By Ney Bailey

From time to time, we all see areas in our lives that we struggle with; areas that we wish could be different. It might be moral failures or habits that have us discouraged. How does God want us to approach those areas? Is there a way to find freedom and real change? Yes. What I have come to understand about God’s grace has made a powerful difference in my life. And I believe it can make a powerful difference in yours.

When you hear the word grace, what comes to mind? I think the best definition I’ve found is by author Joseph Cooke who wrote, “Grace is nothing more nor less than the face that love wears when it meets imperfection, weakness, failure, sin.”¹

What is grace?

It’s that quality in the heart of God that causes Him not to deal with us according to our sins, or to retaliate against us according to our iniquities. It is God’s faithfulness to us, even when we are not faithful. In fact, it is what love must always be when it meets the unlovely, the weak, the inadequate, the undeserving, and the despicable. God is willing to respond to need without reference to merit. It is unmerited favor.

God’s grace pours out love, kindness, favor to all who will trust Him. You don’t have to earn it. You just have to be in relationship with Him to receive His grace.

We most need God’s grace when we become aware of aspects in our lives we know are wrong—things like: poor decisions, habits, behavior that we are ashamed of, areas we want God to change, but where we may fear His condemnation. If we have received Christ into our hearts, we have been declared His own, forgiven, and now under His grace. It is His grace that frees us and changes us. This is why it is so important to know what Scripture says about God’s grace.

We are all aware that inside of us, we have a good part and we have a bad part. We have a part that we want the world to see—when we are on our best behavior. And then we have a part we would rather hide—things we are ashamed of.

We live in culture bent toward self-improvement. We spend a good deal of time and energy analyzing ourselves and trying to figure out how to make the bad part better. We go shopping or to the gym focusing time, energy and money on improving what we consider to be the bad part. And the part we can’t improve, or we haven’t improved yet, we tend to hide.

Hiding in Shame

Have you ever been in a situation where you are getting to know someone, and way down deep inside you say, “I hope they don’t find out this about me?” Or you may tell a good friend, “Please don’t tell anyone this about me.” When we enter our relationship with God, we may think that He is like we are. We think that we need to hide our bad part from Him. However, if we try to hide unacceptable portions of our personality, we can lose touch with our real selves and we can lose touch with God.

God is not like this. His ways are not our ways. He doesn’t accept our good part and reject our bad part. He sees us as a whole person. He doesn’t see us as a split personality. He says, “Don’t try to make your bad part better. It’s impossible on your own. No matter how much better you can make it, it will never be good enough, because I am perfect. Give me your good part and your bad part and let me make you whole.”

How can we experience God’s grace?

It’s difficult to understand grace without understanding the law. We see God’s perfect law, His commands, how He wants us to live…and frankly we often don’t measure up. What do we do with the law, with God’s commands? The law is like a mirror for us. When you look into a mirror you may see a big smudge of dirt on your face that you didn’t know was there. The mirror can’t get rid of the dirt, but you’re really glad you looked at that mirror before you walked out the door. In the same way, God’s law reveals our shortcomings, our sins, and we are thankful to see them, so that we can bring them to God, and God can deal with them through His grace. Galatians 3:24 says, “The law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ that we may be justified by faith.” When we come to Christ we know we need a Savior. The fact is, for the rest of our lives, we will always need a Savior.

Hebrews 4:13-16 says: “And there is no creature hidden from His sight but all things are opened and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore, draw near with confidence to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Come in Truth and Humility

We can experience grace when we come to the throne of grace, in truth and in humility. The opposite of coming in truth is when we try to hide and we don’t come to the light.

I’m going to be candid and share an area of my life that I needed to bring to the Lord, to His throne of grace. The whole area of food has been a difficulty for me most of my life. I don’t ever remember being heavy as a child, but I do remember when I was about in 10th grade my friends (who weighed less than I did) complained about how fat they were. And I thought, “If they think they’re fat and I weigh more, I must really be fat!” I think at that time I weighed something like 118. I remember that’s when food started to become an issue in my life. And I would think about what I shouldn’t eat, which made me want to eat it all the more.

And my mother would say things like, “I think you would look better in your clothes if you wouldn’t eat that. Why don’t you try to lose weight?” She even took me to a weight doctor.

