Passage of the Day: Hebrews 4: 15 … For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have One Who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.
My Journal for Today: Okay, … last day of the month; and the last day on this topic concerning “sin.” But obviously it’s not the last day we’ll be dealing with sin in our lives; and here we are coincidentally on a day [i.e., Halloween] that is set aside by our culture to practically glorify the dark and/or evil elements in our world. So, I’d say it’s a pretty good day to be devoting time to God about how we can overcome evil through our relationship with Christ.
And closing out on this topic for October, to deal with sin [i.e., overcoming temptation] in this life, Jesus, of course, provided us with the best model. If we go to the account in either Matthew 4 or Luke 4 where Satan confronted Christ in the wilderness, we note that the prince of evil brought three forms of sin before the God-Man, Jesus.
Satan first tried to get Jesus to doubt His Father’s provision (see Matt. 4: 3). Next the evil one tried to get The Messiah to doubt God’s protection (see Matt. 4: 5 – 6). And finally in this triad of temptation, the Devil attempted to get Jesus to doubt God’s perfection (see Matt. 4: 8 – 9). If you’ve ever memorized (and I’d recommend you do so) 1st John 2: 15 – 16, you may have noted in this review of Matt. 4 or it’s parallel rendering in Luke 4, the striking similarity with the three types of sin that God’s word says we, as believers, should avoid to show that we love God – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. So, as you see in today’s verse, Jesus faced exactly the same forms of sin that we face. … And by the way, these are the same three forms of temptations which the Serpent [i.e., Satan] presented before Adam and Eve in the garden. … In fact, all sin can be placed into one of those three categories.
So, as today’s verse trumpets, we have a Lord, Who confronted all possible forms of temptation and sin; and yet, as our model, He was without sin. And, furthermore, we note (from the accounts in Matt. 4 or Luke 4) that Christ defeated Satan with the same weapon that God provides all believers … His Spirit Sword (see Eph. 6: 17), i.e., God’s Word.
Being the Director of a ministry for Christians who deal with habitual sin, we teach that avoiding sin and/or temptation should always be our first strategic battle option (see 2nd Tim. 2: 22). However, when we must stand against evil or its agents in this world, as did Christ in the wilderness, His strategy, as our model for confronting Satan, was to use God’s word to defeat temptation; and this is a strategy that will always work, because it’s the prescription against sin recommended by God’s word itself (see a passage you also should have memorized - Psalm 119: 9, 11). And I always think (and say), “If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me (or you)!”
I pray that I, and any who read this, always carry a sharpened and well-practiced Sword of the Spirit, so that we can, if confronted by the evil one, as Jesus modeled, dispel the enemy when he comes against us. I think you know, as a Christian, that our common foe will do all he can to confront us with his temptations. So, we must always be carrying our sword, as I said, sharpened, ready, and practiced, to do battle and stand for Christ.
Jesus saves us from sin daily just as He saved our souls … with His Word. So, use it!
My Prayer Today: Hallelujah, Lord, for Your Word, … my sword in battle. Amen
Showing posts with label victory over sin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label victory over sin. Show all posts
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
October 30, 2011 … The Solution to the Sin Dilemma
Passage of the Day: Romans 7: 24 - 25 … 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.
My Journal for Today: If you’ve read my devotional entry for yesterday, you read my exposition of Paul’s passage of self-deprecation in Romans 7 (i.e., vv. 14 – 24). As I said in yesterday’s journal entry, some have questioned why Paul would seem so down on himself when he was such a mature and victorious Christian at the stage in life when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans. I posited that it is likely that the Apostle was using a writer’s tactic, i.e., using himself – positioned at his worst (probably reflecting back to his early days as a Christian) – to help believers of lesser maturity to be able to identify with the reality of our sin nature. But I also believe that Paul was laying a foundation for the great victory chapter, which he then wrote to Christians in Rome and everywhere (i.e., Romans 8).
Paul’s rhetorical question in Rom. 8: 24, “Who will rescue me from the body of death,” is, I believe, the great fulcrum truth in the battle for all Christians; and that battlefield, of course, is our life. It is said, and I believe it’s true, that a sure sign of sanctification and maturity in a Christian is the degree to which he hates his own sin and then acts on that hatred to become more like Christ. But as much as we hate our own carnality, as Paul expresses in today’s passage, we also, in faith, must be able to revel in the realization that our bodily and fleshly transformation will one day be completed in a glorified Christlikeness (see Romans 8: 18 – 19 and 1st Corinthians 15: 53, 57 and Phil. 1: 6).
