Forgiven Indeed

In his book The Yellow Leaves, Frederick Buechner related the following:

“Frank Tracy Griswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church... told me that once when he was taking a shower, he distinctly heard a voice from somewhere saying, ‘Why do you take your sins so much more seriously than I do?’ His first reaction, he said, was to burst into laughter. His second was to burst into tears.”

I had mixed feelings of my own when I read that. On one hand, sin is extremely serious. The smallest of offenses against the perfect, holy God is worthy of the death penalty, and in fact led to the death of Jesus Christ. And yet Scripture proclaims,

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:13-14).

For those who follow Christ, all our sins, past, present, and future, were nailed to the cross and removed “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12). So while each time that we sin is a reminder of the penalty we owed, it is also an occasion for God’s grace to abound to us over and over again.

“But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many... Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom. 5:15, 20).

Those who are faithful Christians don’t take sin lightly, or think of it as “no big deal.” We don’t “continue in sin that grace may abound” (Rom. 6:1). But I believe that many of us hold onto the feelings of guilt and shame long after we’ve confessed our sins to God. I heard myself saying recently, “I know God doesn’t hold it against me, but I hold it against myself.” At times like that, God may truly ask us, “Why do you take your sins so much more seriously than I do?” If He has forgiven those sins, who am I to stand in judgment against those same sins? If His grace has “abounded all the more,” who am I to reject it for myself?

Of course, just knowing that truth doesn’t mean we always take it to heart. We have an accuser to loves to remind us of all the times and ways we have failed to love God and others. He wants to keep us wallowing in the mud so that we’re too distracted to serve God. And if we think of ourselves foremost as sinners, we may forget that we have the ability to say no to sin because of God’s grace.

From the vantage point of the cross, my sins are no longer on my record or my shoulders. Jesus’ shoulders bore the weight so mine do not need to. His hands were nailed to my sin, so my hands are now free.

Lord, help us to see ourselves as the new creations You have made us to be. Where we are forgiven, help us to forgive ourselves. Where we are tempted, guard us against the lies and lures of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

“The Lord passed before [Moses] and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’” (Ex. 34:6).

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Even Me

I wonder if you have the same reaction to this passage that I sometimes do?

“This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men... Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:23, 36).

Isn’t it tempting to think, “Yes, Peter! Stick it to those unbelieving Jews and Romans who killed Jesus!”? And yet, if it weren’t for my sin (and yours) Jesus would not have had to die. “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). And “For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). That realization shouldn’t lead to pride in my accomplishments or disdain for unbelievers. It should lead to humble gratitude for the eternal life we have received by the grace and mercy of God. “[He] was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25).

On prideful days, I can be like the Pharisee who prayed, “God, I thank You that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector” (Luke 18:11), when I should be praying, “Thank You for being merciful to me, a sinner!”

Some days I identify more with Paul’s proclamation, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life” (1 Tim. 1:15-16). Paul knew what he was talking about, although I think we are each the “foremost of sinners.” Any sin against the perfectly holy and righteous God is worthy of eternal damnation. Whether our personal sin debt was a penny or a thousand dollars, it required the life of the perfect sacrifice, Jesus Christ, to redeem us.

As we come to Good Friday and Easter, let us not forget that we aren’t invited into God’s family because we’re so great and have so much to offer Him. We are here only because He first loved us and chose to ransom us by death and resurrection of Christ. “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

“The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging Him on a tree. God exalted Him at His right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:30-31). “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17).

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Wrong Way

“There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing” (Prov. 12:18).

I screwed up. I used rash, sarcastic words instead of loving, gracious words. I expressed my hurt and frustration in ways that hurt others. What I might have said instead in this particular situation— “I miss seeing the people I love and talking to them on a regular basis… I don’t like feeling invisible to those around me… I’m tired of feeling lonely but I don’t know how to connect with busy people…”

Feeling distant and unseen, my words only created greater distance. Feeling insecure, my words created greater insecurity. Feeling like I was on the outside looking in, my words only built the wall higher. Feeling confused about the state of the relationship, my words only made it more unclear.

Being Christian doesn’t mean we don’t make mistakes or that we don’t need to keep learning. But it does mean we need to face our mistakes and reconcile relationships. As this TGC article, “Battling Sinful Sarcasm” points out, our words can either hurt or heal, and we need to learn to evaluate them before they come out of our mouths or fingertips. Perhaps if I’d read this article when it came out 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have had to learn the lesson the hard way.

In a world of instant communication, where the rule is “post while it’s hot,” and where snark reigns supreme, it’s easy to forget that other people may not perceive things the way they are intended. And that kind of lazy communication has infiltrated verbal interactions as well. I’ll admit I’m not good at figuring out what other people are thinking, but now I see better that I can’t assume that they can read me either. It seems to me that most everyone needs training in interpersonal communication, and perhaps especially so in the church where we are to follow Scriptural commands such as:

“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Col. 4:6).