When I went off to college, knowing I shouldn’t eat certain things, I would get food and then I would hide it. I would hide Hershey bars in my drawer. One time I had a whole pound cake under my bed. And if someone said you shouldn’t eat that, it would make me want about 10 of them. We had two hamburger places close by to campus. I can remember going to one and ordering a cheeseburger, fries and a coke and eating that. Then I would get in the car and go down to the next hamburger place and I would order another cheeseburger, fries and a shake. I was too embarrassed to get that much food in the same place so I would get it in two different places. And if my time was a little shorter, I would go to one place and say, “Let’s see. I want a cheeseburger, fries and a coke.” Then I’d say, “Now what did he want? Oh yeah, he wanted a hamburger and a coke and fries.” I would act like I was ordering for two people. And I would go out and eat it all. But I hid. And I lied.

Freedom from Hiding

When I came to Christ, He accepted me as I was and gradually through the years there has been a measure of healing in the eating situation. Back then I was a compulsive eater and through the years the Lord has taken most of the compulsion away from me.

But occasionally I will struggle, especially with my thoughts. For example, I knew I was going to speak at a large singles conference at Keystone, Colorado, and I thought, “I’ve got to lose weight by the time I get to Keystone.” I would try and I couldn’t quite do it. So I thought, “Okay, next Monday I’ll start.” And the time was getting closer so about two weeks before I went to the conference, I still wanted to lose about 10 pounds. The more I tried the less I could do. I confided to a dear friend, “You know Kay, I’m really discouraged about my weight. I’m just not doing very well. I’d like to lose about 10 pounds before I go to Keystone.” I told her what I weighed. And she looked at me and said, “Ney, do you think they are going to love you more at that conference if you weigh less?” And I got choked up. And I said, “You know Kay, I think there is something in me that does think that.” And she looked at me and said, “Ney, I love you just like you are. I don’t care how much you weigh.” And I started to cry. My friend Kay demonstrated grace to me as I humbled myself and told her the truth. And you know what? I found a new internal motivation and lost some of that weight.

What the law could not do grace did. In Hebrews 13:9, it says, “It is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace.” God will do the same for us, if we will come to Him in honesty.

Look at Luke 18:9-14, where Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up into the temple to pray: one, a Pharisee and the other a tax gatherer. The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, ‘God I thank Thee that I am not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers or even like this tax gatherer. I fast twice a week. I pay tithes of all I get.’ But the tax gatherer, standing some distance away was even unwilling to lift up his head to heaven, but was beating his breast saying. ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exults himself shall be humbled but he who humbles himself shall be exulted.”

Come with Honesty and Faith

If we refuse to humble ourselves and receive His grace, then there is no relationship. As we come to the Lord and tell Him how we are falling short in those areas then He will meet us in that need with His grace. God is not demanding that we change ourselves. Instead He asks us to come to Him in honesty and faith, and cast all our cares on Him. (1 Peter 5:5-7)

The healthiest people are the people who are aware of where they fall short and instead of being defensive, they are able to say, “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.”

The Pharisees tried hard to be holy, to keep the law, but their motivation was to impress others. Jesus called them “white-washed tombs.” They appeared fine on the outside, but inside they were dead and their hearts were bitter toward Jesus. For example, they went to the extreme to enforce the law “to do no work on the Sabbath.” When Jesus, out of compassion healed someone on the Sabbath they criticized Him for it.

Sometimes it’s easier for us to have a relationship with the law than it is to have a relationship with the Lord. And Satan would much rather we focus on the law (God’s commands) than for us to focus on the Lord.

Do we want to experience God’s grace? We need to come in truth and humility. James 4:6 says, “God is opposed to the proud but He gives grace to the humble.”

Some years ago, a young woman came up to me at the end of a seminar. Her face looked full of darkness and she seemed very weighed down and condemned. As we began to talk, I realized that Christ was in her life, but she had a habit in her life that she was very ashamed of. She had tried and tried to get rid of it, but to no avail. She couldn’t stop it. In spite of all of her vows and effort, she couldn’t stop it. And when this thing happened she felt awful, and she felt condemned. I explained to her that Satan loves for us to sin and he loves to beat us over the head with it and to condemn us. And I asked her if she had ever brought it to the Lord. And she said no. She was so ashamed of it that she had never brought it to the Lord.

