Monthly Archives: April 2021

DECEIVED BY SIN

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DECEIVED BY SIN

“What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life, actually brought death.” Romans 7:7-10.

How can we ever say that God’s law is sinful?

The law expresses both God’s character and His requirements for a holy life. God’s law is not the problem, but the rebel nature in us that rises up as soon as God says, “Don’t!” We were not created with a natural bent towards disobedience. We inherited it from Adam when he changed allegiance and decided to step out from under the covering of righteousness and go it alone. When he chose to make his own rules, it was necessary for God to establish His boundaries so that man would know wherein his safety lay.

Unfortunately, God’s law has the opposite effect on man’s fallen human nature. Instead of providing protection for him, the law provokes his rebellious nature to go the opposite way. Wherever God says “Don’t!” man says “I will!” and deliberately steps outside his safety zone and into the death zone. The law has exactly the opposite effect to what God intended. Instead of protecting us, it provokes us.

Why did Paul choose the last of the Ten Commandments as an example? Why not murder or adultery or theft? I think he chose coveting because coveting is where it all starts. Sin begins in the mind and coveting is the motive for outward acts like murder and adultery that come from coveting. Covetousness is inward sin. Only God knows what goes on in our hearts. Even though we may not steal or murder, the driving force behind these sins is already in our hearts.

Our natural bent is towards selfishness and greed. To change that, God had to intervene and take active steps to change our hearts in order to change our nature and our attitudes. We are not naturally contented. We are dissatisfied with what we have – we want more or we want what others have. Have you ever watched two toddlers playing together? Even though they might have a room full of toys, they will fight over the one toy that they both want! It’s in the heart. It’s in the disposition and the bent from the day that we were conceived.

It frustrates us to see the selfishness displayed in children and the disharmony that it produces in the little ones, but we don’t recognise coveting in ourselves. We call it ambition, or progress or getting ahead or some other cover-up word but, bottom line, it’s just plain coveting. And where did it come from? From our response to God’s law, written on our hearts, “You shall not covet.”

“For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment, put me to death. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment holy, righteous and good.” Romans 7:11, 12.

What was Paul’s conclusion? God’s law is holy. It was given to His people to show them the path to Himself. If they walked His way, they would surely arrive at the destination He intended for them. Unfortunately, the law has the opposite effect, because of built-in rebellion. Everyone, since Adam, thinks that he knows better than God. Sin is so deceptive that it will persist in making its own rules in spite of the fact that the outcome is always chaos and destruction.

An alcoholic knows that his drinking is destroying him and his family but he is driven by it and can’t stop. He refuses to acknowledge that he has a problem. He knows he cannot help himself but he keeps telling himself that he is okay and that he can stop drinking at any time if he so chooses. Why is he so foolish and stubborn? Sin has deceived him.

So it is with every form of sinful practice. We are foolish enough to believe that we can keep doing the same things and expect a different outcome! The problem lies with us, not with the standard by which God measures us. Paul is going somewhere with this explanation. He is building up a case for our utter helplessness without the intervention of God’s mercy and grace.

Stick with me. We’re getting to the exciting part.

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

LOVE FULFILLS THE LAW

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LOVE FULFILLS THE LAW

“Do you not know, brothers and sisters – I am speaking to those who know the law – that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.” Romans 7:1-3.

Paul was being as thorough as he could in explaining both the theory and practical application of Jesus’ death in the lives of his readers so that they would enter as fully as they could into their new life in Christ Jesus. Those who worshipped Idols would have no interest in being set free from sin. In fact, their very adherence to idol worship gave them licence to indulge every fleshly appetite as an excuse for worshipping their god!

It is only in the truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that we find both the reason and the power to break free from self-indulgence and the consequent destruction of everything good in us, to return to the way of life God created us to live. Sin brings alienation from God, cuts us off from the source of life and takes us in the end to where everything belongs that is disconnected from God – the rubbish heap – to be destroyed in the fire.

Since it is the law that defines what sin is, we have to be severed from the law which condemns us, and we must be reconnected to God without the barrier of sin and the penalty of the broken law. The only way out of the clutches of the law would be for someone who had never disobeyed the law to take the rap for disobedience by dying. In that way, that person would be severed from the law, just as a husband and wife are severed by death.

Death breaks the legal bond between husband and wife and allows the living spouse to marry someone else without violating her covenant with her former husband. That covenant was cancelled by his death and she is no longer held to it.

Could Paul make any clearer the situation between the law and a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? Legally, the bond between us and the law has been severed because someone has paid the penalty for breaking that covenant. Since He did not pay the penalty for His own sin, what He did affects the whole human race. We are now dead to the law; the bond has been severed and we are free to marry another.

By faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have been espoused to Him as our bridegroom. We await His return to take us to the Father’s house for the wedding and our eternal union with Him, as He promised.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me where I am. You know the way to the place I am going.” John 14:1-4.

Wedding talk! We are no longer married to the law. Jesus killed it by His death on the cross. We have a new fiancé and are already legally bound to Him by our faith in Him and what He did to break the law’s hold on us. It no longer has authority over us. We are not under condemnation because the debt has been paid.

When the law comes knocking and demanding obedience to it, we are free to ignore its demands because we are dead to it and alive to our new master. “But,” you ask, “doesn’t that mean that we can live as we like?” No, it doesn’t because we are not free from all authority. We have changed allegiance and are now under a new master – espoused to a new husband. He also has a law we must obey – but obedience to His law is not to make us acceptable but we obey Him because we love Him and are already acceptable to Him.

His law is simple. It is the law of love. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34.

“And so,” Paul concluded, “It is love that fulfils the law.” Look at that! By loving one another the law is satisfied, after all!

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

DEATH OR LIFE?

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DEATH OR LIFE?

“I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.” Romans 6:19.

Have you noticed the progression in what Paul was saying about our slavery either to sin or to obedience? Slavery to sin sets us on a downward path to unrighteousness which is nothing but purely selfish living, gratifying every whim and fancy of our fleshly nature, dehumanising us until we are fit for nothing else but the trash heap.

Slavery to obedience puts us on another path; this one leads to righteousness, imitating our Master who loved, cared for and served others. Righteousness leads to holiness, to being set apart from sin. The more we care about what God wants above what we want, and the more we obey Him instead of following our own appetites, the more we hate the sin that once enslaved us and enslaves the people who refuse to follow Jesus. We see what it does to them and we pull away from doing what they do.

Obedience to Jesus as our Lord puts us back on the path to becoming human again, and we become more alive to God and less alive to sin and to what the people in the world do. We have the assurance that God will complete the job of perfecting us in holiness and giving us the gift of everlasting life.

“When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at the time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you receive leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:20-23.

When we serve sin, we earn wages – like an employee working for an employer. If we have never received the new life Jesus offers us by accepting His forgiveness and turning our lives over to Him, we have to serve sin because sin is our master and because we are bound to it as slaves. We earn the wages that sin pays, death, and there is nothing we can do about it.

But eternal life isn’t like that. It is God’s free gift to us. We cannot work for it; we can do nothing to earn it; no amount of effort can produce it. God freely gives it to us when we respond to His invitation to receive it by receiving His Son and becoming God’s son or daughter.  Once we have received His gift, it us up to us to respond in faith and obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit who has taken up residence in our spirit and who leads and prompts us to follow Jesus.

Only those who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God (Romans 8:14). When we give ourselves to Him to obey Him, we set off on the pathway to becoming fully human again , in other words, towards becoming the people God created in the beginning to be in perfect harmony with Him. God’s intention is to remove all sin so that we can once again be sinless and perfect.

Watch the progression. As we choose to obey God and to become slaves to righteousness, we progress towards holiness – separated from sin to God – and holiness will eventually lead us to eternal life. Sin leads to death. Obedience leads to life. The gift of eternal life is already ours but we must possess it by following the path to eternal life.

And so our participation in eternal life is a co-operative venture. It is impossible for us to possess it by our own efforts but, at the same time, we cannot just sit back and float towards our future. It is through trust in God and obedience to the promptings of His Spirit that we progress towards holiness and take hold of eternal life.

It begins by recognising that we died with Christ, were raised to new life with Him and are now in Him by His Spirit. It continues by participating with His Spirit by counting ourselves dead to sin and alive to God, progressing towards the possession of eternal life by choosing to do what is right, shunning sin and being perfected as true human beings once again, perfectly united to God once more when Jesus returns.

Which path are you one?

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ADDICTED TO RIGHTEOUSNESS!

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ADDICTED TO RIGHTEOUSNESS!

“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey – whether you are slaves to sin which leads to death, or to obedience which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” Romans 6:15-18.

Another irrational argument! The first one – the more I sin, the more God’s grace is revealed! What a terrible misunderstanding! That one doesn’t hold water because I died with Christ when He died on the cross – symbolised by my baptism. Death set me free from sin to live a new life. It is up to me to live as though I were dead, and risen to a life without the ravages of sin.

The second one – shall I keep on sinning because I am no longer under the law? Since God’s grace has replaced the law, can I going on living any way I please because God’s grace has made provision for my sin and He will keep on forgiving me? Another terrible misunderstanding! To continue to live in sin isn’t just about doing what I like when I like; it’s about being the slave of the one I serve.

“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey – whether you are slaves to sin which leads to death, or to obedience which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” Romans 6:15-18.

