I love the sentiment from this Catholic prayer of contrition. It indirectly points to the Good News: We don’t have to die rather than sin again. Jesus has died for us, paid the price, and won victory over death. Because of His sacrifice, God forgives us of our sin, all of it. Our only duties are to repent and believe in (put our trust in) Jesus Christ, God will forgive us of all sin and unrighteousness. And, He will give us the power to find victory over sin so that we do not have to live as a slave bound in darkness. We are free indeed.

Source

Now let’s pretend that not only your church building loses electricity but your pastor’s house, too. Would your pastor be able to prepare a sermon without Internet? Would he or she have any stories to tell or illustrations to relate without searching online? Could your pastor speak from the heart or would he or she be lost with no light to read from a manuscript?

I imagine a church full of people wandering around in the dark, not knowing when to start the service because the countdown is not projected on the viewscreen. I imagine a congregation That cannot worship because they don’t have music and lights to manipulate their emotions, and because they have never been alone with God.

I remember attending church before viewscreens, before endless choruses, before the Internet, before Bible apps on smart phones, and before dark, cavernous multi-purpose meeting halls with manipulative lights, mood-affecting music, and polished performers.

I remember when we had a pastor to whom we could speak when we had a need, but that was before senior pastors, teaching pastors, youth pastors, children’s pastors, senior pastors, and church CEOs. I remember when we had to learn the books of the Bible and their order. I remember when we committed Scripture to memory. I remember when we were guided by the Spirit instead manipulated by the worship service .

And, I remember when we measured the success of a church not by the number of attendees but by the number of people whose lives were changed.

Why is the Church in the West dying? Because churches are social clubs doing “good works” based on social justice and humanistic principles, reaching out to people based on psychological precepts, marketing themselves like the newest trendy nightclubs, and presenting the prettiest, most talented, and charismatic musicians leading the newest music on a high-dollar sound system.

The dying Church in the West preaches “I can do all things through He that strengthens me,” and “I know the plans I have for you.” The dying Church preaches living “life abundantly.” It preaches giving with a “joyful heart.” But it forgets repentance and deliverance from sin, transformed lives, and freedom from the Law.

I long to find a church where the pastor preaches true Victory in Jesus because he has experienced it himself, not because he finds it in a Bible app. I pray for a church where the congregation is full of humble sinners whose lives are redeemed and transformed by the blood of the Lamb, and who are willing to reach out and lift others from the muck and mire of sin. I long for a church whose musicians play and sing to God’s glory, and not their own. I long for a song leader who doesn’t care if he or she is a little pitchy, because he or she is led by the Spirit and not the latest trends.

I pray let THE CHURCH BE THE CHURCH.

Source

I heard all these euphemisms for death and dying when I was a boy, especially in old movies. I don’t hear so many of them today, or maybe I simply avoid the topic of death. One that I could identify with was the last one, “circling the drain.”

As a child, my brothers and I loved to swim in the Finley River which meandered through the farm where we grew up. Sometimes we would go upstream to Riverdale, an old mill and dam, and float back to our farm. On the way back, we would stop at Blue Hole and swim, for even when waters were shallow, Blue Hole always had enough water to dive and swim. It was inevitable that somewhere along the float trip, conversation would turn to whirlpools.

Whole floating we would sometimes pass a whirlpool, but never the life-threatening sink holes that one found on the James River, the larger stream that lay a few miles down from our farm. The James, it was said, was full of whirlpools that would suck swimmers and boaters to the bottom and drown them. Every year, we heard stories of new drownings.

Turns out the stories are based on facts. There were significant numbers of drownings on the rivers of Southwest Missouri when I was a kid. The whirlpools – the deadly kind – were not just turbulent eddies, but sink holes that opened into underground rivers and caverns. Get near one of those, and it would suck a swimmer straight to the bottom.

Sin acts the same way, for those Christians who are weak in their faith and still flirt with sin, it takes little temptation to lead them into sin. Sin, without fail, leads to eventual death. Sin sucks got right in and – once it has you – there is no escape. It is a bottomless pit that leads to death, a whirlpool from which the is no escape. Sin, when it claps is wicked hands around your throat, does not easily turn loose.

Only Christ can compel sin to loosen is grip on your heart. Only Christ can toss you a life saver.

At a local amusement park in Branson Missouri, there was -in the 1960s – a ride called The Float Trip. On one turn was an artificially constructed whirlpool with a manikan perpetually circling it, as if condemned to an eternity of drowning. The ride has been transformed and renamed. The lifelike dummy is gone now, but the whirlpool remains. Temptation always remains, but Christ can transform you so that you no longer dive into it.

