Pastors Garage
March 30, 2023
This past Sunday I had the opportunity to share at church and I spoke on the cost of sin. How God still take sin seriously, and some steps we can take to deal with it in our lives. At the end of my message I made this disclaimer, if you want to start dealing with sin in your life, look out! The attack will come!
The reality is, if there are areas we are unaware of that are hindering us, or if there are things we aren’t ready to deal with, or even some vices that we literally don’t want to deal with because we still enjoy them; usually there’s not a lot of attack that accompany these situations. There definitely may be some conviction from God, some guilt, foreboding, or negative affects on our behalf, but not usually a terrible amount of spiritual attack. If we have sin in our lives that we are not dealing with, that is already doing the enemy’swork! He doesn’t need to attack; the works being done already! BUT….. should you decide to start taking some steps to deal with it, look out! Don’t be surprised, the attack with come! Our adversary, the devil, roars around like a lion looking for someone to devour. He comes but to steal, kill, and destroy! He isn’t particularly interested in you dealing with some of the things in your life that are hurting or hindering you or those around you! He’s kind of opposed to the whole idea of you getting spiritually stronger or closer to God and others!
Now this battle is a lifelong process! The fight is real! We wrestle not against flesh and blood! There is a very real sinful nature within each of us that we actively need to wrestle with and try and diminish while strengthening our relationship with God in submission to His will and plan for our lives. As I mentioned in my sermon from Sunday, if you were brought into a spiritual court of law, would there be enough evidence found in your life to charge and convict you of attempted manslaughter in the killing of your old man?(sinful nature) You have to be intentional in this, the struggle is real people! This has been a struggle for me all of my Christian life, and will likely continue to be a struggle until Tubman’s make my final move!
Recently I have taken some steps in dealing with some areas in my life that I have been harbouring and ignoring for far too long. Because of this I am feeling stronger spiritually, being able to feel, hear, and express God better than I have in a long time! But there have definitely been some attacks in the last little bit, that while seemingly they come out of nowhere and are unrelated, I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t the enemy testing my resolve, trying to discourage, and ultimately cause me to give up dealing with those areas that need attention. The question that I ask is how do we carry ourselves in the midst of the attack? Even when it sometimes comes from people we have known for a long time, love, and respect? Without giving any teaching or direction in this I want to close with two very familiar passages of scripture. If you feel like you’re under attack today by someone in your life, read these verses; focus, meditate, soak on them! Let them challenge, strengthen , encourage, convict you of what kind of person you ought to be in the midst of the attack. “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23
Pastor Mike