Free from Sin!

Salvation is such a beautiful gift! The way that God covered all bases and made sure that no question we could think of was left unanswered is incredible to me! Every time I read the Bible I find something else about His plan that I hadn't noticed before. I discover another piece of the huge quilt God has made and called "Salvation." The other day, that piece was this passage from Romans:

Romans 6:6-11: "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in he that liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

So many times in my life I have fallen into the trap of believing that I am powerless against sin in my life. I hear Satan whispering to me in moments of temptation, "You are flesh. You were born into sin. You cannot fight this. It is your nature. There is no victory." Satan uses half-truths and forms them into complete lies. In truth, we are born in sin and shapen in iniquity. (Psalm 51:5) It is true that our flesh is naturally attracted to sinful things and that we do not have to learn to lust after evil. (Psalm 103:14) However, God did not just come to this Earth and die to cover our sins whenever we sin. His blood is not just our Bandaid. It is so much more!
When we read the passage above, we can form these equations in our mind:

Dead through repentance = dead to our sinful ways = free to live a new life

Filled with the Holy Ghost = filled with the Power to overcome sin

As Paul states above, if you are dead you are free from sin. When Adam fell, he transferred control of his desires from God to Sin. He allowed Sin to reign as king in his mind and life. The only way to be free from Sin's control is to die. You cannot do enough charity work or memorize enough Scriptures. In order for Sin to lose its grip on you, you must die.

When Jesus Christ became the Living Gospel, he showed us the way to Salvation. His death on the cross, burial, and resurrection are the pattern by which we are saved. Through repentance, we die. Through Baptism, we are buried. Through the Holy Ghost, we are resurrected. If we have followed this pattern, how can sin still reign as king in our minds and lives? It cannot. We are dead, and therefore, we are loosed from Sin's grip.

Buried deep inside each of us is the desire to do and say what is right. If we do not snuff out that conscience, as we call it, it will correct us and chastise us when we do the wrong thing. God uses that voice to help us curb our sinful appetites. We cannot, however, be free from that sinful appetite until we die. While some choose to die physically because they cannot handle their sinful appetite anymore, Christians choose to accept the death of Jesus Christ and die spiritually. As Adam transferred his desires from God to Sin, Christians make the conscious effort and choice to transfer their desires back from Sin to God. It is not an easy task. However, it is completely achievable. As Paul states in the next few verses:

Romans 6:12-13: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God."

In other words, don't yield that control back to Sin after you have given it to God. Believe that you are dead to those ways, and combat Satan's attacks with the Holy Ghost. Use your new life in Christ to be an instrument in the kingdom of Heaven. Idle hands are the devil's playthings. Keep busy doing things for the kingdom and don't give yourself time to obey the lusts of the sin.

Only through God's provision of Salvation can any Christian hope to make that transfer, and only though His renewed mercies are we able to get back up after we fall. I want to encourage you that you are more than just an average, sinful human formed from dust. You have been remade and reborn, and Jesus Christ lives on the inside of you! Walk in purity in His power today!

Hearing God's Voice

Reading through the Book of Acts this last month, the story of Philip being translated to the desert to meet the Ethiopian eunuch stuck out to me. I don't remember every noticing the wording in Acts 8:29-35. It says: 

"Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot. And Phili ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth: In his humiliation his judgement was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth. And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus."

God knew when Isaiah wrote those words hundreds of years before that that man would read them in the desert that day. God knew that Philip would be able to use that Scripture to preach unto him Jesus. (After all, it was Isaiah!!)

My dad and I used to play a game when we rode in the car together. We would try to find patterns in each license plate we saw. For instance, the license plate 84404. One would notice that each numeral is the difference between the two previous. In other words: 8-4=4; 4-4=0; 4-0=4. This was our game, and on occasion, we would each see a different patter, sparking a discussion about the intricacies of the human mind.

Reading through the Bible can sometimes, in a small way, be like plaything that game. When reading the Scriptures, I sometimes have to stop and ask myself, "Ok, what is God trying to say here?" The Holy Ghost inside of me leads me into all truth (John 16:13), but I am still required to use the intellect and understanding that God has given me in order to understand what I am reading.

For instance, I was asked by a fellow student at Texas Bible College why I thought the geneologies were listed and saved in the Bible and why it could possibly be important for the New Testament church to read that. My answer was, "Maybe God was trying to remind us that every single person is inportant to Him and that He knows us each by name."

Being able to hear Jesus' voice while reading the Scriptures is very important. It is also important to be able to hear His voice when going through our day. Sometimes we don't hear from God through Scripture. Sometimes it is something simple. (See this song by 33Miles)

The Bible says in Romans 1:20:

"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse."

While this is talking about nature, it could also be said about living our daily lives. Fine-tuning our ears to hear His voice in the every day events will help us keep Him first in our minds. Some examples of this would be finding a coupon in the grocery store for an item you were about to buy, or cathching every light green on your way to work, or perhaps catching a red light and then coming up on an accident that you may have been part of if you hadn't been delayed. I had a God-moment like this the other day when I was able to hear my hometown's Christian radio station on the way to work (3 hours away from the tower!). I believe God delights in doing little things to remind us of His love so that we can more clearly hear His voice. When we stop to notice these God-Moments, we truly are "without excuse" as the Scripture above puts it.