____________

___________

Holiness is, perhaps, the most misunderstood concept in Christianity. Anyone who has striven to follow the life of Christ can likely tell you that it is impossible to do. No one can match His love, His grace, or His compassion. For no one but Jesus is perfect. Once the believer is filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit, though, he or she is filled to the brim with the love of Christ, and desires nothing more than to please God and follow in Christ’s steps. The love of sin is gone. In its place is a love and passion for others. That is Christian Holiness. This is Christian Holiness Daily.

Source

I had done so much wrong in my life that I was convinced God could never forgive me. I had been such a wicked sinner I had feared that I had crossed a bridge too far. After all, I had been saved, I knew right from wrong, I knew what God expected. I just found that I didn’t want to do what was right. Doing right involved sacrifice, and I didn’t want to sacrifice. It involved giving up control, and I liked being in control. Because I couldn’t see anyway to fix my life, I could not understand how God could fix it. I had no faith. I had no self-discipline. I had no comprehension of the power of God. And I had no grasp of the depth of God’s love.

Here is what I thought I understand. I knew that Hebrews 6 talked about those who sin too much and lose their salvation, or that’s what I believed. I knew that Romans 1 spoke of those who sin so much that God gives them over to a “reprobate mind.” I had read, in Acts 7, the sermon by my namesake, Stephen, that God had once given up on the nation of Israel and turned them over to worship false gods. And, I knew that the psalmist had spoken of that same event in Psalm 81:12.

It was in the Bible. Those people had gone too far, and God had given up on them, turned His back on them, and let them reap the rewards of their sins. I feared I was in the same place as the People of Israel. I didn’t worship a golden calf, but I did worship the idol known as self. God was, I was convinced, angry at me.

Here are the two points that we will be looking at as we continue our study on bondage to sin and freedom from sin through the power of the Holy Spirit.

First, sin is a frightful thing. Its grip on the life of an unbeliever or a weak believer is nothing less than a Vulcan death grip. Sin latches on to your heart and your soul and squeezes you, harder, and harder, and harder, and is not happy until you collapse, dead. If you manage to resist and break the grip, it stalks you, and doesn’t give up until it possesses you once again. It never gives up. Paul describes the wages of sin in Romans 1 as a depraved mind. God – knowing that the people of Israel would not repent – turned them over to the wages of sin, to live with their own bad decisions and willful disobedience, and as a result their minds and souls grew dark, and filled with muck, and the only word to describe them is depraved.

It didn’t have to be that way, though. They had plenty of chances to repent.I had once been convinced that Hebrews 6 tells us that we can lose our salvation by sinning too much. A closer reading reveals that that is not at all the case. Instead it says that we may lose our salvation if we stop believing in Christ the Messiah. I had done many, many things wrong, but I had never stopped believing in Christ, and I had never once thought that there is any other route to heaven but through Him. He is the Way and the Truth and the life. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV).

Sin can take you down. But it is only if you stop believing that your salvation may be in jeopardy. Your good works didn’t earn you salvation (salvation is by faith), so your bad deeds will not lose it for you. Sorry, you are not more powerful than the grace of God.

That Vulcan death grip was a farce. It didn’t work. Dr. McCoy saved the day. Jim wasn’t really dead. Spock showed emotion at the recovery of his captain. And, guess what. There is a cure for the death grip that sin has on your life, too. Confess your sins. Repent of them. And trust in God. It is NOT TOO LATE. 

_______________

_______________

Holiness is, perhaps, the most misunderstood concept in Christianity. Anyone who has striven to follow the life of Christ can likely tell you that it is impossible to do. No one can match His love, His grace, or His compassion. For no one but Jesus is perfect. Once the believer is filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit, though, he or she is filled to the brim with the love of Christ, and desires nothing more than to please God and follow in Christ’s steps. The love of sin is gone. In its place is a love and passion for others. That is Christian Holiness. This is Christian Holiness Daily.

Source

We are continuing our conversation on sin and freedom from sin, on Christian Holiness Daily…

The Morning After (1974 – ABC TV from the novel by Jack B. Weiner, adapted for TV by the legendary Richard Matheson) was an amazing movie, and the first one that presented alcoholism as a real problem, and not simply a comic prop. It is still shown today in rehab centers worldwide. It starred Dick Van Dyke as an alcoholic who could not admit he had a problem. Van Dyke, for those of you too young to remember, was everyone’s favorite TV husband, dad, chimney sweep, and funnyman. When he made The Morning After, no one could accept him – this wholesome TV comic – as an alcoholic. When it became known that he took the role because he closely identified with the character, no one could believe it. I, myself, was devastated, for I had admired the actor tremendously (rather, I admired the characters for which he was known).

