CWW Week 23 – Day 6 – Dealing With Sin 

Reconciliation; Cutting Sin Off At The Pass.

2 Corinthians 5:18-19 states:

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”

In this passage, reconciliation through Christ is presented as a means of overcoming the barrier of sin between humanity and God. The idea is that through Jesus’ sacrifice, the estrangement caused by sin is healed, and people are brought back into a right relationship with God. This reconciliation is central to the Christian understanding of how sin is ultimately addressed and defeated.

Every morning the light gets brighter as I write these devotionals in the pre dawn hours. The things of scripture that we eat with the mind need to be digested in our hearts.

When the heart is kept supple and tender it can do it’s work of life support to it’s best potential. A heart of stone cannot pump and cannot move. Because of it’s rigidity it is prone to crack under the pressure exerted on it to move.

Or is it that a tender heart becomes encased in concrete which does not allow it to move and do it’s work?

Sin is the great heart hardener.

I have seen a problem in the way we view sin. I think we major on a few and minor on the others. Sexual sin, theft and deceit, murder and these headline sins seem to take prominence while the lesser sins are put in the category of, these things happen.

But lets look at how the these things happen category can quickly develop into capitol sins.

Your friend who has been through thick and thin with you has a bad day and says something that wounds or offends you. You love them and kind of let it go, but a bruise develops that causes you to maximise the problem.

A cognitive distortion sets in. Cami Martin  who works at the Nedley Clinic in the US has constructed an interesting paper on the subject.

The bruise gets our attention and we focus on it as each day passes. Our natural tendency to think the worst, maximises the lie that we start telling ourselves about our friend. This in turn minimises the truth and that truth is that we are all sinners saved by grace and that we all have bad days and we need to tell the truth to each other faster and get on with character development. Your friend was probably maximising a lie and minimising the truth too right?

When a disagreement festers into a cognitive distortion, evil gets to work. Before you know it, a distance comes between you, with feelings of hurt and resentment. This may well lead to feelings of hatred. From this comes lies and gossip and before you know it, conflict.

Jesus says that if you hate someone you murder them in your heart thus breaking the sixth commandment; thou shalt not murder.

 1 John 3:15. 

“Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.”

We are called on to be reconciled to our brothers and sisters, to all men. Christ came and died on the cross to emphasise this very point. He died for our sins that we may be reconciled to the Father in Heaven.

When we hate one another we encourage sin in those around us. We must shine the light of truth. The truth that says that none of us is perfect and we all fall short of the glory of God and that Jesus is the only remedy to this deadly situation.

Theres one other person we need to stop hating. Ourselves. 

We often maximise the lies about ourselves and minimise the truth that we are loved and created in the image of God. That’s the truth.

As we need to look for God in each other and ignore the garbage, we must also do that in ourselves. We are called on to hate the sin but love the sinner. It’s time to get busy living or get busy dying.

Our scripture today clearly states that God wants us to be reconciled to Him and each other and ourselves. That if we do He will not hold our sins against us. If we are created in His image then that means that we mustn’t hold grudges either.

Maybe it’s time to just let go and let God do his work in us all.

The message for today is to stop maximising untruths and minimising real truth. It’s time to cut each other a whole heap of slack and start healing and character developing.

Questions

1. Do you focus more on the lies of the world than the real truth?
2. Are you mining for darkness to support your perceptions of those around you?
3. Is it time now to live in the truth and seek the gems of reconciliation?

Prayer.

Dear Lord, Papa God.

Help me to stop looking at my life through the knot hole of my own pain and the pain of others. Help me to maximise truth and minimise lies and deceptions. Protect me from a hard and immovable heart and lead me to still waters as I move to have You do all the heavy lifting that I cannot do in my own strength. Help me Papa to focus on the urgency of repentance and reconciliation.

For this is my prayer in Jesus name.

Amen.

Have a great day with Jesus.

Graham Hood.