Devo 2
9/8/99
"Sin"
First of all, I want to thank all of you who took time to read my last Devo. I hope you got something out of it that was useful for your Christian life.
What I talked about last week was, admittedly, an ideal situation. If you'll recall, I talked about how our ultimate mission as a Christian should be in spreading the Word of God to the world. This should be our only mission and our only desire--even above providing for ourselves the basic necessities of everyday life. I can say this because in Matthew 6 Jesus tells us that God will take care of all our need if we 'seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness'. It's a great promise, and very inspiring to know that if I look out for God, God will look out for me.
The following illustration occurred to me while typing out the last Devo: imagine yourself as a kind of conduit through which God pours his Love out to the world. Just like the heart uses the veins and arteries to pump blood to the body, so God uses us to bring God's Love and message to the world. But as I mentioned before, this is only an ideal situation and unfortunately is rarely seen in its purest form in the real world.
The problem with the above illustration is this: conduits will rarely remain clean and pure--there is always something that comes along and clogs it up. For the Christian, this clogger is called sin. And no matter how much we hate and despise it, sin will always be there restricting the flow of God's Love to, and through us. This should be no real surprise, because as long as we live in a sinful world, we will continue to be influenced by the sinful nature. In fact, I don't believe that we will ever fully stop sinning while on this earth--and I hate that thought! I hate it so much because the next thought that comes is, "well, if I will never stop sinning, why even try?"
I said above that the Christian is like a conduit through which God's Love flows to the world just like the veins in the body are a conduit through which the blood flows to the body. Well, just like sin can clog up the Christian, fat and other stuff (I'm no doctor) can clog up the veins and arteries. But what doctor ever told his patient that since the clogging of veins is inevitable, no treatment will be attempted? None, because doctor's know that if the clogging in the veins goes unchecked, a heart-attack will occur which is likely to be fatal. And so the doctor takes steps to reduce the amount of clogging that takes place, a typical example being regulating the diet.
This is what we need to do as Christians! If we accept the defeatist attitude that sin is inevitable and not even worth fighting, we will soon suffer a spiritual heart-attack. If, then, we can no longer provide passage for God's Love to the world, then we no longer produce fruit, and as Jesus said in John 15:2, "He [God] cuts off every branch in me [Jesus] that bears no fruit". The Christian who accepts defeat to sin is like the person talked about in 1 John who "claim[s] to have fellowship with him yet walk[s] in darkness." The Truth is not in him.
Notice, though, in that verse that this person "walks" in darkness. I don't know the Greek for that word, but to me it implies a deliberate choice and course of action. It says nothing about the Christian who earnestly seeks God who occasionally finds himself sinning despite himself. Christian's are not supposed to be sinless (not in this world anyway). In fact, "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8). For some reason, God has chosen to keep us susceptible to the schemes of the devil after our salvation. Perhaps this is a pride issue like Paul talks about in 2 Cor. 12. I do know however, that "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)
Though we don't like to think about it, the Christian will inevitably sin from time to time. The way I see it, there are two ways we can respond to this: either we can admit defeat and not even bother fighting our sinful tendencies, or we can admit in humility that we still sin and need God's forgiveness. Only with this realization will we be turned to God for our strength and guidance each day.