Therefore, knowing what our flesh (i.e., our sin nature) is predestined to become (i.e., see Romans 8: 29), we can – and should – empathize with Paul’s declaration of frustration, as he laments to be rescued from his human condition, that who we are now is merely a foreshadow of Whom we will become in Christ. And Paul’s cry, “rescue me” (or “set me free” in the NASB), is the Greek term “rhoumai,” which is another battle field word picture of a soldier, possibly wounded, being rescued from the battlefield by his comrades.
And you may have been reminded, as I was from today’s study, of Paul’s word pictures in Ephesians 6: 10 – 13, where the Apostle describes the battle in which we find ourselves everyday as Christians for our spiritual lives. Beloved, it is true that we are at war, every moment of everyday. But as Paul also states in Philippians 3: 20 – 21, we, who know Christ as Savior, will one day be rescued from the warfare of this life. Therefore, leaving the frustrations of Romans 7 behind, we must fight on in faith toward the realities of Romans 8 with the hope we have in Christ.
Hope is ours in Christ!!!
My Prayer Today: Amen and Amen!!!
My Journal for Today: If you’ve read my devotional entry for yesterday, you read my exposition of Paul’s passage of self-deprecation in Romans 7 (i.e., vv. 14 – 24). As I said in yesterday’s journal entry, some have questioned why Paul would seem so down on himself when he was such a mature and victorious Christian at the stage in life when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans. I posited that it is likely that the Apostle was using a writer’s tactic, i.e., using himself – positioned at his worst (probably reflecting back to his early days as a Christian) – to help believers of lesser maturity to be able to identify with the reality of our sin nature. But I also believe that Paul was laying a foundation for the great victory chapter, which he then wrote to Christians in Rome and everywhere (i.e., Romans 8).
Paul’s rhetorical question in Rom. 8: 24, “Who will rescue me from the body of death,” is, I believe, the great fulcrum truth in the battle for all Christians; and that battlefield, of course, is our life. It is said, and I believe it’s true, that a sure sign of sanctification and maturity in a Christian is the degree to which he hates his own sin and then acts on that hatred to become more like Christ. But as much as we hate our own carnality, as Paul expresses in today’s passage, we also, in faith, must be able to revel in the realization that our bodily and fleshly transformation will one day be completed in a glorified Christlikeness (see Romans 8: 18 – 19 and 1st Corinthians 15: 53, 57 and Phil. 1: 6).
Therefore, knowing what our flesh (i.e., our sin nature) is predestined to become (i.e., see Romans 8: 29), we can – and should – empathize with Paul’s declaration of frustration, as he laments to be rescued from his human condition, that who we are now is merely a foreshadow of Whom we will become in Christ. And Paul’s cry, “rescue me” (or “set me free” in the NASB), is the Greek term “rhoumai,” which is another battle field word picture of a soldier, possibly wounded, being rescued from the battlefield by his comrades.
And you may have been reminded, as I was from today’s study, of Paul’s word pictures in Ephesians 6: 10 – 13, where the Apostle describes the battle in which we find ourselves everyday as Christians for our spiritual lives. Beloved, it is true that we are at war, every moment of everyday. But as Paul also states in Philippians 3: 20 – 21, we, who know Christ as Savior, will one day be rescued from the warfare of this life. Therefore, leaving the frustrations of Romans 7 behind, we must fight on in faith toward the realities of Romans 8 with the hope we have in Christ.
Hope is ours in Christ!!!
My Prayer Today: Amen and Amen!!!