The movie portrayed Van Dyke as a businessman who repeatedly drank to excess, picked himself up, promised to never repeat his actions, promised to live on the straight and narrow, and once again falls into the same routine. Get drunk. Hurt those you love. Sober up. Apologize. Stay on the straight and narrow for a few days. Get drunk again. Over and over and over again. From the outside, he looked okay, but those who knew him, saw his problem, and realized that every time he failed, he fell a little harder and a little farther into a black hole from which – someday – he would eventually never return.

Alcoholism, like sexual addiction, gluttony, and a myriad of other sins is just a vicious circle. Alcoholics feel like they are a slave to the drink; they cannot – of their own power – resist the temptation. Jesus characterizes sin well when he says, “Those who practice sin are slaves to it.” Likewise, those who are slaves to sin can do nothing but practice it. According to Jesus, in John 8:34, everyone  who practices sin is a slave to sin. As one who struggled for decades with the same old sins, the same old temptations, the same old struggles, and as one who has rarely won a battle against temptation, I know what it is to be a slave to sin. It is like being bound hand and foot and chained to a chair, to be at the mercy of a diabolical master. It is like one of those movies where a maniacal bad guy threatens to kill the good guy’s family unless he does “exactly as I say.” Living as a slave to sin is watching your perfect Van Dyke-esque life shattering all around you and you can do nothing to stop it.

Only Christ can free us from the sin that imprisons us.

________

________

Holiness is, perhaps, the most misunderstood concept in Christianity. Anyone who has striven to follow the life of Christ can likely tell you that it is impossible to do. No one can match His love, His grace, or His compassion. For no one but Jesus is perfect. Once the believer is filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit, though, he or she is filled to the brim with the love of Christ, and desires nothing more than to please God and follow in Christ’s steps. The love of sin is gone. In its place is a love and passion for others. That is Christian Holiness. This is Christian Holiness Daily.

Source

What is your favorite sin? Come on. I know your have one. All but the most mature Christians always have a favorite sin, one that is always in the back of our minds, waiting until we are physically tired, spiritually weak, or in emotional turmoil to pounce and take control of our lives.

For many, it is uncontrollable anger or rage. For others it is sexual perversion or pornography. For some it is overeating. For some it is out-of-control spending. For someone else, it may be abusing drugs or alcohol. For a few it may be a combination of some of these or all of these things.

Truth be told Christians still struggle with sin – correction: most Christians still struggle with sin. But, why? Christ came to rescue us from sin and death, not just death! Why, then do we struggle? Is it because we have never been taught that Christ conquers sin? Is it because we have never heard of anyone overcoming sin?

We cannot fathom eternal life. Yet, we accept God at His word that we will live in His presence eternally. If we can believe that, then why can we not believe that He will presently free us from sin?

Holiness is perhaps the most difficult concept for a Christian to comprehend. It is a paradox. On the surface it is at once an

While we will NEVER be perfect while in this life, God will help us to overcome sin and fill us with His perfect love.

act of faith and an act of discipline. Our sins flee from the presence of God never to return, but then God reveals to us sins that are rooted even deeper in our lives and gives us the power to overcome even those. And He does this again and again. Holiness is not a goal to be reached only upon death, rather it is a journey that begins on the day of salvation and ends only at the foot of His throne.

Holiness is an act of mutual love. God loves us even in our sin, and he beckons us to come to Him. He loves us too much to let us continue wallowing in the filth of our sins. He demonstrates to us that we must fully abandon or sins.

Once we acknowledge those sins and ask Christ to rid us of them, then He will empower us with the power and love of His Holy Spirit, so that we may overcome those sins. As a result, we love Him too much to continue in sin. That is sanctification. It is at once an act of surrender: we surrender our life to God and lay down our sins on the altar of the cross. And it is an act of the Holy Spirit: He fills us with His love and gives us the power to walk away from those sins, never to return.

And it is a journey of discipline, for God’s Spirit moves into our lives. Daily we surrender our will to Him and ask that His love continue to empower us; we die daily.

We have God’s promise, though: He that began the good work in us will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. He will never give up on you. So never give up on Him.

If the struggle you’re facing

Source

I fought back but to no avail. If I ran into the backyard, Jerry pelted me in the head. If I ran into the front yard, David bombarded me, but much gentler. Eventually, I ran inside.