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Eph. 4:29).

On the Ephesians verse, in the past I always thought of “corrupting talk” as referring to language that uses God’s name in vain or intentionally leads others into sin and condemnation. The Greek word can also be translated rotten, worthless, or useless. Most of the other places where it is used in the New Testament are Jesus’ references to bad fruit (Matt. 7:17-18 et al). Anything that bears bad fruit is corrupting God’s design for His world and His people. Our words are to build up, not tear down. They are to be full of grace and truth, not barbs and innuendo. They are to reflect how much we love one another.

In the devotional book Take Heart by David Powlison, the reading for April 20 includes this prayer:

“Our Father, please have mercy on us. We live so carelessly… Let us take seriously the delightful call of Christ, calling us out of darkness into light. Let us embrace your call in ways that are life rearranging, the call that we would become men and women who contribute to the quantum of light in the dark world, and don’t just bumble along as one more person stumbling through the darkness.”

“He who loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious, will have the king as his friend” (Prov. 22:11).

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Here’s a related post I wrote last year: https://mental3degree.blogspot.com/2022/08/fully-present.html

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© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Clothed

In that first garden, long ago,
Our parents walked with You unclothed.
They were sinless and unashamed
To see and to be seen and known.

Into the garden the tempter came,
Sin brought with it all its shame.
Fig leaves were not clothes enough,
Hiding when you called their names.

The tree of knowledge with it brought
Death to all who knowledge sought.
You found them there, and sent them out,
Clothed in the death their sins had bought.

Another parent, another day,
In the manger gently lay
Her sleeping boy, snugly wrapped,
In swaddling clothes upon the hay.

He grew to face another tree
On the mount of Gethsemane,
Naked hung in our sin and shame,
Unclothed for all humanity.

One day soon will come to sight,
Our Savior returning in robes of white,
Clothed in His righteousness we’ll be,
To dwell in His eternal light.

May we seek to live as those
Who will be in perfection robed,
Free from every sin and shame,
Bowing now before His throne.

“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; He has covered me with the robe of righteousness: (Isaiah 61:10a).

 

© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Do You Smell That?

In modern culture, intolerance is seen as the one forbidden sin, and tolerance has been redefined to mean acceptance and approval of any and every lifestyle except for biblical Christianity. The church has sometimes capitulated to this “doctrine.” The seeker sensitive movement was one way that churches tried to open their doors to entice in the wider culture, but often this led to a neglect of the truth that every person is a sinner in need of a Savior. I read two passages this morning that speak to these issues. The first comes from the Apostle Paul:

“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life” (2 Cor. 2:14-16a).

Paul is clear that the church is never going to attract everyone. Those who are predestined for salvation (Rom. 8:29-30) will find a pleasing aroma that draws them to life. But for the rest, it will be as repugnant as a rotting deer beside the road. The gospel is good news for those who will accept it and find salvation in Jesus Christ, but it is bad news for everyone else.

The church was never intended to accept or approve of sin for the sake of drawing people in. That doesn’t mean we should confront an individual’s sin the instant they set foot in the door, but it does mean we can’t let them remain in sin, believing it doesn’t really matter. As Paul wrote to the Colossians, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (3:5). The gospel is meant to bring death to the flesh, but life to the Spirit (Rom. 8:10).

The second passage I read is from Jesus’ words to the church in Thyatira:

“I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing My servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols” (Rev. 2:19-20).

This sounds all too familiar today as we see yet another denomination fracturing over the endorsement by some leaders of sinful lifestyles. There are false prophets who have brought sin right into the church. To the world they may appear loving and faithful, but in God’s judgment they are spreading the stench of death. Jesus went on to announce His judgment against Jezebel and all who refused to repent of her teachings (vv. 21-23). This is no lighthearted tolerance of a different lifestyle. It’s a matter of eternal life or death.

The question for us is this—is the aroma we are spreading one that is pleasing to God or one that is pleasing to the world? If we please the world we are in danger of God’s judgment, but if we are pleasing to God we will condemned by the world’s standards. In the end, there is only one Judge whose opinion matters.

“Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court… It is the Lord who judges me” (1 Cor. 4:2-4).

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Organizational Pride and Shame

As I’ve read the various reports coming out of the Southern Baptist Convention (including the 288-page report from Guidepost Solutions), it has struck me how many of their decisions were based on the image they wanted to present to the world. Up until recent years, the SBC might have been described as growing, influential, mission-minded, and reaching the world for Christ. And yet under the surface there was abuse, deception, and decay. The safety and security of vulnerable men, women, and children was sacrificed to the idol of the institution. Many Protestants, while watching similar events play out in the Catholic Church in prior decades, knew that the story wasn’t going to end there. Similar themes of the abuse of authority played out in the Mars Hill Church downfall. Russell Moore commented in the July 2022 issue of Christianity Today,

“[I]nstitutions seeking to protect themselves will take on the name of Jesus to say that victims, survivors, or whistleblowers are compromising ‘the mission’ or creating ‘disunity in the body’ when they point out horrors. But God will not long abide the misuse of his name for those who worship their own twisted appetites.”

