"Listen to this word that the Lord has spoken against you, people of Israel, against the whole family He brought out of Egypt. ‘I have chosen only you out of all the families of the earth, so I will punish you for all your sins.’" (NCV)
Fair or not, God calls His people to a higher standard than He does others. "I will punish you for all your sins." And yet, as believers, that shouldn’t be a threat, but rather an encouragement to live even more holy, to seek His face more often, to rest in His love all the more.
"So do you think we should continue sinning so that God will give us even more grace? No! We died to our old sinful lives, so how can we continue living with sin? Did you forget that all of us became part of Christ when we were baptized? We shared His death in our baptism. When we were baptized, we were buried with Christ and shared His death. So, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the wonderful power of the Father, we also can live a new life. Christ died, and we have been joined with Him by dying too. So we will also be joined with Him by rising from the dead as He did. We know that our old life died with Christ on the cross so that our sinful selves would have no power over us and we would not be slaves to sin. Anyone who has died is made free from sin’s control. If we died with Christ, we know we will also live with Him. Christ was raised fro the dead, and we know that He cannot die again. Death has no power over Him now. Yes, when Christ died, he died to defeat the power of sin one time—enough for all time. He now has a new life, and His new life is with God. In the same way, you should see yourselves as being dead to the power of sin and alive with God through Christ Jesus. So, do not let sin control your life here on earth so that you do what your sinful self wants to do. Do not offer parts of your body to serve sin, as things to be used in doing evil. Instead, offer yourselves to God as people who have died and now live. Offer the parts of your body to God to be used in doing good. Sin will not be your master because you are not under law but under God’s grace" (Romans 6:1-14 NCV).
Things in the world are bad. In fact, right now, they are pretty horrible! There are hundreds, maybe thousands of families in Chicago without water because they couldn’t pay their water bills. There are cities in America being deluged with illegal immigrants who may be carrying disease and may be affiliated with gangs. There are people dying in the West Bank from the Hamas and Israel bombing each other. There is war in Iraq. There are earthquakes. There are threats of economic collapse. People are hurting, people are frantic, people are dying.
Things are bad.
Things have always been bad. Sin has always had reign on the earth. It’s just that with the Internet, we hear about them. They may even be escalating, but that doesn’t mean God’s not in control. And it certainly doesn’t mean that this is a time for the Church to panic.
Absolutely not! This is a time for the Church to become the Church. To stand up and take hold of our birthright as God’s people. To act like His adopted sons and daughters and begin to calm the waters with the peace of God that passes all understanding. It’s time for us to be the light on the hill!
How do we do that?
We do that by becoming God’s people and putting aside our sin. Pure and simple. Our Father calls us to a higher standard and the world is watching to see if we truly will live up to that standard. It’s why they call us hypocrites, because we don’t live to that higher standard even though we are equipped and fully able to do so. We choose to wallow in sin. Satan rejoices and the world despairs. We are the light on the hill and we are hiding that light under a basket of self-indulgence and self-pity.
We need to snap out of it! We need to become the Church that God created. We need to be the people He envisions. We need to act like the Christ-ones, to live as if the Holy Spirit truly lives within us (He does, you know.)
Sin has no power over us. Sin has no power over us. Sin has no power over us.
I said it three times because I really think most of us don’t believe it. We think that those habits that we "can’t" break really do control us.
Really?
Sin has no power over us. "Our old life died with Christ on the cross so that our sinful selves would have no power over us." We have been freed from the power of sin! Our Lord Jesus Christ did that for us. And that power isn’t just about when we’re in heaven. It’s about now! Paul asks, "So do you think we should continue sinning so that God will give us even more grace?" And he answers himself forcefully, "No!" Sin has no power over us, so if it has no power, then when we sin, we are freely choosing to sin. We can choose not to. We have that choice! We can deny the power of Satan (he’s really powerless), and we can live fully in the grace and love of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So how do we do that?
Well, first, we don’t think about sin, we think about God. Secondly, we stop and think about our decisions, our behavior. We stop acting like automatons that have no control over what they do. We use whatever is necessary (accountability, a prayer partner, lists, whatever) to remind us to think about what the Father wants us to do. And we offer ourselves to be used for doing good all the time in every situation.
Do you realize that our greatest weakness as Christians is self-indulgence? It’s why one of the fruit of the Spirt is self-control! We don’t need to be happy, we need to be righteous! We don’t need to have stuff, we need to be ministering to others. We don’t need to plan for the future, we need to trust our Father. And we need to be about the Father’s business which means we need to be living the fruit of the Spirit every day, every hour, every minute.
"Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things" (Philippians 4:9 NKJV).
From out of our thoughts come our words, our choices, and our actions. We need to spend much more time in the Word, much more time with the Father thinking on those things which are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous and praiseworthy. We need to consciously choose to do good. We need to live, walk, breathe the fruit of the Spirit. We need to truly become what we were meant to be—the light on the hill! The world can’t wait. They need us now!
© 2014 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved.
For permission to copy, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com
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