Useless …

Isaiah 49:4 (NLT)
I replied, “But my work seems so useless!
      I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose.
   Yet I leave it all in the Lord’s hand;
      I will trust God for my reward.”

I came across this verse in a Men’s Devotional I use, and it really jumped out at me.  Have you ever felt as if the only thing you can do for the Kingdom of God is serve as an example of how NOT to be a Christian?  Have you ever missed opportunities to tell someone about Christ?  Have you ever quit a position at church or not taken a position at church out of fear or frustration or simple laziness … and then, felt convicted or bad about it?

Have you ever NOT … to any thing God has called you to?  Do you feel like a sinner more than you feel like a saint?

If you have answered yes to any of the above … the one thing I would say right up front is that God is active in your life!  Why?  The only way you can answer yes to the questions above is if you care the least bit about your relationship with Christ.  Only the Holy Spirit can convict.  Satan seems to only send messages of guilt when we are living for Christ.  You must be doing something right. 

 Take some time to meditate on the verse above.  Look at what it is saying.  Basically, in my eyes, I seem like a failure.  It seems like I can’t do anything right … and that I am constantly falling in my attempts to serve the Lord.  But the last part is the important part.  Stop concerning yourself with measuring how successful you are or are not.  Leave that to God.

The encouragement I get from this is that even though I do fail … my responsibility is to keep trying.  Trying is the key.  God will continue to help us.  And God will reward us.

Have you said YES to God’s offer of being saved from your sins?  If so … there is a reward for you.  Try not to focus on your faults.  Don’t let them drag you down.  Simply focus on God!

Go with God,
Donald B

Looking ahead and leaving the past where it is …

Today, I begin with a sports analogy.  Stick with me if you do not consider yourself a sports person because I think this will make sense to you.

In any school or professional sport, the ultimate goal is to win.  In order to win, FOCUS is of supreme importance.  During the course of a game, a player may make an error by missing a ground ball in baseball, dropping a pass in football, putting a golf ball in the water or by committing a foul in basketball.  Errors (or mistakes) can be made in any sport.  And they can be made by some of the best players in the world.  Even Tiger Woods put a ball in the water on the 17th hole of the Masters this past Sunday when trying to pick up 2 strokes on the leader.  Mistakes happen.  What matters is how that particular player deals with the mistake.

If you have played any sport, you probably have come across that player that you know if you can get him a little off his her game by causing them to mess up once or twice … he’s done for the rest of the game.  He will continue to make mistakes.  Why is this?

In sports, if a player cannot get beyond the mistake, it really effects the rest of his game.  The successful players are those who can make a mistake and let that mistake go so they can focus on the rest of the game.  The players who continue to be mad at themselves for making the mistake or continue to place all their focus on how they made things bad for the rest of the team is the player that is unable to succeed for the rest of the game because his focus is now misdirected.

Please notice that I have not used the word forget in this dialogue.  As we all know, learning from our mistakes can help us be better in the future.  However, focusing on them as items that define who we are will hinder our ability to be all that Christ wants us to be.

Time for the scripture …

Philippians 3:12 – 14 (NIV)
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

The first thing you might be saying now is how Paul used the word Forgetting here.  What we have to realize here is the emphasis that Paul is making.  It is obvious that Paul does not forget his past because of other scriptures where he points out his mistakes and life before Christ in order to explain how he understands what the people are going through.  What Paul is asking us to do is to not FOCUS on the mistakes we have already made.  But notice this … he says forgetting what is behind.  While we instantly think about our mistakes, Paul is talking about what is behind.  Good things are behind as well.

While it is just as important to not let our mistakes drag us down and distract us from our focus, it is just as important to not let our successes in this life be a stopping point.

I’ll close with this …

Your past is your past.  Learn from it, but do not focus on it.  Do not measure your life as it will be by what you have been in the past.  Focus on becoming everything that Christ wants you to become.

Luke 9:62 (NIV)
Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

can a christian still sin?

Some one hit my blog the other day using using the title of this blog as their search. People want to know if Christians can still sin. And I believe this is something that needs to be addressed … and so, I will do my best here.

Before I go another step, the picture to the left is apparently real. Therefore, this lady must really believe she doesn’t sin. I THINK SHE’S WAY WRONG!

YES … Christians can still sin! The best thing I can do to support this is to take you to the scriptures.

Romans 7:14 – 25 (NLT)
So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.

This scripture alone should answer the question. Paul – the greatest missionary to ever live (in my opinion) – struggled with sin … AS A CHRISTIAN!

