Imagine, if you will, that you are single but you have found
The One that you love more than anything on this earth. But that One has been
sold into slavery as a prostitute. So you take everything that you have and
sell it all so that you can buy that One out of slavery. And after giving up
everything that you have, the two of you are married and begin your life
together. But after the honeymoon starts to fade, and things slow down, you
notice that your Love has become distant, and not around as often as before.
When questioned, the only response is “Oh, I was busy with something” and
nothing more. And your Love begins to have less and less time for you. Finally,
one day you follow your Love…to the place where they were purchased from. Your
Love has been voluntarily going back to the place of slavery and prostitution.
Heartbroken, you plead with your Love to stop and come back to you. They agree
and return with you, promising never to return again. But they do. And this
process repeats it’s self over and over.
Now you may be thinking, “Why
would I be so stupid as to take someone back after they have betrayed me like
that?” But that is what God has done for you. Jesus gave everything, even His
own life, to save and redeem you from slavery and prostitution to Satan. That
is exactly what sin is, and it is no less serious or grievous than infidelity.
Every time we sin, we are prostituting ourselves to Satan, even though we have
become the bride of Christ. He has every right to say “No you have messed up
one too many times, your betrayal is too great, I won’t redeem you again.” But
He doesn’t. His love for you is so great that He continually redeems you from
sin, cleanses you from the filth of what you have done, and accepts you as His
bride once more.
Imagine the heartbreak of one
act of betrayal...then imagine the heartbreak of continued betrayal... And yet
He loves you enough to take you back after you have betrayed Him an infinite
number of times. Imagine the devotion and power and importance of that kind of
love! Now imagine willingly betraying that love…who would do that? Who would
willingly give up and walk away from the greatest love and Lover that you have
ever known? You…me…we have all done it.
Now you may be thinking again,
“Well it is inevitable, I’m human, I’m not perfect, that’s just what happens”
as if it were no big deal, as if your nature excuses your behaviour. But you
have the power to resist, you have the power and ability to be better than
that, to walk away from sin, to be holy.
2 Peter 1: 3 His
divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our
knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. 4 Through
these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that
through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the
corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
So, because you believe in Him
(and have been redeemed from Satan), when you sin you are willingly choosing to
do so, willingly choosing to forsake and betray the One who loves you,
willingly choosing to reject His offer of freedom to save you from bondage to
sin.
Romans 8:1 Therefore,
there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because
through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set
you free from the law of sin and death.
This is not meant to excuse our
sin, but to keep us from living in guilt, so that when you do sin you do not
have to be burdened by the wrong of what you have done, but can accept God’s
forgiveness and return to living for Him. If you sin willingly and do not think
that it is bad or that it really matters, that it is ok to do it again because
it is inevitable, can you really say that you love the One who has redeemed you
if you treat that love with such disdain?
2 Corinthians 5:15 And
He died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for
themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.
Romans 6: 11 In
the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ
Jesus.12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so
that you obey its evil desires.13 Do not offer any part of yourself
to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God
as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of
yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin
shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the
law, but under grace. 15 What
then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no
means! 16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to
someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are
slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to
righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you
used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the
pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. 18 You
have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
This is not to say that we will
never sin again, but when we do sin, our attitude should not be one of
disregard. We need to take seriously the gravity of what we have done and
repent, not just say “oh sorry, God, I messed up again” and continue as you
were before, but to truly repent; to acknowledge what you have done, admit your
wrong to God, and then turn away from that wrong behavior. And if you commit
that sin again, repent again. The moment you treat sin as something excusable
you have rejected the love and sacrifice of Christ. We need to live as though
we were “set free from sin”, no longer bound to its temptation and power, but
living in the strength of God separated from sin.
2 Timothy 1:7 For
the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power,
love and self-discipline.
We have been given the Spirit
of power so that we can resist sin and temptation. We are also commanded to
have self control, we were designed, created to be creatures of discipline, but
sin erodes that. Sin makes us want to give in to self, to indulge our desires.
Now to clarify, self control means to not do anything that is wrong, and also
to use moderation with the things that are allowed. We are not to do or to use
anything excessively, even things that we need like food. Just because our
bodies need food doesn’t mean that it is ok to gorge ourselves when we eat.
Even if we have a very high metabolism so that we could eat a gallon of ice
cream every day and never gain weight, it would still be sin because it is
excessive and uncontrolled, it is being a slave to your body rather than the
other way around. If we do not maintain control over our appetites (of any and
every kind), then we are ultimately giving up control of ourselves to Satan.
See, we are a slave to either
God or Satan. There is no in between, no middle ground, it’s one or the other.
But God is a good task master, He allows us to have free reign over ourselves,
to govern and control ourselves rather than making us robots so that we do
everything that He wants us to. He allows us to choose. Satan, on the other
hand, is not a good master. He controls us. When we are tempted to do something
against God, that we think is for ourselves, saying “I can do this, it’s for
me, I have a right to do it,” it is really Satan deceiving us, tricking us into
sinning by making us think that we are doing our own thing, when really we are
just puppets on the end of his marionette strings, jumping to his every
whisper. He is cunning. He uses half truths and prideful notions to ensnare us,
but really he is the one in control of us. That is why Christ had to die to set
us free, because we are slaves without His sacrifice, slaves without any power,
ability or hope of freeing ourselves, control that Christ purchased with His
death. So, when we willingly sin and return to the slavery of Satan, we are
giving up control of ourselves to Satan. And that in itself is sin because we
are commanded to be self controlled.
Hebrews 10: 26 If
we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of
the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a
fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the
enemies of God. 28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died
without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How
much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has
trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing
the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted
the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “It is
mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his
people.” 31 It
is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
This is, in itself, addiction. Because
addiction is by definition: “the state of being
enslaved to a habit, practice or something that
is psychologically or physically habit forming (such
as narcotics) to such an extent that its cessation
causes severe trauma” (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/addiction),
or “the need or strong desire to do or to have something, or a very strong
liking for something” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/addiction).
That is why addictions don’t just apply to things that are already bad, like
illegal drugs or pornography. Anything is an addiction if it controls you, if
it is something that you do excessively, if it is something that you desire
more than God; even if it is the insatiable urge to check facebook every 5
minutes, or the need for just one more piece of chocolate, just one more game
of poker or candy crush, just one more drink. It could be anything for any of
us, and it may be different for all of us, but none of us are immune to the
pull of addiction. And once it starts in one area, it grows to other areas like
cancer, killing as it goes.
Now you are the only person who
can say what condition your heart is in, but your actions belie your state. And
your heart can deceive you. Satan would not be as successful as he is if he did
not know how to manipulate and deceive people. If he already controls your
heart, of course he will not want to let it go, and he will do whatever it
takes to keep you. He will lie to you, make you believe that this does not
apply to you, make you think that you are not like that. If you feel a twinge
of guilt, or have an inkling that this might be true of you, it is not Satan
trying to make you feel condemned and bad about yourself, it is the Holy Spirit
convicting you because it is true.
The question, then, is not
whether this is true of you, but what you are going to do about it. Are you
going to deny that you are doing anything wrong and continue to remain in your
bondage? Or are you going to admit that this is true, that you are not quite
the great “Christian” you had thought, and you need to repent and turn to God?
Will you humble yourself before God and make an effort to control your desires
and restore your relationship with God, or will you remain prideful of yourself
and your state, unwilling to change or repent?
