From Sin To Salvation

Honor your father and mother, as the LORD your God commanded you. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the LORD your God is giving you.— Deuteronomy 5:16

Obeying our parents is our main task when we are young, but honoring them should continue even beyond their deaths. Honoring involves all that sons and daughters do with their lives—the way they work and talk, the values they hold, and the morals they practice.

What are you doing to show respect to your parents? Are you living in a way that brings honor to them even after they are gone?

If you’re like me, Monday mornings can be difficult to navigate, especially if you have a lot going on. Today, I have been making flight reservations to see my sister out west. Doing that can be mind numbing trying to figure out times, seat assignments, etc. But what does all that have to do with the power of prayer? Nothing directly but indirectly it does.

Yesterday in my Sunday School class I was scheduled to teach the lesson. However, my back went out on me causing me pain just to stand. So, I sat down to teach the lesson. When class was over one of our class members invited all other class members to come up and lay their hands on me as he did. He prayed a very powerful prayer for my healing.

I am happy to report that as of this morning I’ve not experienced any pain in my back and I am walking pain free. That’s a good thing because I certainly didn’t want to travel in pain. I think sometimes that I’ve not experienced the full benefit of prayer because I’ve had a small seed of doubt. I am not sure why but yesterday I just believed I was going to be healed and as of this writing I am still pain free.

The next time you enter into prayer with our heavenly Father, just know two things—He hears your prayers and answers your prayers. Don’t be the unstable man with a small seed of doubt who is tossed about by the wind and waves but instead have concrete faith and trust in our Lord. When you do, you will receive answers to your prayers.

The key to understanding the relationship between the Christian and the Law is knowing that the Old Testament law was given to the nation of Israel, not to Christians. Some of the laws were to reveal to the Israelites how to obey and please God (the Ten Commandments, for example). Some of the laws were to show the Israelites how to worship God and atone for sin (the sacrificial system). Some of the laws were intended to make the Israelites distinct from other nations (the food and clothing rules). None of the Old Testament law is binding on Christians today. When Jesus died on the cross, He put an end to the Old Testament law (Romans 10:4; Galatians 3:23–25; Ephesians 2:15).

In place of the Old Testament law, Christians are under the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2), which is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and to love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). If we obey those two commands, we will be fulfilling all that Christ requires of us: “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:40).

Today is the 3 year anniversary of my dog’s death. Jake was a red lab and the most friendly dog I’ve ever known. He loved me as only a dog can love someone. Unconditionally. Words cannot express how much I miss him. Toward the end of his life, his sicknesses became very worrisome. Ultimately, he got cancer causing him great pain. We tried everything to make him comfortable and to help him eat, but, to no avail.

My wife and I prayed about what to do and the answer we received from God was to let him go so as not to suffer any more. Needless to say making the decision to put him to sleep was the most difficult and emotionally upsetting decision I’ve ever made. If any of you have had a similar experience then you know what I’m talking about. I cried for a long period of time after his death. As a man I am not ashamed to admit it. Jake was my very first dog and so there was that additional connection we had.

Today, I will remember Jake with great fondness and a little sadness. This may sound silly but I hope I get to see him again in heaven. I love you Jake.

The ultimate—and severest—consequence of sin is death. The Bible says that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). This not only refers to physical death, but to eternal separation from God: “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). This is the foremost consequence of man’s rebellion against God.

Paul made it abundantly clear that sin has consequences: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows” (Galatians 6:7). Paul then describes the end of those who indulge in sinful behavior: “The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction” (Galatians 6:8). The phrase “sinful nature” refers to one’s unregenerate, shameless self. Though the sin nature may promise fulfillment, it can result in nothing but “destruction.”

The Bible describes those who choose to indulge in sin as being “darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more” (Ephesians 4:18-19). One of the consequences of sin, therefore, is more sin. There’s an insatiable “lust for more,” attended by a dulling of the conscience and a blindness to spiritual truth (1 Corinthians 2:14).

The consequence of suppressing the truth is that God gives the sinner over to “the sinful desires of their hearts,” “shameful lusts” and “a depraved mind” (Romans 1:24, 26, 28). This means that God may allow the sinner to serve as his own god and to reap the destruction of his body and soul. It is a fearful thing to be “given over” to our own destructive ways.

The consequence of sin is death, but “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

(read “Why We Should Study The Old Testament” at https://byhistouch.com)

Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. John 8:34

Instead of freedom, habitual sin brings about an enslaved consciousness, and one can gain insight into its nature by comparing it to chemical addiction. Like the chronic use of drugs, habitual sin causes a hardening of the heart (Job 9:4). Just as a junkie needs more of the addictive drug more often, habitual sin lowers the barriers of our conscience to more sin. As Jesus Christ says, “Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you” (John 5:14).

