Dirty, Consuming Sin

Bondage. Captive. Consuming. Attitude. 

Derailed. Empty. Disappointment. Stalled. 

Poison. Broken. Separation. Distracted. Crushed. 

Spoiled. Wasted. Wrecked. Wounded.

 Ruined. Doubt. Pain. Regret. Chaos. 

Death. 

Sin isn't pretty. Never has been. I get caught up in the 'pleasure' or 'fun' of it...without thinking about what sin actually is...and what it does...and what it means.

Last night, I got a big dose of reality. Identity Theft Pt3: Sin. Matt brought up a lot of things that I've never thought about. We try to 'control & manage' our sin.  Thinking that way seems to be a never-ending cycle. I think, Surely with God I can 'handle' this...my own temptations aren't that bad. With that mentality, it's up to us as fleshly, sinful humans to put our own sin to death and not ever be tempted to revisit that again. Not happenin'. 

Matt gave 3 points:

1. Sin is pleasurable and desirable so we make it excusable.

guilty. i think this is probably true for everyone, but it's especially true for me. my thought process seems to be messed up more than i care to admit. everyone else does it. what's the harm? there is quite a steep price....

2. Sin is enslaving and defeating so we make it identifying.

well i did it...might as well keep going. it's like a lie that keeps spinning out of control until you're unsure of how truthful any of it ever was. that's who we become. our sin. talk about a punch in the face. 

3. Sin is more about who we are than how we behave.

when matt said this, my heart stopped beating i think. he said that we change the definition of 'sin' to 'MISTAKE'. sure we make mistakes. sure we're gonna slip up. but there still isn't justification in committing a sin. No matter how big or small. Just isn't right.

"Sin steals our identity of who God created us to be."
 Did you get that? God created us to be someone without sin. Instead, we're full of it. Full of hate. Full of lust. Full of envy. Full of self-righteousness. Full of sin. 
But we have a promise in Romans 6: WE MAY HAVE BEEN BORN INTO SIN IN THIS HIDEOUSLY BROKEN WORLD WITH INSANELY BROKEN PEOPLE... BUT WE DON'T HAVE TO STAY!!!


Don't use God's grace to justify yourself to keep sinning, use His grace as power to STOP sinning!
Grace is costly, has violent power, and is completely transforming...It will never lead me to continue doing the very thing it rescued me from. What amazing grace!!!!!! 


I have to stop trying to 'control & manage' my sin....I have to 'KILL & CONQUER' it! And Jesus does that through His grace! 
My sin put Jesus on the cross. That little lie I told...stealing...my bad attitude... Jesus DIED for that. He is the Assassin of Sin! The Conqueror! He gave us the 'vaccine'. 


So I was left with one question: How am I going to allow Jesus to take control and kill & conquer the sin in my life? I can't hold on to it anymore. When Matt put it into perspective that I killed Jesus.... 
Wow... 


So in response to the words on top...I don't want to feel that. Any of it. I don't want my friends to feel it. I'm praying hard for those chains to break! It's already been done! It's already Paid In Full! Accept it! I'm praying for my friends to be released of the bondage that sin holds. I'm praying that their relationship with Christ grows and grows and grows. I want them to be completely filled with the power God gave us to overcome the persuasions and pleasures and acceptance sin offers. I don't want any of that. Label me an outcast....I Love Jesus. And it hurts me so much to know that I've hurt Him. 

