I have spent lots of time with all kinds of people: believers and the lost, normal average people and addicts fighting for their lives, dirt poor and wealthy, ambitious and laid-back, happy and despairing… and I have come to some conclusions about prevailing extremes that people bound up in sin fall into. There are those who are not BROKEN OVER THEIR SIN and those who BELIEVE THEY ARE HOPELESSLY BROKEN.
I believe that if bible teachers only address one group, the other will suffer. I think many teachers address the first group more frequently. These are the teachers that teach: hell, fire, and damnation and fail to adequately cover the grace of God. Under this kind of teaching the second group will wilt and retreat. They might possibly withdraw from the Lord altogether.
The truth is that both groups of people are suffering under lies. When sin is raging unchecked in a person’s life it is evidence that the truth is not present. The person might have an intellectual understanding of the truth but it has yet to penetrate their heart. There are many awesome truths to be had. Regardless of which group you fall into, let the Word of God wash away the lies in this place and write truth on the walls of your heart.
Inadequate teaching on sin has failed both groups of people. This would be a teaching that focuses on a person’s behavior or deeds. Behavior modification is not what the Lord wants.
Psalms 51:16-17 says: You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. (17) The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
When we come face to face with the El Roi- God who Sees. We desperately need Jehovah- Maceaddeshe- the Lord thy Sanctifier. From the beginning of time we have been sanctified, purified through sacrifice and when our spirits are broken over our sin we are in the perfect position to surrender. A person who is standing tall in the strength of their own accomplishments is not in the position to be perfected.
Pride is one of the toughest sins to deal with because the person suffering under it is unable to see their need for a savior. They can look at a person like me and know that I need a savior and still be unable to see their own need for a savior. When I came face to face with a perfect God my spirit immediately bowed down in submission, knowing that there was no way to please God by fleshly means. I had nothing in me that could make my flesh submit. Only Christ can do that. Once you are in the posture of being broken over your sin, the Lord is very close to you.
Psalms 34:18 says: The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
2 Corinthians 7:10 says Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
When we are wrought with sorrow over our sin we are in a position to be freed from that bondage. But do be careful not to slip into a worldly sorrow that this verse differentiates here. I believe the first part of this verse is describing people who are BROKEN OVER THEIR SIN and have a sorrow that will lead to repentance.
But a worldly sorrow is seen in people who BELIEVE THEY ARE HOPELESSLY BROKEN, people who operate under the lie that they are worthless. When we are broken over our sin we have our eyes fixed on the perfection of our savior. When we are focused on our state of brokenness we are focused on ourselves.
I remember being rebuked once by the words of Beth Moore when she said something to the effect of: Self loathing is still self worship. Worship is focus and when we are focused on how worthless we are, we are worshiping ourselves.
When we keep our eyes fixed on ourselves and all our failures, shame is what we are operating in. Shame is good masquerading as humility in the church. I don’t care what you think it is. If you are cowering in the corner loathing yourself, it is not what the Lord has for you. Shame is from the enemy and keeps your eyes fixed on your worthlessness. Humility has all eyes fixed on Jesus and the power his blood has to redeem us and make us new.
In an effort to reach the segment of the population who are not broken over their sin, a lie has invaded the church… It is the lie that we, human beings, are broken and there is nothing good in us. Even Christians retain this identity after they have received Christ. For years I operated under this incomplete teaching. You see in every good lie there is an element of truth.
As I was growing up, I was taught that people are nothing but sinners. They are hopelessly broken. I am not saying that this is a false teaching. It is merely incomplete. I think the lie has crept in through the back door of semantics. I believe the lie slips in through the wording we use. We don’t even realize what we are saying and we are serving to dishearten the body of Christ and turn the lost away.
This teaching’s purpose is to help show people who are not broken over their sin their need for a savior. It is true that because of the fall of man we have sin nature from the very beginning of our life. Sin is not something we are taught. It is something we have in our hearts. But I believe that is only part of the truth.
Does the fact that man fell in Genesis 3 give us the right to say that we are “nothing but sinners” or that we are “hopelessly broken?” Does that mean there is “no good in us?”
If you are committed to these statements, just hear me out. In the last chapter I dealt with the people who are not BROKEN OVER THEIR SIN. In this chapter I want to speak to those who BELIEVE THEY ARE HOPELESSLY BROKEN. If the Lord brought you into a place where you had to be broken over your sin and it served to transform you, it is easy for you to see the need for that in the lives of others. But let me tell you: people get stuck in that place (being broken) and turn from the Lord because they think they are worthless human beings incapable of doing good. I got stuck in that place.
When I was in anguish over my sin there were some bible verses that tormented me.
Hebrews 10:26-27 says: If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, (27) but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.
