Psalm 119:9 - 11 "How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to Your Word. . . . .I have hidden Your word in my heart, that I might not sin against You."
In the continuing saga of removing the IT in my life: IT has to get personal, and it is His living Word that makes it that way.
You have to recognize and be grieved by the fact that when you sin, you're sinning against God first and foremost. This is a huge step - too often we worry about how our sins affect the way other people see us. This is a very shallow response, one we're all guilty of. When you draw close to God, you are so in love with Him that when you sin, you ache because you've hurt Him, not your reputation, not your friends, not the world's view of you.
Think about what David said in Psalm 51:4 "Against You, You only have I sinned . . ." Oh, really, David? Well what about Bathsheba? One minute she's relaxing in the bath the next she's pregnant with your child and has a dead husband. And what about poor Uriah? He's out with his men, next thing his life is turned upside-down and he finds himself leading a charge against a city only to find that everyone has withdrawn and he's dead in a field. I think that somehow, David, your sin greatly affected these people. (Not to mention the child of this sin, who dies months after he is born, or his older children whose lives become ultra-messy.)
But what David is saying is true. The closer you get to God the more grieved you are that you have allowed sin into your life - because it breaks that fellowship with the One you love the most.
To combat this - you have to get into the Word. And I will say this as well: you have to believe that it's true and authoritative.
Therefore Step Four for me in my battle against the hindering sins in my life is this: Get into the Word and make it personal. We will fight for people more than we will fight for ideas, so our sin has to become about a Person, not a way of life, or else we will eventually stop fighting. Victory requires persistence. We are persistent about the people in our lives, not the ideas that come and go.
The change in my life occurred when I began to consume His Word. I love the Lord, but it was with a selfish love. Then some things occurred, of my own making and not, that forced me into a new job where all I had was God and the Bible. I began to read it every chance I had. I wore out three Bibles in three years. I can't overstate the importance of what happened during this time period. I fell in love with God. His Word, which so many of this generation struggle with, became consistent, beautiful, real, literal, authoritative - everything in your heart that you really want it to be.
And my sins - they became sins against God, not against my reputation. I attacked them with a vengeance, wanting them whittled out of me to the last sliver. My battle against the "ITS" of my life is now personal, because it affects my greatest desire: my relationship with God. The battle has become Personal.
If you are not in His Word, you will have a very difficult time taking out the IT that is killing your walk. It's the Word that makes it personal, that allows you see your sin in a way that's not just functional, but relational. So back to Psalm 119 - we have to hide His Word in our hearts so that like the psalmist, we will not want to sin against Him.
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