"If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death." 1 John 5:16-17
In regards to this scripture, I have been dwelling on it all week...its been interesting. At first glance, I immediately thought about venial and mortal sins I have learned about in the Catholic Church. Basically, they believe there are certain "levels" of sins. It goes back to the age of Medieval church that collected indulgences; they would rank sin and the worse it was, the more money the people would have to pay. I do not know if I believe in hierarchy of sin, I definitely believe in different types of sin, but sin is sin is sin is sin. Anyways, I dont really want to get into that, back on track...
I have heard it said this sin that "leads to Death" is the sin of turning away from God. BUT, I just do not know if anyone could/would turn away from God if they ever experienced him in the first place! How/why would anyone who has actually, truly experienced God turn away from him? We were created to desire Him, so why on earth would we ever turn away from Him if we actually tasted even a bit of the Love we were created to crave relationally. This is why I think anyone who "turns away from God" never actually ever fully opened their heart to Him in the first place. Not entirely sure.
"Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him and he CANNOT keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother." 1 John 3:8-10
I think we really have to read the whole context of this book to understand what John was trying to say, so I have been reading it a lot. Heres an excerpt that stuck out:
"By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we BELIEVE in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and LOVE one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever KEEPS his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us." 1 John 3:19-24
John is not emphasizing how he wants us to dwell on figuring out levels of sin or judging the sins of others. The simple fact is, I think he wants us to see and know the Hope of Christ as our Advocate and propitiation for our sins and the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:1-6). Although we were created "of the truth," God knows we have fallen and have sinful nature...He is asking us to realize we are sinners and to acknowledge and seek help from each other for accountability, but more importantly from Christ. Back to 1 John 5:16, we have to be willing to love someone by calling them out and/or praying on behalf of them for God's grace and forgiveness. Simply put, we must BELIEVE in his Son's grace and forgiveness and therefore, LOVE each other because He first loved us.
Furthermore, our job is to define and discover exactly what "believing in Jesus" and "loving one another" looks like for each of us. There is not always a precise easy formula for loving others and believing in God. Circumstantially, its always changing, but we always have guidelines (scripture) to find hints and clues. For instance, sometimes to "love" others best could mean hugs and kisses, ponies and fairies:), but other times it means letting someone fall so they can learn to pick themselves back up again...Tough love. But sometimes its okay to help someone up because they may need help learning...circumstances always change, but the Holy Spirits guidance is always loyal and consistent.
Showing posts with label sin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sin. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Thursday, March 1, 2012
In response to questions about Idols...
You asked me about idols and I am so glad you did...I truly believe idols are one of the core issues within all of us. Every day potential idols surround us hoping to entangle us in a terrible web of lies. All sorts of things are potential idols: physical objects, people, property, jobs, roles, a hope, an image, an idea, pleasures,... As soon as our loyalty to anything leads us to disobey God, we are in great danger of making it an idol.
In the beginning, we were made to worship and serve God and rule over all created things in God's name (Gen 1:26-28). Instead we fell into sin. We refused to give God glory and instead chose certain parts of creation to glorify instead: "They exchanged the glory of the immortal God...and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator." Romans 1:23-25 Whatever controls us becomes our lord...the person who seeks power is controlled by power; the person who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people they want to please. We do not control ourselves as much as we think we do, we are always controlled by the "lord" of our lives; whatever we may make that to be. Desire for Jesus was intended to shape all our other desires. But we have to be so careful not to let anything take precedent to our desire for him in ALL things and through ALL things.
"What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." James 4:1-4
"Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul." 1 Peter 2:1
Its so important for us to daily check ourselves and ask ourselves at this point, right now, "What are the things in my life I could not live without?" When I start there, I begin reevaluating and remembering who I am again and who I want to become. Idols are something besides Jesus, we feel we have to have to be happy; something more important to our heart than God, something enslaving our heart through excessive desires. We change and get rid of these idols when we begin to identify them in our lives. We have to go much deeper than the tangible things...for example, if I say money is my idol there is so much more than just idolizing money, the real idol is my desire for more control of my life or to be liked by other people. We will never get rid of our innate nature to desire, but we can redirect the sweet gift of desire back to Jesus. I think idols simply display our constant misdirection and they should continually lead us back to the cross...when we rejoice and remember and dwell on who Christ is and what he has done for us, that is when we lose our idols and remember where we started.
"Sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace." Romans 6:14
We create idols because we want to control our lives, even though we know we owe God everything. We take created things and settle our hearts on them and build our lives around them without even realizing it most of the time. If anything but Christ is our source of salvation, we are falling into idolatry. We were created to worship and desire God, but so often we skew our desires and "exchange the Truth of God for a lie" Romans 1:25. The more we seek power through idols, the more they drain us of strength. They blind us to the reality of our own desperate need for Christ to save us from ourselves. "For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 2 Corinthians 4:6
SOO all that to say, keep yo eyes on those sunrises and sunsets and always remind yourself daily of who God is and he will keep you from idolizing anything too much. When we seek Him daily, when we remind ourselves who He is whether through scripture or even just enjoying nature, or seeing Him in people...we remind ourselves, "How could we ever love anything or anyone more than Jesus?" Sometimes its hard to see Him beneath it all, I struggle with it all the time, but when things get complicated I just feel my heart beat and know. Use anything you might find as an "idol" as a perfect venue to channel desire to God. For instance, I go through dumb seasons where I idolize having this "perfect body image" like every other girl, but I have to be thankful for it now because whenever I feel inadequate I immediately direct my attention to God and pray about it and remember who I am in Christ cannot ever be changed by my physical appearance...by trying to redirect my desires I address Jesus and naturally turn my attention to Him instead of myself.