The final lesson that I took from the story of Philip is that we need to not only be able to hear Jesus, but we also need to be able to preach Jesus. I am speaking of preaching from Scriptures. If someone knows you are a Christian and asks you about a certain Scripture in the Bible, you should do your best to preach Jesus to them from that Scripture or Bible story. You should also be able to preach Jesus from YOUR story. You should testify of Jesus' grace and provision throughout whatever situation in which you find yourself. You should be able to "preach Jesus" from unanswered prayers, hard situations, and times of great need, JUST AS MUCH as you preach Jesus when you land the job of your dreams, have a miracle baby, and have the best day of your life. Jesus allows you to hear His voice so that you can BE His voice to others. Remember, Peter's (and our) calling from the Lord was, "Feed my sheep." We are His sheep and we must learn to hear His voice for ourselves, but others around us who are not familiar with His voice need us to preach to them so that they might hear. As Romans 10:14b asks:

"How shall they hear without a preacher?"

The Ethiopian in the story in Acts was reading the words of God, but he needed someone to preach to him so that he might hear the VOICE of God.

Be Philip today and preach Jesus to someone. The world around you is teeming with opportunities to do it! You just have to choose one and go!

Shield Maidens

Our history is riddled with the idea of women breaking tradition and secretly becoming soldiers. From Mulan to Roza Shanina , stories abound of women who broke protocol and fought for the cause in which they believed. Perhaps the most literary term for these ladies comes from Norse history. Women have been exhumed and found to be buried with swords and shields. This has caused historians to look deeper into the literature of that time period. They have found a word that seems to depict these warrior women: Shield Maidens. The term “Shield Maiden” seems to depict a strong, yet humble, woman who knows her duty to her family and does it with the elegance and grace befitting a maiden.

In the world we live in today, we are facing a different kind of battle front. We are no longer discouraged from joining military ranks. Instead, we are discouraged from taking part in a battle that everyone seems to have forgotten. Our men are not fighting this battle. Our children are not fighting this battle. Our political leaders are not fighting this battle. It has been forgotten and pushed away as a “thing of the past” and “irrelevant.” This battle front needs shield maidens who will stand up and bear arms against the enemy. This battle front is not a physical battle. It is a spiritual one.

How can we fight in this battle? How can we be shield maidens in this realm?

A shield is a unique weapon. It is used primarily for defense, but it is also used, at times, for the offensive. If you have seen any sort of fencing, you will see that when the sword is knocked from a combatant’s hands, he lifts his shield to protect his body. His assailant, thinking he is now defenseless, begins to swing at him wildly, hoping to crush him beneath the fury of his blows. He has forgotten, however, that the shield is large, blunt, and usually quite heavy. When swung with strength and power, the shield becomes a heavy club, able of knocking a man back and away from its carrier. It is time for us, as women of God, to pick up our shields and carry them into this battle. It is time to use them to protect our families from the attack of this world and its prince, Satan. It is time to use them to fight back when our weapons have fallen from our hands.

Do you feel powerless as you watch your family fall to pieces? Do you feel hopeless as you watch your husband sink into frustrated depression?

It is time to pick up your shields, women of God! It is time to be a Shield Maiden.

Our shield is prayer. It is covering our husband, children, community, neighbors, pastor, church, and decisions in a shield called prayer. Spiritual protection has been lost too long in our society. The Shield of Prayer is no longer protecting our homes from the attack of Satan. The Shield of Prayer is missing from our decision making. The Shield of Prayer is our first form of defense when we feel hopeless. The Shield of Prayer will cover us when it looks like all is lost.

Our shield is faith. It is believing when all is dark. My pastor recently preached a message about the shield of faith that shredded my view of the shield. He shared how when Paul wrote about the shield of faith in Ephesians 4:16, he was speaking of the “SCOTUM” of the Roman army. These shields were about 3.5 feet tall, 16 inches across, and weighed about 22 pounds. It was an advantage over the enemies of the Roman soldier because of its size. The shield was large enough for a full grown man to hunker behind when arrows, javelins, and swords were thrust at him. However, when you are covering yourself with something that large, it can sometimes be hard to see around it. We may find ourselves “quenching all the fiery darts of the wicked,” but we are unable to see it happening because we are hunkered down behind a shield. The Shield of Faith impedes our view, but the Shield of Faith is believing that even though we cannot see what God is doing, He is working all to our good. A Shield Maiden of God will hold high her shield of faith when her family has lost faith. Her faith may be the last thing holding her family together, but her Shield of Faith will not let her give up hope.

Our shield is hope. Tied closely with faith, this hope inside of us is what keeps our faith strong. It is the constant watching with positivity for God to work out our situation. It is believing because of something inside of you that says, “it will happen” and not because something visible says, “It is happening.” The Shield of Hope is what sustains our faith to keep believing, no matter what. Our Shield of Hope is what gives us patience with God, our husbands, and our children. We hope for what we see not and with patience, we wait for it.

We are called to be warriors, Shield Maidens, who will carry our shields into war. We are called to protect and strengthen our families. When the sword is knocked from our hands and the wind is knocked from our sails, we must not quit. We must hold high our shield!