Monday, October 1, 2007

I want to ask this question; what do you feel when you sin? Anger? Depression? Pain? Sorrow? Can you hear the Holy Spirit call your name when sin has been recognized in your spirit? How are you supposed to act when God's light shines into your life and exposes hidden sin? These are difficult questions, they pierce the heart and swallow hard. Yet, they need to be asked. At the moment of sin, what do you feel? At that moment, you are separated from God! Cut off from his presence! No longer able to stand in the throne room! LOST! Now, if you do not have a personal relationship with the Father, there is no point of reference, no common ground from which to relate. However, a personal relationship can be found and embarked upon simply by accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior! With that being said, At the moment of sin, what do you feel? Psalm 51 states, "...For I am Conscious of my transgressions and I acknowledge them; my sin is ever before me..." Amplified. Can you imagine what what going on in David's spirit when Nathan was telling the allegory of the rich man and the poor man and the ewe lamb? (2 Sam 12: 1-15) The weight of the conviction must have been immense! Soul crushing! The first words out of David's mouth, "Have mercy on me...", must have fallen like lead from his parched tongue! What emotions does conviction invoke? Anger, sorrow, perhaps despair or depression?; whatever the emotion, when the Holy Spirit exposes sin in your life, it's like the fire of God filling your indurate heart and all you can do is cry out, "Lord, have mercy on me!" What happens when God's light shines into the dark recess of your heart and exposes sin? First John states the following:"And this is the message [the message of promise]which we have heard from Him and now are reporting to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in Him at all [no, not in any way]." Amplified. Let me ask this question, when the light is turned on in a dark room, what happens to the darkness? It dissipates (to break up and vanish; Webster's dictionary). Ephesians 5:11 states, "Take no part in and have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds and enterprises of darkness, but instead [let your lives be so in contrast as to] expose and reprove and convict them... But when anything is exposed and reproved by the light, it is made visible and clear; and where everything is visible and clear there is light." Amplified. Light and darkness are in contrast to each other. Light dissipates the darkness. So when God shines into your heart, all darkness is dispelled or exposed. Most of the time, if not all of the time, this process is painful. Breaking the hard and stony ground that sin can cause in a heart is a process that our Father wants to cultivate or refine in our lives. How are we supposed to act when we are in this process? With our mouths we should confess our exposed sin; wholeheartedly we should repent of our windswept sin; with body, mind and spirit we should turn from our sinful deeds; like our Father, we should hate sin; with all of our strength, we should throw off all of the sin that so easily entangles us and fight against damnation : Empowered by the Holy Spirit using the provisional weapons of warfare given by God. Oh Christian! To pass from death into life and light. To be forgiven and considered righteous by the costly blood of the Lamb. Alas, to be freed and purified from filthy garments and to be clothed in Christ! Oh heavenly Father, consume me in your refining fire. Burn! Incinerate! Consume all the sin in my life; purify and sanctify my life so that I my produce fruit that is worthy of your name-sake. Holy Spirit may it be Your fruit that hangs off this tree, planted by the stream of living water! Oh sinner, come to repentance that is in Christ Jesus, yield to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Amen.