Wednesday, June 30, 2010

…so why do we?

“God says we must not eat it or even touch it, or we will die.” Genesis 3:3

Did a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for the last five years do it by staying surrounded in the same environment and with the same people he use to drink with?

Did the drug addict become drug free by keeping his drugs close at hand?

Did the family who survived a horrible affair last because they kept in contact with the other person?

How does a liar regain the trust of his friends and family, by only partially telling the truth?

Did the overweight man or woman overcome their addiction to food by keeping their old thought life?

We can never overcome sin or expect to change if we are not willing to remove the sin from our lives. For these people their addictions are big, but so are our addictions to sin. They start out small; the alcoholic never thought there was a problem with having a few drinks until his few became a dozen. The drug addict was only trying to heal from a major surgery, she never wanted to become addicted to the pain medicine but when the bottle was empty she went back for more. He/She never thought they would cheat on their spouse, they thought there was nothing wrong with a few conversations here and there. That is until they found themselves wanting more than a conversation with someone beside their spouse. The liar didn’t realize you could even be addicted to lying until he started receiving attention that made him feel good. The man and women who are now overweight because eating made them feel good, comfortable never thought they would be to the point where they lost control.

It goes on and on and not just with what we think is “big” all sin is big to God. Whether it is anger, disrespect to a spouse, jealousy, greed, etc if we entertain the thought of sin we are only opening the door for Satan to attack.

He wants to remind of us how fun this or that is, or how good that drink tastes, or the feeling we get from this or that. Satan loves to get in our heads and convince us that it’s okay to do what our flesh wants.

But the Lord just as He did with Adam and Eve says don’t eat it and don’t even touch it! We should not only refrain from eating and touching sin, but we should not look at it, or even surround ourselves with it.

Don’t you get it, Satan wants nothing more than to convince you that it is okay to please your flesh. He wants you to think those few drinks won’t hurt nothing, ya until your son or daughter start doing it and become addicted or die from it. He wants you to become angry and harbor bitterness towards people, for then there is less unity and more division. The Lord hates sin, He cannot even look at sin, and the more we try and get away with pleasing our flesh one night or daily and then thinking we can just make up for it on Sunday is a bunch of bologna. All UN repented sin does is drive a wedge between us and God. It hinders our relationship with God and others. All of which Satan loves nothing more.

Who really is the most important to you? If we say God than we need to start living like He is and stop thinking it is okay to do what our flesh wants. God sees through us and straight to the heart.

Prayer: Lord today we need Your sword to go in and remove all the sin that lurks within us. We want to overcome any and all addictions to sin that we have. As You lay them out in front of us may we fall to our face confessing them leaving them at Your feet. I pray that as we confess them to You that we will leave them, not returning to them ever again. Amen