April 29, 2011
Planning Ahead
I watched a segment of Dog the Bounty Hunter, which interestingly took place in our community. One of those arrested was incensed with his bondsman who had set up the sting that led to the capture. Handcuffed and speaking through a back seat car window the fugitive said to the bails bondsman, “What’s this all about? Why’d you do this to me man? This’ll be the last time I’m going to use you to bail me out!” Sort of reminds me how we believers sometimes plan ahead for our next sin.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----I am glad to hear others of us do that too; I was beginning to wonder about myself. This whole thing of repenting of something in one moment while even knowing I would likely be doing it again has given me heart-burn most all my life. Some Scriptures are rather frightful in this regard. I John 3: 4-10 makes me shudder, “Every one who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that He appeared to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has either seen Him or known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who does right is righteous, as He is righteous. He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God commits sin; for God’s nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. By this it may be seen who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother.” So why do I still sin? I don’t want to, but I do. I know I don’t even try not to as hard as I could. That in itself is a sin. Is it maybe even deliberate? Which then draws my mind to, “For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries...How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace?” (Heb 10:26-27 and 29) If this whole salvation thing for me depends upon my conquering the sin in my life, I’m toast. Because I don’t think I can completely do it. Yet seven times Christ dictated to John, “...to him who conquers I will...” That would tend to leave me thinking that for me He won’t.
-----So I have given up on planning to do everything right. What plans of mere man completely work out? Well, the simple ones do. I planned on being at work this morning, and I am. But what I have done so far at work is not yet what I planned. Sin is not simple. Neither is doing right. They are both highly systemic to what you are and what your situation is. Some situations are near impossible. If you had a Jew hidden in your attic in 1943 Germany, would you lie to the SS Trooper at your door asking if you had any Jews in your house? I would with a bold face; God forgive me. Yet other situations just as difficult are not so innocent. And many go beyond our comprehension to resolve right from wrong, which lack of comprehension is itself a sin of not having lived your life right enough to have built such comprehension.
-----I think I would be near blasphemous to figure I could conquer the sin in my life. I would be setting myself on par with Jesus. That’s a scary mistake to make in the face of His Father. And it is a scary mistake to make in this mussed up life; we all see where His perfection got Him. His perfection chose the way He died to conquer sin for me. So now I try to do right only because I desire to be right and plan to be right only when Christ has made me right. My own efforts to be right can merely verify my desire, not make me right. Only by His granting my desire will my efforts be achieved.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Post a Comment