What it Means to Keep on Sinning.

Mike Hosey, An Elder

Sometimes the bible presents us with disturbing truths. These truths serve as dire warnings of terrible things to come, and they should not be ignored. However, some teachers have relied too heavily on these dark truths as a means of scaring people into serving God, rather than inspiring them to serve God by illustrating his enormous love and overflowing grace. When this is the sole tactic used, people serve God because they don’t want to be punished, and not because they actually love him. This makes for fake service. Imagine a wife who supplies her husband with intimacy because she fears that if she doesn’t she’ll be beaten. Such intimacy is either cold, or fraudulent. 

Because these ominous truths are so potentially terrible, they sometimes color how we read other parts of the bible. If we are not careful, we will misinterpret those other passages too darkly. One such place where that often happens is in 1 John 3. In that passage, the apostle whom Jesus loved tells us that “no one who lives in him keeps on sinning, and that no one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him (1 John 3:6).” A truly saved person gets a gut check after reading that. Most people freak a bit because they realize that even though they’ve honestly submitted their lives to Jesus, they continue to have moments of sin. In fact, they may even continue to battle sinful desires. Their fear comes because they have focused on the second part of the verse, and forgotten the first. It also serves as evidence of their salvation. Whenever we are living in Jesus -- that is whenever we are placing him as the highest priority in our lives, and following in his footsteps, and adopting his attitudes -- we won’t keep sinning. In other words, we won’t make a practice of sinning. Because we can’t. Our lives will have a different pattern and a different proclivity. If we are living in Jesus, we will feel remorse for sin, and try to correct it. It’s actually a very positive message. A person who lives in Jesus does not keep sinning as a practice and lifestyle, because his new nature supernaturally compels him or her to separate from sin. This may play out in long, painful and difficult battles against the former patterns in our lives, but it will play out. On the other hand, a person who has never really known, or never really seen Jesus, will continue in a lifestyle of sin, will have no remorse for transgression, and will fight no painful battles against his or her former patterns of behavior. In fact, his or her sin will compel him or her to avoid holiness. If sin doesn’t bother you, then you might not have actually submitted yourself to Jesus. And if you didn’t, you are missing out on a life that’s way better than any fleeting (and corrosive) pleasures your sins currently bring you.

How Healthy are Your Food Sources

Mike Hosey, An Elder

You’ve heard the old saying, “you are what you eat.” Obviously, this statement is not to be taken absolutely literally. Instead, its a figure of speech designed to help you remember to watch your eating habits. For instance, the statement doesn’t mean that if you eat carrots, you’ll turn into a root vegetable. And it doesn’t mean that if you eat twinkies that you’ll turn into a spongy, cream filled pastry. What the saying means is that if you put healthy food into you, then you’ll be healthy, but if you fill yourself with junk food then your body will pay the price of becoming unhealthy.

 So much of the truth of that statement is to remind us to consider the source of what we intake. An interesting process occurs based on how we source our food. The more good food you eat, the more your body will crave good food. And the more junk food you eat, the more your body will crave junk food. If you drink sodas all of the time, then when you become thirsty, your body will crave soda. If you drink water all of the time, then when you are thirsty, your body will crave water. When you discipline your body’s sourcing, it takes on the attributes of that sourcing. A person who is healthy doesn’t regularly partake in unhealthy activities, because to do so would change him or her into something unhealthy.

John talks about this in 1 John 2:15-17. He reminds us that if we pursue the things of the world -- things that are associated with lust, or pride, or fleshly desires -- then we don’t have the love of God in us. But if we pursue the things of God, then our love for God is evident. The more we pursue worldly things, the more worldly we become. The more we pursue spiritual things, the more we become spiritual.

Finally, he reminds us that spiritual things are superior because they last forever. Worldly things, are temporary. In other words, you can have the fleeting pleasures of junk food, or you can have the everlasting well being of healthy food. So take some time this week with God to check your intake sources.

