Don't Settle for Counterfeit Fulfillment

This [boredom] is why people are so prone to an addictive lifestyle. Many people who fall into sinful addictions are people who were once terminally bored. The reason why addictions are so powerful is that they tap into that place in our hearts that was made for transcendent communion and spiritual romance. These addictive habits either dull and deaden our yearnings for a satisfaction we fear we’ll never find or they provide an alternative counterfeit fulfillment that we think will bring long-term happiness, counterfeits like cocaine, overeating, illicit affairs, busyness, efficiency, image, or obsession with physical beauty. They all find their power in the inescapable yearning of the human heart to be fascinated and pleased and enthralled. Our hearts will invariably lead us either to the fleeting pleasures of addiction or to God. | Sam Storms

God Grant Me a Sensitive Conscience

Here's a newsflash for you: The Christian Life is Hard.

Now while you try to come to grips with this crazy thought, I want to share with you a few resources from John MacArthur on one of the greatest tools God has given us to help us battle sin.

"The conscience is generally seen by the modern world as a defect that robs people of their self-esteem. Far from being a defect or a disorder, however, your ability to sense your own guilt is a tremendous gift from God. He designed the conscience into the very framework of the human soul. It is the automatic warning system that cries, "Pull up! Pull up!" before you crash and burn." | John MacArthur - The Conscience, Revisited

That's right. A "guilty" conscience should not be ignored. Sensitivity to guilt is not primarily about making a person feel bad, but is instead about helping them stay sensitive to their sin. In Jeremiah, we see a passage of scripture that shows how Israel's sin no longer had any effect on them at all. A land where people had ignored their consciences and guilt for so long that their hearts were no longer sensitive to their sin. Their hearts were hard towards their iniquities and they actually forgot how to blush.

Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. | Jeremiah 6:15

The conscience is a tool which can be used to help us in our Christian walk, but we must work to keep our conscience sensitive. If we are not investing significant time into God's word and working to apply it to our lives, then our conscience will not be trained towards righteousness, but will instead be trained in worldliness. The old cliché, you are what you eat rings true here. What we invest our time into will be what we become. If we desire to be holy, then we must cling to what is holy. We must study God's holy word that our hearts may remain soft and aware of what is good, acceptable and perfect. Paul tells us in Romans 12:2:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

We can't discern what the will of God is if we are not investing significant time into studying, meditating on and memorizing his word. God has given us his bible and our consciences as tools for our pursuit of holiness, but these two things must work together. We must fill our hearts (and conscience) with God's truth if we truly desire to have a heart that is passionate for God and his glory.

I'll leave you with this short audio clip from John MacArthur which gives a wonderful analogy of how this all applies to our lives.

For His Glory,

Jason

How to Defy Sinful Desire

By faith Moses . . . [left] the fleeting pleasures of sin . . . for he was looking to the reward. (Hebrews 11:24–26)

Faith is not content with “fleeting pleasures.” It is ravenous for joy. And the Word of God says, “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). So faith will not be sidetracked into sin. It will not give up so easily in its quest for maximum joy.

The role of God’s Word is to feed faith’s appetite for God. And, in doing this, it weans my heart away from the deceptive taste of lust.

At first, lust begins to trick me into feeling that I would really miss out on some great satisfaction if I followed the path of purity. But then I take up the sword of the Spirit and begin to fight.

· I read that it is better to gouge out my eye than to lust (Matthew 5:29).

· I read that if I think about things that are pure and lovely and excellent, the peace of God will be with me (Philippians 4:8).

· I read that setting the mind on the flesh brings death, but setting the mind on the Spirit brings life and peace (Romans 8:6).

· I read that lust wages war against my soul (1 Peter 2:11), and that the pleasures of this life choke out the life of the Spirit (Luke 8:14).

· But best of all, I read that God withholds no good thing from those who walk uprightly (Psalm 84:11), and that the pure in heart will see God (Matthew 5:8).

As I pray for my faith to be satisfied with God’s life and peace, the sword of the Spirit carves the sugar coating off the poison of lust. I see it for what it is. And by the grace of God, its alluring power is broken.


John Piper: Future Grace, pages 335–336

Building the Foundation

"When children are little we often fail to engage them in significant conversation. When they try to engage us, we respond with uninterested “uh huh’s.” Eventually they learn the ropes. They realize that we are not interested in what goes on in them. They learn that a “good talk” for us is a “good listen” for them. When they become teens, the tables turn. Parents wish they could engage their teens, but the teens have long since stopped trying." | Tedd Tripp -- Shepherding a Child’s Heart

Have We Forgotten How to Blush?

I'm back from vacation and I am catching up on my Bible reading program. I came across a section of Jeremiah today, which brought me back to the first time I really read (and understood) it. Almost as if it was yesterday, I can still remember how this section of scripture hit me like a ton of bricks...like a punch to the stomach from Mike Tyson. The reality for Israel (as well as people today) is they became so comfortable and used to their sin, that they forget how to blush.

Jeremiah 6:13-15 (ESV)

“For from the least to the greatest of them,
everyone is greedy for unjust gain;
and from prophet to priest,
everyone deals falsely.
They have healed the wound of my people lightly,
saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
when there is no peace.
Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
No, they were not at all ashamed;
they did not know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown,”
says the Lord. 