Our religion—our connection to God—provides us with the moral compass necessary to define both sin and the standards we need to walk worthy of our calling. This same connection also provides us with the ultimate solution for our addiction to sin—His love.

We do not live or commit sin in a vacuum. Each sin lowers our inhibition to further transgression and often causes collateral damage to those close to us and beyond. More importantly, it separates us from our Father and His love, without which we would be eternally lost. We can be assured, though, that because of our heavenly Father’s powerful love for each of us, He has provided the perfect antidote to all of our sinful habits in the life and the blood of Jesus Christ.

There is a very close connection between you, God and His Word. Jesus Himself is called the “Word of God.” To know God, you must know His Word; to honor God, you must honor His Word; to be in touch with God, you must be in touch with His Word. Many promises are given to those who master the Bible so well that the Bible masters them.

— We are promised spiritual stability, fruitfulness and true prosperity as we meditate on His Word day and night. (Psalm 1:1-3)

— When the words of Jesus abide in us, our desires will be given to us, according to God’s will. (John 15:7)

— Meditating on God’s Word leads to prosperity and success in our endeavors. (Joshua 1:8)

— We will have more wisdom than our enemies, more insight than our teachers and more understanding than the aged. (Psalm 119:97-100)

— We will have greater power over sin. (Psalm 119:11)

— We will have comfort in affliction. (Psalm 119:50)

— By drawing near to God, we have His promise that He will draw near to us. (James 4:8)

These astonishing observations, these magnificent claims, these profound promises—they help us realize how important the Bible is, and what remarkable potential we bring to our lives when we become serious students of Scripture. That’s why it’s so important that we commit ourselves to mastering the Bible so well that the Bible masters us.

(excerpt from 30 Days to Understanding the Bible | Max Anders | © 2018)

It is vain for you to rise up early, To retire late, To eat the bread of painful labors; For He gives to His beloved {even in his} sleep. Psalm 127:2

The psalmist mentions sleep, which symbolizes and suggests the setting aside of care and forgetting one’s need. Those who put their trust in God are delivered from fretting and fuming, and they are supplied rest. They are at peace. They sleep secure. They are not at all worried and overwrought. We can relate to sleepless nights because we have all been in a state of anxiety about something instead of placing our trust in God.

The next time you are faced with what appears to be an insurmountable challenge, turn and face God and tell Him you can’t handle the situation. Ask Him to step in and take care of it for you. Because of His love for you He will give you peace in the situation.

(visit my other blog at byhistouch.com)

We can gauge how important the quality of our humility is to our relationship with God by considering the setting of this statement. It appears in the Sermon on the Mount, three whole chapters in which Jesus lays out before His followers the foundational teaching that, if followed, will work to produce a good relationship with God. The foundation of the foundation, we might say, is the Beatitudes, and the very first quality He presents, implying its prime necessity, is poverty of spirit (humbleness).

Poverty of spirit is the diametric opposite of the haughty, competitive, self-assertive, self-sufficient arrogance of pride that says, “This is the way I see it.” Being poor in spirit has absolutely nothing to do with being hard up in one’s circumstances—in fact, it has nothing to do with the physical realm. It is a fundamental part of the spiritual realm, of which God and the purity of His attitudes, character, and truths are the central elements.

“Poor in spirit” is poverty as compared to God’s qualities. It is poverty in terms of Holy Spirit. It is to be destitute in regard to the fruit and power of God’s Holy Spirit of which we all desperately need. This attitude is the product of self-evaluation in which a person, comparing his own spiritual qualities to God’s, finds himself utterly impoverished of any virtue of value to eternal life. Not only that, he finds himself utterly unable, powerless, to help himself to become like God.

Thus, a person who is poor of spirit or humble clearly sees and appreciates his dependence on God both physically and spiritually. Humility is a fruit of the realization of his complete dependence. He is nothing in his own eyes and knows that his proper place is face down in the dust before God.

In the creation story found in Genesis, God creates the world and everything in it. On the seventh day Genesis tells us that God rested. God gave us the seventh day to rest as well. Working around the house, going into the office for a few hours or fussing about some difficulty you are facing is not what God had in mind for us.

He wants us to take the day to nourish our body physically with rest and spiritually through worshiping Him. For some, “doing nothing” is hard to do but it is what God wants for us. I think you will find that by resting on Sunday, you will start your new week refreshed mentally, physically and spiritually and able to handle just about any challenge you might face.

To my way of thinking if it’s good enough for God then it’s good enough for me. What about you?