Living in a Faith Community

Mike Hosey, an Elder

Every Christian must live his or her life under authority. We are to live under the authority of the Bible, and under the authority of Jesus, and his Holy Spirit, and under the authority of God the father.  We are instructed to live our church lives under the authority of our church elders and the wisdom that God flows through them. We are even to live our lives under the authority of secular governments as long as they don’t conflict with God’s authority (Romans 13:1-7, 1 Peter 2:13-17).

This can be a difficult task because we don’t always like what God wants us to do. Further, our human authorities are human enough to be quite wrong every now and then. 

John metes out some of that authority in 1 John 2:7-8 when tells his readers that he is giving them both an old commandment and new commandment. In other words, he tells them that there is a command authority they are to respect. Typical of John in this particular letter, he doesn’t immediately identify that commandment. Instead, he moves quickly into a discussion of how hating one’s brother is a form of walking in sinful darkness. But his reference to a new commandment echoes the words of Jesus in the gospel of John 13:34-35.  In that passage, Jesus gives his disciples the “new” commandment to love one another as he has loved them, and that this will show the world that they belong to him.  Interestingly, most of the chapter before that specific command has Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. He is loving them in a service capacity. He then tells them to love each other as he has loved them. 

This sheds a great deal of light on John’s unnamed old/new commandment and his statements about hating one’s brothers and walking in darkness.  John is reminding his readers that they should be loving each other with works of service, and that if they are not doing so, but are instead actively neglecting them, then they are walking in darkness, and potentially showing the world that they may not belong to Jesus. 

The larger point is that we are commanded to live in community with one another. This is a recurring theme throughout the New Testament. The act of feet washing that Jesus taught was symbolic of loving by serving one’s faith community.  So how do you follow that command to love others in your faith community? Do you serve in children’s ministry, or clean your church building, or invite others to worship, or freely give your tithe, or take meals to someone who is sick, or serve on workday, or greet new comers, or help at a small group?  There are plenty of great opportunities!

Looking at my Sins with Jesus

Mike Hosey, An Elder

One of the most liberating things I do in my life is to admit my flaws. Acknowledging that I am imperfect isn’t always easy, but it takes a lot of weight off of my shoulders because it frees me to recognize that I’m not in control of everything. More importantly, though, it prompts me to honestly look at where I need improvement. Not conceding a flaw means that I don’t have to look at it, and of course, ignoring it means that I can’t work toward fixing it. Considerably more liberating – and considerably harder – is admitting that I am an active sinner, with an actively sinful heart. Confession of sin, if done rightly, is uncomfortable, and even painful. This is because you’re not just passively recognizing a flaw. Instead, you are owning up to poor choices that you knew were wrong, or should have known were wrong. You are taking responsibility for damaging your relationship with God, and perhaps even other people. You are granting that there is a predisposition in you toward evil that requires regular attention. 

But if we don’t experience this pain by admitting our part in sinful decisions, then it is evidence that we don’t know Jesus, which in turn means that we may not have him to plead our case before a just and faithful God – a God who is faithful to punish our sins, or to forgive them (1 John 2:1, Matthew 7:21-23).  Just like when we don’t admit to a flaw, we are doomed to keep the sin and not make improvements.  On the other hand, admitting our sins allows Jesus to shine his light into our lives and expose those things to us we’d rather not touch. Doing this allows him to cleanse us, and helps us to know that we belong to him (1 John 1:5-10).

Recognizing, confessing, and turning from sin in our lives is vital to Christian growth and maturity. I realized this some years ago when I took a careful inventory of my life. I realized that I had ignored God’s desires for my life, and that I had a terrible penchant for pride, lust, laziness, and even selfishness. I rarely looked at the places in my heart that harbored these evils. And I rarely considered how these evils hurt the people around me that I said I loved. Don’t get me wrong, I still battle with all of these (and others) – often on a daily basis.  But I am more inclined to win those battles now than I’ve ever been.  This is because in my Christian journey, I have learned to take a personal inventory not every few years, or months or weeks, but multiple times a day. This allows me to catch the sin as quickly as it has happened -- sometimes even before it happens. This humbling exercise liberates me from the grip of those sins that separate me from my God, and hurt the people around me.