But then … we read scriptures like this one:

1 John 3:4 – 6 (NLT)
Everyone who sins is breaking God’s law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God. And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him. Anyone who continues to live in him will not sin. But anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or understand who he is.

While we never want to ignore any scripture – even if we don’t fully understand it or it seems to contradict other scriptures – this one seems to stump a lot of Christians. Here is what I have learned over the years from other teachers and readings.

Check out what this excerpt from Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary says about 1 John 3:4 – 6:

Christ, shows an interest by faith in his obedience and sufferings. But a man cannot act like the devil, and at the same time be a disciple of Christ Jesus. Let us not serve or indulge what the Son of God came to destroy. To be born of God is to be inwardly renewed by the power of the Spirit of God. Renewing grace is an abiding principle. Religion is not an art, a matter of dexterity and skill, but a new nature. And the regenerate person cannot sin as he did before he was born of God, and as others do who are not born again. There is that light in his mind, which shows him the evil and malignity of sin. There is that bias upon his heart, which disposes him to loathe and hate sin. There is the spiritual principle that opposes sinful acts. And there is repentance for sin, if committed. It goes against him to sin with forethought.

While it is true that we should always strive to live without sin, it will just not happen. However, this scripture does tell us that we can make evaluations about a person’s spiritual life based upon their daily life. Are they are person who sins without any apparent remorse or guilt? Or are they a person who struggle with the sins they commit? This can tell us a lot about a person. Please note: this is not to be used as a tool for bringing down the hammer of judgment … but rather, as a tool to make us aware of a person’s spiritual condition so that we can be ready to present the Gospel when the time presents itself. That’s another blog on its own.

As I close this blog (I’m sure a lot more can be written about this subject), I would like to point out an earlier scripture in 1 John.

1 John 1:9 (NLT)
But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.

The same author who gave us 1 John 1:9 is the same author who gave us 1 John 3:4 – 6. So, if he’s giving us a way to deal with our sins – GIVING CHRISTIANS A WAY – then we have to know that 1 John 3:4 – 6 is NOT saying that we will never sin again. Instead, it tells us that we will leave the life of sin.

Unfortunately, until Christ returns, sin will always be a struggle that Christians have to deal with. Fortunately, we don’t have to do it alone. Just read the Romans passage above again.

Go with God,
Donald B

If Our Hearts Do Not Condemn Us …

Originally posted in a previous blog on November 16, 2006

The title of this blog comes from the New International Version (NIV) of 1 John 3:21 – 22. In the NIV, it reads this way …

1 John 3:21 – 22 (NIV)
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.

I also want you to see the New Living Translation (NLT).

1 John 3:21 – 22 (NLT)
Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence. And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him.

This grabbed me today because of the “if we don’t feel guilty” portion. Please understand … from this point forward, if you have never committed a sin that satan constantly reminds you of in order to make you feel guilty … this may be a very hard thing for you to understand. But I’m guessing … that because most of you reading this are human … you will easily relate … or you are lying to yourself.

First, I in no way believe that scriptures like this and others which state that we can “receive from him whatever we ask” lead to the conclusion that God is Santa Claus or anything like that. I do believe there is another lesson that could be presented on how when our will aligns with God’s will we will truly desire the things he wants for us … but that’s not the subject today.

GUILT – is a relationship-killer. satan knows this and uses it to kill our relationship with God. It doesn’t keep God from us. Rather, it keeps us from God. Try thinking about it this way. When you have wronged that friend or family member, do you not think to yourself “I hope I don’t see them at church or work or school today” or something to that effect. You are hoping that your paths don’t cross. Why? Because you know you were wrong, and you don’t want to face looking into the face of the one you’ve wronged. How much more true this is with God! We serve a HOLY God. He is sinless. He is perfect. He is pure. We know what our sin does to God. And so, to go before him with sin is hypocritical and we know this. But here’s the catch …

I John 1:9 says “If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive our sin and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Psalm 103:12 says “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.” Our sins are gone! He has forgiven them and removed them! GUILT is the tool satan uses to remind us of those sins to keep us from boldly approaching God as a forgiven child of God!

So, deal with your sin! Believe God when he says you are forgiven! Believe God when he says the sin has been removed! Believe God when he says he wants to use you BECAUSE you are not perfect! Then … your prayer life before God will be radically altered, and you will become an effective praying agent in the spiritual war of which we are all a part.

Go with God,
Donald B