Tag: sinful nature

What is the Deceitfulness of Sin?

The writer of the Book of Hebrews in the Bible warns us of the following:

Take care, brothers and sisters, that there will not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another every day, as long as it is still called “today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.  Hebrews 3:12-13

Drawing from the history of the Jewish people, the writer exhorts us not to be like those who had unbelieving hearts, fell away from the living God and died in the wilderness.

The Holy Spirit is speaking through the writer to warn us about our heart [our inner man- who we truly are] becoming hard [unbelieving] toward God and His Word [the Bible] because of the deceitfulness of sin.

What is this that hardens our heart toward God? How does our old sinful nature deceive us into believing it is better to obey our evil cravings instead of obeying God? Here is how:

Offers False Promises of Pleasure – sin acts as bait, dangling immediate, fleeting satisfaction or gain while hiding the inevitable pain and ruin it produces. Sin will cost you more than you’re willing to pay and sin will keep you longer than you’re willing to stay.

Progressive Hardening of the Heart – sin dulls spiritual sensitivity over time, moving a person toward apathy, disobedience, and an inability to recognize evil.

Self-Deception – The Bible warns that our own hearts are deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9), prompting us to rationalize wrongful behavior and believe we can escape consequences. Our sin flatters us in our heart into believing we are “special” and “different”. We lose any fear of God we once had.

Distortion of Truth – Sin mask itself as wisdom or enlightenment, just as it did in the Garden of Eden, causing us to doubt God’s word. It makes us forget that God said you would reap what you sow.

Misleading About God – It makes God’s commands seem unreasonable or restrictive, trying to make us believe that God is against our best interests.

Did you recognize any of sins tactics? Unfortunately, I recognize them all. They have tricked me at times into forsaking church attendance, not reading/studying my Bible, not praying, being prideful and arrogant, thinking I’m special when I was just sinful, not loving my fellow Christian and the unbeliever, being consumed with my agenda and not God’s, lying, lusting, rebellious, unloving, stubborn….and we could go on all day.

What should we do if we find ourselves with a hard, unbelieving heart today? We need to confess our sins and pride to God the Father. He already knows them and they are not a surprise to Him. He has promised the following:

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. I John 2: 1-2

and

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:9

In Proverbs there is a Scripture that says a righteous man falls seven times but he always gets back up. So lets all get back up, turn from and confess our sins, receive God’s forgiveness, believe God’s Word, live smarter by the power of the Holy Spirit and go do the good works God saved us to do. Be a blessing to someone.

May He richly bless you in your obedience.

Carl

The Old Self – Enemy of God.

There are three people living inside each of us: the one we think we are, the one other people think we are, and the one God knows we are.

Unless we are desperate to get into real [spiritual] victory, we are so easy on ourselves and so hard on others. (Our pride always sees the faults of others and not our own.)

Self loves self. Too often we hide ourselves from ourselves lest the sight of ourselves should sicken ourselves.

Let us invite the searching eye of God to locate this corrupted, spotted, stinking Self in us. Let it be torn from us and “crucified with Him, (so) that henceforth we no longer serve sin” (Romans 6:6).

Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries, p. 35

Carl

Snares, Predators and Spiritual Truths

“Our soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the trapper; the snare is broken and we have escaped.” Psalm 124:7 NASB

A snare is a device used to trap animals or birds. As young boys and aspiring Boy Scouts, we built snares to catch rabbits, in my Grandfather’s briar patch. Needless to say there was no fear of us, in the rabbit community.

Fifty-five years later, I finally saw how deadly snares could be. We frequently visit a whitetail deer and exotics ranch, in the Hill Country of central Texas, where they use snares to control the predators (coyotes, foxes, etc.) that kill fawns and young deer.

The snare is four or five foot long cable, small in diameter. There is a loop on one end, which is placed in front of the predator’s access hole, under the high fence. A short lead on the opposite end of the snare, is then securely attached to the fence or the steel post. When the animal sticks his head through the hole, the forward motion of his body causes the noose to tighten around the neck. Since the lead is short, he cannot get enough speed to attempt to tear the end loose from the post or fence. No matter how much the animal fights, it cannot gain its freedom.

The final result is not a pretty site. A desperate struggle takes place in the dust to gain freedom, followed by suffocation or a slow death from starvation and thirst, in the Texas heat.

With this life and death scene in our mind, let us briefly look at spiritual snares that capture Christians.

Paul told Timothy in II Timothy 2: 25-26, concerning people who are in opposition to the gospel, the following:

“…if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the SNARE of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.”

To use the example of the ranch, Carl, the Christian, can stick his head under the fence of godliness to get into the devil’s ranch and be snared. The devil’s snare has a long lead which allows Carl to enjoy the pleasure of sin for awhile, until he hits the end of the lead. Hitting the end of the lead causes me to realize that I cannot get free from what I now realize is evil and is now controlling me. This is the wake up call. In my life, it is now as Paul said in Romans 7:19:

“For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish.

At the end of the lead, Carl can twist, turn, struggle in the dust of my making and bemoan my lack of willpower to overcome the evil practice in my life, but it is too late. Satan’s snare is controlling my suppose-to-be-dead, sinful nature and me. I, a Christian, will be under the control of Satan’s snare until there is true, deep repentance. This will lead to “the knowledge of the truth” and a “coming to their senses” which empowers us to forsake our sin and escape from the devil’s snare.

How do we escape? After repenting, we yield ourselves to God, afresh and anew. This “yielding” comes with a mighty promise:

“Thus, also, as for you, you be constantly counting upon the fact that, on the one hand, you are those who have been separated from the sinful nature, and, on the other, that you are living ones with respect to God in Christ Jesus. Stop therefore allowing the sinful nature to reign as king in your mortal body with a view to obeying it [the body], in its passionate cravings. Moreover, stop putting your members at the disposal of the sinful nature as weapons of unrighteousness, but by a once-for-all act and at once, put yourselves at the disposal of God as those who are actively alive out from among the dead, and put your members as weapons of righteousness at the disposal of God, FOR [THEN] THE SINFUL NATURE WILL NOT EXERCISE LORDSHIP OVER YOU…” (Romans 6: 11-14. Wuest Expanded Translation. Emphasis added)

Unlike the Texas predators, there is hope for repentant saints. If Carl wants to be stubborn, which in God eyes is equivalent to idolatry, Carl will remain snared. On the other hand, if I am repentant, though the devil means it for our destruction, God will teach me something, if I will listen.

The Apostle John tells us in I John 1 that our fellowship is with the Father and Son. In Revelation 3, our Precious Savior says that He is knocking at the heart of the believers and wants to come in and fellowship with us. Maybe you, like me in the past, are fellowshipping with something evil in God’s eyes. You need to experience God’s grace of repentance and restoration, to His fellowship. If you feel the Holy Spirit convicting, don’t take it for granted. Turn now. We are praying for you.

The Pure Creator of the universe longs to fellowship with you, His child. Don’t settle for something evil and base.

May the following be said of us:

“Our soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the trapper; the snare is broken and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.” Psalm 124: 7-8 NASB

Carl