Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate
The Greek word for saint is hagios, and it refers not to one’s character but to a state of being. Its literal meaning is “one who is separated unto God.”
In this sense, every believer — even the most ordinary and the most immature — is a saint.
Every true believer has been separated or set apart by God for God.
In the biblical sense of the term, sainthood is not a status of achievement and character but a state of being — an entirely new condition of life brought about by the Spirit of God. Paul describes it as “[turning] from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God” (Acts 26:18) and again as having been “delivered … from the domain of darkness and transferred … to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13).
The guerrilla warfare between the flesh and the Spirit described in Galatians 5:17 is fought daily in the heart of every Christian.
Sin covers a wide range of misbehavior. It covers everything from gossip to adultery, from impatience to murder. Obviously, there are degrees of seriousness of sin. But in the final analysis, sin is sin.
The truth is, all sin is serious because all sin is a breaking of God’s law.
If I complain about the difficult circumstances of my life, I impugn the sovereignty and goodness of God and tempt my listener to do the Sin, however, is much more than wrong actions, unkind words, or even those evil thoughts that we never express. Sin is a principle or moral force in our heart, our inner being.
Therefore, when I indulge in any of the so-called acceptable sins, I am not only despising God’s law but, at the same time, I am despising God Himself.
Every sinful thought and word and deed we do is done in the presence of God.
To walk by the Spirit is to live under the controlling influence of the Spirit and in dependence upon Him.
God does not tempt us to sin (see James 1:13-14), but He does bring or allow circumstances to come into our lives that give us the opportunity to put to death the particular subtle sins that are characteristic of our individual lives.
God is in control of every circumstance and every event of our lives, and He uses them, often in some mysterious way, to change us more into the likeness of Christ.
The Holy Spirit works in us to convict us and make us aware of our subtle sins. He then works in us to enable us to put to death those sins. Then He works in us in ways of which we are not conscious. And then He uses the circumstances of our lives to exercise us in the activity of dealing with our sins.
Our sins are forgiven and we are accepted as righteous by God because of both the sinless life and sin-bearing death of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no greater motivation for dealing with sin in our lives than the realization of these two glorious truths of the gospel.
Your heart is a battleground between the flesh and the Spirit
Everything we do is to be done to the glory of God.
Anxiety is a distrust of God.
Anxiety is a sin also because it is a lack of acceptance of God’s providence in our lives.
Our whole lives should be lives of continual thanksgiving.
When God does bring relief, or when we see Him deliver us from the possibility of such an event, we should make it a special point to give Him thanks.
Even in the midst of the difficulty we are enveloped in God’s love.
Whatever the cause, the ability to achieve or succeed in any endeavor ultimately comes from God.
You have nothing that did not come to you as a gift from God. Our intellect, our natural skills and talents, our health, and our opportunities to succeed all come from God. We have nothing that will enable us to achieve the success that we did not receive from God.
The Scriptures say that we are to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Going beyond our normal duties to help someone else is one way we can bear each other’s burdens.
We are to cultivate hearts of compassion toward those in need and then put that compassion to work through our giving.
Resentment is anger held on to.
Bitterness is resentment that has grown into a feeling of ongoing animosity.
That anger, held on to, is not the only sin, it is spiritually dangerous.
God doesn’t cause people to sin against us, but He does allow it, and it is always allowed for a purpose — most often our own growth in Christlikeness.
Every sin we commit, regardless of how insignificant it seems to us, is an assault on His infinite glory.
God has a place and an assignment for each of us that He wants us to fill.
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