This week, I would like to share some random thoughts and truths with you from God’s Word. I trust they will be a blessing and help to you as you live your Christian life. (1) When the believer has sin in his life and continues to live life without confessing it to the Lord and forsaking it, and refuses to deal with it, he will have a miserable experience. Life will drag like a giant turtle from day to day. When he tries to pray, it will feel as though the heavens are composed of brass and have closed up. He will have no peace, no power, no productivity, no seeming potential. In I John 1:4, we read: “And these things we write, so that your joy may be made complete.” There is only one factor that can snatch away your joy—sin. That is it. Only one kind of sin—yours. This is personal—as the song goes, “It’s not my brother, not my sister, but it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.” Sin chases the joy out of our lives. But the worst aspect of the Christian’s sin is not only what it does to the Christian, himself, but what it does to his Saviour. Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote: “The sins of the ungodly plunge the spear into Jesus’ side. The sins of the Christian plunge it into His heart.” The most miserable person on the face of the earth is not a lost man, but rather a saved man who is not walking with the Lord! His entire being suffers, his body, his mind, his soul, his spirit. From the top of his head to the soles of his feet. Hurt. Pain. Remorse. Confusion. Anxiety. The Christian who is not walking with the Lord is like a bone out of joint, an abscessed tooth, broken bones that are not set. The carnal, backslidden Christian is a miserable monstrosity. Yet on the other hand, many unsaved people are having a ball. There is no point approaching an unsaved person with, “Hey, man, you can’t have any fun if you’re not saved.” The Bible speaks of the pleasures of sin, but they are only for a season. So don’t ever think that an unbeliever can’t be happy! He can be, and having the time of his life, but it’s only for a time, for a season. Proverbs 20:17 says, “The bread of deceit is sweet, but afterward a man’s mouth shall be filled with gravel.” There is a certain amount of sensual pleasure in sin. The devil is too smart to go fishing without bait on his hook. In this life, a lost man may not be so miserable as a saved person who is double-minded because there is continued, unconfessed, undealt-with sin in his life, and he is unstable in all his ways. Billy Graham used to refer to the double-minded man as a person “with one foot in the world and one foot in the church.” (2) “And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (I John 1:5). Light reveals sins in our lives, and this is needed. It has been said that a clear conscience is frequently the result of a poor memory! God is light, and He shines His light upon our sins to reveal them to us. You will never become a victorious believer unless you experientially know the principles of how God convicts of sin. Many cannot ascertain between the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the accusation of Satan. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, while the devil accuses us of sin. The devil is like the prosecuting attorney. He is constantly pointing the finger of accusation at us. Satan is an adversary. In Job 1:6ff and 2:1ff, he is seen as an accuser. Throughout the Bible he is revealed as a liar, a murderer, a recognized accuser (Matthew 4:1, 10), and in other nefarious roles. He is accusing you before God and before yourself. He is the accuser of the brethren. But the Holy Spirit is not an accuser. He is the Convictor! And you are not going to have genuine peace and joy until you learn the difference between Satanic accusation and Holy Spirit conviction! “And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you no longer behold Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged” (John 16:8-11. What will happen when the Holy Spirit convicts you of your sins? In the first place, God is going to convict you of sin legitimately. That is, the Holy Spirit will never convict you of a sin that has already been cleansed. Did you get that? Don’t forget this truth! I John 1:7 ought to be one of your favorite verses: “…and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” God will never bring up again any sin that He has placed under the blood of His beloved Son! This truth was revealed in a sense to Peter on the rooftop at Joppa when the sheet was let down with all kinds of “unclean,” unkosher things in it. After Peter protested God’s request to “kill, and eat,” God told him, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy” (Acts 10:15b). What happens when God cleanses me of my sin? Practically speaking, He forgets it, “…for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). The Bible teaches that confessed and forgiven sin is cast behind God’s back, is buried in the depths of the sea, is removed as far as the east is from the west—so far has He removed our transgression from us (Psalm 103:12). MORE TOMORROW! STAY TUNED!
Posted on: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 20:30:50 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015