sin

Have you ever heard people say that sin is a slow and gradual slope? You don’t jump into sin; you slide into it, very slowly? well, it's true. Sin begins with the minutest compromise. It’s so minute that you may not even notice, but if you do think about what you are doing you will ask yourself, “I wonder if this is right?” If you ever ask yourself that question you have most certainly begun the gradual slipping into sin. All the way you will continue to take these small and almost unnoticeable steps down a dark path. Even your closest of friends may not notice because sin can compartmentalizes itself for quite sometime (in this stage it can remain hidden from those closest to you). There comes a point when sin actually has authority in your life. Sin, at that point, can no longer hide. Sin becomes your master, your stronghold, entanglement, which will ultimately destroy your soul. Peter said that sin “wars against your soul.” Wow, and that is the truth! Have you ever felt that war? You try to quit some thing you know is wrong and you just can’t? It’s because for a while you asked yourself, “I wonder if this is right?” Then one day the darkness of your deeds becomes clear because as a Christian you will come to a place when you will know, if there was the question before, that what you are doing is wrong. Once you make enough compromises in a certain action you will not be able to stop. When you decide to sin you give sin power in your life, every time you do a particular sin, that sin becomes all the more powerful and harder to stop until you no longer have the power to chose not to do that sin. Sin controls you. Sin chooses for you. Sin keeps on sinning. Sin is like taking a 1,000 pound weight, tying it around your waist, and throwing yourself into a sea that is 1,000 feet deep. Do you think you will come back up? No. You won’t unless you are Christ’s. Peter said that those who know God cannot continue to sin. It will take the power of God to release you from the grip, the power, the slavery, and the tyranny of sin. Have you ever gotten to the point where you have made so many compromises that sin owns you? and now satan is using his devises to destroy you. Satan uses sin to destroy humans. Then he comes in and lies to you he says, “look what you did! You’re not really a child of God. You’ll be doing this the rest of your life. One time I distinctly remember one night. I was sound asleep and all of a sudden I heard a high pitch voice yelling obscenities at me. When I woke up, three seconds later, I knew that satan had said those things to me. He wanted to destroy me. He was using sin and lies to defeat me. Thankfully, I knew the truth of God’s Word. Jesus prayed for Simon that his faith would stand because satan had asked to sift him as wheat. We know that faith comes by knowing the Word of God. If you don’t know the truth of God’s word and you are heading down the dark path of sin the lies of satan will destroy you. You will not be able to stand. You will have no weapon against him. The only weapon we have against satan and lies is the Word of God. We are to use our weapons of righteousness, the sword of the Spirit. Satan makes the action of sin become a huge burden in your life and because he is the father of lies he takes lies like arrows and shoots them into your mind and heart. Sin opens a door for the enemy…and he is crouching at that door waiting to pounce!



the workings of sin with the human condition:
Sin is more powerful than you know. people don’t understand it’s power and how Satan works in our lives to tempt us to sin. We are so prideful and think that we’re okay. We don’t talk to God about our sin and we don’t talk to anybody else about it either. Sin is really good at hiding and since we’re sinners already it’s just that much harder to be free from it’s grip. Sin is an entanglement, a yoke of slavery, and a burden. Galatians 6 and Hebrews 12. john said that anyone who claims to be w/o sin deceives himself... the human condition is incredibly deceived. in romans paul said that when you sin, as a believer, it is no longer you sinning but sin itself. he explains it to where there are now two natures at work in the human heart and whatever nature you set your mind to, romans 8, is the one you will experience. we need the Holy Spirit, romans 12, to renew our minds so that the deception of sin is clearly seen in the new nature. the more we walk in the Spirit the more we can see light and darkness, the more power we have to chose righteousness, and the more holy we are. the more we see the lies of sin and what looks like light is really a fraud.





the bondage/slavery/terrany/weight of sin:
one day I was running in a field and I began to feel extremely heavy. Every step I took felt more painful in my heart. I felt so much pain that I just fell over. I fell over because there was a battle going on in my heart, mind, and soul. I was trying to get out of sin and I literally felt like my heart was being pulled down into a pit. Then when I went for a run my body also became tired and the weight of my sin was unbearable. This goes back to the analogy of the 1,000 pound weight in the water. I couldn’t get out of my sin. I just couldn’t carry on. My actions made me feel like crap and satan was rolling me around in the fact that I had totally blown it. All I could do in the field that day was mutter a prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ remember me in my distress.” Satan keeps you focused on how you ‘feel’ and all you feel is weighted, heavy, like you want to throw up. The truth doesn’t seem to penetrate how you feel. I said God, “I wish I could’ve done something else, why that sin?” I know look at my sin and think, “God if my sin weighed that much to me how did you take on the sins of the world?” God’s gift in Jesus Christ is an enormous gift.

