SHARING BREAD
7 “Woe to the world because of the things that
cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom
they come! 8 If
your hand or your foot causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away. It is
better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two
feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it
out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to
have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.”
Matt
18:7-9 (NIV)
What causes us to sin?
What stumbling blocks, what offenses bring us guilt and grief? “Such things must come,” states the Lord Jesus. Therefore, being sure of this certain danger,
we must endeavor to arm ourselves all the better. We should be determined to keep a constant
watch over our own hearts suppressing the first sign of corruption whenever it
rears its ugly head. This present world
is full of sins, sorrows, stumbling blocks and snares. Because of this certainty, we are to stand on
our guard.
We remain easy prey for the adversary (and for our own sinful
natures) when we are not alert to his tactics and cunning guile or when we continue
to place ourselves in situations where we have fallen (and fallen) before. Satan is constantly seeking opportunities for
vicious attacks upon those who love the Savior.
He is not our friend. He looks for
hearts of those whose walls of self-control have been breached – places where
we have either let our guard down or allowed sin to enter through our thought
patterns. Don’t flirt with sin if you
are serious about living for Jesus – flee sin and quickly. Sin always carries with is a death sentence. We must resist its beginnings – even though
pleasant - to keep out of harm’s way – restraining ourselves and seeking God’s
sufficient (much more than sufficient) grace.
If Satan cannot keep us from being saved, he desires to keep us from
being used. He seeks to destroy our
testimonies as well as our lives. We are
told in 1 Peter:
8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil
prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you
know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of
sufferings. 1 Peter 5:8-9 (NIV)
“Sin is the dare of God’s justice, the rape of His
mercy, the jeer of His patience, the slight of His power, and the contempt of
His love.” John Bunyan
James tells us to resist the adversary as well, our only
defense is standing wholly on the Lord Jesus – leaning into Him, trusting Him,
depending upon Him, saturating ourselves with His Word, praying continually and
allowing Him to be our satisfaction:
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and
he will flee from you. James 4:7 (NIV)
As believer’s walk through this life we are to depend upon
the indwelling Holy Spirit’s power and guidance – yielding to His control and
leading. We will never be entirely free
from evil desires that stem from our fallen nature. Therefore, Paul encourages us in Galatians to
live by the Spirit:
16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify
the desires of the sinful nature. Gal
5:16 (NIV)
“When we believe
in Jesus Christ all our sins are pardoned; yet the power of sin, although it is
weakened and kept under by the dominion of the new-born nature which God
infuses into our souls, does not cease, but still lingers in us, and will do so
to our dying day. It is a doctrine held by all the orthodox, that there still
dwells in the regenerate the lusts of the flesh, and that there still remains
in the hearts of those who are converted by God’s mercy, the evil of carnal
nature.” Charles H. Spurgeon
The Apostle Paul
writes of this battle that wars within in Romans:
18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my
sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it
out. 19 For
what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this
I keep on doing. 20 Now
if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin
living in me that does it. Romans 7:18-20 (NIV)
24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this
body of death? 25 Thanks
be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to
God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Romans 7:24-25 (NIV)
“I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.” John Newton
We are to
crucify the old self as symbolized by Jesus in our verses for today as cutting
off our hand or foot or gouging out our eye – ridding ourselves of the sin that
contaminates our relationship with Jesus and others - and we are to put on the
new self which is daily being renewed by the Spirit in knowledge in the image
of its Creator. We are not to go on
living as if we were still alive to sin and dead to righteousness – that is the
path of destruction. Paul tells us in
Colossians:
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your
earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed,
which is idolatry. 6 Because
of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once
lived. 8 But
now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice,
slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off
your old self with its practices 10 and
have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of
its Creator. Col 3:5-10 (NIV)
What I glean
from this:
· I am to be aware of what causes me to stumble and
flee from it.
· If I play with fire I will get burned.
· Jesus is my Friend.
I can trust Him with my life.