Childhood memories like these are precious, but I am reminded of the Bible story of the woman caught in adultery. When the Pharisees brought her to Jesus, they asked Him to sentence her to death by stoning. This incident is found in the 8th chapter of the gospel of John if you want to read it. The only thing I can think right now is how much those rocks would have hurt, given how much the snowballs hurt.

If you are familiar with this incident in the life of Jesus, then you know that Jesus rescued the woman by challenging the Pharisees. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

This week here at Christian Holiness Daily, we begin studying holiness and sanctification, two sides of the same coin, both of which are widely misunderstood.

Holiness is loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit that enables believers to love God in such a manner. One result of loving God so fervently is that we learn to love other people in the same way that we love God, even our enemies. We’ll discuss that as well.

One of the misconceptions about holiness is the belief that those who are sanctified are suddenly sinless, or perfect, or believe that they are miraculously without sin. This is not true. I know of no true Christian who, if challenged by Jesus to cast the first stone, would have thrown the rock. I wouldn’t have. Living the life of holiness doesn’t mean you are perfect. It means that God has filled you so full of His love that there is no room for the love of sin.

We’ll talk more about the perfect love of Christ as we travel together on this journey. For now, let’s just say that I wish I had had the wisdom of Jesus during that late winter snowball fight. Maybe I wouldn’t have gotten beaned upside the head.

Until next time, put down those rocks. None of us are without sin.

Source

Not only was I unplanned, I turned out to be a disappointment to my mother. Mom died before I was 28. I lived in another state by then, but I hurried home when I got the call. I was there for her final 12 hours in this world. I am not sure if she knew I was there. I am not sure she would have cared. After Mom’s funeral my brother told me that Mom had written down some thoughts about each of her children. He refused to show it to me. It would be painful, he said. That confirmed her disappointment in me.

As sad as that sounds, my regret is not that she was disappointed in me, rather my regret is that I gave her bountiful reason to be disappointed.

I have a parent, though, whom I can never disappoint. My Heavenly Father knows my ending from my beginning. Before He spun the world like a top, He knew every sin I would ever commit. He knew every time I would go astray. He knew before I took my first breath when and where I would breathe my last. God cannot be disappointed in me because He knew exactly what I was when He invited me to follow Him.

That ledger that God keeps, with my name on the top, with two or three good things in the right column and thousands of bad things in the left column… It lists every sin I ever committed and ever will commit. Lately, though, that list has disappeared. It’s gone. No one can find it. The ink faded away. The paper burned up. In its place, God wrote my name in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

A few years ago, I surrendered to Jesus as my Lord. I committed to live like Him. I can never make up for disappointing Mom, but I have a proud Father that I can never disappoint.  He killed the “fatted calf” when I came home. I tell Him I’m sorry when I sin. He says, “That’s covered by the blood of the Lamb – and has been before the foundation of the world.”

Fear Not for God knows all and loves us anyway. We will never disappoint Him.

Source

When I was a boy, my grandpa and grandma had a dog named Mutt that had lived, I think, its entire life on a chain. I felt so sorry for it. My own dog, Taffy, the Cocker Spaniel that I had grown up with, had never spent a minute on a chain. Mutt was not so fortunate.

Mutt’s dog house was in the corner of the yard between the chicken coup and the barnyard. From fence to fence, for ten feet not a blade of grass could be found. That patch of mud – the result of paws and chain running back and forth over the same ground year after year – was the entire world where Mutt lived.

One summer day Grandpa told me that Mutt had spent so much time on that chain, and that the dog had become so used to his limitations, that if he were ever to be set free he wouldn’t step foot on the grass; the dog, said Grandpa, would simply stay put.

Many Christians are like Mutt. They are chained by sin. They spend their entire life repeating the same set of sins, traveling over the same familiar ground. Christ has removed the chain, but they refuse to leave their old stomping ground.

Ask most Christians what the Bible means when it says we are free indeed from sin, and they will tell you that Christ saves us from the punishment of hell.

Ask them about the power of the Holy Spirit to free us from sin, and they may tell you that when we die we will be like Jesus and  – at last – be free from sin.

Few Christians – very few – will tell you that being free from sin means that sin and Satan has no power over you. Fewer still will tell you that through the power of the Holy Spirit, the discipline of prayer, and the study of God’s word we can overcome sin. Rarely will a Christian tell you about how the Spirit sanctifies us and makes us holy, slaves to righteousness.

Yet, the life freed from sin is integral to the theme of the Bible. Christ’s victory over Satan and sin is as fundamental to the Christianity as His victory over death.

Without the power to resist sin, there is no victory in the life of a Christian; the Christian only finds victory in death. If that is the way we live, then we may as well rip out chapter after chapter from the Bible, including most of the Psalms, much of the Gospels and all of the works of Paul.

