my life, O God, find out everything about me; cross-examine me and test me, get a clear picture of what I’m about… then guide me on the road to eternal life.” David understood this principle. He asked God to test him and to expose his weaknesses so that he could be guided on the road to eternal life. Each one of us have areas of weakness. Each one of us fail God in our lives. But not each one of us dare to ask God to expose it and then to guide us to a deeper walk with Him. Take that first step today and ask God to expose your weaknesses. Then find an accountability partner to help you strengthen that area. You’ll be glad you did.

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January 14, 2014 · 7:53 AM

Oops! Try again.

My son, who is almost three, is as clumsy as they come. He trips over his own feet, walks into stuff without looking and knows how to make a mess. Whenever he trips and falls, he says, “Oops! Try again.” Whenever he gets outside of the lines tracing letters on his Leap Pad and it makes him start over, he says, “Oops! Try again.” It makes me laugh every time. The other day I dropped something and it made a loud crash. He came running in there, looked at the mess, looked at me, smiled and said, “Oops! Try again.”

We could learn a lot from him. When he messes up, he doesn’t give up. He doesn’t let the mistake hold him back. He simply reminds himself to try again. Jesus spent a lot of his earthly ministry doing the same. When they brought Him the woman who had been caught in adultery, He said, “Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” One by one they left. When it was just her standing there, Jesus looked up and said, “Go and sin no more.” In essence He told her, “Oops! Try again.” She messed up badly, but He offered her the chance to try again.

I’m sure Peter went through some sleepless night after he denied knowing Jesus. He knew he was going to deny Him because Jesus told him it was going to happen. Not only did he deny knowing Jesus once, but he did it three times. After Jesus rose from the dead, He met Peter on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He looked at Peter and asked, “Do you love me?” Peter responded, “You know I love you.” Jesus then said, “Then take care of my sheep.” In a way that only Jesus could do, He simply told Peter, “Oops! Try again.”

There is nothing you have done in this life that is so bad that Jesus won’t look at you and say, “Oops! Try again.” He understands that we will fail Him. He knows that we’re going to sin. He doesn’t sit there and hold it over our heads. Instead, He wants us to get back up, dust ourselves off, ask for forgiveness and then try again. The whole life of a Christian isn’t about being perfect. It’s about getting up and trying again after we fail. It’s about knowing the One who forgives and encourages us to try again.

Proverbs 24:16 says, “For the righteous falls seven times and rises again.” Being righteous doesn’t mean you won’t fall. It means you get back up and try again. If you’ve fallen and have thought that God wouldn’t take you back, let me encourage you to get back up and try again. If you haven’t been to church in forever, get back up and try again. If you think that the walls of the church would fall in if you walked in, get up and try. You couldn’t have done anything worse than to deny Jesus to His face after spending years with Him. If Jesus offered Peter the opportunity to try again, He’ll offer it to you.

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August 1, 2013 · 8:03 AM

Avoiding the Slow Fade

The question was asked last night at church, “How can staying humble keep you from sinning?” We began to discuss how when you think you’re above sinning that’s when you’re at the most risk. Each one of us has sinned and will sin. None of us are perfect or are capable of living a life without sinning. There are things we can do to help ourselves from making sin a habit in our lives though.

One of the ways you can help to keep yourself from sin is by reading and understanding God’s Word. I Peter 5:9 tells us to withstand the devil. The Amplified version says, “Be firm in faith against his onset – rooted, established, strong, immovable and determined.” When we have our roots in God’s Word, we recognize the truth from lies. When temptation arises, we recognize it and combat it with the Word of God. That’s how Jesus fought temptation, and that’s how we should too.

That same chapter reminds us that the devil is searching for someone to devour. He’s not waiting idly by for us to slip up and fall. He’s stalking us, staying hidden until the right time. He wants to pounce on us when we least expect it in order to cause us to sin and to bring guilt to us. Peter described him as a lion and that’s a great metaphor of how he hunts us down as his prey. He’s not content with you sinning. He wants to devour you, your life, your testimony a d your hope.

That’s why in verse 8 he told us to be alert, “vigilant and cautious at all times.” We shouldn’t let our guard down. We should always be on the lookout for temptations that would come in and seek to destroy us. We shouldn’t think we’re above being tempted in certain things. That’s where the humility comes in to play. When we’re humble, we don’t think of ourselves higher than we should. We recognize our weaknesses and move about cautiously.

Casting Crowns has a song out called “Slow Fade”. It warns us that our enemy doesn’t just come in and get us to jump into a life of sin. It’s a slow fade from where God wants us to that life away from Him. The enemy comes in and chips away little by little to draw us away. Before we know it, we have left a life of complete surrender to God and have walked into a life that is a slave to sins. That happens when we aren’t being alert and vigilant. That happens when we aren’t humble like God called us to be.

I’ve experienced the slow fade in my life. I’ve drifted far from God because I let myself believe one little lie after the other. I walked a long way from where God had intended for me to be. I had let my guard down, thought I was above certain things and found out I wasn’t. Because I did know God, I knew the way home. I sought God’s forgiveness and repented from the life I had begun to live. I walked away from it. I’m still tempted every day. I still mess up and sin, but I’m more vigilant now. I catch the lies a lot faster and move back to where I belong.

You can too. It’s not too late. You’re not too far away. Forgiveness is waiting. Don’t believe the lies any longer. Get in God’s Word. Learn the truth so you can recognize the lies. God’s Word will help you to stay grounded, firm, rooted, established, strong, determined and immovable like Peter said. Don’t become a victim of that lion who is seeking you. Be aware of who is and where he is. When you do, you take away the element of surprise that he counts on and he leaves you.

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June 24, 2013 · 6:56 AM

The Power of Restoration

I got a call this weekend from someone who was going through a rough patch and succumbed to temptation. They reached out to me and a couple of others for help. One of the others and I went to meet them to offer guidance and next steps. It would have been easy to go over there, beat them on the head with a Bible and ask a lot of “why” questions. That’s not how God says we should handle these situations though.

As I drove over there, The Lord took me to Galatians 6:1 that says, “Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path.” My mind changed from all the “how could you” questions to the “how can I help you” questions. I moved away from the accusatory mindset that saw all the steps leading to sin to one that was there to show the path to forgiveness.

The Lord had spoken the same thing to my friend who went with me. He opened up the conversation with, “We’re here to help you, not to condemn you.” He went to Romans 13:12 that says, “So remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armor of right living.” We explained that there is not one of us who is perfect. None of us go without sinning. What sets us apart is that we remove those sins and step back into God’s light.

I read Proverbs 24:16 that says, “The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again.” I explained that if we’re not able to get up on our own, we should do what they did and call others to help them. I reiterated that we were not there to hold them down, but to offer a helping hand up. I’m sure they had already beat themselves up over it and that the Holy Spirit had convicted them. The problem was that they didn’t know the way back to the right road.

I’ve been thinking all weekend about how many people fall and just stay down because they don’t know how to reach out for help or are just too embarrassed to. I’ve been there. I was ashamed and embarrassed because I knew better. I didn’t want to admit that I had messed up and gone in the wrong direction. I didn’t want to let others know that I didn’t have the strength to get back up and that it was easier to just stay down. Thankfully someone saw me there and offered a hand to get me back up.

Who do you know right now that has fallen? Have you gone to them and offered a helping hand or just talked about them to others? Our command is clear. We are to go and restore someone in that condition. We are to pray with them and give them the tools and safeguards they need to keep them from falling again. When they fall, go and put your arm around them and walk with them. Isn’t that how you would want to be treated if it were the other way around?

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