Satan has expertly warped people’s priorities in order to undermine the influence of the Church as the Body of Christ. Some have no doubt concluded that if the Church can’t be trusted, then neither can the God it claims to represent. There are a number of things that I think we can learn—as individuals, churches, and denominations.

1) No human being besides Jesus Christ is infallible. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). When we put our pastors, elders, and denominational leaders up on pedestals, they will be sure to disappoint us in some way. We need to look for ways to guard against sinful actions through true accountability, and we need to have plans in place for when someone does fall.

2) No human institution is infallible. While the universal Church is not manmade, many of our existing programs and polity are created through human ingenuity and consensus. None of us have perfect knowledge or foresight to predict every possible outcome or prevent any possible abuse, but we should endeavor to do our best. “Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God” (2.Cor. 4:1-2).

3) The Church can only have one priority. Up until the past hundred years, the word priority had no plural. The Church exists to glorify God by obeying His Great Commission and Great Commandment. We cannot “prioritize” people, pastors, buildings, money, or statistics. To do so is to remove God from His throne. “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Luke 16:13).

4) The Church and its leaders will have to give an account to God. We should desire to do whatever it takes for each person to have a clear conscience before God. “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your soul, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things” (Heb. 13:17-18).

5) When any segment of the Church has failed, we should seek to make amends and hold sinners accountable. We are called to confront sin in the local church (Matt. 18:15-17), and to come alongside those who have been wounded by the sins of others (Rom. 12:15-17). Those who seek to cover up sin by showing partiality are just as guilty as those who have sinned. “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it” (James 2:8-10).

Sometimes that may mean removing a person from church membership or leadership and sometimes that may require dismantling the manmade institutions that have been corrupted (1 Cor. 5:1-13). The glory of God requires that we do not seek to protect the reputation of sinful individuals or institutions. “For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light” (Luke 8:17).

“And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day” (Isaiah 2:17).

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Forgetting the Past

Listening to the audio book of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe recently, this part caught my attention:

“‘You have a traitor there, Aslan,’ said the Witch. Of course everyone present knew that she meant Edmund. But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he’d been through and after the talk he’d had that morning. He just went on looking at Aslan. It didn’t seem to matter what the Witch said.”

How often do we get distracted and distressed by looking at the past instead of looking at Christ? The enemy wants to keep reminding us that we are sinners, traitors, and failures. But God doesn’t want us to stay there. The Apostle Paul said, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15), but he didn’t stop there. He continued, “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life.” Paul was redeemed in order to display God’s mercy and grace.

King David said in Psalm 51, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me” (v. 3). Sometimes we get stuck there and never move on to remind ourselves that “a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise” (v. 17) and “You, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon You” (86:5). He is quick to forgive, but we are slow to remember.

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life form the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy” (Psalm 103:2-4).

We need to cling to the truth of who we are in Christ when past sin, shame, and regret rear their heads. Those voices can be so loud, and God’s whispers of truth seem to be drowned out. I don’t know how many times I’ve repeated Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” but I need to hear it again and again, not just in my own head but from people who know me. We in the Body of Christ need to be that voice of truth for one another, but to do that we first need to drop some of our barriers of self-protection. (I know how hard it can be to believe that there is security to be found in being known and loved by a few safe people.) We can be part of the cloud of witnesses to one another that the author of Hebrews referred to:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:1-2a).

May we keep our eyes fixed on Him and let go of all that drags us down.

“Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13b-14).

© 2021 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Clean Hands and Pure Heart

The following quotes from Lead, by Paul David Tripp, seem all too apropos considering some of the recent news coming from Christian ministries.

“I have seen that when it comes to leaders’ struggle with sin, we tend to make unbiblical assumptions that cause us to be naïve and unprepared for battles that we will face in the life and ministry of leaders in our communities. It is not safe to assume that a seminary graduate is spiritually okay. It’s not safe to conclude that a very gifted leader is where he needs to be in his relationship with Jesus. It’s not necessarily true that a theologically insightful leader is spiritually mature. Ministry effectiveness is not to be confused with cleanness of heart. What you know about the public persona of a leader does not mean you do not need to be concerned about his private life” (181).

“Every leadership community should be clear that giftedness is not the same as spiritual maturity. Biblical literacy is not the same as spiritual maturity. We need to be clear that theological acumen is not the same as spiritual maturity. Ministry success is not the same as spiritual maturity. Popularity is not the same as spiritual maturity. Strategic insight is not the same as spiritual maturity” (196).

Revelations of ongoing, unrepentant sin make you wonder if a celebrity really was a Christian. (God alone knows.) The trust of the church has been betrayed on many occasions by many people.