That few ministers of the Church educate parishioners in the power of the Holy Spirit over sin explains why many local congregations are dying. That the church is no different than university campus coffee house is why fewer than 5% of Millennials go to church regularly. There is nothing of substance offered in most churches. Our churches entertain us by mimicking Hollywood. A significant number of worship leaders are performance artists and pastors try to be stand-up comics.

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! (2 Timothy 3:1-5 NKJV)

The power of the Church is its Message not its marketing.

Would you be free from the burden of sin?There really is power in the blood of the Lamb.

By the way, when Mutt got loose, he took off  and never looked back, another good lesson for us to learn.

Fear Not for there really is Victory in this life.

Source

These are the heart-wrenching words of a dying son to His Dad. He reaches out his hand and calls out to Him in despair. 

I wish His words were hyperbole. Instead, they very accurately describe Jesus’s final hours, the tortuous hours spent hanging br three nails to a cross. 

“I am poured out like water…” Very accurately describes the feeling of one’s life slipping away. 

“All of my bones are out of joint…” Because of the position of the feet and arms after nailing them to the cross, the only way Jesus could breath was to push on His nail-pierced feet and pull up with His nail-pierced arms, thus ripping at his wounds, and dislocating his shoulder sockets, elbows and hips. 

“My heart is like wax; It has melted within Me…” Jesus bore the sins of every human who has ever lived our will ever live. It may very well have affected his heart in a literal sense. Many physicians have described the effects that intense stress can have on the heart and blood vessels, which may have also caused his sweat to turn bloody, as described in Luke. 

“My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And My tongue clings to My jaws…” Jesus was beaten to within an inch of death, kept awake all night, nailed to a cross, lost a great amount of blood, and given no water for His thirst. 

“YOU have brought Me to the dust of death…” He directs these words to His Father. How can a perfect God sacrifice His Son? Because He loves us just as much as He loves His Son, and wishes that no man or woman perish. 

Remember, Jesus died, but three days later he was resurrected from the dead, a plan that was set into motion before the earth began spinning. The death of the Living Son of God is not an afterthought, rather it was ordained before time began, the only way that a just God can redeem a rebellious and sinful world. 

Fear Not, for God sacrificed His Son to rescue you and me. 

Source

That generation – my generation – learned more than “duck and cover” during their impressionable childhood years of the Cold War. They learned that by keeping a nation in fear, they could keep them bound in chains. The truly sad part is that, whether they realize it or not, those who create an atmosphere of fear are in the employment of Satan.

Yes, Satan uses fear to manipulate and bind believers. If he can plant fear in your heart, then you will begin to lose faith, doubt the power of God, fail to seek divine guidance, and take matters into your own hands.

God on the other hand creates peace in your heart, gives you comfort and guidance, even in the turmoil of this frightening world. And, He creates unity in the body of believers.
Fear Not, for when God rules your life, you discover peace in your heart and unity in the church.

Source

God appears to the young King Solomon and says, “Ask! What shall I give you?”

God is no magic genie that we should ask anything of Him, but, in this case, He does exactly that: He offers Solomon his heart’s desire. 

You and I could probably not be trusted with such a wish, but Solomon had learned well from watching the failures of his father. He does not ask for wealth, or power, or love. He knows that riches may lead to evil, and excessive power could lead to abuse. Lust leads to infidelity, and sometimes to death. Instead, he asks for wisdom. 

If we look back to 1 Chronicles 22:12, we read that David had prayed that God would grant Solomon wisdom and understanding. In chapter 1 of 2 Chronicles, God answers David’s prayer and grants great wisdom to King Solomon. 

Much of Solomon’s wisdom was eventually recorded in the Bible, in the book of Proverbs. One proverb that catches my attention is 15:29, which reads, 

The Lord is far from the wicked,

But He hears the prayer of the righteous.

– NKJV

I wonder what Solomon thinking when he wrote that proverb? Did he think of that prayer, the prayer of his father, asking God to give Solomon wisdom? Was David perhaps the righteous man Solomon thought of when sharing that piece of wisdom?

If you’ve stayed with me to this point, you may see a paradox here. In one paragraph I suggest that Solomon learned from his father’s failures, and in another I propose that David was the model for the righteous man praying. 

This is really no paradox. Both may be true. You see, there exists no truly righteous man but Jesus Christ. Not David, not Solomon, not Peter, not Paul; none are righteous. With a broken heart and true repentance, David sought forgiveness for his sins. By faith, he learned to trust in God, and by faith, through the sacrifice of the Son of God, he was found righteous in God’s sight. In the same way, you and I, through faith in Jesus Christ, can be counted righteous in God’s eyes. 