I said, “The next time this happens, instead of staying isolated, instead of staying condemned, I want you to use your sin to remind you of God’s love.” I told her the next time she was in the process, she should bring it to the light, saying something like this, “Lord I thank you that I belong to You. Lord, I thank you that You love me. Lord, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me from all sin. Lord, I acknowledge my sin, but I cannot do otherwise unless you enable me. Lord, I put my will; I put myself, on the side of You and Your Word. Will you do in me and through me by Your Spirit what I cannot do for myself?”

I prayed with her and together we thanked God for His grace and peace. It was very evident to me that she wanted to turn and repent of this sin and she had. A couple months later I got a note from her because I asked her to write me to let me know how she was. In her letter, she said she had done what I told her to do and she said, “Ney, I am amazed how in these couple of months, everything that was troubling me has dwindled way, way down compared to what it was before.” She had been in the grips of sin but she was outside grace. When she humbled herself before the Lord and before me and she brought her sin into the light of God’s grace, He met her there.

Believe It to Receive It

Hebrews 4:13, “There is no creature hidden from His sight but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Romans 5:20 says, “Where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more.” God’s grace is there but we must believe it to receive it. We must take God at His Word that His grace is there, in order to be able to receive it. Someone has said there is absolutely one inescapable condition that must be met if grace is to change a person, which is that God’s grace must be believed. We have to respond to God with an answering trust. And He will act.

If I can know that God is absolutely trustworthy, if I can know that His love is absolutely real, that His kindness is utterly sincere, that His concern for me really does mean an abundant life, then He will do what is His very nature to do. He will reach me way down deep where I really live. His grace can transform me. It can touch the very deepest motivating drives of my heart and He can make me a new person. And this is the very thing that God is committed to doing for us. He says, “I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (Hebrews 8:10) God will do in our lives by His grace what the external law could never do.

2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” Transformation is a process. When we trust God and take Him at His Word, He will be free to transform our hearts and minds. But it needs to be understood that this change does not happen all at once. It is a process.

Lewis Sperry Chaffer wrote a very comprehensive book on grace and he says, “The overwhelming testimony of the Word of God is that every aspect of salvation, every blessing of divine grace, in time and eternity is conditioned only on what is believed.”

God Transforms Us by His Grace

How then do we experience God’s grace? We come to the Lord in our weakness, in our inability, in our sin and in our failure. We choose to believe His love and ability to change us, as we rest in His grace. The result is that we grow.

2 Peter 3:18 says, “We grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In the story of the Prodigal son in Luke 15, the Prodigal son left home, squandered his father’s wealth, finally realizing his need and his father’s possible kindness. (vs. 17) “How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread but I am dying here of hunger? I will get up and go to my father and I will say to him, ‘Father I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired men.” He humbled himself and he got up and went towards his father. He was truthful when he came back to the father. But you know what? The older brother didn’t like it a bit. The older brother who chastised the father for extending grace to this son represents legalism. Because that older brother was saying, he didn’t keep the laws, he doesn’t deserve your grace. But the father still loved that prodigal son no matter what he had done.

A relationship with God is more powerful than the law. Satan would rather have us be connected to the law in legalism so we will walk around guilty and condemned all the time. But the Lord says in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” Under grace we have more than our own resources. We have God’s Holy Spirit enabling us to do His will. The Spirit filled life is moment-by-moment realizing His grace. The Spirit filled life is acknowledging it when I fail and keep bringing it back to God. It is when we take personal responsibility for our sin, and ask God to change us that brings the growth.

On the cross, Jesus died for our sin, for our badness. We were guilty and He paid for the guilt. When we confess our sins, we are taking care of what is wrong and what the cross already pays for. Being a man or woman of God is a matter of being humble and truthful about our sin and accepting His grace and growing.

John Powell said this, “We think we have to change, grow and be good in order to be loved. But rather we are loved and we receive His grace so we can change, grow and be good.”

The only limit to healing in our lives is the degree to which we don’t reveal ourselves. To grow we must hold a commitment to what is true. God’s grace gives us the freedom to face God and face the truth about us in the light of God’s Word. Knowing we are fully loved and accepted by Him, He calls us to come to Him with everything so that He can help us experience freedom (John 8:32) and a more abundant life (John 10:10).

