Love to hear from and know who is listening
My wife and I recently purchased a new washing machine. I don't do much laundry, so I barely knew how to operate the old one. The new washing machine has a specialized cycle for everything. You just pick the cycle you want and it begins it's programmed routine. First it fills to the appropriate level. Next it begins a washing stage, then a rest period, a rinse, and finally a spin cycle to remove the water. With every load of laundry we do the washing machine repeats the different cycles. If your not careful your worship can become routine, boring, and predictable. You go to church on Sunday. You hear a sermon that convicts your heart and you say to yourself, I need to change my life. Maybe you are struggling with jealousy and envy. So you pray to God to forgive you of your sin, then you leave the building and you notice one of your fellow church members is driving a brand new vehicle and you think to yourself, man I wish I had a new car or truck like that. Maybe you struggle with lustful thoughts. During the alter call the you pray to God to give you the strength to overcome these thoughts. Then on your way out the door you notice an attractive young man or woman. The first look is really not a problem, but before you realize your taking a second look and your eyes linger longer than they should. Before you know it your having lustful thoughts. In the book of Romans Paul says; “I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.”
Romans 7: 19-20 NIV For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So we say to ourselves I want to do what is right. I want to be satisfied with what God has given me. I want to love my wife like I should. I want to love my neighbor as much as I love myself, but as I am leaving the church and before I even get to my car I find myself falling back into sin once again.
Romans 7: 24-25 NIV What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
To sin is to deliberately choose to give in to desire in a moment of temptation. The desire to gossip. The desire to be jealous of another persons property, to look with lustful desire at another person. I am fully aware that it’s sin, and yet I don’t have the power to resist it. I’ve received forgiveness for this very sin many times before, yet here I am again. I give in to my temptation, even though I knew it was wrong. Thank God for His grace, I think to myself. Full of regret, I confess my sin and ask for forgiveness once again. The most amazing part of God's grace, is that after you repent and ask for forgiveness, He will give you all the help and power you need, to not to commit that sin again! So how do you use the grace that is available to you? How can you actually break the chains that bind you, and stop falling in the same sin once and for all? You have to be humble, acknowledge your weakness and need, pray and ask for help before you fall. You know your weaknesses! Prepare yourself. Pray about it. Be vigilant, so that the temptations don’t take you by surprise. Avoid situations that you know are dangerous. When you acknowledge that you are weak and powerless, then God will be strong on your behalf. All of the incredible power God has, a power so huge that He created the heavens and the earth from nothing, is available to you! Ask God to pour it over you, to fill you with the Holy Spi