None of us are completely free from temptation and sin. Jesus was the only person to live a perfect, sinless life. But by the grace of God we should be growing in obedience, humility, and integrity. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray He included, “Forgive us our debts… and lead us not into temptation” (Matt. 6:12-13). Why would He urge such prayers if in fact we are able by our own strength to avoid temptation and live free from sin? We are weak and fallible creatures, constantly in need of God’s power to sanctify us and conform us to the image of His Son.

Martin Luther, in the first sentence of his 95 Theses wrote, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ (Matthew 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Yet how many of us live that out day by day? How often are we blissfully unaware of, or hardened to, our sin?

King David, the “man after God’s own heart,” wrote in several of his psalms:

“Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression” (Psalm 19:13).

“Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me! Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in You” (Psalm 25:20).

“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me” (Psalm 32:1-4a).

“There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me” (Psalm 38:3-4).

May God, by His grace, reveal our sins and bring conviction and repentance before those sins bury us too deeply in the mire. May our pride be broken before it becomes presumption. May we be quick to turn to Him for the mercy of forgiveness and the cleansing we need.

“Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation” (Psalm 24:3-5).

© 2021 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Not My Strength

Although we as Christians should know that we are saved by faith and not by works, we often fall into the trap of trying to pursue sanctification by works. We think that if we just get the right combination of avoiding tempting situations and quoting enough Scripture we’ll be able to keep from sinning. We make our list of rules: don’t watch certain TV shows; don’t look at the magazines lining the checkout aisle; don’t buy ice cream and candy; put Covenant Eyes on the computer; avoid restaurants that serve alcohol; and so on. While those can all be good things, they are limited in their ability to stop the temptations that assail us. As the Apostle Paul wrote:

“If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulation—‘Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch’ (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Col. 2:20-23).

The problem with external rules is that they do nothing to change the heart. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matt. 15:19). When rules and regulations don’t work, we may move on to memorizing Scripture:

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? …So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions” (Rom. 6:12). “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13).

Scripture memory too is a good thing. However, if you’re like me, you may start thinking “OK, when temptation comes I’ll just quote five verses and I’ll be fine.” That is doomed to fail because you are relying on your own strength again. The same is true of the “power of positive thinking”— “I am dead to sin;” “I am a new creation;” “I can say no to sin.” Even though those things are true, simply adopting them as a new mantra doesn’t automatically stop temptation in its tracks.

Though I have done all of the above, the one thing that was most helpful to me has been to acknowledge to God my complete inadequacy to resist temptation and pray that He would guard me from its presence and power. It didn’t work to wait for temptation to come before trying to remember to pray. Rather, I asked that He would keep me away from sources of temptation. I am still a work in progress. We’re all still works in progress.

Jesus taught His disciples to pray “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matt. 6:13). God is the only One who can answer that prayer. But again, we can’t just mindlessly recite the Lord’s Prayer every day and expect it to make a difference. Prayer is just one small part of a lifestyle of depending on God’s strength and not our own. The fact is, there is no five-step program to overcome sin. We can pursue all kinds of spiritual disciplines and yet still be enslaved to habitual sins. And different things may be helpful to different people.

We will all struggle with sin in varying degrees as long as we live. It is a lifelong process of being transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2) and becoming conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29). Sanctification is God’s work just as much as justification was His work. But we can trust that “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

“Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 4:6b).

© 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Failure, Regret and Forgiveness

The salesperson was pushy and persistent. They wouldn’t take no for an answer and wouldn’t leave me alone. On that last phone call I snapped. It felt justified. My time was being used, my work interrupted, and my answer was being ignored. I felt disrespected and out of control of the conversation. But almost as soon as I slammed the phone down the guilt and regret came. I should have been much more polite. I could have asked why they thought they knew our needs better than I did. I could have turned it around and tried to sell them the gospel instead. There were probably hundreds of better responses than what I gave in the spur of the moment.

I did confess to God and ask His forgiveness, but the situation keeps coming to mind again and again. The enemy keeps trying to shame me with my failure. It has resurfaced multiple times as I’ve been reading Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth’s book Lies Women Believe. A few of the lies she addresses are:

• “It’s not my fault!”
• “I can’t control my emotions.”
• “I can’t help how I respond when my hormones are out of whack.”
• “If my circumstances were different, I would be different.”
• “I just can’t take any more.”

The truth is, we always have a choice in how we respond to situations. No one and nothing can cause us to sin apart from our own decision to do so, no matter how quickly that decision gets made sometimes. “We know that our old self was crucified with [Christ] in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin… Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions” (Romans 6:6-7, 13 ESV).

