Dr. John MacArthur How are you going to come to the place where you lay aside the sin that so easily entangles you and especially those besetting sins which you tend to fall into over and over again? First of all, realize sin is powerful, it is near, even in you, and it is intertwined with everything in your being. And in order to deal with it you must understand its seriousness. You must promise God not to sin. You must watch carefully for your own spiritual weaknesses. Dont trust your spirituality. You must resist the first risings of sin in the flesh. You must meditate on the Word. You must be repentant immediately for the lapses that come. You much continue in prayer and dependence on Gods power and establish intimate relationships of spiritual accountability. And I would say that theres no better place to start this kind of life pattern then right here at the Lords table. Were here not only to unload the burden of sin weve accumulated for which we will be forgiven, but I hope were here to start afresh in a new course thats going to bring us back here next time with a lighter load and a shorter list. And maybe the sum of it all is found here in Hebrews chapter 12 in those wonderful and magnificent words, verse 2, Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith. Listen, He is one who in His striving against sin never fell...never fell. He was in all points tempted like as we are yet He was without sin...He never fell, He never succumbed. So if youre going to look at somebody as a model, look at Him. He was striving with sin even to death and never fell. Hes our model, Hes our example. So were here to remember His death, were here to ask His forgiveness and were here to ask Him again to be our example as we lay aside our sin and fix our eyes on Him to follow the path of victory over the sin that easily entangles us. Lets bow together in prayer. Father, we thank You that again Your Word speaks so pointedly and powerfully and directly to our hearts. We thank You that You have given us the resident Holy Spirit who can enable us to be obedient when we otherwise would not have the strength. Help us this morning to make the vows that weve learned about as weve considered about entangling sin and how to deal with it. Help us to take these steps so that we can pursue the path of holiness and not need to be disciplined as often so that we can not miss the joy and the peace that should be ours and the usefulness and fellowship and ministry. And now as we come to this table, we pray that as we think of the bread and the cup we will remember what a price our Lord paid for our sin. And we will take it seriously as You do, we come to confess our sin and to renew our covenant, to lay sin aside, to walk in a holy way. We now confess our sins, all of them, and ask You to wash us and make us clean, forgive us every sin known and unknown, every sin. And help us, Lord, not to do them again but to walk in obedience.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 01:09:31 +0000
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