Mark 12:28-34 Communication Prayer/meditation
As John Grassmick says in the Bible Knowledge Commentary on these verses…”It is a commitment to the Lord that is comprehensive and whole hearted. The heart, as the control center of your life, the soul as your self consciousness, the mind our thought capacity and strength our bodily powers”
And when we learn how to love the Lord like this the result is love for others.
As we talked about the last two weeks a Christian should be in the Word daily and praying daily
Today we are going to look at personal sin
For the sake of us realizing the magnitude of sin I am calling it “trash”
The trash gets in the way of us loving the Lord, it breaks fellowship with Him and can also break our relationships with others.
• What causes the trash?
The first step is to admit you have a problem, we have to understand what is going on within us.
We sin because…
-Our heart condition – hard heart
Eph 4:17-20 Paul speaks to the believers and reminds them not to be as they used to be having hard hearts and continue in sinful ways.
Application Heb 4:7 “if you hear His voice do not harden your heart”
-Our mind is warped blinded – Eph 4:17-20 Talks about how our minds used to be darkened and we should not revert to that type of thinking.
Application Rom 12:2 Says that we should renew our mind and not be conformed to the worldly thinking.
-We are drawing on our own strength- Eph 4:21-24
We think we are strong enough or sometimes worse yet we think we are immune to what sin is capable of.
Gary Richmond, a former zoo keeper, had this to say: Raccoons go through a glandular change at about 24 months. After that they often attack their owners. Since a 30-pound raccoon can be equal to a 100-pound dog in a scrap, I felt compelled to mention the change coming to a pet raccoon owned by a young friend of mine, Julie. She listened politely as I explained the coming danger. I'll never forget her answer. "It will be different for me. . ." And she smiled as she added, "Bandit wouldn't hurt me. He just wouldn't." Three months later Julie underwent plastic surgery for facial lacerations sustained when her adult raccoon attacked her for no apparent reason. Bandit was released into the wild. Sin, too, often comes dressed in an adorable guise, and as we play with it, how easy it is to say, "It will be different for me." The results are predictable.
Application: Rely on the Lord for Him to give you strength. 2 Cor. 1:8-10
-Our soul is troubled. Psalm 6:3 Helps us to realize that at times our soul is troubled. Maybe because something happened to us, or in a relationship or we are just bummed
The temptation is to get involved in sinful behaviors to make ourselves feel better. Like revenge, substance abuse etc.
Application: 1 Peter 2:11 says that these things actually “wage war against our souls”
• How do we take the trash out?
Every sin that we commit is an offense to Jesus…as Christians Jesus does not only call us to love Him but to love others. Some of the sins we commit may have hurt others and we need to go to them...repent and confess to them… James 5:16 says confess your sins to one another. And if someone is confessing to you, you forgive.
1. Repentance = a change of mind which leads to a change of heart.
Rom 2:4 “God’s kindness is meant to lead to repentance”
2 Cor 7:10 “Godly sorrow leads to repentance”
2. Confession- To admit… The good news is that we can go right to the Lord Jesus 1 Tim 2:5
Psalm 32:5
Psalm 38:18 “I confess my iniquity, I am sorry for my sin”
• Where does the trash go? Jesus is willing to absorb the trash GOSPEL Rom 10:9 If “you confess and believe”
We have a loving Father who is so willing to forgive us that He would give His Son to prove it. We have a such a loving Savior that He is willing to take our wrath/trash on Himself and forgive us.
Proverbs 28:13 “The one who confesses and forsakes his sins will obtain mercy”
1 John 1:9 the promise “If you confess your sins He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”
As Christians we should develop the discipline of Repentance and Confession
No comments:
Post a Comment