I get mad at myself sometimes. Its about the same time I also feel guilty about doing something that I know I shouldn't have done -- and knew I shouldn't be doing at the time I was doing it! You may recognize a similar conversation between you and the Holy Spirit (I'd like to think so anyway so that I'm not alone):
Holy Spirit: "Um, dude, I don't think that's a good idea."
Self: "I'm good, there's no problem here."
Holy Spirit: "You're going to do something stupid and regret it later."
Self: "Ssh, be quiet, no problem."
Holy Spirit: "Jesus doesn't want you to do that. I know, I'm pretty tight with Him."
Self: "Sorry, didn't hear you bro."
[a short time passes]
Self: "Crap."
Holy Spirit: "I told you so."
Sometimes its hard to hear the Spirit talking to you; however, when He does and you CAN hear Him...LISTEN! When He tells you to RUN like Joseph did when Potiphar's wife was trying to seduce him, RUN! Don't hang around thinking "maybe I can do this for just a little while longer without getting into a real bind here" or "well [this] isn't so bad, as long as I don't do [that]" or "I'm basically a good person, this isn't THAT bad". Its too easy to turn a situation into "managing sin" or falling into the pit of legalism or using relative morality instead of absolute morality. If you've got that voice telling you there's trouble ahead, just RUN! It certainly is a lot easier to say than to do all the time.
On a related side note, I hope one day to meet Paul in heaven and ask him if he had anything specific in mind when he wrote "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." (Romans 7:15) Then again what he has to say about that might just tell me why he has a tri-level mansion while I have a box under the bridge!
"Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin." (Romans 7:25)
Thank you God for forgiveness.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
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2 comments:
Excellent term is using "managing sin". That is exactly what most of us do. Manage and even massage it to try and justify it.
In the list of Ray Stedman podcasts I just e-mailed you about, I found it interesting that, on the same topic, there are two titled "The Man Who Denies Sin" and "The Man Who Rationalizes Sin". I didn't see those before when I was browsing. I'm going to have to check those out next. If one was titled "The Man Who Manages Sin" I would have just about fell over I think. :-)
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