Getting out of sin:
The first step out of sin is to talk about it. I knew that I needed to tell someone about my sin. I thought of several people that I could tell. Telling the first person was such a battle. Sin is darkness and when you tell someone about your sin you take a step into the light. The more you are real with God and others about your sin the more light, clarity, and freedom you’ll experience. Satan wants you to feel alone and isolate you. None of these are from God. If you focus on those feelings, those lies, you will stay in the dark. The battle of sin is so intense. Darkness and light are going at it. If you do not realize the battle and fight with all you have kiss your soul goodbye. Confess your sin to God, He is faithful and just and will forgive you of all your sin and cleanse you from unrighteousness. James 5 talks about confessing you sin to one another so that you may be healed… personally I have never found that to be so true. Properly confessing your sins is key if you want to be freed from them. it’s one thing to talk to God about your sin, it’s another to give Him your sin. Writing down my sins, with all the details, even speaking them out loud is not easy to do, but the best to do. Writing your sins down or saying the aloud is like admitting that you are a sinner to God. Saying it in your head is often not enough. I have experienced freedom after freedom when I started actually giving my sin to God. And only when you give it to Him is it gone. I would tell God everything out loud or write it all down. Sometimes I would even tell someone. Amazingly I would no longer have to struggle with the sin- God just took it away. He took away my desire and when there’s no desire for something it’s gone. Sin starts with desire and getting the desire is the key to freedom. These are questions God walked me through to be free. Why do you have that desire? If you really answer that question it is so scary to see what is really in your heart. But God will, as you confess all of it to Him, explode His light into your heart, mind, and soul. When you see why you have that desire the reason you are sinning is because you are trying to get something you think you need, but in the flesh, sin. You will begin to see that you have some deep hurts in your heart and you are trying to fix them through your own methods. Everyone is acting out of hurt until God heals them. There’s a longing in your heart and if you do not realize what it is and why it is there your methods for getting it will be evil desires, James 1. Getting to the bottom of desires behind what you do will show you your hurt and God is ready because by His stripes you are healed. You will see insecurities about yourself, a failure you are trying to fix, a love you are trying to receive. None of your attempts to gain these things through your evil desires will ease the pain. Learning how to give your pain and hurts to God, confessing your sin to God, will heal the longings of your heart and take away evil desires. This is the only way to really get out of sin.
Holy fire burn away my desire for anything that is not of you – Jeremy Camp
I begged, “O God burn me, burn my sick, sinful desires!”

Something glorious:
Sin steals your joy. There were days I just couldn’t smile. I didn’t want anyone to talk to me and ask me how I was doing. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. But when God’s healing, love, and light hit your heart. Ps 51 begins to happen. Through true confessing God restores the joy of His salvation in your life. I can now look back on my horrible sin and smile because the grace of God has covered all my sin. Jesus’ blood. I asked a friend of mine with the same struggle how you can know when you’re free? I knew I would have a different story than hers, I wanted to know how I could be free. I began to know I was free when my desire for sin was gone. My brain was so clogged that I couldn’t think of anything unrelated to my sin. And that made my heart so heavy. I knew I was free when my mind began to clear. Every time I talked to someone, and mostly truly gave God each hurt and sin, I was walking in freedom.
God reached down into my sea of sin, grabbed me, breaking the 1,000 pound weight around my life, and pulled me up. He set my feet on a rock. He is my place of firm standing. Is. 61, Ps. 40
Anyone who is born of God cannot continue to sin – 1John 3:4-6
He is our God and we are the people of His pasture
God sets us free from sin. not because of anything we have done, but because of His great mercy...and it is great!


do you feel that the mercy of God is great?
i used to judge people and say in my heart, "why can't they just stop sinning~ man!?"
when i fell flat on my face i realized why...
do you think you're better than others?
do you weep when you think of where you'd be w/o Jesus?
God's grace is enormous. if not for His grace I could not be existing right now- Hebrews 1.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
...He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness...
...i urge you...abstain from sinful desires wich war against your soul...
...those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son...

the life with Christ continues from glory to glory until we see Him face to face!