Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father help us to see our sin rightly, through His eyes, and not our own. Father, you truly are a good good Father to us, gracious and merciful in loving us far beyond anything we could have asked for or deserved. We are your kids. Help us when we sin, to see it as you do, and to turn to you and repent, say sorry, and thoroughly turn away from our sin. We need your help, Father. Forgive us of our sins and keep us close to you. You long to forgive your children when we ask for your forgiveness. May we trust in that longing, that desire to have us ever closer and closer to your heart. In the powerful name of Jesus, draw us near to you by the Spirit, Father, and rid us of that which stands between us! Amen.
Your Morning Song: "Sing It from the Shackles" by Rend Collective
Your Morning Scripture: Matthew 5:27-30
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 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. 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.
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Child of God, son, daughter, what is your attitude towards sin? When you think of sin, how does it seem to you? How would you define it? How would you explain it?
How we see and react to sin, matters.
And there are two truths, two stark realities that are at work against us seeing sin rightly, as in the eyes of our Heavenly Father.
First, familiarity really does breed contempt. What does this mean? It means that the more often we interact with something or someone, quantity will overshadow quality. Sin will become less a war and just a weak word, if we are not careful to return again to our convictions that sin is so horrific that it separates humans from their loving creator. That even for God's Children sin can murder intimacy with Him, until His forgiveness resurrects it when His Children repent.
Don't take sin for granted it. It is the worst of all things, ever. And it is the only thing we have done apart from God that is entirely our own.
Second, our world may war against our God, but its weapons are often not the flagrant, violent opposition so many of claim. Persecution is not our problem in America. Are you staring down the throat of a hungry lion to thunderous Roman applause? No? Then be quiet and look wise.
For the true weapon our culture wields against us regarding sin is not open opposition as often and as thoroughly as it is distraction. The world around us is full of opportunities to focus on our daily, worldly living during the week, and to leave much of our worship and prayer and Bible reading for Sunday morning and perhaps a bible study during the week.
The world longs for open conflict with Christians, hoping that we will fight a worldly war and miss the true strike, which aims to dilute our understanding of the true horror of sin.
Complacency. Sin must not become a commonplace, small thing in our minds. It must remain potent, poisonous, worth fighting and grieving in our own flesh.
Distraction. Sin must not become lost in the seas of lesser concerns. We must float adrift and unconcerned with our sin as common, daily things become more important to us. Leave not the contemplation of our sin for Sunday mornings only.
How then should God's Children think of sin? It is the worst of all things. The most dangerous poison. There is nothing like sin.
Death only exists because of sin. And we are all at fault.
How then should God's Children react to sin?
By fighting it in our minds, with urgency. The Law in the Old Testament was hard to follow, with all of its requirements for the people Israel, to make them holy, to set them apart.
But sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that Jesus's way of addressing sin is easier. More laid back. And in some ways you could argue that. But here in Matthew 5 we see that you can be guilty of sin even if it just a thought.
We can sin in our hearts and minds? Sin is that pervasive? That poisonous? That powerful? Yes. Yes. Yes.
We, as God's forgiven Children, must see sin for the horror that it truly is, and fight it first in our own hearts and minds. Lip service is not enough.
Have we forgotten the cost of our salvation? It may be a free gift given to us, but it was bought at great and terrible cost. The blood of Jesus splashed across the ground at Golgotha. They mocked Him and tortured Him and murdered Him. And He could have stopped it at any time. But He didn't, because that's how serious He is about sin. Our sin.
Let's reconsider how we are acting regarding our sin. Do we repent daily? Are we grieved by it? Are we trusting in the Spirit to grow out of and away from its death-filled patterns and attitudes? Are we waging war against it, first and greatest within our own selves?
Or have we become too comfortable, too distracted?
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