Relationship with God

The biggest deterrent to sin

2 Comments / Overcoming, Relationship with God /

The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (NIV)

The biggest deterrent to sin in the life of the believer is the love of God. Everyone sins – that is a fact of life. (1 John 1:8 & Romans 3:10-12, 23) And everyone has access to the forgiving grace of God through Jesus Christ His Son. (1 John 1:9) Unfortunately however, at times some who receive God’s forgiveness find it difficult to break free from sin’s grip upon their lives. Forced to continually go to God for mercy because of a besetting sin has them trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of guilt and shame. Having been caught in that downward spiral myself I can testify with so many others that only the love of God, His love for me and my love for Him, was powerful enough to break me free from the vortex of sin and keep me free from being pulled back in.
God’s merciful love for us is imbued with a transforming power to elicit from us a liberating love in return. There is a spiritual principle that the greater the debt of sin for which a person is forgiven the greater the potential to love God in return. Those who have been forgiven much, which really includes all of us, are like the grateful woman who crashed a dinner party to wash the feet of Jesus with her tears. Such gratitude for God’s love unleashes a reciprocal love for Him that triumphs over sin. (Luke 7:36-50)
John, often referred to as the apostle of love, wrote: “This is love not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10 NIV) This verse reveals that it is the intention of God’s love to free us from sin. God is the creator and initiator of love. That is why John states emphatically that we can love God only because He first loved us. He goes on to say that our resultant love for Him is meant to naturally lead to us to saying no to sin because we want to please Him.
Obeying His commands and resisting sin is an indication that God’s love has truly found its place and been perfected within us. (1 John 2:3-5) That is why we are admonished elsewhere in the scriptures to “keep [ourselves] in the love of God.” (Jude 1:21) Doing so will also keep us from the deceitfulness of sin.
When an expert in Jewish law came to Jesus and asked Him “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” Jesus replied “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matthew 22:35-38 NIV) Jesus was quoting here a well known Old Testament Scripture spoken by Moses to Israel. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) And He was also underscoring the preeminence of the very first of the Ten Commandments: “I am the Lord your God . . . you shall have no other gods before Me.” (Deuteronomy 5:6-7)
True freedom from sin is ultimately rooted in wholeheartedly loving and worshipping the one true God. All sin and its bondage are ultimately rooted in forsaking the love and worship of the one true God in favor of loving and worshipping other gods. Those “other gods” typically are created things rather than the Creator. The other gods are essentially our self and our ideas, but also include other creatures and their ideas and every inanimate object on earth and in the heavens.
There are some very practical things we can do to unleash the love of God in our hearts that can enkindle our wholehearted love and worship of Him and break the bondages of sin in our lives. It begins by acknowledging that every sin we commit is idol worship and a breaking of the first and greatest commandment. Coming to grips with that reality, that every sin is an adulterous love affair with something or someone other than God, is both sobering and sorrowful. It is heartbreaking to realize that we have been spurning God’s gracious love by faithlessly lavishing our love on other gods. Asking God’s help in seeing it and then confessing our sin for what it really is, idol worship, enables us to cut off sin’s power over us at its root.
Here is a prayer you can use to transfer your affections from sinful idols to God.
Lord show me how I have put other things and people before you. . . how I have loved and worshiped creation rather than the creator. I confess that I have chosen sinful behavior and created things to worship rather than You. . . that I have bowed my heart, my eyes, my hands, my body, my mind and my very soul in worship of other gods. Please forgive me and turn my full attention and love toward the worship of You. Thank you for your amazing love and tender mercies. I choose to worship you as my Lord and have no other gods before me.”
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Take no thought for tomorrow

Overcoming, Relationship with God /

Recently I was having one of those sleepless nights that everyone can identify with, when I was obsessing about some challenges I was facing in the week ahead. Thankfully it is an infrequent occurrence. But no matter how hard I tried or fervently I prayed I could not lay my nagging concerns to rest so I could finally get some rest. I was so frustrated that I was even resenting the moonlight shining through my bedroom window, viewing it as a source of irritation and contributing factor to my insomnia.

But then as a passing cloud shaded the full moon’s light I caught a glimpse of the starry sky. I really cannot explain it, but at that moment, resonating out of the vastness of the universe and the knowledge that the one who created it also created and cared for me, were the words “take no thought for tomorrow.” It was not something dramatic like an audible voice or startling revelation or some angelic appearance or intervention. It was more like the sense and satisfaction a person has when they solve a math problem or discover an important fact they have been looking for. It just settles things and arms a person with the truth that allows them to move on.

