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The Oxford dictionary depicts Fight as “take part in a violent struggle involving the exchange of physical blows or the use of weapons” and “struggle to overcome, eliminate, or prevent”. We however will focus more on the second part, the struggle to overcome, eliminate and prevent Sin. The Merriam-Webster dictionary depicts sin as “an offense against religious or moral law”. So in essence it is breaking God’s commands according to the Bible. So to treat sin seriously we have to do it “with earnest intent; not lightly or superficially”.
0. Review of Yesterdays study:
- Well Francois I will be blessed by God for my submission.
- A submissive heart means I am open for input.
- I will get wisdom, grace, a peaceful home, riches, honor and life.
1. The Bible Scriptures:
– After studying submission we are tackling the opposite approach and that is fighting. For the next week you will be studying the battle you are engaged in and how to have victory over sin. Every person must fight the sinful desires that war against our souls. But God has given plans and power to ensure our victory.
Now read the following passages looking for God’s thinking about sin.
11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.
29 If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
6 “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. 7 Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!
- Well Francois if I do not know what sin is, I cannot fight against it. So I would say self awareness is a big start.
- So I need to study out what sin is in the Bible and apply it to my life. Gal 5:19-21, 2 Tim 3:1-5 & Jms 4:17.
- You can also ask the people the closest to you what they see in your life.
- Your mentor in your life will most probably have the deepest insight as to what you should change.
13 “From the least to the greatest,
all are greedy for gain;
prophets and priests alike,
all practice deceit.
14 They dress the wound of my people
as though it were not serious.
‘Peace, peace,’ they say,
when there is no peace.
15 Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct?
No, they have no shame at all;
they do not even know how to blush.
So they will fall among the fallen;
they will be brought down when I punish them,”
says the Lord.
- People including the spiritual leaders, live deceitful lives.
- The spiritual leaders put bandaids instead of full on operation.
- The people so deceive themselves they are not ashamed to live a shameful life.
- Their lives will come to a fall and God will punish them.
1 I have a message from God in my heart
concerning the sinfulness of the wicked:
There is no fear of God
before their eyes.
2 In their own eyes they flatter themselves
too much to detect or hate their sin.
- He is self deceived, he does not see the mess he is in.
- They do not know God and the reality of life.
- They do not know God and fear Him.
- They love flattering themselves to the extent that they cannot detect their sin, see it before God and hate it.
- If I do not hate sin I will flatter myself into thinking it is ok, God is not that serious.
- He needs to understand sin has consequences and he will need to give and account of them to God.
- If he loves God he will hate what God hates, which is sin.
- It is like weed in your garden that you see every day but do not pull it out. Eventually you know that it will overtake the plants that you so much care about and choke them.
- I need to understand the long term effect of sin and that it is a downward spiral entrapping you more and more.
18 If I had cherished sin in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened;
"Be Killing sin or it will be Killing You."
- We are inheritantly lazy and do not have a lot of character to fight for righteousness and eradicate it from our lives.
- I think it is like pulling weeds out of your garden, you have to monitor your garden and consistently pull out the weeds which involves work.
- Sometimes it is convenient to live in that sin.
- We do not hate it because we see it from our perspective not from God’s eternal perspective.
- We have become so accustomed to our dirty glasses we look through that we forgot or do not know how it will be to look through clean glasses like God does.
- There is not a spiritual mentor in our lives who can call us to repentance and expect us to live a righteous life.
- Francois I think as men we always struggle with greed, never being thankful what God has given us and just want more and more because we are not content in God.
- Secondly I know that we struggle with lusting after women. Even when you are married it seems like our sinful flesh is never satisfied. Even Solomon the wisest king that ever lived did not make it to heaven because of his pagan wives.
- I know that women struggle with fear and not trusting God being anxious.
- They also struggle with slander talking behind other womens back just to name a few.
- Well greed can make us focus on money instead of God and we will loose our salvation because of it.
- Well struggling with lust can lead to you getting an STD or Aids.
- It can also lead to adultery which will destroy your marriage, your reputation, your family relationships as well as your friendships with other people. Your spirituality will definately suffer because of it. You might start feeling alone and my commit suicide.
- Being anxious might lead to medical and phychological problems. That in turn will affect your relationships with other people.
- Slander might lead to you being isolated from people and loosing friends. It might destroy your relationships in church and you might leave God because of it.
- If I do not treat sins seriously those horror movies might become true in my life. (60 Worst Horror movies)
2. Close
– What an intense study Hans. I have learned a lot, I don’t know about you.
- When we loose our fear and respect for God Francois, our sin will destroy us and the people around us.
– Hans can you close us out in a prayer today?
- Sure Francois
- Heavenly Father, I know that you want to protect us from our sin but we like donkeys keep running towards it.
- If I believe in You God then I admit that I am not God.
- If I believe You are God then I admit that you have a set of rules and ordenances that I need to follow to be right with you.
- Whether I accept that rules or not I will be judged by them one day, like You say in Your word “Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord”.
- Father I know in my mind I have a certain definition about righteousness and I think I might be right, but in the end it is really about Your righteousness that will count.
- Father I know if I do not spend quality time with You every day I will never know what you expect of me and that will lead to me not spending eternity with You.
- Help me to find friends that will keep me accountable to put you first in my life and You being my first love.
- I am thinking Father if someone were to give me some water and they tell me there is a little urine in it, I will not drink it.
- Why is it then that we allow sin in our lives?
- Maybe I should get serious and confess my sin and get spiritual help.
- Just like in rugby they team needs a coach to perform at optimum efficiency level, I need a spiritual mentor to keep me on my toes.
- Amen
3. Practicals
– Read the sin scriptures and write out all the types of sin you can commit.
– Write down definitions on what the sins mean.
– Write down how can I commit this sin.
– Write down how I can avoid this sin.
– Write down what sins omission is, like studying your Bible, praying, sharing your faith.
– Confess your sins to someone who will keep it confidential. Like the Bible says we must confess our sins to one another not just God. (Jms 5:16)
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