Tag Archives: Sin

This Could Really Be the Last Day You Fail

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Stop struggling with your sin and kill it!We all have something dogging us.

And we’ve had so many go-arounds with this particular enemy – some weakness, some vice, some habit seemingly iron-wrought or seemingly genetically hard-coded – that it’s turned the idea of victory into distant foolishness…even though you know that victory is God’s will, and that with his commands comes the power to obey.

Perhaps victory seems attainable during moments when we’re in the clear, when temptation is at bay. Or at church, or after the prayer of repentance, when you’re bowled over by God’s grace and power.

But once the bell rings again, and you’re standing in front of the refrigerator or the computer or that person at work who needs your patience rather than your anger, the optimism fades fast. A deeper layer of doubt is revealed in your heart. I can’t do it. If we succeed for a little while, it switches to, I can’t possibly keep this up forever. Or the urgency fades after a week and our treacherous minds convince us that one surrender won’t hurt and…it ends up being more than one surrender.

Don’t you sometimes just wake up and want to be free of all that? For good?

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If God Could Change Saul, He Can Change Donald Trump

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lightCongratulations, Mr. President-Elect. The odds have proven to be in your favor after all.

You all know that a few weeks ago I posted about my personal reluctance to vote for Donald Trump. I laid out my convictions as best I could; I made clear that we each had to do what we each thought was right. Well, we did, and here we are. (How I voted will remain private to me.) Yet I think I am still safe in saying that some of us retain concerns over Trump’s character. There remain unanswered questions.

So now our question is how a Christian responds to his election in the midst of this fog.

Well, we show respect befitting the office. Hence the formality to open my post. God told us to honor governments and officials, and if I’m going to talk of character, I have to follow God’s commandments about mine. We also remember that God is the only one who really knows where all this is going; he’s the one holding each man’s destiny. It was that thought that led me to think of the Apostle Paul. It was a reminder of HIS life that broke open my fog and revealed a staggering vista of the ocean of God’s grace, compelling me to break an earlier no-more-Trump-on-this-blog promise and write this post.

If God can change Saul, he can change Donald Trump.

This is serious business, folks.

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Stop Struggling with Your Sin and Kill It!

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myswordOne April during my Air Force tour, our squadron commander handed us a goal: a 100% off-duty safety record for the summer.

I raised an eyebrow. Our squadron was based in college-town Phoenix and consisted of twentysomethings brandishing motorcycles, ATV’s, jet-skis, and a love of drink. No off-duty accidents for a whole summer seemed as likely as deciphering a Newsboys lyric.

Later, that commander visited the flightline and happened to strike up a conversation with my work group. Being a little (too?) bold, I asked if he realistically expected the 100% goal to be reached. His gracious reply:

“Well, what results would I get if I only asked for 80%?”

I am among many Christians struggling with certain sins. We sincerely want to please God, cut the garbage out of our lives. The first thing I often say to teens who admit they’re struggling is, “Good. Struggle is good. It’s better than surrender.”

But eventually we have to face the results. Longings to become gentler and kinder, with little to show for it. Years of bondage to sexual sin. Constant failed attempts to be more honest. Our flesh doesn’t just roll over; it weighs us down, and our hearts sink with it.

One day, I heard a talk that transformed my approach to sin.

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The Prodigal Son and That “I Had to Sin in Order to Grow” Thing

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prodigal.jpgI’ve heard it quite a few times from young believers.

“I had to go through that tough stage of my life in order to find God.”

They’re coming out of a sinful time in their lives and acknowledging its darkness for the first time. What kind of darkness? Who knows. Our minds jump to the usual suspects – sexual promiscuity, drugs, partying – and it might have been that. It might be petty crime, or embracing of the occult. Or it might just a “crowd” that endowed them with a crass, hurtful personality.

Eventually, all things are exposed to light, and the emerging young wanderer starts getting honest. I celebrate with them in their light bulb moment.

But then you’ll hear some of them tack this on, in some form or another:

“I needed to sin so I’d learn my lessons”.

“I went through the wilderness because it was God’s way to grow me.”

“I wouldn’t have understood sin unless I went through it.”

Record scratch.

Wait, what? Where did that come from?

I can take a stab. In our age, popular culture has glamorized the wilderness. The hardened “guy from the wrong side of the tracks” is the hero from our stories; dirt under the fingernails is more impressive than white cuffs. He seems more real, certainly more relatable. His mistakes drown him and inflict their toll, only for him to somehow rise from the ashes and find an inner heart of gold, while the goody two shoes and the irritable authority figures turn out to be the real villain (how many movies have boasted this plot?).

We let this sneak into the church, too. The more debauched the old man, the more impressive the new. So much that young disciples actually feel diminished for having lived well from the start, because their testimonies are boring.

It’s a crock.

No. 

You did not “have” to sin in order to arrive where you are today. That is a lie. It is the wrong response to your wilderness.

And I plead with you to shake it, for it will also prove fatal to your recovery.

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