I was just reading in a devotion plan I am doing and some things were laid on my heart. Some things that I think this microwave genre of Christianity society is often guilty of. And yes, I myself have been apart of this many times before. So what I am going to bring to your attention is how much we love to sin-repent-commit same sin- repent-and continue sinning until eventually you are just caught up in a never ending cycle in your life. That cycle will leave you bitter, restless, cowardly, broken, angry, depressed, and having such strong feelings of unworthiness. We too often find ourselves picking back up the very issue we already laid down at the Lords feet.
Identity has been such a tremendous issue and was a barrier between me and God for so long. I allowed satan to run my mind and my heart and that resulted in me having a negative outlook on everything. So many times after I first became a Christian he would come at me with thoughts about how I thought of myself and I would entertain the lies in my mind and often act on it. I would be so weak because even though I knew who I was in Christ, I didn't fully understand what this meant. You see, the cross is a symbol to us. It is a symbol of the suffering Jesus did to separate you and I from that barrier that gets put up between us and the one who loves us most. Jesus came and lived the life we can't, he has been through everything we have but he conquered the enemy and God sees us blameless because of Jesus' death. We get so caught up in fighting our battles alone because we forget that the battle has already been won and the enemy has already been defeated. The devil is nothing and he is only as much influence in our lives as we allow him to be.
The power of repentance is not a never ending gift certificate that says that you keep on committing the same sin and at the end of every day ask me for forgiveness, Repentance was not meant or something we think ahead of time like, "oh, God is a forgiving God so I can go do this or that secular thing and when I get home pray and everything will be alright." NO NO NO. Do not believe those lies that the enemy is telling you. Repentance means to turn completely away from something. When we repent and ask God to forgive us for what ever it is we have done, he does and he always will. But when we do that we need to be sincere about repentance and fully understand that we need to completely walk in the opposite direction of whatever that sin was. When we get into the habit of being the "repent-sin cycle Christian" we will end up being stuck in that sin for longer than we thought. When we dabble around in sin we stay longer than we intend to and slip further than we intend to. The flesh is so deceived by what this world says about Christianity. It is so crucial that we learn to sincerely repent and go towards Jesus and not the sin that satan makes look so good at the time. "Live in the freedom Christ has given, you have been forgiven. Not freedom to in but freedom from sin." God freed us from the sin that we struggle with, he didn't give us the gift to sin as much as we want knowing the outcome of forgiveness.
"Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered."
Romans 4:7
No comments:
Post a Comment