It took David most of his life to develop the faith necessary to live a holy life. I can relate. I’m not there yet, but I am finally headed that direction. 

By the way, James refers to Solomon’s proverb, and his thoughts contain sound advice for the Christian journey:

…confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

– James 5:16 NIV

FEAR NOT, for God hears the prayers of the righteous. 

Source

Joshua and Judges are exciting books. I love the action and intrigue. In this passage from Joshua 10, Israel has just won a brutal war, rather God has won it for them. Some of their enemies surrendered and became allies. Those who did not surrender were completely defeated; leaving buy a few survivors. Those few went home telling of the Israelites mighty God, and as a result, many of Israel’s enemies were gravely frightened. 

The story is a terrific one, with God sending hailstorms, and kings locked up in caves. The earth stops turning, allowing the Israelites to finish the battle, and in the end, when the battle is won, Joshua delivers God’s promise:

… “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous. This is what the Lord will do to all the enemies you are going to fight.”

Not every promise found in the Old Testament applies to 21st century Christians. Three things can be taken from this passage, though. The first is that this really happened. God really did intervene on Israel’s behalf. The story of the sun standing still in the sky is found in the tribal memory of ancient cultures worldwide. He still intervenes on behalf of Israel. See the link at the end of this post to read one such story. 

Secondly, God really did direct Joshua to kill the kings that he had taken captive. In the same way, He sometimes directed the armies of Israelto kill every man, woman, and child in the cities of their enemies. This today seems cruel and savage, but there is no denying that it happened. I could try to excuse these actions a dozen different ways, but the truth is our God is not only merciful but just. Mercy and justice go hand-in-hand. One without the other is meaningless. If He does not mete out justice to those who are beyond redemption then His mercy for those who seek Him would mean nothing. We can only begin to comprehend the slightest spark of the mind and actions of the holy God. We should never dare to pass judgment on Him or His people. 

Finally, the Old Testament is full of illustrations that help us understand our relationship with the living, indwelling Lord of our lives. How can we apply this passage to our lives? Think of the Nation of Israel as the life of a Christian and her enemies as the sin with which we struggle. There is no way we – fallible beings that we are – can defeat sin: not on our own, without God’s help. There was no way Israel could have defeated her enemies had God not intervened. Only with God’s divine intervention can we be rescued from the bondage of sin. Deliver us He will, if we surrender to Him. 

Surrender, though, is just the beginning. Good also demands discipline from His children. Don’t be surprised if God directs us deal the final blow (the death blow, one might say) to the sins from which He has delivered us. Don’t worry, though, for He never calls us to a task for which He has not empowered us. 

Are you struggling with your deepest, darkest secret sins? Don’t fear. Don’t be discouraged. In the same way that God destroyed the enemies of Israel, He will defeat the sins that bind you. 

Source

This is, I believe, a distortion of the truth. While it’s clear that God will reward followers based on what they have done with the gifts He has given them, it is also clear that the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. 

Have you ever heard someone say, usually with disdain, “They’re only fooling themselves,” or “Who does he think he’s fooling?” We often – no, not often – MOST of us really do deceive ourselves MOST OF THE TIME, and try to put on our “best face” for others. A wise old man once told me, “Inside each of us are three people: there is the me that I see. There is the me that others see. And, there is the me that only God sees. 

The Bible tells us that man cannot know his own heart, for it is “deceitful above all things.” God knows it, though. He sees all the closed doors, the locked up cabinets, the hidden passages, and the secret compartments. He knows us better than we know ourselves. 

Now, here is the good news. He sees all our secrets and all our sins and loves us anyway. 

One more thing…

If we want to follow Jesus… If we want to be holy as He is holy (which God expects of us)… Then we should ask God to search our hearts and reveal to us those places where we hide sins, and then to rid us of those sins. 

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from Your presence,

And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,

And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.

– Psalm 51:10

There is an old hymn that we sang when I was just a boy, Search Me, O God. It is my prayer:

Source

I’ve done in again. I do the things that I don’t want to do… that I never want to do. And the things I want to do, well… I just don’t do them. That paraphrasing of the words of Apostle Paul could apply to every man and woman who has ever served God. They apply to me. Yesterday, you and I talked about dying daily, but which of us go a day without failing God? I die daily because I know I fail Him daily. 

As a young Christian, I often asked my pastor if I could sin so much that God wouldn’t forgive me. Many times I feared I had reached a “point of no return.” Now, I know that there is no sin too awful to be washed away by the blood of the Son of God. To think so is wrong, and, in its own peculiar way, prideful. 

