Do you think that ever happens to us spiritually?
You don’t even have to answer that as we all have done that to some point. There is a sobering warning in the very next chapter where we are admonished: “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today”, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” (Heb 3:12-13)
“Hardened through the ‘deceitfulness of sin’. “
May I ask you to pause here, go read that last verse again and consider this: Why such a serious and sobering warning to believers here? If God is tolerant and just fine and dandy with ‘saints who sin’, that it has nothing to do with eternal matters, why not just ‘chill out’ and accept the fact we are all human, all imperfect, and just enjoy life?
So many directions and illustrations and analogies I could go with that one. (Anyone familiar with frog in boiling pot?)
When we talk about ‘sin’ and ‘Christians who sin’ and can we truly ‘go and sin no more’, it helps to understand just exactly what sin is.
From God’s perspective, sin is breaking His Law, His commandments. Sin is Lawlessness (1 John 3:4) And you know Matt 7:21-23 unsettles a lot of believers when they read this passage…’Many’ will come in that day…thinking they were in good standing with God…only to be told “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”
Funny…how back early on in the pandemic shutdowns when riots were taking place in multiple cities, so many ‘righteous voices’ rose up from the religious and conservative crowds lamenting the lack of ‘law and order’ in our cities. Why were politicians allowing this unruly behavior? We have laws that need to be enforced!
Yet by so many who claim to be ‘sinning saints’ (who are not perfect, just forgiven) by their own admission ‘break the laws’ all the time. It’s just that ‘their sin and law breaking is not as bad as those other people’)
We have become desensitized to what sin even is anymore. I’m pretty sure our concept of sin differs greatly from God’s perspective. We have made the grave error in comparing ourselves by ourselves, (2 Cor 10:12), doing what they often did in the Old Testament when they had no king…each man doing what was right in his own eyes. (Judges 17:6)
The hardening of our hearts has turned us in to self-righteous saints who like that Pharisee ‘stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.’ (Luke18:11)
Jesus warns us of these days …“And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.” (Matt 24:12) Several translations say our hearts would ‘wax hard’. As in ‘Hardened through the ‘deceitfulness of sin’.
So what do you use for a ‘spiritual barometer’ to gauge your own heart’s condition when it comes to sin? I think we all realize the closer we come to the light, the more ‘imperfect things’ we see clearly.
Why do you think women use big mirrors and bright lights to ‘enhance’ their faces? What if we all had that same approach to working on our hearts, using God’s Word and Spirit as a ‘light & mirror’ ? Again, the closer to the ‘Light’ you get, the more aware you become of all those things that need to come off. Yet, Jesus Himself tells us in John 3:20 – “For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”
“Having these promise beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” (2 Cor 7:1) “Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” (1 John 3:3)
Do you want to take a stab as to why the writers continuously admonished us to walk ‘blamelessly’ and to ‘pursue holiness’ and ‘be holy as He is holy’? Maybe Hebrews 12:14 might offer insight as it tells us: “Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.”
Never saw that verse before, you say? Yeah…there’s lots of those I’m seeing in there of late.
Jesus told us in Matt 5:8 – ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
You know what ‘holiness’ is?
It’s having a heart that has been purified and perfected in love. Jesus came to cleanse us and purify us as we follow Him. And it’s quite easy to see things that ‘come up out of our hearts’ that should not be there. If you are not following, you are not being purified and cleansed.
If by now, or even if in recent days after reading some of my postings…and you have felt little jabs, or kicks or ‘pin pricks of uneasiness’…maybe even a tad of ‘fear’, can I tell you that is a very good sign?
We’ve all seen those medical shows where an injured person is brought in with suspected paralysis, and the doctor takes a sharp instrument and ‘pokes’ their feet to see if there is any response. When there is no flinching, everyone gets all scared and serious. We know what that means. But even the slightest flinching is a good sign. So if you are feeling any stabs of conviction, that is a very good sign that God is trying to awaken you.
You just need to respond to Him accordingly.
Quite making excuses for your sins. Stop trying to justify them or comparing yourself with others and thinking you are doing just fine. I stated the other day that we spend more time making excuses for our shortcomings/sins than we do overcoming them. You can be free of them all. Just for a matter of perspective, go read Romans 1:28-32 and see all those ‘unrighteous things’ that Paul clumps together in one breath…sexual immorality, murder, strife, AND gossiping and backbiting, to name a few.
One more illustration for you this morning in closing. How many of you have had that blessing of buying a brand new vehicle at some point in your life. I mean, brand spanking new with new car smell and all. Do you remember how guarded you were about not wanting to mar it in any way…and heaven forbid if one of the kids brought a drink or food inside. And you remember that first french fry that you spotted on the floorboard or that first few drops of soda or coffee that ‘accidentally’ stained a seat? Yeah…what’s that car looking like now? I bet some of you could feed a homeless camp with all the food you could gather up from under the seats.
Your ‘tolerance’ level subsided over time. It’s pretty normal. Maybe after a good washing and vacuuming, you regained some of that desire to keep it clean again. But life happens.
God’s ‘car’ wash is open. And He can ‘detail a heart’ like no one else can.
Might be time to go spend some time with Him.
Have I mentioned there’s a wedding coming up and He’s coming back for a bride that is…spotless, holy, without blemish or wrinkles? (Eph 5:27)
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