THE
SIN WITHIN
BREAD
9 The
heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? 10 “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man
according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.”
Jeremiah 17:9-10 (NIV)
21 So I
find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I
delight in God's law; 23 but I
see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law
of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
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 7:21-25 (NIV)
23 for
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by
his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a
sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate
his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed
beforehand unpunished-- 26 he did
it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one
who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
Romans 3:23-26 (NIV)
16 So I
say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful
nature. 17 For
the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what
is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that
you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under
law.
Galatians 5:16-18 (NIV)
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.
Colossians 3:5-10 (NIV)
20 I have
been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The
life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and
gave himself for me. 21 I do
not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through
the law, Christ died for nothing!"
Galatians 2:20-21 (NIV)
BUTTER
In Surprised By Joy, C.S. Lewis paints a vivid
description of what he found when he examined his own heart: “A zoo of
lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears and a harem of fondled
hatreds.”
“We are able to think, choose, create, love and
worship; but we are also able to hate, covet, fight and kill. Human beings are the inventors of hospitals
for the care of the sick, of universities for the acquisition of wisdom, and of
churches for the worship of God. But
they have also invented torture chambers, concentration camps, and nuclear arsenals. This is the paradox of our humanness. We are both noble and ignoble, both rational
and irrational, both moral and immoral, both creative and destructive, both
loving and selfish, both Godlike and bestial.”
John Stott
“Sin is real rebellion against the good Creator of all
things and the final judge of all people….In the end, we are all guilty of
rebellion against God. Not just the pimp
in northern Nepal, but you and me. All
of us have turned from God, all of us are guilty before God, and all of us know
it. We feel this guilt, and although we inevitable
deny it, we instinctively experience it…Yet guilt remains. No matter how hard we try, we can’t successfully
erase the sense of ‘ought’ that God has written on the human soul. One need only look in the eyes of a little
girl being sold into sex slavery to know that this ‘ought’ not to be, for right
and wrong do exist as objective standards for all people in all places at all
times. We cannot remove the reality of
guilt before God, and this is why we need Jesus.” David Platt
HEART SAVOR
·
Every day I am given the choice
to come under the authority of God through the indwelling Holy Spirit’s power
which always leads me to ultimate victory or choose my fleshly own way which will
always lead to defeat, destruction and ultimate death. Every sin carries with it a death sentence in
one way or the other – don’t be fooled.
·
I am to put to death whatever
belongs to my fleshly nature. It is not
my friend.
·
I am given the power of the Holy Spirit
through my faith in Christ to live abundantly, receiving all God intended for
me this side of heaven and resting in His good and pleasing and perfect
will. I am the loser if I follow my own
wanting flesh.