Questions that deserve answers:

- Just like the prophets and priests of Israel, where is our embarrassment and shame about our own sin?
- Why can we so flippantly wear our sin around our necks, like a badge of honor, joking with our friends about choices we've made and things we've done which (as professing Christians) we should be embarrassed by.
- Why do we swat away, like a pesky fly buzzing around our food, the Holy Spirit's conviction...without taking even a moment to consider the damage we are causing by being so dismissive about our sin.
- Why have we lost our ability to see the reality of what sin is doing to us and to our lives, and worse yet...what our sin already cost our LORD and Savior, Jesus Christ?
- Why does it seem that we we are more concerned with how our sin affects/hurts other people (i.e. our family, friends, co-workers etc) or selfishly: how the consequences of our sin affects us (i.e. feeling sorry for ourselves) and yet we give so little regard to the fact that the most disastrous part of sin is that (as R.C. Sproul puts) it is cosmic treason.

"Even the slightest sin that a creature commits against his Creator does violence to the Creator’s holiness, His glory, and His righteousness. Every sin, no matter how seemingly insignificant, is an act of rebellion against the sovereign God who reigns and rules over us and as such is an act of treason against the cosmic King." | R.C. Sproul

Wake Up:

Isn't it time for us to wake up from our slumber? Isn't it time that we start to think biblically about sin? Put aside, just for a moment, how sin may affect other people. While the horizontal effects of sin are important, there is something much more devastating when it comes to the eternal significance of our sin, namely that unrepentant and habitual sin is what makes us enemies of God? (James 4:1-6)

Examine Yourselves:

The apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 13:5 says, "Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!"

"The truly loving child of God, though he knows sin is there, hates that sin; it is a pain and misery to him, and he never makes the corruption of his heart as an excuse for the corruption of his life; he never pleads the evil of his nature, as an apology for the evil of his conduct. If any man can, in the least degree, clear himself from the conviction of his own conscience, on account of his daily failings, by pleading the evil of his heart, he is not one of the broken-hearted children of God; he is not one of the tried servants of the Lord, for they groan concerning sin, and carry it to God’s throne; they know it is in them – they do not, therefore, leave it, but seek with all their minds to keep it down, In order that it may not rise and carry them away." | C.H. Spurgeon

I pray that as professing Christians, we will truly understand the significance of our sin. We can't afford to take this subject lightly. Yes, Jesus Christ paid the price for sin on the cross, but that was not so people could make a mockery out of Him by the way they choose to live their lives. We must examine ourselves and our hearts, to see if we are truly in the faith. If a person is not (by the power of the Holy Spirit) making war against the sin in their life....like it or not...they very easily might be heading towards eternal damnation. If a person cherishes their sin more than they cherish Christ, then the writing is already on the wall. “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and [sin]."

The Christian walk (i.e. discipleship) does cost us something, In fact, it costs us everything. Jesus said, "therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." We must do all we can to ensure we are not being fooled by false and misleading doctrine. The cost of true discipleship is very significant. However, what is gained by renouncing everything we have, will last for eternity. (Luke 14:25-33)

One of my favorite authors on the deadly effects of sin is John Owen. In his work, The Mortification of Sin, he said the following:

“Let no man pretend to fear sin that does not fear temptation also! These two are too closely united to be separated. He does not truly hate the fruit who delights in the root.” | John Owen

“Do you make [killing sin in your life] your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you” | John Owen

For His Glory,

Jason

Go Back to The Garden

"When it comes to practically every question about God's intentions for men and women, the answer is almost always the same: go back to the garden. When Jesus was asked about marriage (Matt. 19:4-6), He answered from Genesis 2. Likewise, when Paul was discussing the role of women in relation to men (1 Tim. 2:11-14), he found his answers in Genesis 2. The New Testament sees issues of gender and male-female relationships answered in the opening chapters of the Bible: the basic teaching on creation in Genesis 1 and the record of God's specific dealing with the first man and woman in Genesis 2. It is here that we should search for the Bible's most basic teaching on manhood."

Richard D. Phillips. The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men.

How Do We Feel About God's Word?

"Remember that it is not hasty reading, but serious meditation on holy and heavenly truths, that makes them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the mere touching of the flower by the bee that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time on the flower that draws out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most, that will prove to be the choicest, sweetest, wisest and strongest Christian." | Thomas Brooks

Psalm 119:97-104 (ESV)

97 Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.

A mark of a true Christian will be their love for God's law (his word) and their desire to meditate on it all day. It becomes for them the springboard for discovering who God is, who they are called and created to be and do. Sola scriptura (by scripture alone) asserts that the Bible is the only inspired and authoritative word of God, is the only source for Christian doctrine, and is accessible to all.

98 Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me.
99 I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.

100 I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts.

Why was this writer wiser than the others? Because the psalmist's enemies, teachers and the "aged" people he spoke of did not attend carefully to God’s word.

101 I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word.

The psalmist makes a conscience choice to avoid evil in order to keep God's word. Faithfulness over selfish, fleshly and sinful desires.

102 I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me.

Because the psalmist had a humble and "teachable" spirit, he is able to keep from sinning. God blessed his humility and replaced his sin with holiness.

103 How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

One mark of a true Christian is that God's word will become for them a sweet taste in their mouth. It will be a joyous experience for the Christian to read God's word, not out of obligation but instead because they delight in it.

104 Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.

Understanding sound doctrine will produce a hatred of false doctrine and practices.