"But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses." 1 timothy 6:11-12""
our sin is that we justify sin"....i didn't get this quote correct from gary thomas's sermon last night, but you get the idea. the idea of pursuing something with great endurance made me think about all the things we pursue, but we don't pursue our relationship with GOD that way.
what is so wrong with pursuing a relationship with GOD? what is so wrong with pursuing HIS words through scripture? fear is what it seems to amount to. we are scared of what we will find in ourselves that sins against HIM. gary thomas last night said "that we must accept and deal with the fact that we have sin and temptation instead of hiding from it. if given the opportunity would we choose the sin." would we have the endurance and strength to walk away? the reality is most of us would choose the sin, because we find ok to justify it and we think GOD will always forgive us for it.
envy, greed, gluttony, vanity, etc..the list could go on and on. what drives us? are we doing these things because GOD told us to, or are we doing these things because of what's inside us? think about this; are you pursuing CHRIST everyday for HIS glory, or are you forcing yourself to do it because that is what chrisitan society and the church tells you to do? when you give you must do it with your whole heart and if you aren't giving your whole heart to HIM then why are you doing it?
don't get me wrong i believe you should read scripture, because what starts to happen in your heart is so wonderful that it is hard to step away from that. it's what we take from it that seems to be the problem. we want to read scripture, but we don't want to live that way. we want to manipulate it to our advantage; that's our sin.
take for example abortion. GOD says that all life is a gift, it doesn't matter the circumstances in which that life was created; wouldn't this be murder? take for example money. we pursue more and more money even when we have enough to live on; does it become greed then? take for example beauty. we buy more and more make-up, starve ourselves, or even resort to plastic surgery; isn't this vanity?
one of my greatest sins will be my temper. it will be the one that will take me years and years to fight. i have to fight it, because GOD told me to. every time i fail i must seek HIS forgiveness and those that i have been on the receiving end of my temper. every time i lose it i have let the devil in. i hope and pray through my faith and with HIM in my heart i can conquer it.
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