Applying The Grace That Is Greater Than All Our Sin

My Utmost For His Highest 

We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ… —2 Corinthians 5:10

{CHAMBERS}  “Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are. One carnal judgment of another person only serves the purposes of hell in you. Bring it immediately into the light and confess, “Oh, Lord, I have been guilty there.” If you don’t, your heart will become hardened through and through. One of the penalties of sin is our acceptance of it. It is not only God who punishes for sin, but sin establishes itself in the sinner and takes its toll. No struggling or praying will enable you to stop doing certain things, and the penalty of sin is that you gradually get used to it, until you finally come to the place where you no longer even realize that it is sin. No power, except the power that comes from being filled with the Holy Spirit, can change or prevent the inherent consequences of sin. “If we walk in the light as He is in the light…” (1 John 1:7)."

{ELGIN}  Does it seem strange to you that there are so many devotions about avoiding sin?  I was thinking about that as I read My Utmost For His Highest this morning. But then I was reminded of my own life and my struggle.  Like the caterpillar morphing into the butterfly, there must be a struggle to produce the beauty that God has intended for us. I would like to think that someday,  I won’t struggle with sin and temptation any more.  But that won’t happen this side of Glory.  So in the meantime, I need to continue to “learn to lean on Jesus.  Finding more power than I ever dreamed.” 

This chain of sinning and confessing will likely continue for the rest of this life.  That does not make the sin “OK”.  My submission to temptation is not inevitable. But with each occurrence, I learn about God’s grace and the power of the Spirit in me.  My hope is strengthened and my trust in Him is fortified.  Jesus has saved me from the penalty of sin.  My home is in heaven and my future secured.  My purpose is to let a lost and dying world see Jesus in me.  What an incredible responsibility. As Paul wrote, (1 Corinthians 2:12-13) “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”