God’s love is unconditional. He doesn’t love us when we are good and hate us when we are bad. His love never changes. To think otherwise is to attribute frail human qualities to the perfect nature of God. His love never fails us. In a strange and inexplicable way, He is always ready to forgive me when I sin. He’s ready to forgive you, too. 

His love truly is amazing. 

…I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.         -Romans 7:14-17

O wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!.                                 -Romans 7:24-25

Source

Why did Judas betray Christ? Did he have a choice or was he predestined to betray our Savior? While the Bible doesn’t tell us the answers to these questions, it does lend some insights. Judas was fixated on money; he loved it. He was the treasurer for Jesus and the Twelve. He kept the books, paid the bills, and made sure that funds were disbursed fairly… or that’s what he should’ve done as treasurer. He was so obsessed with money that he became a thief. So obsessed was he that he gave unwanted advice on other people’s money.

To understand why Judas betrayed Jesus, you must remember back to when Jesus and the Twelve are eating dinner at the home of Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha. Martha is serving and Mary is worshiping at the feet of Jesus. She opens a canister of perfume made of pure nard, an essential oil derived of a Himalayan flower, and pours it on the feet of Jesus. She then rubs it in with her hair. This is not the first time something of this nature had happened to Jesus, and was surely not the first time Judas had witnessed such a thing. A woman of ill repute had once wiped away her tears from the feet of Jesus using her hair.

Foot washing was a common custom in Israel, and was usually performed by the lowest of servants. That Mary did this for Jesus was a symbol of complete obedience to the Savior, to acknowledge that he was Lord, and she was but a bond (willing) slave.

Judas, however, objected to this extravagant display off devotion, even though he had no real say in the matter. The oil was Mary’s, and if anyone had a right to object, it would have been Martha, who was not shy about objecting to her sister’s actions. Lazarus might have been right to object to Mary’s use of such fine oil. Yet, with the love and affection that the siblings shared for their Lord, objecting to the four washing never crossed their mind. Judas, though, had no right to object to the use of the bard, and should not have voiced an opinion. Remember, this was not his nard. The oil had not been purchased with money from the treasury. 

The nard was, we can only presume, purchased by Mary, a personal extravagance, at the cost of nearly a year’s wages (300 denarii, or about 300 times the average daily wage of a common worker). Think about the money you make in a year’s time and imagine spending that on essential oils. Now imagine giving it to Christ as an act of worship.

Judas, according to John 12:6, had grown used to dipping into the treasury whenever he liked; he used it as his personal bank. He suggested that the oil should be sold and the revenues used to help the poor. Christ, though, knew that what he really meant was that the oil should be sold and the funds put into the coffers so that Judas could steal from them.

“Let her be,” said Jesus. “That she may have this to anoint my body when I die. The poor you will always have with you. But you will not always have me.”

Something about this whole discussion burned inside Judas. He grew resentful. He had never fit in, not in his mind. He was a Judean. The others were Galileans. He had hoped for a revolution, and had secured a position that would leave him in authority after the revolution. He would be a great man. Remembering the words of Jesus, he thought, no he will not be those who are like a child who will be great. It will be those who are like a fox. A place in the Kingdom… He wondered…

Jesus, thought Judas, had never acknowledged that he would have a place in His Kingdom. He seemed to favor the others, the fishermen, the Galilean. Now, He reprimanded him in front of the others. In front of the women. “The poor you will always have.” Of course, we will, Rabbi, with your friends wasting such wealth. He shook his head in disbelief that Jesus actually took the side of this woman over his own treasurer. Does Jesus not realize that He would be nothing without his money management skills? Judas seethed.

So, why was Judas this way? Why did he go on to betray Christ just a short time later. This seems to have been the thing that pushed him over the edge. But, was it really? Was his betrayal a singlular decision or a succession of growing sins? Was he a backslidden believer or had he ever really believed? 

The other disciples are recorded in the Gospels making bold statements about the nature of Christ as Lord, God, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Christ. But Judas calls him Rabbi, or teacher. Nothing more. When the writers of the Gospels record the names of the Twelve, they begin with Peter, James, and John, the three that were closest to our Lord, and end with Judas. He is listed last because he betrayed Christ, but he may never have had a deep personal relationship with Christ. It is likely that he never believed in Christ as Messiah.

