Your Not Living For Jesus If You Are Accomodating Sin In Your Life

My Utmost For His Highest

I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" —Isaiah 6:8

 

“When we talk about the call of God, we often forget the most important thing, namely, the nature of Him who calls.[…] The call is the expression of the nature of the One who calls, and we can only recognize the call if that same nature is in us. The call of God is the expression of God’s nature, not ours. […] The call of God is not a reflection of my nature; my personal desires and temperament are of no consideration. As long as I dwell on my own qualities and traits and think about what I am suited for, I will never hear the call of God. […] The majority of us cannot hear anything but ourselves. And we cannot hear anything God says. But to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed.”  CHAMBERS

 

Living your new life in Christ means that you have a new nature, a spiritual nature.  A nature that is “in tune” with God’s nature.  His Spirit is in us.  There is nothing in our old nature that can connect to or please God.  Our old nature can deceive us.  We can think we are living the Christian life, when in fact, we are walking in sin and have become spiritually disconnected from God.  Unconfessed sin is perhaps the biggest reason for the disconnect.  It may be the only reason.  We live our lives each day, often making bad choices, yielding to the flesh, yielding to temptation.  But instead of addressing it we accommodate it and ignore it.  We don’t see it as a problem but as “normal” and really not a big deal.  I mean it’s not like I robbed a bank.  We have redefined holiness.  So we live in a pseudo-righteous life.  (2 Timothy 3:2-5)   “For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,  unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good,  traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,   having a form of godliness but denying its power.”

 

Living the Christian life means that you must keep your heart clean from sin.  You may be familiar with the story of the  “sin of Achan”  in Joshua 7.  (if not, read it)  The army was suffering defeat at the hands of the enemy.  Joshua didn’t understand and God told him that there was “sin in the camp”.  Just one sinful act was causing the problem.  Does one sin really matter?  Jesus died to defeat it.  A Holy God can have no part of it.  Why would we think that it doesn’t matter.  Confess your sin when it happens, and repent.  You have heard, I am certain, the definition of repentance as doing an about face, a 180 degree turn.  Spiritual repentance does not mean to turn around and trust in yourself again.  It means to turn from trusting in yourself – your flesh – your old nature and turn to God, and trust in the power of God.  (Romans 8:13) “For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”  ELGIN

 

Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)

 

Charley Elgin