"Relieve the troubles of my heart and free me from my anguish. Look on my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins." (NIV)
We don’t realize how it is almost always our own sins that create the anguish and distress in our lives. We want to make our circumstances and even other people the cause of our problems. But the blunt truth is, our sins cause most, if not all, of the emotional pain that we feel.
How much do we focus on our sins and asking God to forgive us?
If we were honest, the vast majority of us really like the Lord’s Prayer and want to simply say, "Lord, forgive me of my sins" and be done with it. The fact is, sins need to be dealt with immediately, specifically, and ruthlessly.
Immediately; If we are truly wanting to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, we need to understand that His power cannot function in the presence of a sinful life. The Lord Jesus Himself talked about those people who thought they were saved and weren’t:
"Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in Your name and in Your name drive our demons and in Your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’" (Matthew 7:21-23 NIV).
"Evidence" of spiritual activity isn’t the evidence of a holy and righteous life. It isn’t the evidence of the forgiveness of sins. The evidence that someone is actually following the Lord, is actually living as a Christian, is a life that is striving above all else to be holy, acceptable, and pleasing to God. It is someone who is do conscious of their sinfulness that they must deal with their sin immediately upon realizing that they have sinned. They see their sin (Psalm 51:3) and live with a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). They desire to atone and to be redeemed (the definition of "contrite").
Specifically: It is so easy to close over sins if we simply categorize them as "sins" and refuse to see that a specific behavior is the problem. A sin, done over and over again, becomes habit and habits are what condemn us.
"Do not be deceived; God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." (Galatians 6:7-9 NIV)
We deceive ourselves when we refuse to deal specifically with sins that happen over and over again. If we find pleasure in what we do, it is very likely either a sinful or leaning toward being sinful. Pleasure and joy are two very different things. We are told to have the joy of the Lord, but we are told that pleasure in the flesh leads to death. We need to understand specifically what we are doing that pleasures us so that we can stop doing it and ask forgiveness.
Ruthlessly: To be ruthless is to be merciless (refuse to give any leeway), to be relentless (refuse to stop), and to be unyielding (refuse to compromise). We need to recognize the sin in our lives as sin, plain and simple. We need to refuse to give any leeway or any compromise when it comes to recognizing that something is a sin. We need to call a sin a sin and deal with it accordingly. We need to refuse to stop rooting out the sin in our lives, but to do it as relentlessly as possible. We need to ignore the pain in our flesh that will come from refusing to give into its constant pleading and pummel our flesh into submission to the will of God. It will be a battle, but we are empowered to win through the Holy Spirit once we start! But we need to start.
The psalmist cried out to the Lord about the troubles of his heart, about his anguish, afflictions, and distress. All things that we ordinarily would chalk up to horrible circumstances and experiences in our lives. But what does the psalmist attribute them to? To all of his sins! If we want to find victory over the troubles in our lives, we need to stop looking outward and begin immediately to look inward and to deal with the sins that we have embraced on a daily basis. Only then can we be assured of finding peace and joy . . . for peace and joy come only when we stand in full communion before the Throne of our Savior.
© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.
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