Friday, March 8, 2013

Is sin holding you hostage?

Romans 6:20 – 23 (MSG) “As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end. But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.”
The sin in our life holds us hostage in a guilt and shame-filled prison cell. It (our sin) binds us to the wall of desolation where there is no hope and we are destined to die. But there is hope outside of those prison walls. His name is Jesus Christ. When we accept Him as our Lord and Savior, our old way of life is gone; it has been nailed to the very cross where Jesus paid our bail. Jesus served the time for our “crime”. No matter what we’ve done, we can be assured that our old life is gone and we’re set free from the bondage of sin’s grip (John 8:36). We are free to live an eternal life...God’s gift to us.
With this gift of eternal life, we can now begin to leave our old life behind and walk in the freedom of God’s grace. Jesus begins a new work in us. Does this mean we will never sin again? Don’t I wish! We were all born with a sin nature so it’s only natural to feel like sinning. As a Christian we must remember when we fall into sin we don’t have to go back to that guilt-filled prison cell because we've already been set free in Christ. We have a choice here...return to the prison cell and wallow in guilt and shame or realize the freedom we have in Christ and allow ourselves to be transformed by God’s grace. We have to learn how to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit living inside us...Jesus sent Him to us so we wouldn't be left alone (John 14:25 - 27).
I like to keep the picture of Peter walking on water in my mind. When Peter fixed his eyes on Jesus he could walk on water. It was only when he looked at the circumstances surrounding him that he was overcome and fell (Matthew 14:28 – 30). I encourage you today to keep your eyes on Jesus; don’t let the distractions of this world take your focus away from Him.

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