Piggy-backing again off of my earlier blog. A friend, Ellen, commented and left me a question. She asked, "...is this what also keeps others from submitting to Christ...because the wants outweight the won'ts?"
My reply to her response was this:
Profound thinking!
Surely, a person's wants outweighing their won'ts keep them from submitting themselves to our Savior. Not only that, it's what causes a person to rebel against Him after we've given our lives to Him when we know better.
Which want / won't wins?
The evidence of our love for our Lord / or our love for ourselves shows in our answer.
There will always be a battle. Satan will always put things before our face in order to entice and to tempt us in hopes to trip us up. And it will be the kinds of things that he knows we have a weakness for, a great desire, a longing inside that makes it hard to resist.
Sometimes we'll fall for it.
Other times we won't.
But this is what I have learned. We may loose our heads for the moment. Our desire may cause our heads to turn for a time. But when we come to our senses, we can always think as Micah tells us in Micah 7:8-9, "DO NOT GLOAT OVER ME, MY ENEMY! Though I have fallen, I WILL RISE! Though I sit in darkness, the LORD WILL BE MY LIGHT. Because I have sinned against Him, I will bear the LORD's wrath, until He pleads my case and establishes my right. HE WILL BRING ME OUT INTO THE LIGHT; I WILL SEE HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS."
Being a Christian doesn't mean we won't sin.
1 John 1:8 says, "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." Then God tells us in the very next verse, that if we confess our sins He is faithful to forgive us of them and faithful to purify us from ALL unrighteousness!
From all!
ALL!!!
A-L-L unrighteousness!
I find that encouraging!
Soon after 1 John 2:1 says, "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have One Who speaks to the Father in our defense - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One." So, even in our sin, we have Jesus interceding for us to His Father for our help!
I love that!
No, being a Christian doesn't mean that we won't sin. Being a Christian and having God's Holy Spirit indwelling inside us simply means that we can't continually stay there! ("No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in Him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God" - 1 John 3:9)
I will tell you what gives me incredible encouragement. I've learned that our tests and our trials aren't graded (for lack of a better way of saying it) on how many times we fail them. It's the final result of our tests and our trials (no matter how many times we've had to take them because we've failed) that prove us "genuine" in our faith to God (1 Peter 1:6-7) or not. It's where we turn and what we do in the end that shows who our Father (or father) is (1 John 3:9 and 10).
Let me give you an example.
You know the parable of the two sons that Jesus told about in Matthew 21:28-32? Jesus said, ""What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.' 'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go.""
After telling this Jesus then asked, "Which of the two sons did what his father wanted?"
The answer, of course, is the first. The one that first wouldn't, but later did. His tests wasn't marked as a failure when he first rebelled. But he proved himself faithful because he later faithfully obeyed his father's command.
I totally, totally, totally love that! I hope it encourages another sweet soul today!
My reply to her response was this:
Profound thinking!
Surely, a person's wants outweighing their won'ts keep them from submitting themselves to our Savior. Not only that, it's what causes a person to rebel against Him after we've given our lives to Him when we know better.
Which want / won't wins?
The evidence of our love for our Lord / or our love for ourselves shows in our answer.
There will always be a battle. Satan will always put things before our face in order to entice and to tempt us in hopes to trip us up. And it will be the kinds of things that he knows we have a weakness for, a great desire, a longing inside that makes it hard to resist.
Sometimes we'll fall for it.
Other times we won't.
But this is what I have learned. We may loose our heads for the moment. Our desire may cause our heads to turn for a time. But when we come to our senses, we can always think as Micah tells us in Micah 7:8-9, "DO NOT GLOAT OVER ME, MY ENEMY! Though I have fallen, I WILL RISE! Though I sit in darkness, the LORD WILL BE MY LIGHT. Because I have sinned against Him, I will bear the LORD's wrath, until He pleads my case and establishes my right. HE WILL BRING ME OUT INTO THE LIGHT; I WILL SEE HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS."
Being a Christian doesn't mean we won't sin.
1 John 1:8 says, "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." Then God tells us in the very next verse, that if we confess our sins He is faithful to forgive us of them and faithful to purify us from ALL unrighteousness!
From all!
ALL!!!
A-L-L unrighteousness!
I find that encouraging!
Soon after 1 John 2:1 says, "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have One Who speaks to the Father in our defense - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One." So, even in our sin, we have Jesus interceding for us to His Father for our help!
I love that!
No, being a Christian doesn't mean that we won't sin. Being a Christian and having God's Holy Spirit indwelling inside us simply means that we can't continually stay there! ("No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in Him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God" - 1 John 3:9)
I will tell you what gives me incredible encouragement. I've learned that our tests and our trials aren't graded (for lack of a better way of saying it) on how many times we fail them. It's the final result of our tests and our trials (no matter how many times we've had to take them because we've failed) that prove us "genuine" in our faith to God (1 Peter 1:6-7) or not. It's where we turn and what we do in the end that shows who our Father (or father) is (1 John 3:9 and 10).
Let me give you an example.
You know the parable of the two sons that Jesus told about in Matthew 21:28-32? Jesus said, ""What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.' 'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go.""
After telling this Jesus then asked, "Which of the two sons did what his father wanted?"
The answer, of course, is the first. The one that first wouldn't, but later did. His tests wasn't marked as a failure when he first rebelled. But he proved himself faithful because he later faithfully obeyed his father's command.
I totally, totally, totally love that! I hope it encourages another sweet soul today!
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