1 John 2:1 --- My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
This morning with the Lord was serious and fun at the same time. Serious because it's a serious topic, but fun because in doing my art while in His presence it brought out the humorous Lord of the Rings creation you see with this post. At least I find it funny having Gandalf quote the bible.
Okay so why so serious, Phillip? Well, I'm glad you asked. It's because of this little part of verse 1 above, "I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin." Especially the "may not sin" part.
Many times today professed Christians live their lives almost identically to the world. The only thing they do different, is go to church on Sun, mix in a Wed night sometimes. It's the habit of Christianity, checklist Christianity or dying in the desert thirsty Christianity in action.
-Habit: Show up, because it's what I've always done or what's expected of me to do, go home. -Checklist: Show up, check the box, pat on the back, go home. -Thirsty: Show up, desperately drink up all available prayer/worship/teaching till emotions/feelings satisfied, go home.
These versions of Christianity are not anchored and rooted in true RELATIONSHIP with the Lord, which means not in the Word (actually reading it), in Prayer (actually talking to Him), in Worship, in personal time in His presence, in obedience to Him. At their core they are all selfishly motivated. We touched on self-deceit in 1 John chapter 1 a lot. They end up with a powerless and frustrating version of religion, that leaves them unchanged, leading to ongoing sin.
Now we aren't talking about I stumped my toe and a word passes your lips… it ain't just a loud "OUCH". We aren't talking about "Oh no, I just had a really terrible thought about someone.". We aren't talking about tripping up and falling into something occasionally. We're human, we're alive, we have the old flesh battling with the spirit, we're gonna mess up, people. That's why we need Him! So what we're talking about is blatant, rebellious sinning that a person is aware or semi-aware of and justifies, blame shifts onto others or just ignores.
God is clear sin is bad. Sin separates us from Him. John is saying, "You may not sin". Paul says in Romans 6:1-2, "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?" These are just a few places, talking to Christians, that it is not okay to keep on blatantly sinning. Mess ups, yes those happen, we'll see tomorrow how amazing God has us covered on those. It's the sin we continue in knowingly and willingly that must stop. Plain and simple.
Yes we have God's grace. Yes we have God's mercy. Yes He accepts us as we are but the beauty of God is, he loves us enough to confront us, grow us, mature us, change us from the inside out. Not just leave us the same broken person we were. If you took in an orphaned teenage drug addict with no hesitation, adopted them, poured time and money into them, clothed them, fed them, encouraged them, but you never ever confronted them about doing drugs and worked with them towards getting clean, then can you say you truly love them? Would true love let that continue?
Just a lot of deep thoughts today. My prayers are for you today. Have a good weekend!
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