He Weeps

I was doing my devotion today that we got last week at Link. (I know, I should have done it last week, but I was entirely too lazy.) Anyhow...this girl, Sarah Anderson, sure did write something that relates so strongly to me right now. She talks about how, in the Gospels, Jesus encountered incredibly broken people and He healed them--crippled men, blind girls, deaf boys, and bleeding women. Then she makes a good point: What happened to those people after they we healed? We see how they were healed powerfully; what once seemed like a permanent brokenness was reversed; their story takes a turn and things look up. But what happens 20 years down the road?? When they die? Sarah says that, for her, it's like she's living the second half of these people's lives. Not many miracles, terminal cancer is thriving. The second part of their stories shows a lot of things still need restoring-or need restoring again after having been fixed once but not staying that way for good. Kinda like when we were saved. We once felt like our lives had changed forever-but after a while the broken pieces still feel so broken. Jesus showed up at one point- but in the second half of the story, it is hard to imagine He was ever there at all. Sarah goes into the Lazarus story. Jesus goes to the tomb where Lazarus had been dead for 4 days. So He goes to the sisters, Mary and Martha, who are crying, and Jesus weeps. He cries. He knows what He's about to do--He is the Son of God, the Savior of the world with the power to heal and restore, to fix and redeem. And He weeps. Could it be that Jesus cries because He knew the second half of Lazarus' story? He knew that while He could heal bodies and fix hurts and restore pain today, there would come a day when bodies would break down, the hurts would return and the pain would be overwhelming. Maybe Jesus wept because of the second half of the story-because He knew that today would only accomplish so much. Tomorrow the brokenness of the world would be obvious again. But that didn't stop him. He was saddened but He healed in spite of a broken world. He redeemed in spite of a broken world. He fixed in spite of a broken world. Which means that the second half of my story doesn't have the final word. It doesn't make what happens in the first half, in the part where I give my life to Jesus, where Jesus does do a miracle, not count.
As broken as out world may be, as far from restoration and healing appear to be, if we look closely we will see glimpses of the same God who went about His work on the pages of the Gospels. Any glimpse of beauty, no matter how temporary, is a glimpse of a world to come. Any respite from hurt, no matter how temporary, is a glimpse of a world to come. And any picture of any kind that speaks of perfection and goodness, wholeness and healing is evidence of a Savior who has been here before and will return again. And the good news is that His return will last forever.

How does it make me feel that I know I'm so incredibly loved by the Savior who came down to this incredibly broken world just so that I would know how much I mean to Him?? I am left in awe...completely longing for that day....and try my hardest to not get caught up in the issues of the world. There's nothing but empty promises. But with Jesus, there's hope! He can comfort the mourning. He can raise dead men to life. He has the pwer to conquer every disease and dysfunction. And while we may get a picture of that now, a brief insight into how the world is supposed to be, we can be certain that there will be a day when Jesus no longer weeps outside the tomb of His friend. When death is no more, when sickness is healed forever. Until then, keep your eyes open for glimpses of hope. Because that is where Jesus lives until we see Him again.

Judgement? Or just On-The-Lookout?

God says that we should love our enemies.(Luke 6:35)
He also says that we shouldn't even so much as eat with the wrong-doers. (1 Cor. 5:11)
I know there has to be a balance....

So I'm stuck. At this point in my life, do I need to just weed out the 'bad' people and concentrate on letting people build me up? I don't really think I should 'shun' the people who need to be built up themselves. While I do realize that a person can't change based solely on my influence...they need to want to change and need to have God pushing them to do so. I know this.

On the other hand, I don't think that's what God wants of us.
Luke 15:7 says "I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent."
So doesn't that mean we should go after that ONE? Or am I just reading this wrong...?

This leads me to the word Perception. It's all about how other people view things, situations, people. The world sees things completely out of context from what they really. Who knows what my own intentions are when it comes to the reasons why I do something or why I go somewhere besides me and God? Perception is rarely reality.

Its so much easier to look at a picture or a painting and see a flaw in a corner of it than it is to see the beauty of the whole thing.

That one lost sheep is what I'm after.......For the simple reason of Jesus. Salvation. Peace. Love. Grace.

.......But that doesn't mean I'm gonna marry that sheep.


That's when your perception turns into judgement.
And that is just not okay.

So for the remainder of my life, That's exactly what I'll do. People will be comfortable with me and with my church. I will not judge them. They are one lost sheep that God wants us to guide Home. That's what it's all about. I will not be selfish. I will not worry. God guides my steps....I do everything incredibly prayerfully. If there's ONE Man I can count on to not lead me astray....its Christ. And that's who I'm following.



 Acts 15:19 "My judgement, therefore, is against inflicting unexpected annoyance on those of the Gentiles who are turning to God.