I used to think that “received the knowledge of the truth” was those who were saved. Notice the focus in this verse is on receiving knowledge and not actual truth. There is a segment of the church population who have the knowledge in their head of God’s saving grace and have not experienced any transformation of the heart. They have not truly received the truth in their heart and it is evidence of their lack of salvation. If they are not BROKEN over their sin, it is an indicator that they do not truly know Christ.
We cannot be conceited enough to look into a person’s life who is bound up in sin and think we know if that person is broken over their sin. Only God knows the heart. That person can allow the Lord to search their heart to find if they have received the truth or merely the knowledge of the truth. Let’s not be too quick to judge another person’s heart by their actions alone.
Romans 2:5 says: But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.
When I was walking as a slave to my sin, these two verses tormented me! And yet within these very verses was the truth that was supposed to set me free. I was struggling to change my behavior and yet what the Lord wanted to do was transform my heart. Notice, again, that the focus of this verse is on the heart and not on behavior, “because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart…” My heart was repentant, truly broken over my sin and yet I struggled to get my flesh to line up with the desires of my heart, the desire to honor God.
There is a battle that goes on between our flesh and our heart… our true self. When the heart is crying out for justice and the flesh is drawn to wickedness, the conflict can drive a person mad. The fact that a conflict exists is evidence that the Holy Spirit is alive and active in a person. If you can engage in sin day after day and not have guilt eating at you, it may be evidence that the Holy Spirit does not dwell in you.
This is why we find ourselves at the Lord’s feet. He is the one who searches our heart and He knows our motives. As I said, no one can look at a person’s deeds and know what is in their heart. Only the Lord can do that. A person has to have the desire to allow the Lord to examine them.
Revelation 3:1b-3 says: "To… the church in
God makes it very clear that our deeds are not what He cares the most about. When we stand before God and give him a list of all of our good deeds to justify ourselves, we must step back and examine our heart. Only he knows if we are alive or dead.
So let me strengthen what remains and is about to die, those of you who have a repentant heart and want your deeds line up with that desire to obey God, because his kindness brings you to repentance. I want to lift you up so that you do not die. You may take that as figurative or literal.
I have no desire to stand over another grave of a person who believes they are hopelessly BROKEN. Habitual sin in the life of a person who knows Christ is an indicator that the person is believing a lie. There are some pretty common lies that people fall under and it is different for everyone. Just as there is a wealth of truths in the bible, there is a wealth of lies from the pit of hell. Many times when a person is suffering under sin they have not even identified the lie.
Usually they are focused on their behavior. People drink or do drugs so they don’t feel guilty when they engage in sin. They can’t stop looking at porn. They get into debt and they begin to deceive and lie about things to cover their tracks. They are focused entirely on their career or padding their savings account and are neglectful or unloving toward their families.
In all these situations the focus is on behavior but if you look closely at each situation there is a lie that the person has bought: hook, line, and sinker. They are a slave to fear. They feel unworthy of love from a just God. They do not believe God will supply their needs and so they find security in money or possessions. As I said, there is a wealth of lies that can find any weak spot in our heart.
What has it been that the enemy uses to devour the hearts of the ones I love? What is the lie that gets the warrior in me so riled up? I suppose it is the lie that has defeated so many of my loved ones and caused people to take their own lives.
In the past 2 years I have suffered the loss of three dear people to suicide. Not the least of which is my own mother. I took all my anger and grief and decided to take up arms against the lie that had my loved ones bound. These dear women were broken over their sin and received the truth of Christ’s salvation in their hearts and yet they believed that they were irrevocably broken and their lives were not worth living.
These women were people I loved. They knew me and I knew them. I shared my heart with them. They were women who had beautiful hearts; women who served the Lord. They did the Lord’s work and changed lives with their service and testimonies and yet at the end of the day, when all was said and done, in the dark of the night, they believed a lie.
Ultimately the enemy devoured their light by their own hand. They picked up a bottle or picked up a gun, and took their life. The world stands back on sheer awe and confusion. How can this happen? They had the truth at their finger tips. They knew the truth and yet the lie served to stop their work on earth.
I don’t want their work on earth to be done and I tell their stories so the tragedy of their deaths has some purpose. I want you to know that you have to seek out the truth at all costs. It is a matter of life and death! These three dear souls were completely focused on their BROKENNESS and not on the life that was in them.
Finding the truth is not optional for me. Identifying the lies in your life is not enough. It is an important part of the process but most lies will not be seen unless revealed in the light of the truth. The Word of God, the truth, will reveal what is in the dark.
Read the rest of this series here
http://heisthepotteriamtheclay.blogspot.com/2010/11/is-there-any-good-in-my-heart.html
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