Welcome!
Passage: Psalm 86
Today: The danger of a “culture” of sin!
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” (Gen 3, NIV 84)-emphasis added
When God meets with people, something definitely happens; people will be different after that. When God visited Adam and Eve, they were convicted of their sins; here are some of the things satan did to them:
- satan had just blinded their eyes, from knowing that they had done something wrong. They lost the consciousness of God, became insensitive
- They totally forgot the word of God, the commandment of God. This is satan’s trick, to make people forget what is in the word, so that they will sin
- They justified themselves, instead of repenting or confessing. The purpose of Jesus’ coming was to justify us before God, by His death on the cross because none of us could justify ourselves with anything. When we justify ourselves, we make the atoning work of Christ in vain, or we misappropriate the very purpose of it. In 1 John 1, we read how John discourages self-justification and encourages us to confess and repent of our sins
When we loose our sensitivity to God and to sin, we better come back as soon as possible. When we make sin a habit, we develop a “culture of sin”, which becomes a “lifestyle” later, and we blindly follow that. So, in the church itself, we can see these two groups: one who says “it is my business; I will live/do as I want; you can preach and go” and then the other group that gets convicted and convinced of their sins and repent of them, to live a new life!
Holy Spirit is God; Holy Spirit tries to convict us of our sins. If we are sensitive to Him, we will do good. When we have the Spirit of God with us, He will do the opposite of what the devil does. Holy Spirit will remind us of His word- the right word at the right time. Holy Spirit will lead us to repentance, helping us to make sure of our place in heaven
The other day, I saw this bumper sticker “own your faith” on a luxury car. The things of the word of God are taught in various different ways. Unless we get the word in the right way, we can be misled. If “own your faith” is about owning a luxury car, it will be very expensive to “keep” that “faith” and you will need much faith to keep it. When God gives, we won’t have to take the pain with it!
Have a blessed day, as you get things right, as God wants you to
BG
Prayer:Lord, 7 Purify me from my sins,[c] and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. 8 Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me— now let me rejoice. 9 Don’t keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. 11 Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit[d] from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. (Ps 51, NLT)
God asked several times, “where are you”, but the devil said “never mind”; did we ignore God’s voice too many times and said “yes” to the devil all the time?