Sin: A short piece.

Yay accomplished. That's how this post begins because it was so complex for me. But thank God.

Hello body of Christ,

I woke up Thursday morning and I prayed with my family. Then I remembered Omo it's blog day but I relaxed cause God has it so I went on TikTok and the first post I saw was by Kaylyn Goode (check her out, amazing content) she was talking about one feeling like a failure after we've sinned and how the feeling is normal then she rounded it up with 'Jesus came cause we're not perfect, because we are sinners and will sin'.

The next four videos I saw were all about sin and I just knew okay, Pops tryna tell me something here and I went with it. Here we go...

HOW SIN MAKES US FEEL

God knows what sin does to us.

How it makes us feel especially as believers.

How it can make us feel unworthy of His love so we hide just like Adam and eve, the shame the 'nakedness' and not wanting to meet God.

Key word FEEL. It's almost instantaneous the feeling of guilt we feel immediately we realize we've sinned.

God knows this and He knows how these feelings can make you go far from Him.

The condemnation from the devil or ourselves that make us feel unworthy 

And I realize...

Emotions, feelings are easily malleable, fickle, shortlived and shouldn't be heavily relied on.

Knowledge supersedes feeling. We may feel a certain way but KNOW something to be true.

Example, feel unworthy of Gods love but know the Bible says 'nothing can separate us from God's love' Romans 8:38.

Knowledge that your sins have been separated from you as far as the east is from the west Psalm 103: 12.

How you feel could make you stray away from Him. Devil will lie to you make you feel/ think he doesn't love you, devil will say you're not worthy he doesn't want to have nothing to do with you (side note, we were never worthy, God just loves us. Bible says He loved us even while we were sinners and died for us Romans 5: 8...) because what would you do to prove your worth? Your works? LIES; Isaiah 64: 6 tells us that our works are like filthy rags before God; God loves you that's knowledge of the truth. 

Another example is how the hype you get from hearing motivational speeches are short lived. Why?

Cause it's a FEELING whatever it riles up in you does't last.

Knowledge is concrete and rigid, not easily changed unless new knowledge comes that trumps the old one. God's truth however will stand the test of time.

The feeling is a lie, devil wants to use to trap you.

And if you do fall for the feelings cause we all will at a point, we will be unable to go before God and because we cannot go before the one who is meant to fulfill us we'd seek comfort in other things that we think will fill that void meant for God and they will definitely be sinful and make the hole larger and leave room for more sin 

These things will only bring us destruction

Let's not try to fill the void meant for God with wordly things. 

He created you and He's the only one that can fill that void and do it perfectly.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU SIN

My friend once likened the christian walk as a journey on a tight rope with a net under. You know how stunt performers have a tight rope to walk on and a net under in case they fall so they don't die; imagine your christian walk as one on a 'tight rope of righteousness' that God gives to you and imagine that net under, as grace. So when we do sin we fall on the Grace of God and when you ask for forgiveness, He will forgive you get back on your tight rope of righteousness where you stopped and you keep walking.

1 John 1: 9 'but if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness'

PENALTY V CONSEQUENCE OF SIN

Took me a while for me to understand this one, literally months.

Grace saves you from the penalty of sin but not the consequence.

The wages of sin is death Romans 6: 23

Death, the ultimate penalty of sin has been paid by Jesus when He died for our sins.

Romans 3:23-24(NLT) says

'for everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in His grace, freely makes us right in His sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty for our sins'

On the other hand, consequences are human as a result of our sinful acts. Example: 

A person lies, the persons credibility becomes diminished.

A man gets drunk and has an accident. 

You cheat on your spouse; you lose the relationship, break the family.

We get to experience/live with the consequences of our sins to an extent because sometimes it could be God's way of disciplining us. Hebrew 12: 5-6 

"And have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children? He said, “My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s discipline, and don’t give up when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child.”

Just like a father to a son/daughter is how God's relationship with us is.

So, do something heinous, God will forgive you if you come in true repentance, but He's not going to make what you've done disappear or the results of your actions vanish like magic, just because you're truly sorry; the consequences are left with you so you'd understand the gravity and the results of said act. Sin is not to be taken lightly.

ITS OUR NATURE TO SIN

In Romans 7: 25 Paul said '...but because of my sinful nature, I am a slave to sin'. Basically our nature/flesh, is ruled by sin.

In Psalm 51: 5 David says 'for I was born a sinner— yes, from the moment my mother conceived me'.

So we know it's our nature to sin and sin comes from the desires of our flesh that's why we are told to walk in the spirit so we won't fulfill the desires of our flesh Galatians 5:16.

While it's our nature to sin, a true christian will not sin habitually. We may fall sometimes but we get back on our tightrope and keep walking. 

Bible says in 1 John 3:9 

'those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God'.

Some of us may however struggle with a particular sin. Struggle because it's a continuous drag; we can either win completely or lose completely at the end of a struggle — but as long as Jesus is with you, your struggle will always result in a W; you will be victorious.

Romans 7: 14-25 (NLT) God has saved us from our flesh through the Lord Jesus Christ!

YOUR WEAKNESS IS HIS STRENGTH 

In God's strength lies wisdom.

In your struggle against sin, go to Him accepting you're weak and He will clothe you with His strength. Because we can't do it on our own. If we could, Jesus would not come to die for us. He came because we were weak, he lived the perfect life we couldn't live, man was immune to sin literally and he died for us. It's His work that saves us. He bore our sins.

If you struggle with let's say drinking. Accepting you're weak will make you miss that night out with your friends at a bar and true strength is you being able to turn down the invitation to go to the bar.

That's wisdom.

Fighting a battle you know you'll lose is foolishness if you ask me when there's an alternative of not fighting at all.

If you don't want to drink, why go to the bar; if you can't handle the heat, why step foot in the kitchen?

If you'd accept you're weak (which you are), God will give you his strength and wisdom.

I bask in my weakness because I rely on God's strength, and I know if I tried to do it on my own I'd fail 10/10 times. 

And sure you might go to the bar in your 'strength' and not drink the first time

Then it becomes 'just this once' and then 'maybe another one' until you find yourself where you said you didn't want to be and it becomes a cycle. 

Friends, why dance with temptation?