Crux Point

This may hurt. This will be deep. This requires us being honest with ourselves and God. As we read from I John 3 may we remember who God made us to be, what He hoped for us. He made us to not experience sin. He desired that we may be blameless and pure and innocent children of His, not knowing the evils that have become so ingrained in who we are. The question should echo in our heads throughout this devotion is “In all honesty, do I devote myself to God a multitude of times more than I do to any form of sin (whether it is blatant sin, disregarding God’s commands, exaltation of oneself over God, or idolatry)?” And “Can I go a full day without sin? If not, why can I so often go weeks without God? Which do I depend on more, sin or God?”

I John 3:6,9

No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him... No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. 

Family, though no one of us will ever be perfect until we pass on from this life into eternity with God, one of our goals as Christians is to be holy as God is holy (I Peter 1:16). My question is how much do we pursue to live lifestyles that are pleasing to our King? And I am not necessarily discussing solely actions, but rather intentions and desire. If we go through the actions without the passion to please God and without a desire to serve Him joyfully, then what good do our actions do for anyone? Faith without works is dead, but works without faith is meaningless. If we do not have the belief in our God and the desire and passion to serve Him then why bother serving someone that you don’t love? Furthermore, if we are to call ourselves children of God, shouldn’t we be representatives of Him to this world? Instead, we often find ourselves entangled in addictions and lifestyles that are not pleasing to God and instead camouflage us in this world. Nothing sets us apart from them aside from our statement of beliefs which is not in practice. I say this out of love family. I have often found myself in this place of addiction and that place of living a lie. I know the pain that occurs there, the dark places that we do not want to revisit or have exposed, but if they are never dealt with, are we telling God that He cannot have what is rightfully His, that the Creator of everything known and unknown to us cannot have an area of our lives because we don’t want Him to. My response is, which do we love more? It is easy to reply that we love God more than the addiction, but if we are willing to reject Him for the addiction, the addiction is what our heart truly desires and what we truly love. We must fight this war family. Now is not the time for rest. THIS IS WAR! Will we fight the fight so that we may please our God or will we allow our sin to control us and our desires, causing us to reject the One we call Lord? I, for one, choose to fight.

This choice needs to be a daily one. It is a daily war. Will we fight it? It is a core foundational piece of our life. It is a crux point. This declares our true intentions. May we not be complacent, may we not be compromising, may we not be content.. May we be driven by Grace.

Blessings