Like the Rich Young Ruler, Judas loved money more than Christ, and this led to sin, after sin, after sin. At last, he could live no longer with the guilt and pain of living a double life, and he was turned over to the lust of sin. Before long, he grew hardened to his sin. He no longer felt that his theft, resentment, and jealousy were wrong. His actions were not sin, not in his mind. He had justified it as a natural reaction to the way he had been treated. Jesus should count himself lucky that Judas didn’t abandon him. Without him to manage his affairs, Jesus would be another John, subsisting on locusts and honey, starving in the wilderness. Outwardly, Judas was one of the Twelve. Inwardly, he had grown cold and heartless. He would betray Christ for a “handsome price,” thirty pieces of silver.

Did Judas have a choice? Could he have NOT betrayed Jesus? God knew from the foundation of the earth that Judas would betray Jesus. The act was predicted with great specificity in the Old Testament (Psalm 41:9, Zechariah 11:12-13). Yet, God is a just God. The decision to betray Christ was solely Judas’s. Though God had, foreknowledge, He did not predestine Judas to be the Son of Perdition. Though God knew that Judas would not repent, the choice was Judas’s. He could have repented all the way up until the night of the Last Supper

His betrayal was the culmination of a chain of sins that had begun many years prior in the life of Judas Iscariot. How do I know this? His sins are alluded to in the account of Mary and Martha, when John (in chapter 6) calls him a thief, but I also know this because, while one may fall from devoted disciple to denier in one day, one does not go from devoted disciple of the Christ to betrayer in a moment of time. Judas’s course was long and deliberate, filled with many twists and turns and full of festering sins. He could have repented at any point along that journey. 

The Last Supper, as we have come to call it, was when Judas once and for all settled upon his decision to betray Jesus. Once Judas determined to never repent from this course of betrayal, Satan entered into him.   

Each and every sinner takes a similar course if they do not repent. Paul, in Romans 1, tells us that that God’s true nature is plain for us to see. Even His invisible qualities, His eternal power, His divine nature, are obvious to mankind. We cannot say that we don not know right from wrong. God makes it very clear what is right and what is wrong. We have no excuse. Yet, many of us choose to ignore the obvious and keep sinning.

Because we keep sinning, we spiral out of control.  Paul says that our thinking becomes futile (incapable of producing useful results!) and our hearts grow dark. Our desires grow perverse, and – at last – we reach the point, like Judas, that God turns us over to Satan. Paul puts it this way, God gives us over “to our shameful lusts.”

It doesn’t end there, though. Finally, God turns us over to a mind of total depravity (debase, immoral, unprincipled), or as the King James puts it, He turns us over to a reprobate mind (unprincipled, wicked, shameless). Paul defines the person with the depraved mind as one who is “doing what ought not be done.” Just as guilty, he says, are those who may not practice such depravity, but who approve of it.

It is a downward spiral, sin; sin leads to shame, which leads to hiding or running from God, which leads to more sin. That sin, in turn leads to more shame and more hiding from God until, at last,no shame remains. Our reprobate minds grow dull, and our depraved hearts grow dark. We are turned over to our sinful lusts. The reprobate mind no longer hears the voice of our consciences. Our depraved heart no longer hear God’s voice calling us to repentance. Once we have grown grow totally depraved, what is morally wrong seems right. What is right no longer matters. Rare is the man or woman who, at this point, yields to God’s voice and repents. 

In addition to the affects of unrepentant sin on our hearts and minds, sin has natural consequences. Gluttony, as example, can lead to obesity and a myriad of health problems. Drinking to excess can lead to liver disease. Promiscuity can lead to STD, AIDS, and ruin relationships. 

God wants us to repent. He doesn’t enjoy watching us destroy our lives. He is a good Father, who has told his children what’s right, set the perfect example of what is right, and hopes that one day, we will wake up, and decide to give up sins, and repent.

Is there a return from such a state of depravity? Rare though it may be, no man or woman who draws a breath is beyond God’s reach. Could Judas have repented? Yes. Did he? Only he and God know. He returned the thirty pieces of silver to the Temple. He  felt full of remorse, but his reprobate mind perversely told him that his only way out was to end his own life. Did God speak to him as he drew his last breath, calling him to repent and be saved? Surely. He is a merciful God. Did Judas repent and believe? The Bible is silent on that matter. 

Judas spent three years of his life pretending to be a close and devoted follower of Jesus Christ. Few could have told the difference between his faith and the faith of Peter. Both failed the test, but Peter repented, asked forgiveness and then fully trusted upon the love and strength of God. He persevered only by surrendering to Christ’s love. Judas felt remorse and surrendered to his reprobate minds and did not persevere. 

If you still draw breath, it is not too late to repent from your sins and fully trust in Christ’s love. 

Source