Do We Have the POWER to CHOOSE Not to Sin?

Don't let sin reign!

 

Do you wrestle from the point of flesh or spirit? If you identify with sin, you're going to lose. Why would someone who is free from sin still identify with sin? If you identify only with sin, who you used to be, then you will continue to fail to say no to sin.

"Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin’s every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us.

"From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did.

"That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God." (Romans 6:11-14)

 

 

Identify with the SPIRITUAL, not sin.

Remind yourself that sin is NOT who you are!

Remind yourself that you're dead to sin and alive in Christ.

 

How many times do you hear a fellow-Christian mournfully say "I am just a sinner saved by grace?" I get the point that we ARE sinners and we ARE saved by grace, but we  are  NOT JUST sinners saved by grace. In fact, I have the power NOT to sin. I am MORE than a conqueror.

Or at least, that's the way I read Romans 6:22-23:

"But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master."

Am I missing something? The following are some points I noted from a sermon by Andy Stanley of North Point Church near Atlanta:

 

Momma's Broken Cookie Jar...Deep-Seeded False Beliefs

My Momma had cookie jar shaped like an apple. It was bright red and quite nice; however, she placed it on a shelf in our kitchen where I was prone to walk by and knock  off the lid of the jar. Momma got pretty annoyed over how many times I knocked over the jar or broke the lid.

Funny that  she never moved the jar. Hmmm...well, that's for another post. [Momma, you know I love you and I am not holding anything against you...at least I don't think I am. :) ]

Time and time again, I would knock over the jar or knock off the lid. Over and over, I would pick up the pieces and glue them back together. After a while, the lid should have been able to bounce for all the Elmer's glue that it had in it. That lid and jar had a lot of chipped places, scars and cracks, but it still held some sweet delectable cookies.

I think after some time, Momma threw the cookie jar away because it began to look pretty bad. It was still functional, but it was...ugly.

That old cookie jar is not unlike me. It ,and I, have many cracks, chips and broken places that have been glued and re-glued and re-glued back together. The broken places in our lives are from  deep-seeded wounds, false beliefs about ourselves. They are...ugly.  

It has been the continuing work of Christ by the Holy Spirit mending those wounds and broken places that makes the person I am. Looking at the jar (me), you might see all the scars and cracks. Perhaps what you see is...ugly,  but inside there is some really good stuff: the goodness of Jesus.

How we see ourselves is often filtered through deep-seeded false beliefs. I recently heard Troy and Melissa Haas of Restore Ministries share how statement, behavior, event, circumstances and even non-verbal cues, such rolling of the eyes, sighing or tone of voice, can trigger false beliefs that we have about ourselves.

Those false beliefs can create an internally processed or externally expressed reaction. Typically, the false beliefs create a toxic reaction because we filter what we hear by the deep-seeded false beliefs.

Filter (False Beliefs)                                                                Toxic Reaction

                                                                                              Self-focused

"I am bad"                                                                              "I'm a jerk

"I am unworthy"                                                                      "You're better off without me"

"I am defective"                                                                      Self-pity

"I am uniquely screwed up"                 

                                                                                               Self-Protective

"I am a disappointment."                                                         Blaming

"I am a failure"                                                                         Placating

"I am inadequate"                                                                    Withdrawing

"I am incompetent"                                                                   Denying

                                                                                                 Minimizing

"I am  unloved"                                                                         Rationalizing

 "I am undesirable"                                                                   Justifying

"I am unacceptable"

                                                                                                Punishing

"I am invisible"                                                                         Being Sarcastic

"I am unimportant"                                                                   Criticizing

"I am insignificant"                                                                    Neglecting

                                                                                                 Threatening

"I am unsafe"                                                                            Abusing

"I am powerless"

"I am a victim"

                                                                                                 All or Nothing Thinking

"I am alone"                                                                              "You always..."

"I am on my own."                                                                     "I can never please you."

"I am responsible for all this"                                                     "You never..."

Family Priority? How When I Have So Much To Do?

Family is by far the most important things that can ever happened to me or you! Many times in our lives we take family for granted.

Tomorrow is not promised! Without family we would have nothing.

Make today count! Family should be at the top of your list of priorities.

"Families may not have it together but together they have it all." Don't let another day go by that you think about someone and don't reach out to them. 

Make sure to live every day of your life with random-access kindness and an open heart, and open mind. Many times families will fight but that doesn't make them inadequate- it makes them normal.

So next time remember to love and appreciate all the blessings you have.

Family, rather good or bad, is still family. Everyone is not fortunate enough to have a family. 

Make the best of yours.

The Biggest Religious Liberty Decision in Decades Influenced by Local Shreveporter

The following was shared with me by my friend, Mike Johnson. I wish I could claim any part of this, but at least I can share the good news and hard work, and be reminded that when he first started with the ADF he shared space with me at 401 Market Street, Suite 900.

"As I discussed this morning with Tim Brando and have explained in several other interviews over the past 24 hrs, the 5-4 victory for public prayer in Town of Greece v. Galloway, is perhaps the biggest religious liberty decision in decades, and will have far-reaching implications.  What I haven't said publicly is that the Lord told me all of this was going to happen one night at our little kitchen table in late June 2007.  Kelly remembers the night very well.

 

At the time, I was serving as Senior Legal Counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), and had been responding to our organization's growing number of calls for advice and assistance from city councils and county boards around the country. It seemed public officials everywhere had begun receiving the same basic threat letter from the ACLU and other radical secularist groups that these public bodies must immediately cease opening their meetings with prayer (or at the very least censor the prayers so that the name of JESUS could never be mentioned again).

 

Of course, this demand ignored more than two centuries of cherished tradition in our country and was a gross and intentional misinterpretation of the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom.  But to my alarm, many local and state governmental bodies simply gave in to the threats to avoid the cost of a lawsuit, and tragically stopped opening their meetings with prayer.  

 

After responding and trying to cover so many of these skirmishes in such rapid fashion, I was praying that night in June 2007 about what we needed to do to address these attacks more efficiently.  The Lord spoke to my heart and specifically gave me the idea to carefully craft a model prayer policy and a lengthy legal information letter that we could send out to local public bodies in a nationwide initiative, accompanied by a guarantee if any public officials adopted our policy and got sued--we would defend them free of charge.  In short, the Lord impressed upon my heart very clearly that it was time to play offense.  The Lord told me very specifically that this would be a pivotal battle in our country's history and that we would ultimately PREVAIL on it at the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

The Lord made this SO clear to me that I jumped up from the table and excitedly explained to Kelly the entire vision and exactly what I felt the Lord showing me would happen.  Over the next several days, I sold my ADF colleagues on the plan and crafted the legal information letter and model policy that I was convinced would ultimately pass constitutional muster and save the tradition of uncensored public invocations.