Wolgemuth writes, “[W]hether we choose to believe it or not, if we are God’s children, the Truth is that His grace really is sufficient for us… That is the Truth with which you and I must perpetually counsel our hearts:

• When I’m exhausted and think I can’t possibly face the unfinished tasks that are still before me, His grace is sufficient for me…
• When I’m having a hard time responding to that family member or that person at the office who really gets under my skin, His grace is sufficient for me.
• When I’m tempted to vent my frustration by speaking harsh words, His grace is sufficient for me…
• When I blow it with my family and become uptight and short-tempered, His grace is sufficient for me…” (266-267).

And I would add, when I’ve failed and have then asked God to forgive me, His grace is sufficient for me. He has promised, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Even though I may feel guilty and unforgiven, that is not true. God has done what He promised through the blood of Christ. My job is to accept it, remember it, and use that truth to refute the lies that I am a failure, condemned, and hopeless.

I’m still far from perfect, but I am a child of God, slowly being conformed into the image of His Son. When He returns I’ll reflect His image perfectly, but for now I’m dependent on His abundant grace and mercy to make it through each day.

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Man Overboard

The Christian news lately has been filled with commentary on the “departure” of Josh Harris and Marty Sampson from the faith. (Good articles can be found here and here.) These have made the news because they are fairly well known names, but they are not unique. The fact is that such “de-conversions” happen every day in churches around the country. Some studies have said as many as 60-80% of Christian youth disengage with their faith when they head to college. We’ve probably all seen faithful attenders disappear from the pews. There are numerous reasons why people may abandon the faith they once proclaimed. Some may include:

• Inadequate training in the foundations of faith that can’t stand up to scrutiny in the public square.
• Lack of ongoing meaningful relationships with older Christians in the church.
• Perceived hypocrisy in the church such as leadership failures, church splits, misuse of authority, and exclusivism.
• Lack of application and a perceived conflict between faith and real world issues.
• Believing that there’s no hope for sinners to really be reconciled with God, thus failing to understand the true gospel.

Most churches probably could do better in terms of teaching and training people and fostering deeper relationships. No church is perfect, and every church member has their faults. Ultimately, though, each departure from the faith is a failure of belief—a decision that the god that I think I know is not worth dedicating my life to. That may happen as a fairly quick abandonment of the faith, or as a slow growth of apathy. In His parable of the sower (Matthew 13), Jesus indicated four conditions: the seed may get snatched away before it can root; it may grow shallow roots and immediately fall away; it may start to grow but get choked out by the cares of the world and be unfruitful; or it may take deep root and grow powerfully. The seed is the same in each case, but the soil conditions make the difference.

While I believe from Romans 8:28-30 and other passages that the true believer can never lose their salvation, I also believe that there are those who think they are Christians who are putting their faith in other gods. Some may believe that God promises health and peace and positive answers to every prayer, and when they get disappointed they lose what faith they had. Some may believe that God shouldn’t judge people for doing what gives them pleasure, and they can’t accept that God is holy and just and righteous. Some may believe they are Christians because they assent to the faith of family members but never really investigate or embrace it for themselves.

If someone’s beliefs about God are false, they need to abandon that faith and get to know the one true God. We should pray that many will do just that. However, I fear that some of the big name de-conversions will instead lead people to edit their Bibles and write a “choose-your-own-god” faith. Let’s remove everything about rules and sin and judgment, and have a god of love who supports the marginalized, empowers the weak, and accepts everyone into a paradise of personal pleasure forever. We’ll keep the baby in the manger, but forget about the coming King.

That may sound good, but has some major problems—one being that it defeats its own purpose. If our faith is solely about love and acceptance, what is to be done with people who are more interested in committing murder and rape and theft? If some people are to be judged for their actions, who sets the bar? Can we really trust humanity to establish morality when we can’t even agree on who should run our country? Removing universal truth results in anarchy, not love.

I too had a time of questioning my faith. The church was not being a good witness; I had no faithful friend to talk me through things; and I didn’t much like God’s standards of holiness when the world’s ways seemed more appealing. I questioned whether I wanted to keep following Him. But in the end I had to say “You’re God and I’m not.” My ways may seem more enjoyable for a time, but they will not bring ultimate fulfillment, satisfaction, and peace.

As John Owen wrote in Overcoming Sin and Temptation (in 1675!):

 “False opinions are the work of the flesh. From the vanity and darkness of the minds of men, with a mixture more or less of corrupt affections, do they mostly proceed. The apostle was jealous over his Corinthians in this matter. He was afraid lest their minds ‘should by any means be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ’ (2 Cor. 11:2-3); which he knew would be attended by a decay and declension in faith, love, and obedience… We have seen some who, after they have received a sweet taste of the love of God in Christ, of the excellency of pardoning mercy, and have walked humbly with God for many years in the faith and apprehension of the truth, have, by the corruption of their minds from the simplicity that is in Christ, by false and foolish opinions, despised all their own experiences, and rejected all the efficacy of truth, as to the furtherance of their obedience… 

“We have innumerable instances hereof in the days wherein we live. How many are there who, not many years since, put an unspeakable value on the pardon of sin in the blood of Christ—who delighted in gospel discoveries of spiritual things, and walked in obedience to God on the account of them—who, being beguiled and turned aside from the truth as it is in Jesus, do despise these springs of their own former obedience! …And this is one way whereby indwelling sin produces this pernicious effect of drawing men off from the power, purity, and fruitfulness attending their first conversion and engagements unto God… There is not anything we ought to be more watchful against, if we intend effectually to deal with this powerful and subtle enemy” (378-379).

“Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it… How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard” (Hebrews 2:1, 3 ESV).

“By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith” (1 Timothy 1:19b).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Diversions

You may have heard the quote from Robert Murray M’Cheyne, “I have discovered that the seed to every known sin dwells within my heart.” Have you ever considered that in your own life? And if you recognize that to be true, as I believe it is of every human being, have you considered the great grace and mercy of God that we don’t act on every seed of sin that we could? Just prior to God’s judgment of the world in the Flood we read, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5 ESV). Although the Flood destroyed many evil people, it did not remove evil from the earth. Two chapters later, although God promised not to send another such judgment, He still said, “the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (8:21). It is only by God’s sovereign control over mankind that sin is restrained at all.

John Owen, in Overcoming Sin and Temptation, lists some of the Scriptural examples of God preventing sin from being carried out:

• Pharaoh’s army was wiped out by the sea as they tried to overtake the Israelites (Exodus 14).
• Sennacherib’s army was destroyed by an angel of the Lord so that Jerusalem would be delivered from him (1 Kings 18-21).
• The people of Babel were made unable to understand one another’s language so they could not complete their act of pride (Genesis 11).
• The men of Sodom were struck blind so that they could not seize Lot (Genesis 19).
• Joseph’s brothers intended to let him die, but God arranged for him to be sent into Egypt instead, where he eventually was able to save their lives (Genesis 37-46).
• Peter was delivered from prison and from Herod’s revenge by an angel (Acts 12).

We could add Jonah, David and Nabal (1 Samuel 25), Abimelech and Sarah (Genesis 20), and many others. Psalms 57 through 59 reveal some of the ways God intervenes to control evil, by letting people fall into their own traps (57:6), breaking their teeth and blunting their arrows (58:6-7), trapping them in their pride and consuming them (59:12-13). Though people often ask why God allows evil, the fact is that He prevents evil more often than not. Owen writes,

“If we will look to our own concerns, they will in a special manner enforce us to adore the wisdom and efficacy of the providence of God in stopping the progress of conceived sin. That we are at peace in our homes, at rest in our beds, that we have any quiet in our enjoyments, is from [God] alone. Whose person would not be defiled or destroyed—whose habitation would not be ruined—whose blood almost would not be shed—if wicked men had power to perpetrate all their conceived sin?” (349).

Not only does God restrain evil in the unconverted world around us, but He restrains it within our own hearts and lives.

“When you have conceived sin, has God weakened your power for sin, or denied you opportunity, or taken away the object of your lusts, or diverted your thoughts by new providences? Know assuredly that you have received mercy thereby. Though God deal not these providences always in a subserviency to the covenant of grace, yet there is always mercy in them, always a call in them to consider the author of them” (351).

God may send an arrow of conviction to the conscience. He may remind us of His love and mercy and kindness. He may bring to mind the blood of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. He may reveal the shame and reproach of sin. His methods of working in us are unlimited. “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation He will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). 

But still we may not always pay attention. We may perhaps ignore His Word and forget His grace. We may choose to submit again to our old slave-master sin. Yet for the believer, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1), because “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Great Expectations

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1 NIV).

I recently noticed a word in that verse that I hadn’t paid attention to before—“easily.” Sin easily entangles us. The Apostle Paul wrote, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Romans 7:19 ESV emphasis added). I know from experience that temptation and sin don’t just miraculously disappear when we reach a certain point in our faith journey. If we do make some progress, we often start patting ourselves on the back—until we trip again and realize we’ve been relying on our own willpower. As Brennan Manning used to say, “God expects more failure of us than we expect from ourselves.”

Jerry Bridges wrote in The Gospel for Real Life:

“Sometimes our obedience is marked more by desire than by performance. So we have to ask ourselves: ‘Is my life characterized by an earnest desire and a sincere effort to obey God in all that He commands? What is my attitude toward God’s Law? Do I find it to be holy, just, and good? And do I delight in it in my inner being even though I find my sinful nature struggling against it?’ (See Romans 7:12, 22-23). Accompanying our sincere desire to obey God will be a heightened sensitivity to our indwelling sin. Often it is our increased awareness of sin that causes us to doubt our salvation or to give Satan an inroad into our minds to suggest that ‘a Christian wouldn’t sin like you do.’ But think about that accusation for a moment. Satan would certainly not suggest such a thought to an unbeliever.”

