It’s a sin to lie. The Bible doesn’t whitewash it. Colossians 3:9 says, “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds.” The Bible does not permit lying, whether the occasional lie of convenience, or the so-called “white” lie. God does not want us avoiding dealing with the truth. Ephesians 4:25 says, “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another.”
We have used the word “cuss” as a euphemism for “curse,” since “curse” carries such a negative connotation with it. I doubt anyone really thinks of themselves as uttering curses, though, whether we use the word “cuss” or “curse” it is really the same thing: one is cursing an object, person, or action with one’s language. Such cursing is sinful.
God also foresaw that Christians would need a regular time to meet with other Christians. So, he had Jesus establish the Lord’s Supper to be observed every first day of the week. Acts 20:7 tells us that the church met on this day for this very purpose. In Hebrews 10:24-25, the Holy Spirit said, “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
When we find ourselves not doing anything, it is easy for the mind to wander back to darker times. Staying busy doing the Lord’s work keeps our mind focused on the present. The Christian has plenty of work to do. The only question is whether he will get busy doing it, but what if he does not feel like doing it? Do it anyway. We should not subject our work for the Lord to our negative feelings. Rather, our feelings should be subject to the work we do.
What got him beyond the mental paralysis of past failure? It was God’s grace in his Savior, Jesus Christ. He said: “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him…” (Philippians 3:7-10). In 1 Corinthians 15:10 Paul wrote, “But by the grace of God I am what I am.”
For many, the problem is that we do not want to let go. We want to control and “fix” things. This attitude is deceptive. It does not eliminate the past but reinforces our failures by getting us to dwell on them. If we think we can “fix” or “control” things, we will not let the past go, and it will continue to haunt us. We do not need to be a “fixer” or have “control.” If we want peace, we will give it to God and let it go from our thoughts entirely.
Negative thoughts can be a big struggle as we try to forgive ourselves. Recurring negative thoughts may be symptoms of unresolved issues. In the previous article we noted that identifying when these negative thoughts begin can help us stop them, but it can also help us determine what is triggering them to get at the root cause. We can address these causes with God’s word.
Our struggle with self forgiveness may include old and painful memories. Sometimes these memories plague us in an endless loop of negative thoughts and pictures. We need to address our memories in a constructive way. When old memories continue to bother us, that indicates a lack of resolution. Are we trying to the same problem in the future? Do we feel like we were treated unjustly? Are we using those memories to justify present behavior? Are we are hung up in unbelief that something so terrible happened to us, a denial of reality?
Just because one has sinned does not mean that that is what one is. Christ does not casually destroy His new creation! If the Christian sins, Christ has made a way for him to be forgiven to maintain his novel status (1 John 1:7). Sin does not have dominion over the child of God (Romans 6:14). The Christian may come back to the deep wells of forgiveness as much as he needs to overcome the sin that is in his life (Matthew 18:22).
Satan wants to own our identity. He wants sin to define us because that is what defines Him. He wants us to identify with our sins so that He can control us in His orchestrated rebellion against God. Just because we commit a sin does not mean that our identity is that sin. We must put Christ in the place of those sins. He is the standard for who God made us to be (Galatians 2:20). He does not want us identifying with our sins. Instead, He wants us to be found in Him (Philippians 3:9).
We need to know that God loves us and forgives us. Sometimes people say to themselves, “God could never forgive me for what I have done.” That is a lie. He gave the highest price that He could give for us, His only begotten Son. Why would He hold back on us when He was willing to give everything for us? That is Paul’s point in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” God is generous in forgiveness.
Greed, covetousness, lust, and pride contribute to a person’s love of money, which is the motivation behind the desire to be rich. Men deceive themselves to think that money will solve their problems. Instead, they fall into temptation, harm themselves with lusts, and drown in destruction and perdition. This generates sorrow for them and their families.
God never gave Adam and Eve any money. Humans invented money to facilitate exchanges. Money is just a tool; it has no value beyond what we assign to it. Its only value is in what it can be used for, and if we are not using it, we are valuing it wrongly.
The apostle Paul teaches us that one purpose to prayer is so that “we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.” A good Christian wants peace with others (Romans 12:18). This peace gives us the opportunity to practice godliness and reverence. Physical disruptions, such as famine, war, violence, and disease, distract from daily Christian living. The good life is the quiet and peaceable life showered by God’s blessings of family and friends who assemble as Christians to worship.
When Jesus says, “Not my will, but thine be done” (Luke 22:42), is that about pleasing the masses? When the Savior washes the disciples dirty, nasty, filthy toes (John 13:2-17), is that about personal preference? When you see God take the form of a slave (Philippians 2:5-8), is the church about “your choice?” When an innocent Man dies on the cross for the sins of the world (John 20), is that about the “experience of worship?” Should consumerism form the church or the cross?
Reaching one’s full potential looks different for different people. For many, holding a job, providing for one’s family, and giving to the local church will fulfill God’s plans. Others will need to occupy roles of leadership where they may guide God’s people forward into the future. Regardless of one’s position, he will need to levy an appropriate amount of ambition. It is not enough to sit still, rest on one’s laurels, and maintain the status quo. There must be an effort to push upward and onward with God’s purposes.
The purpose of marriage is to produce “godly offspring” (Malachi 2:15). The married must remain married to rear godly children and demonstrate lifelong faithfulness. Pleasure in the sexual relationship provides a strong emotional attachment to encourage faithfulness. To have godly offspring, husbands and wives must have sex both to reproduce and reinforce fidelity.
Today, the world has changed God’s original purposes for sex. Pleasure has become the chief aim. Sex is pleasurable, but if that is its chief purpose, marriage no longer has any real significance beyond pleasure, and when the married decide there is no more pleasure, they will abandon their relationship. Consider, however, the difference between that and the notion that reproduction is the primary purpose of sex. When reproduction is the goal, married people may pursue that goal together by having and rearing children. That goal will not admit to easy defeat because they are investing themselves in something other than themselves, their children.
Men are to labor to provide for their wives and children. 1 Timothy 5:8 says, “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” Women are to take care of the home and care for children. Paul wrote to Titus, “The older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things—that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed” (Titus 2:3-5).
God gave Adam and Eve very definite roles in relationship to the family. Adam was to be the “breadwinner” of the home by going out and working hard to provide for the family. Eve was to bear and take care of their children. These roles were the consequence of Adam and Eve’s sin against God, and the post-fall standard for the distribution of labor in the home.