Thursday, October 13, 2011
October 13, 2011 … Alive In Christ
Passage of the Day: Romans 6: 4 … [see verse in bold/underlined] … Rom. 6: 1 - 4 … What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
My Journal for Today: Romans 6 is all about the death and resurrection of the Christian spiritually. In the rebirth of conversion, we, who realize Christ as Lord/Savior, die to sin and now and forever live spiritually in Christ. Today is the thirteenth day of October. For me, the leap from death into eternity with God happened on another 13th day of the month in 1983. It was April 13th of that year; and the one passage of scripture, which I have memorized reflecting on what happened that day for me, is Galatians 2: 20; and since I have it in my heart in the NKJV, let me quote it: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no long I who live but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
On that day [4/13/83], many years ago now, I died to an old life of sin and was reborn into a new life in Christ, which is also reflected in another Pauline saying from 2nd Cor. 5: 17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone and the new has come!” I pray, as I write this and you read it, that you share in that death to self and the new birth in our Savior. As John Macarthur puts it, “Having died to the old life, Christians have been raised to share new life in Christ.” And that’s why we Christians – truly born-again believers – will live a life in Christ, being drawn away from the old life of carnal living and in pursuit of a life of Christlikeness. But does that mean that Christians won’t sin? Of course not; but having died to sin in Christ, we can now use God’s enabling [i.e., sanctifying] grace, ministered to us by His Spirit, to overcome sin as our Lord shapes us into His own image.
There’s really not much more I could ever add to this as a description of who I am as a Christian. On that day in April of 1983, I died to my former carnal life by faith in Christ; and now, living by that same faith in God, the Holy Spirit, Who indwells my spirit, lifts me to walk in this world, growing closer to Christlikeness day-by-day as I deal with my residual sin nature. Yes, to repeat what I’ve said above, I am still a sinner, who can choose to sin; but I am now a redeemed sinner, who can rather choose to live for Christ and to live in freedom from those old sin choices by the grace of God, as it says in Gal. 2: 20, living for the One “… Who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
There was a time in my life that I lived as an abomination to God, living and acting in enmity with my Lord; but now, by His grace, I live by faith, and even in the flesh, to glorify God, Who is my Lord and Savior. I don’t know about you, but the now life in Christ is so much more alive than that former life of sin and death in the flesh. And to think it will be that way for eternity as I grow closer and closer to the One Who saved me. How glorious the thought!
My Prayer Today: May God be praised for His saving grace! Amen
My Journal for Today: Romans 6 is all about the death and resurrection of the Christian spiritually. In the rebirth of conversion, we, who realize Christ as Lord/Savior, die to sin and now and forever live spiritually in Christ. Today is the thirteenth day of October. For me, the leap from death into eternity with God happened on another 13th day of the month in 1983. It was April 13th of that year; and the one passage of scripture, which I have memorized reflecting on what happened that day for me, is Galatians 2: 20; and since I have it in my heart in the NKJV, let me quote it: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no long I who live but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
On that day [4/13/83], many years ago now, I died to an old life of sin and was reborn into a new life in Christ, which is also reflected in another Pauline saying from 2nd Cor. 5: 17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone and the new has come!” I pray, as I write this and you read it, that you share in that death to self and the new birth in our Savior. As John Macarthur puts it, “Having died to the old life, Christians have been raised to share new life in Christ.” And that’s why we Christians – truly born-again believers – will live a life in Christ, being drawn away from the old life of carnal living and in pursuit of a life of Christlikeness. But does that mean that Christians won’t sin? Of course not; but having died to sin in Christ, we can now use God’s enabling [i.e., sanctifying] grace, ministered to us by His Spirit, to overcome sin as our Lord shapes us into His own image.
There’s really not much more I could ever add to this as a description of who I am as a Christian. On that day in April of 1983, I died to my former carnal life by faith in Christ; and now, living by that same faith in God, the Holy Spirit, Who indwells my spirit, lifts me to walk in this world, growing closer to Christlikeness day-by-day as I deal with my residual sin nature. Yes, to repeat what I’ve said above, I am still a sinner, who can choose to sin; but I am now a redeemed sinner, who can rather choose to live for Christ and to live in freedom from those old sin choices by the grace of God, as it says in Gal. 2: 20, living for the One “… Who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
There was a time in my life that I lived as an abomination to God, living and acting in enmity with my Lord; but now, by His grace, I live by faith, and even in the flesh, to glorify God, Who is my Lord and Savior. I don’t know about you, but the now life in Christ is so much more alive than that former life of sin and death in the flesh. And to think it will be that way for eternity as I grow closer and closer to the One Who saved me. How glorious the thought!
My Prayer Today: May God be praised for His saving grace! Amen
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