“We should never be afraid to examine ourselves. But when doubts do arise, the solution is not to try harder to prove to ourselves that we are believers. The solution is to flee to the cross and to the righteousness of Christ, which is our only hope. And then, having looked to Christ alone for our justification, we can look to His Spirit to enable us to deal with those areas of our lives that cause doubt. The work of the Spirit within us is as much a gift of God’s grace as is our justification and adoption as sons”

In one sense, my sin may be small compared to some of the “great sinners” in Scripture who found forgiveness. However, my sin contributed to the reason Jesus had to die on the cross, and I am just as incapable of saving myself as any other person who’s ever lived. If it were not for the cross of Christ, my “small sin” would be grounds for damnation and despair.

“But God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-7 ESV).

As this article, “What To Do When You’ve Blown It,” quotes from Sam Allberry, “There is more forgiveness in Jesus than there is failure in us.” Yep, we blow it—repeatedly. But in Christ God offers us forgiveness repeatedly. My sin is not too big or too frequent for His forgiveness. My sanctification is not yet perfected, but neither is my temptation indicative of terminal failure or reason for hopelessness. Martin Luther wrote, “By saying ‘repent,’ our Lord and Master Jesus Christ willed that the whole of the life of believers should be repentance.”

For now we can rest in God’s lavish forgiveness, and one day we will be able to relish His perfected Kingdom, all because of His grace and mercy.

“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world” (1 Peter 5:8-9 ESV).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Look to the Lord

William Shakespeare wrote in Sonnet 116, “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.” He wasn’t writing about God’s love, yet those words are more true of God than they are of any human love. David wrote, “For Your steadfast love is great to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds” (Psalm 57:10 ESV). There are over one hundred references to God’s steadfast love in the book of Psalms alone, with 26 of those occurring in Psalm 136.

We all need to be reminded that God’s love does not change just because we sin or doubt or forget His Word. David prayed, “Remember Your mercy, O Lord, and Your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to Your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of Your goodness, O Lord!” (Psalm 25:6-7). It wasn’t that he had to remind God of His love and mercy, but that David himself needed that reminder.

George Herbert (1593-1633) was another poet and priest who gave words to our struggle to remember God’s love. One of his poems begins:

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
            Guilty of dust and sin.           
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
            From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
            If I lack’d anything.

He goes on to say he can’t look on God because of his shame, to which God replies, “And know you not Who bore the blame?” Love invites him to come sit at the table and enjoy the meal because it is God who provides both forgiveness and grace. As is often the case, I write what I need to hear for myself, but I’m sure we can all relate to that sense of unworthiness that makes us draw back from God when we’ve sinned. And yet, He is more than willing to welcome back His prodigal children.

Herbert’s poem has some parallels to Isaiah 55:

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price… Incline your ear, and come to Me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, My steadfast, sure love for David…[Let] him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (55:1, 3, 7).

We cannot begin to deserve the forgiveness and love and many other blessings that God pours out on us. We cannot repay what God has done. Our role is simply to receive with gratitude. In many ways, that takes more humility than it would to perform some kind of penance. If we could do enough to offset the guilt of sin, then we might take pride in thinking we had somehow contributed to our salvation. But if it is a gift of God from beginning to end, we must be humble, powerless recipients. This way God gets all the glory for what He alone has done. “It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8b-9). May we be quick to run back to the Father every time we realize we’ve wandered away!

“To You, I lift up my eyes, O You who are enthroned in the heavens!
Behold, as the eyes of the servants look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of the maidservant to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till He has mercy upon us” (Psalm 123:1-2).

“Give thanks to the God of heaven, for His steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 136:26).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Firmly Planted

I find it encouraging and instructive to read through the book of Psalms on a regular basis. The following are a few thoughts from Psalm 1.

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers” (v. 1, ESV).

There is a progression in this verse from walking to standing to sitting. A person can get increasingly comfortable with sin in their life if they aren’t actively pursuing righteousness. Christians need to be cautious when they start looking at the path of sinners. It is all too easy to drift away. “So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:22).

“But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night” (v. 2).

How many churchgoers can honestly say that they love God’s Word? How many actually spend time in it during the week? The person who doesn’t know the Word can’t delight in the Word, and can’t truly know if they are walking in the counsel of the wicked or standing in the path of sinners. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

“He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers” (v. 3).

The believer who is watered by the Word of God will prosper by bearing the right kind and amount of fruit in the right season. We are not identical seeds, but parts of a body with specific functions. “As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty” (Matthew 13:23).

 “The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away” (v. 4).

Rather than being deeply rooted and laden down with fruit, the unrighteous have no spiritual substance. They drift away into pursuits that may entertain them for a while, but one day will cause eternal regrets. “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it… How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” (Hebrews 2:1, 3a).

“Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous” (v. 5).

Many of those who will not stand in the judgment are those who have already ceased to assemble with the Body of Christ on a regular basis. Today’s choice to skip the church gathering may become tomorrow’s choice to turn their back on the church entirely. “As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22).

