Overcoming Sin and Understanding God
In 2 Samuel 24, as King David progress his walk with God, he became more aware of his sins. One of these sins is pride. On this chapter, David urge Joab to count his men able for war from Dan to Beersheba, in order for him to prove that he is powerful. But after realizing his sin, he repented.
Here we witnessed a great man of God, the man after God's own heart, humbling down before God and acknowledge whatever consequence God has in-store for him as a punishment for his sins, then the Lord forgave him. Also, we see here that alongside with repentance is restitution of the lives that were claimed as a result of David's recklessness, and that is burnt offering. Here we see that as a man repented towards his sin, what comes next is our restitution, either to the people that we hurt or to the things that we rob. We have to restore it and even more so.
Now, what amaze me on this story is as David strengthened his relationship with the Lord, he realized that whatever offering we give to God it must cost something from us, even this life.
Walking with the Lord is a constant life of surrender. Somewhere along our journey, we are compel to gave up a portion of us little by little so that the power of God can work in us.
Remember how Jesus say these words, " [Paraphrased ] Those who wish to follow me must deny themselves, take up his Cross and follow me. "
In Jesus time, those people you see carrying their cross means that person will no longer return because he was sentenced to death through crucifixion.
Carrying our own Cross means death to our life. We will bury this old man and what we will resurrect is the new man in Christ. It is a divine exchange of our life of sin to the life of righteousness in Christ.
It is what Galatians 2:20 explains "For I am crucified with Christ. It is not I who lives but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith, through the Son of God that loves me and gave himself for me. "
How to Overcome Sin?
Overcoming sin is a must for us to have a sure spot in God’s kingdom, but doing it is no easy task. Many times, even though we have the desire to really turn away from sin, we are still falling short and going on circles doing the same sin over and over again. This thing contradicts not only our faith but also makes us question if our repentance is really out of a pure heart, good conscience and sincere faith (1 Timothy 1:5).
What must we do then to overcome sin?
Romans 8: 13 says “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” (NIV)
The key word there is You. In this book, Paul is speaking to the Church of the Romans. In the New Covenant faith, Jesus is now talking to us – the readers. So the you here is Us. Meaning, it is us who will put to death the misdeeds of our body. Yes, it is the Spirit of God who works in us to desire and do the will of God (Philippians 2:13), but only in our partnership and equal effort and decision to throw off every sins that easily entangles us will the plan of God will be made perfect or be put into completion in our life (Hebrews 11:40, 12:1-3).
Another supporting verse here is 2 Corinthians 7:1 which says, “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body[a] and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.” (ESV)
The key word there is the “we” or “us.” It is still us who will cleanse ourselves and the foundation should be the “Fear of God.” Fear of God means that we obey God because we fear that when we commit sin, it is God that we hurt more than we hurt ourselves and because we love Him, we cannot afford to hurt Him. That is the correct context of the fear of the Lord. It is only through our cooperation with the Holy Spirit that God’s plan for our life will be complete.
How to Understand God?
Many times, even though we are praying or reading the Bible, we are still very confuse on who God is and what is going on in God’s mind or in His heart, or what is really His plans for our life.
Now, how can we truly understand the Lord? That is a very good question.
Luke 10:25:26
25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”
The above verses tells the story of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Here we see how the lawyer wants to test Jesus by asking Him how to have eternal life. Jesus, sensing that the lawyer’s heart is impure, He answered Him with a very good question, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”
Now my question also for all of us is, how do we really read our Bible? Remember that God knows our hearts and our thoughts. He knows even the hidden or secret life that we had. He knew us even before we are born. So we cannot really hide anything from God, even the motives of our heart on why we approach the word of God.
Most of the time, we cannot really understand the heart and will of God because our heart and motives are not pure. Often times we use the Bible to justify our actions, or to make money for ourselves, or to judge people. There are also people who read the Bible to find fault in it or to invent a doctrine of their own. Those motives were all wrong and because of that, God clouds our mind from the truth. Remember how Jesus specifically tell the disciples to do not give pearl to the pigs! Every time we approaches the Word of God wrongly, we are actually berating the Bible and treat it as feeds for the pigs! We are even worst among the worst pigs doing that way.
In reading God’s word, we must empty ourselves from our emotions, desires of the flesh and anything that will hinder us from having an intimate, personal quality time with God. It is only when we are in the heart of worship that we actually hear God’s voice and with that, we can actually, finally communicate to God properly and listen to His voice properly.
Something to Think About
A sigh of relief after backtracking and correcting wrong billing from first quarter of 2021. Huh!
Many times it is hard to admit that you are wrong because you are afraid to face the consequence. I'd been there. Just imagine my shock and fear a while ago discovering millions of over billing. (Thankfully it is interco or else I just can't imagine the gravity of mess I had made just because of one simple conversion error that I had overlooked!)
As I went over my whole day, I was face the dilemma whether to hands up and surrender, turn to my manager, admit my mistakes and correct the error. The other option is to just be silent and hide the wrong in order for me to be still in the good side, but at the end of the year I know that somehow, somewhere, the numbers will float and burst the bubble.
I decided the right thing to do - admit my mistakes and turn to my manager and ask for her help on how I can correct the matter. Thankfully, she understood fully what happened and she just asked me to send her the sales and cost of sales adjustment. Thank God! Doing the right thing is really a relief. It is an honest mistake after all and there is nothing that we can do but to humble down and immediately correct what went wrong. This will minimize the after effect of our recklessness.
Dear friends, admitting that we committed mistakes somehow at some point is not a sign of resignation, but rather it is a sign of courage together with an attitude of a humble learner. In times when we shows our vulnerable side, we are actually able to explore our strengths. Just do the right thing always because this shows our identity as a Christian, together with the faith and trust on God that He will restore our life on the point where we messed up out of our ignorance. Just surrender all our worries to Him and always do what is right even no one else will, or you are tempted and pressured not to. This types of things where we face a trials and testings is our way to prove to God that we are growing in our relationship with Him.
Take heart, Christ overcomes the world, even our sins, flesh, Satan and death.
🙂🙂🙂
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