When that phrase ‘take no thought for tomorrow” came to me it was like, “Oh yeah, I can do that. If the creator of the universe is telling me to take no thought, then why waste time taking thought.” And right then and there I decided to stop thinking and worrying about the morrow, laid all my anxious thoughts aside and within minutes was asleep.

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Bridge over the River Why

Overcoming, Prayer, Relationship with God /

Little kids ask why and big kids ask why too. Typically little kids ask why for two reasons. They are either genuinely inquisitive because they have a hunger to learn or they are deceptively inquisitive because they don’t like what they are hearing. With the latter, they are looking for a good reason, or convincing argument as to why they should or shouldn’t do something. Their parents hesitate to answer because they may not want to discuss it, may not have the time to explain it or engage in a conversation about it. Parents know when their children’s why question is simply a ploy to delay obedience and slow down what they consider an inevitable process. It’s time to go, the car is running, we have an appointment to keep and your reluctance to cooperate, and put your shoes and jacket on, is holding us up. No discussion, except maybe an insistent “because” and the kid with an unzipped jacket and untied shoes is tucked under the arm and carried out the door.

It is much more complicated for big kids. Although some why questioning may still be foot dragging, big kids begin to wrestle with bigger issues that carry bigger consequences and beg for new levels of understanding. But what happens when the answer to a critical why question is not forthcoming?

That juncture in a person’s life, when cosmic whys no longer have answers that flow from an ordered universe is part of the rite of passage into adulthood. Having jettisoned beyond the orbit of parental influence into the vastness of space a person has to face for the first time the realization of truly being on their own. It is a lonely and confusing time, having slipped the protective bounds of predictable and reasoned explanations from parents, teachers, pastors and other wise counselors. The silence is unfamiliar, it is haunting and it only deepens in stark contrast to sporadic cries for understanding.

My first encounter with cosmic silence was near the end of my freshman year in college. Late one night, under a starry sky, I found myself alone in the middle of the football practice field, pacing and staring heavenward, tormented by unanswered whys. Why are humans on this planet? If there is a God why isn’t He more concerned about the mess we are in down here? Is there any rhyme or reason to my life? Why am I here? It was a defining moment for me, although no answers came. And yes the silence was deafening and frustrating. I can still remember walking back to the dorm with an eerie sense of peace and feeling embraced by the warmth of the light in the lobby as I came through the front door. That’s all I remember. No revelations. No understanding. Not a clue.

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What is your theology doing for you?

Growth & Development, Relationship with God /

Theology does strange things to people. Isn’t it curious how it can liberate some people while incarcerating others? Or attract some while alienating others?

Theology literally means the “study of God” and in the vernacular refers to ones systematic view of God. How a person views God is like someone looking at the stars at night. To the casual observer it inspires a moment’s thought to the vastness and beauty of the universe. To the romantic it arouses a sustained infatuation for the mystery of both the Creator and His creation. To the astronomer it stirs a commitment to a lifelong study of its celestial secrets and its origin.

How we view God then can run the gamut from either tickling our fancy to gripping the very core of our being.

Dr. Ralph Neighbour, in his book Where Do We Go From Here, did everyone who feels theologically challenged a great service. He took the epistemological nuances of theology and simplified its understanding to a rubber-meets-the-road application when he said “theology breeds methodology.” In other words what you believe about God will dictate how you live your life. Tell me what you are believing and it will be self evident how you should be living.

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6 Questions for Lenten Reflection

I wish I'd said that., Relationship with God /

Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. (2 Corinthians 13:5)

The season of Lent, the forty days of spiritual preparation leading up to Easter, began last week with the observance of Ash Wednesday. In the Christian tradition, Lent is a time for the believer to commemorate the great price Jesus Christ paid for humankind’s redemption through His passion, death, burial and resurrection. Typically the observance of Lent is expressed by individual believers through prayer and repentance, fasting and other acts of self-denial, and almsgiving.

No matter what denominational or liturgical background, Lent is a season in which every believer is called to reflect upon the meaning and depth of one’s own faith relationship with God. It is a time as the apostle Paul says to “examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine.” (2 Corinthians 13:5)

This examination process, as one can imagine, can take a myriad of forms. Discoveries of new approaches to spiritual self assessment are particularly helpful because they can enable the believer to probe here unto uncharted depths of the soul. This Lent I have been blessed to make such a find.

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