pramsay posted on March 24, 2009 15:12 1712 views

Check Your Sin Sensor Batteries

There are some great truths to appreciate as a Christian including the absolute forgiveness of sins and the assurance of eternal life. The list is actually quite long. Occasionally a Christian loses perspective and wonders – ‘What’s so great about being saved? I’ve still got tons of problems!’ And that is true – Christians have trials and struggles.

Maybe you are feeling pretty lousy today. You are thinking it would be great to be the son or daughter of some solid billionaire like a Gates or a Buffet or even an Oprah. Imagine the perks, the benefits and just the security of knowing there is an endless supply of resources to meet every need and almost every desire.

Stop your dreaming. You have something infinitely better! When you look in the mirror later today, hold your Bible in your hand, read this verse out loud and then look in the mirror:

“.I will be a father to you,

and you shall be sons and daughters to me,

says the Lord Almighty.”

(2Corinthians 6:18 ESV)

How’s that for being well-connected!

The moment you placed your trust in Jesus Christ, you were born into God’s family and you became a son or a daughter in the family of God. Yes, the Almighty God is your Father. The Apostle Paul makes it clear that such a relationship is not just positional truth for you to understand intellectually; he says if you separate yourself from the world and the ungodly, in favor of Christ, you will really experience the daily joy of being in the family of God.

Being a son or daughter in such a family is not without its obligations. There are expectations and standards to honor and uphold in the family of God. Immediately following the verse above is this one:

Since we have these promises,

beloved, let us cleanse ourselves

from every defilement of body and spirit,

bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

(2Corinthians 7:1 ESV)

Every son and daughter in the family of God needs to keep up the cleansing routines every day. You physically clean yourself every day. Spiritually and morally, it’s just the same. We must clean ourselves from anything that is filthy and anything that is impure or marked by lust – including sexual lusts. And Paul doesn’t just stop at the hardcore outward filthiness we might engage in; it also applies to our ‘spirit’. Our thought life, motives, fantasies, dreams and inner cravings all need to be scrubbed down and cleansed.

We need to be cleansed daily by allowing our Bibles to speak to our hearts. We need to block off the access ramps to our favorite sins so we won’t travel down that accident-cluttered freeway.  Access to filth and sexual temptation is so immediate and intense; we need to ensure our batteries are fully charged in our sin sensors so the alert siren will scream in our ears. 

We need to be continually engaged in cleansing routines such as confessing a thought and quoting Bible verses. Holiness is what we should be daily striving for.  If our mind was occupied with the greatness of the Almighty God, we would live more cautiously and be more sensitive to sin.  Robert Murray McCheyne used to pray: “Lord, make me as holy as it is possible for a man to be on this side of heaven.”  Will you adopt that prayer today?

Walk carefully and closely with the Lord today.

Warmly in Christ

Peter Ramsay

peter@heaven4sure.com

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