When I serve sin, I am enslaved by it; my old selfish nature dictates what I do and, unfortunately, the consequences are part of the deal. Death! Sin is like a habit-forming drug. The more I sin, the more I want to sin, and the less able I am to resist gratifying the demands of my sinful nature. The more I fulfil my own lusts, the less appetite I have to love and obey God. My appetite is formed by whatever I eat.

Have you ever seen a child who feeds on junk food have an appetite for vegetables! Of course not. His appetite is developed by what he eats. The same applies in the spiritual realm. If I continually feed my spirit on “junk food”, activities that gratify my selfish and fleshly appetites, I will lose my appetite for God.

God’s grace has freed me from slavery to sin. I am no longer under obligation to do what my old master demands because I have died to it and am alive to my new Master, Jesus Christ. He has provided forgiveness for living to please myself; He broke the power my old nature had over me and set me back on the path that leads to wholeness and eternal life.

“But,” you ask, “what’s all the fuss about sinning or not sinning anyway? Why can’t I keep living as I like because Jesus has provided forgiveness, and I will go to heaven when I die?” You don’t understand. God created man in His own image to resemble Him in His character and to be one with Him, in harmony with what He thinks and what He desires. It was in that state of perfection that man was fully human.

The moment the first pair broke their union with the Father through disobedience, they lost their connection with their source of life; they died spiritually, and began to die physically. What killed them? Sin. Sin dehumanised them. They were no longer fully human. We think that being human is being subject to weakness. “After all,” we argue, “I’m only human.” No, you are human only when you have been restored to fellowship with God and are being renewed in knowledge after the image of your Creator.

God cannot die because He cannot sin. The grave could not hold Jesus because He was God’s sinless lamb. God sacrificed His perfect Son not only to provide forgiveness but to restore our union with Him so that we can become fully human again. Why would we want to keep on sinning when sin will kill us all over again?

Instead of seeing God’s forgiveness as something that deprives us of the “pleasures” of sin, we need to view it as a lifeline that rescues us from the jaws of death and an open door to the true pleasures of living in His presence and being made fully human again. As we eat the bread of His Word instead of the junk food of sinful indulgence, our appetite for God and His ways will increase. Then, Paul says, we will be “slaves” to righteousness, addicted to doing what pleases our Father.

That’s an addiction I want to have. Don’t you?

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

DEAD OR ALIVE?

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DEAD OR ALIVE?

“Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to Him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.” Romans 6:12-14.

“But,” you ask, “why am I not sinlessly perfect now if I died and rose again with Jesus? Why do I still struggle with the temptations of my old nature?”

Firstly, God would have to take you out of this present evil world in order to set you free from all the allurements to sin, and He will. Although He did not have a natural bent towards sin, Jesus Himself was not immune to temptation.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet He did not sin.” Hebrews 4:15.

Secondly, God has left us in the world, and He has not obliterated our old nature because He is training us to be His sons and daughters. Without the temptation to do wrong, we would not have opportunity to exercise our will and learn submission and obedience to Him in the environment of sin and disobedience. The very hardships we endure and the temptations that come with the tests, are God’s way of strengthening and purifying our faith in Him.

“Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children…No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:7a; 11.

Thirdly, by learning to make the right choices in the face of temptation, we strengthen our love and loyalty to the One who saved us and called us into fellowship with Himself. We are witnesses to the enemies of God, both human and demonic, that God is worthy of our love and trust. He reveals who He really is through us.

People are suspicious of God because the devil has lied to them. They cannot abide His holiness and they think He is out to get them. They create their own gods to replace Him because their gods are manageable and more like themselves. They think they are not obligated to live up to His standards and to be accountable to Him if they have their own god. But in the end, they will stand before Him to give an account of the way they lived.

How then, do we overcome the old nature that still rages within us? Paul said, “It’s dead. Now act as though it were dead.” In his book, My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers said that we must go to our own white funeral. In other words, we must see our old nature in a casket, being buried in the grave with Jesus. We must visualise ourselves rising with Him and leaving the old sinful nature behind in the tomb.

On the strength of that, we are to make our mortal bodies a present to God, using every part of it for His purposes, not our own. We are constantly being pulled in two directions, towards gratifying ourselves or pleasing God by meeting the needs of others. Paul said, “…Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship.” Romans 12:1b. How do we do that?

Again, Paul tells us: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” Romans 12:2a.

Change the way you think by thinking what God thinks. Just as sin begins in the mind, so obedience to God begins in the mind. Instead of dwelling on your own wants and wishes, fill your mind with what God says and desires, and the slow transformation into the way Jesus thought and acted will begin to happen. This means taking time to read God’s word and taking the trouble to find out what His thoughts about you are and how He wants you to live.

Yes, it does demand time and discipline, but the rewards are out of this world!

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.