HOW TO FIGHT SIN
Come to your right mind, and sin no more. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. 1 Cor. 15:34, R.S.V.
With her chin resting in her hand and with a scowl on her face, a young woman blurted out her perplexity about her boyfriend. "Why is it that he spends so much time in prayer and yet still does such stupid things? He's so immature, yet, he is certain that we ought to get married! I don't spend nearly as much time in prayer as he does, yet I can see all kinds of reasons why we shouldn't get married. Doesn't prayer make a person think right?"
That's not a silly question. Though every Christian is soundly in favor of praying, we still know of too many times when we prayerfully made a decision we later know to be the wrong one. And it's easy to think at those times that God let us down--that He didn't tell us what to do. Does prayer, in itself, lead to correctness and maturity of action?
Spiritual maturity is not something that God shoves into our minds. He does not wave His hands over our brains and infuse us with some type of spiritual magic by which we suddenly think only righteous thoughts of the highest quality. He made our minds to be educated. He created us with the capacity to process truth, and to handle it with clarity and integrity. And then He gave us the Holy Spirit to aid us in apprehending the deeper, spiritual meanings of truth.
Paul's invitation to come to our right mind is most specifically tied to his next sentence: "For some have no knowledge of God." That is the central core of the sin problem. To know God's great love for us is to trust His forgiveness, His caring, and His plans for our future. To know the Father's wisdom is to trust the total adequacy of His will, His law, and His guidance.
In essence, sin is the condition of being separated from the Father. It is alienation from God, which comes from believing that He is either hostile, indifferent, or irrelevant. To believe such things about God (and thus remain distant from Him), especially in view of all that Jesus has shown us about Him--that is the ultimate stupidity. Let's come to our right minds!
Come to your right mind, and sin no more. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. 1 Cor. 15:34, R.S.V.
With her chin resting in her hand and with a scowl on her face, a young woman blurted out her perplexity about her boyfriend. "Why is it that he spends so much time in prayer and yet still does such stupid things? He's so immature, yet, he is certain that we ought to get married! I don't spend nearly as much time in prayer as he does, yet I can see all kinds of reasons why we shouldn't get married. Doesn't prayer make a person think right?"
That's not a silly question. Though every Christian is soundly in favor of praying, we still know of too many times when we prayerfully made a decision we later know to be the wrong one. And it's easy to think at those times that God let us down--that He didn't tell us what to do. Does prayer, in itself, lead to correctness and maturity of action?
Spiritual maturity is not something that God shoves into our minds. He does not wave His hands over our brains and infuse us with some type of spiritual magic by which we suddenly think only righteous thoughts of the highest quality. He made our minds to be educated. He created us with the capacity to process truth, and to handle it with clarity and integrity. And then He gave us the Holy Spirit to aid us in apprehending the deeper, spiritual meanings of truth.
Paul's invitation to come to our right mind is most specifically tied to his next sentence: "For some have no knowledge of God." That is the central core of the sin problem. To know God's great love for us is to trust His forgiveness, His caring, and His plans for our future. To know the Father's wisdom is to trust the total adequacy of His will, His law, and His guidance.
In essence, sin is the condition of being separated from the Father. It is alienation from God, which comes from believing that He is either hostile, indifferent, or irrelevant. To believe such things about God (and thus remain distant from Him), especially in view of all that Jesus has shown us about Him--that is the ultimate stupidity. Let's come to our right minds!
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