In the beginning, we were made to worship and serve God and rule over all created things in God's name (Gen 1:26-28). Instead we fell into sin. We refused to give God glory and instead chose certain parts of creation to glorify instead: "They exchanged the glory of the immortal God...and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator." Romans 1:23-25 Whatever controls us becomes our lord...the person who seeks power is controlled by power; the person who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people they want to please. We do not control ourselves as much as we think we do, we are always controlled by the "lord" of our lives; whatever we may make that to be. Desire for Jesus was intended to shape all our other desires. But we have to be so careful not to let anything take precedent to our desire for him in ALL things and through ALL things.
"What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." James 4:1-4
"Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul." 1 Peter 2:1
Its so important for us to daily check ourselves and ask ourselves at this point, right now, "What are the things in my life I could not live without?" When I start there, I begin reevaluating and remembering who I am again and who I want to become. Idols are something besides Jesus, we feel we have to have to be happy; something more important to our heart than God, something enslaving our heart through excessive desires. We change and get rid of these idols when we begin to identify them in our lives. We have to go much deeper than the tangible things...for example, if I say money is my idol there is so much more than just idolizing money, the real idol is my desire for more control of my life or to be liked by other people. We will never get rid of our innate nature to desire, but we can redirect the sweet gift of desire back to Jesus. I think idols simply display our constant misdirection and they should continually lead us back to the cross...when we rejoice and remember and dwell on who Christ is and what he has done for us, that is when we lose our idols and remember where we started.
"Sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace." Romans 6:14
We create idols because we want to control our lives, even though we know we owe God everything. We take created things and settle our hearts on them and build our lives around them without even realizing it most of the time. If anything but Christ is our source of salvation, we are falling into idolatry. We were created to worship and desire God, but so often we skew our desires and "exchange the Truth of God for a lie" Romans 1:25. The more we seek power through idols, the more they drain us of strength. They blind us to the reality of our own desperate need for Christ to save us from ourselves. "For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 2 Corinthians 4:6
SOO all that to say, keep yo eyes on those sunrises and sunsets and always remind yourself daily of who God is and he will keep you from idolizing anything too much. When we seek Him daily, when we remind ourselves who He is whether through scripture or even just enjoying nature, or seeing Him in people...we remind ourselves, "How could we ever love anything or anyone more than Jesus?" Sometimes its hard to see Him beneath it all, I struggle with it all the time, but when things get complicated I just feel my heart beat and know. Use anything you might find as an "idol" as a perfect venue to channel desire to God. For instance, I go through dumb seasons where I idolize having this "perfect body image" like every other girl, but I have to be thankful for it now because whenever I feel inadequate I immediately direct my attention to God and pray about it and remember who I am in Christ cannot ever be changed by my physical appearance...by trying to redirect my desires I address Jesus and naturally turn my attention to Him instead of myself.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Surrender
I feel like I have had such an elementary mindset in how I have thought for so long...since I was a child, I have believed that the ultimate goal is to live a sinless life. "Worldly perfection" and approval is something to be grasped, and should be the focus of our lives, but that is such a childish view. The ultimate goal in life isn't for us to live a sinless life, and thus receive prideful satisfaction and glory and gain, but for us to constantly run back to Jesus and lay at His feet and receive His unbelievable mercy and love. Sin itself is not good, but God gives us the power over it so that we can take it and use it for good; it can be a powerful tool that brings us back to him. Or we can choose to live in it and embrace it and allow it to lead us further and further from God. Its like in Genesis when Cain gets angry at God for not approving of his offering and God says,"...sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it." (Gen4:7) It wasn't his anger that was the sin, but it was what he (ulimately, what WE) do with it that becomes the sin and defines who we are-men of the world or children of God. We decide life or death. Cain killed his brother.
Approach life as though it is to be learned from and everything happens for a reason of which we may not understand, but we continue in Hope of the living God who has our lives laid out and knows the yearnings of our Spirit and depths of our souls. "Surrendering" to God in the morning doesn't mean the day ahead will be easy and your heart and mind will be at ease, but surrendering means letting God have his way with your life; you let go of all control and take life as it comes with a joyful heart, even if you have to let go of safety and comfort. Surrendering means being willing to experience strife and toil and suffering because you know it is causing you to lead a life that contributes to something much greater than you. When we give our lives to God in the morning, we open the door to anything and trust that whatever happens, happens only with God's consent. Our comfort lies in the undefinable greatness of our Lord...that comfort is available for you, but it is ours only when we seek it with our whole hearts. If you find no comfort then you are living in profound dissatisfaction and restlessness lurks in your soul, but it cannot be ignored...allow that stirring within you to lead you to discover the beauty of this life.
"For the present sufferings of this time are NOT worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us." Romans 8:12
Approach life as though it is to be learned from and everything happens for a reason of which we may not understand, but we continue in Hope of the living God who has our lives laid out and knows the yearnings of our Spirit and depths of our souls. "Surrendering" to God in the morning doesn't mean the day ahead will be easy and your heart and mind will be at ease, but surrendering means letting God have his way with your life; you let go of all control and take life as it comes with a joyful heart, even if you have to let go of safety and comfort. Surrendering means being willing to experience strife and toil and suffering because you know it is causing you to lead a life that contributes to something much greater than you. When we give our lives to God in the morning, we open the door to anything and trust that whatever happens, happens only with God's consent. Our comfort lies in the undefinable greatness of our Lord...that comfort is available for you, but it is ours only when we seek it with our whole hearts. If you find no comfort then you are living in profound dissatisfaction and restlessness lurks in your soul, but it cannot be ignored...allow that stirring within you to lead you to discover the beauty of this life.
"For the present sufferings of this time are NOT worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us." Romans 8:12
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