“For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” (v. 6).

The one who started out by walking in the counsel of the wicked and standing in the path of sinners goes on to drift away on the wind and perish with the wicked. The consequences of carelessness and inattentiveness can be deadly. I pray that all those who claim to be Christians would pay attention to the path ahead of them and would turn back if they are starting to drift away. I also pray that all who are rooted and grounded in Christ will do everything in their power to warn those who are headed down the wrong path. Only God can change hearts, but He may well use us to stir the consciences of loved ones who need to wake up.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Walk with Me

Lately it seems like quotes from Fred Rogers pop up on Facebook every week. Perhaps that’s because there have been some new biographies released in the past couple years. In the past few months I’ve read The Good Neighbor by Maxwell King, as well as an older biography, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers by Amy Hollingsworth. One comment he made often in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was “I like you just the way you are.” I have a lot of respect for Fred Rogers and his legacy, and I remember watching him when I was little (and not-so-little).

However, I have to wonder about what I call the “Mister Rogers’ mentality” that seems prevalent among many Christians. By that I mean the idea that God loves us just the way we are and does not ask us to change. Some sectors of the church have drifted into a kind of universalism that accepts any kind of lifestyle and refuses to call anything sinful. There are those who cling to John 3:16, “God so loved the world…” and yet ignore the context:

“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God… Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (19-21, 36 ESV).

God sent Jesus to proclaim His love and redeem us out of sin, not to leave us in our sinful ways. As someone said (and has been attributed to various people), “God loves us the way we are, but too much to leave us that way.” The Apostle Paul wrote:

“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:4-5).

“Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4).

God loves us unconditionally, but He also expects us to change. By His grace and mercy we can turn from sin and learn to overcome temptation. This sanctifying process will not be finished in this lifetime, but if we are not seeing any progress over time we should be concerned. That’s one of the main reasons we are to be active members of a church that recognizes its responsibility to the Body of Christ. We need those in our lives who will “exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13).

We all need people who will remind us that they love us no matter what stupid thing we’ve said or what sinful thing we’ve done. But if they truly love us, they should also be willing to admonish us for the patterns of sin they see in our lives. Some have said that love which is not expressed is not love. I would expand that to say that love which does not confront is not love. You may tell me, “I like you just the way you are,” but I hope there are some who will also say, “I love you too much to not point out this sin.” And ideally those same people will say, “Let me point you to the Savior and walk beside you as we both grow in faith and obedience to Him.” I know a few people like that, do you?

“Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Ephesians 4:15-16).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Pursuing Holiness

CCEF recently posted this podcast on addictions with Alasdair Groves and Mike Emlet. They made several good suggestions in how to cope with addictive patterns and behaviors:

• Recognize the triggers in your life—specific stresses that contribute to a desire to escape.
• Walk in the light with others about how you’re struggling. “Sometimes we put just enough on the table to keep people from looking under the table.”
• Fail well—using failure as an opportunity to turn away from sin and back to holiness, not minimizing sin or diving back into addiction.
• Watch out for the “micro-steps” in the wrong direction—is my heart inclining toward sin?
• Celebrate “micro-steps” in the right direction—changes in attitude and heart.

We all have some addictive tendencies (sin patterns) though they have varying degrees of intensity and consequences. I know my own “preferred sins” and I know many of the stresses that lead me to desire sin. I often think of a comment C. S. Lewis made in one of his letters that when he had made some progress against obvious temptations the devil then had to resort to “stratagems and ploys” to trip him up. Over time the ploys change, so we have to “be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8 ESV).

 “[What is] miserable is when we go for years and years in the bondage of sin and see no way out. Of course the enemy wants us to believe that ‘this is just the way I am’ or ‘this is the best I can hope for’ when in reality that is the furthest thing from the truth… Sin has a way of keeping us subdued and alone—even in a crowd—by threatening to expose us and humiliate us.” –Dennis Jernigan (Daily Devotions for Kingdom Seekers, Nov. 27-28).

“What a person needs is not an expert [on sin] but a friend to walk with them.” –Christopher Yuan

I think one of the biggest hindrances to the pursuit of holiness is the lack of close friends we can trust to keep us accountable and walk in the light with us. We all need a few such people in our lives.

Listening to Alistair Begg’s messages on Remorse or Repentance this week on Truth for Life, I pictured some people I know who seem to have fallen off either side of the narrow road. Some made a declaration of faith, but later withered away because they had no root (Matthew 13) and today are nowhere to be seen around the church. Others appear to be actively involved in ministry, but below the surface they are living in unrepentant sin. Both types of people are in danger of eternal judgment, and often only God knows their hearts. If they had maintained close relationships with strong Christians, they would have been much less likely to slide off the path.

May we be quick to repent to God and to a close friend, and may we be the kind of friends who can be trusted to listen and help those who are struggling.

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13-14).

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.