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 |  This contains entries to Take up Your Cross, Space Blog, Blog City PF and BC of Friends |
| ** Image ID #2109151 Unavailable ** Over the past few days we have examined faith in depth. We have discovered that faith is more than merely believing in God. Faith is an action word and requires that we do something about our belief. Today we are going to consider one of the things that we're called upon to do to put our faith into action. We are to live holy lives. We read "The scriptures say," "Be holy because I am holy," 1 Peter 1: 16. Faith requires action and one of those actions is that we live holy, righteous lives. Herein however is where many people fall into confusion and possibly even discouragement. They become discouraged because they mistake holy lives for sin free lives. Hosea 4: 6 says that people are destroyed because they lack knowledge of the Lord and His ways. This applies to believers as well. Satan uses our misunderstandings to do what he does best : kill, steal, and destroy. He wants to kill our spirits, steal our joy, and destroy our testimony. However if he does so it is because we let him do so. One of his biggest weapons is guilt. He wants us to feel like failures so he judges us and points out our flaws in an attempt to get us to cease walking with the Lord. He wants us to believe it's impossible. Holiness is one area he attacks hard in trying to convince us that we can't do it. After all, the only person who knows us better than ourselves is God. Many may look at us and believe we have it together and live holy, Christian lives. We know ourselves well enough to be aware of every sin we commit. Therefore we often do not see ourselves as measuring up and want to become defeated and discouraged. Again this is because we lack an understanding of holiness. The Apostle Paul discusses in depth in several passages of scripture his own struggles with sin. In fact most of Romans 7-9 is dedicated to that very discussion. The Psalmist David, whom God called "a man after (God's) own heart, also struggled with sin. How many times do we read such passages as "I have sinned against you - only against you - and done what is evil in your sight," Psalms 51: 4. So many times we are given the impression that a person becomes a Christian and lives sin free lives ever after. Then when we find ourselves sinning we beat ourselves over the head with a guilty stick and feel we were never saved to begin with. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Living holy lives does not mean living sin free lives. It means striving to be sin free. The Apostle Paul often used terms that implied exertion when he referred to Christianity. He called it a walk many times. We also read "Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is valuable in every way, because it promises life both for the present life and for the future," 1 Timothy 4: 8. Paul also compares Christianity to warfare in Ephesians 6 when he tells us to put on the whole armor of God. Now I don't know about anybody else but I have yet to talk to any soldier who ever enjoyed combat. Combat is work; hard work. Thus we can assume that Christianity is not easy either. All too often we convince ourselves that our lives must be completely sinless or we're toast. We rad "All of us have been sinful; all our best actions are sinful through and through;" Isaiah 64: 6a. We also read "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," Romans 3: 23. The upshot of it all is that God does not expect us to become saved and then live lives that are absolutely perfect. Perfection is humanly impossible and will never be achieved while we are in these sinful bodies. What God does expect is for us to strive toward perfection and to continue to grow in Him and in our knowledge of his word. When we sin He expects us to repent, learn from our mistakes, and continue to grow in Him. In doing so we are living holy lives, |
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