Just about immediately following my last entry contractors began ripping out our floor in order to remove the asbestos laying underneath. Following that we had no kitchen for awhile and we were living with my extremely gracious brother and sister in law and their amazing family. Given the whirlwind of life it was a nice pause from writing but nonetheless, I have felt like it was time to jump back in regardless – so that being said thanks for your patience and here we go.
A few weeks ago I started praying “Lord, guide me in this.” I had an entry already written out but I ended up saving it and when you add that on top of life spinning, you get a month-plus delay. The truth is that I felt like there were some loose ends and untouched facets from my last post and I wanted to continue to write on a few things in light of everything and the current series on holiness which our church is doing.
26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
Ezekiel 36:26,27 ESV
For years and years this has been one of my favorite verses in the bible; I have always loved reading the Old Testament with a child-like excitement of finding the Savior in it. To me, there is just something about reading it with this bubbling awe in understanding God’s promise to draw us back into relationship with Him. Every passage read details the promise of redemption before we were ever even thought of, and more importantly, before Jesus even entered the earth.
Through everything I have walked out, I’ve always held tightly to this verse as I’ve seen my desires completely change and for awhile I thought I was just flat out weird. This verse reminds me that I am far from weird, that as we are called to be different, God already promised that He would give us a new heart and spirit and cause us to walk in His ways before we understood how to take a step.
In one of his more recent sermons, my pastor was making such a true point that the church today doesn’t want to hear about sin. We want positive reinforcement all the time. We don’t want to look in the mirror and see that outside of God’s mercy, we are absolute wretches. And I would even dare to say that the more we ignore this, our view of what actually is sin will become even more jacked up than it already is.
Recently, I came across an article from The Gospel Coalition that revealed perceptions of adultery. The categories were broken down into many different groups but amongst them were evangelicals. The percentages listed are the percent of respondents agreeing that the action would be considered cheating/adultery.
I’m not going to touch on all the results, just some of them:
Sending flirtatious messages to someone besides your partner (58%)
Being emotionally involved with someone besides your partner (67%)
Sending sexually explicit messages to someone other than your partner (75%)
Romantically kissing someone other than your partner (78%)
Having a one-night stand with someone other than your partner (77%)
Now, the pastor and author of the article makes an accurate statement in that we should not judge an entire body of believers based off of one survey. However, in my opinion the more striking information is the misconception of what actually is SIN.
To me, this is not indicative of all believers, but, it illuminates how being relevant and how progressive ideals are persuading and destroying the church. There is a shift for the church to go away from scripture and focus on adapting to the awful moral compass of society. To preach to emotions. To preach to feelings. To preach to acceptance. There is a forgotten view of sin and now it’s easier to blend in to society rather than be different.
How 42% of polled evangelicals believe that it’s alright to even engage in inappropriate text-conversations with someone other than their partner makes me raise my eyebrows. But, more striking is that 23% believe that a one night stand with someone other than their partner is not adultery or sin.
HELLO.
The reason I’m touching on this is that we need help. We need to start talking about sin and putting it in the light. I think Pure Desire, The Genesis Process, Bible Reading Plans, etc. are all amazing tools in the walk of a believer – especially a believer trying to overcome sin. But, even Dr. Ted Roberts writes in his book Pure Desire, “you cannot change behavior without first changing the heart.”
WE HAVE TO OPEN OUR EYES AND SEE THAT WE ARE LOST WITHOUT JESUS.
It’s NO ONE but Him and the only way we will ever resist the world and it’s temptations is to change our hearts. The only reason I am standing in the place I am right now is because of the fact that God broke me down to truly understand my sin. I have seen over the years since college and most importantly, this year, that my sin is NOT just a little speck to Him. My sin, your sin, our sin, was so atrocious to Him that God sent His only Son to be brutally tortured, laughed at, mocked, and then murdered on a cross. All so that you and I would have right relationship with Him. All so that we would stand INNOCENT before the judge and jury. That is how much our sin matters to God.
I’ve said in previous entries and I’ll say it again – I am so thankful for what God did in my life. I’ve had guys reach out since the last post and say how it helped them through something they are going through and I can’t say enough how humbled I am that God has used it. My prayer though, is that we see that there is a lifestyle that we are called to walk out. It’s a lifestyle that differs so much from what we see everywhere we look:
It calls us, beckons us, requires us, to…die.
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 16:25 ESV
It doesn’t just tell us in Ezekiel that He will replace our hearts of stone, but He also says:
“and I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
God is openly telling us that He will guide us and direct our paths. He is worthy of our trust in the process of mortifying our sin and flesh. In my last post I referenced a book that our men’s ministry spoke of going through with other men that I thought I didn’t need. I want to close this out with part of the first two pages of that book. When I realized how much I needed it and stopped saying I was fine, I realized how loved by God I was – not how condemned I was.
“In C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce, the main character of the story meets a condemned soul with a red lizard on his shoulder. The Condemned man’s complexion is dark and oily, reflecting the pollution of his soul. The Lizard whispers continually in the man’s ear while the irritated man keeps telling it to be quiet, at least in polite company. The man then meets an angel who offers to quiet the lizard by killing it. He replies that he wants to silence the lizard only because of the present company but that he does not want to do anything as drastic as killing it. When the angel explains that killing the lizard is the only way for the man to live, he retorts that it would be too painful to kill the lizard and that he might die in the process. The lizard then whispers to the man that killing it would not be “natural.” Finally the angel prevails and convinces the man that it would be better to die than to live with the creature. When the angel kills the lizard, the man and the lizard together are transformed. The man shines brightly while the lizard changes into a stallion.”
It goes on to say further from the story:
“What is a lizard compared with a stallion? Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering, whispering thing compared with the richness and energy of desire which arise when lust has been killed.”
This is from pages 1 and 2 of How Can I Overcome Lust by Ryan McGraw.
The point is that the devil wants us to think that mortifying our flesh is crazy. He reminds us that we aren’t as bad as the other guy. He tells us that it’s okay to not be perfect and hide the struggle because everyone else is struggling too; your heart really isn’t THAT wicked. The devil also tells us that there is not enough grace for the amount we have sinned. He says there is no possible way God could redeem what we have broken.
“When the angel kills the lizard, the man and the lizard together are transformed.”
The power to mortify our flesh, to kill our lizards, it comes from one source – Jesus Christ.
Through Him we have received grace and mercy with abundance and beyond measure. He is the voice that silences the accuser. When we repent and allow the Lord to break down the stone hearts we have, we are transformed. The choices we make to pursue holiness and mortify our flesh are the choices that shape generations. They are the choices that make disciples of all of those surrounding us.
God bless you,
BMT
The Fire & The Flood 