No More Condemnation

I remember a young woman who came to me for counsel. By her description, her stomach was tied in knots, her guilt was overwhelming, and she wasn’t sleeping. She was full of condemnation and incredible fear and humiliation. The reason she was feeling this way was because she had been involved in immorality. She knew God’s word said she wasn’t to be involved in that way. She was caught in a web and she was afraid to tell anyone because she was afraid of rejection. With her head lowered she blurted out the whole story. She didn’t leave anything out because she needed help. She was truly remorseful about her sin. She was repentant. In my presence, she confessed her sin to the Lord and she received His forgiveness and His grace. She told me later that when she came she was in an internal emotional prison. And what she found when she came, instead of rejection, was love and acceptance of her.

A few months later I received a letter. She said, “My chains fell off, the dungeon door flew open, a thousand pounds lifted off of me. I had a sense of freedom and freshness. When I was in your presence I didn’t do anything. It was what you did. It was who you were. You demonstrated His love and acceptance and forgiveness to me.” I asked her at that time to be accountable to me and she later told me that the accountability never felt like a burden. But it felt safe because she was accountable to the person who had extended grace. She went on to get additional help and came to understand her own needs more. She said grace became more than theological when she experienced it.

The law that is good, holy and perfect had revealed her sin like a mirror. She humbled herself. She confessed. She told the truth to herself, to me, to the Lord. And it was in the coming that she received the grace for her in time of need. Bringing her sin to the light and to the Lord in humility and in truth allowed her to receive His grace and set her free to grow.

Think of your own area or areas where you feel condemned or you fear rejection…where you don’t feel like you are perfect. We need to come to Him in humility and truth where we are falling short of God’s law. There is no need to hide. There is no need to lie. There is no need to be condemned.

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do…God did by sending his own Son…in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1-4)

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. (1Peter 5:5-7)

“If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?….Is it Christ Jesus…who indeed intercedes for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?….For I am sure that neither death, nor life…nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:31-39)

¹Free For The Taking – The Life-Changing Power of Grace, by Joseph R. Cooke (out of print)

Additional Reading:
Changes That Heal, Dr. Henry Cloud. Zondervan

By Marilyn Adamson

If you are like many Christians, you want to please God with your life. At the same time, in all honesty, sometimes you get tired trying to live the Christian life. Sometimes it just feels like it’s way too much pressure.

When I was an atheist, sin was never an issue to me. I wasn’t particularly aware of it. I didn’t really experience guilt. But when I became a Christian….whoa. I found out there were things I was doing that God did not want in my life. I also became aware of the need to love others, to read the Bible, to pray, to witness, to disciple others, etc. And at times I thought, “It was way easier being an atheist.” Now that I knew God, I felt a tremendous sense of responsibility to please him with my life. I would read the Bible, read a command, and it seemed that verse after verse I could honestly say, “Yep, good idea. I need to do that more.”

Fortunately God taught me something in Scripture that totally freed me from this highly responsible, performance mind-set, so that I could see God again and deeply enjoy my relationship with him. There is a huge principle in Scripture that is throughout Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, 1&2 Corinthians…it’s all over the place.

Here it is: God does not demand perfection in you. God is not expecting you to measure up. God never thought that you could live the Christian life, nor does he expect that you could actually meet his holy standards. If he thought that you could, he wouldn’t have come to earth to die for you. But he did.

Jesus said to the crowds, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” So, it is true that God’s laws, his commands, require perfection. And if we were to be accepted by God based on living up to his commands, we would have to be perfect. No wonder Jesus came to save us from the penalty of our sins!

God is aware of the gap between his perfection and your sinfulness. Even as Christians, there is a constant tension within us to try to close that gap, so that we feel more comfortable, so that we feel closer to God. Some will try to close the gap by trying to lower God’s standards: “God doesn’t really mean…” Others will try to close the gap by trying to raise their performance: “I’ll try harder…”

What does God say about this gap? It’s there and it will always be there. But you, who have put your faith in Jesus, received him into your life, have been forgiven, declared righteous, precious in his eyes, held in his hand of care. You are completely his and he loves you unconditionally, in spite of the gap.

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”¹

It is likely however that you will come to a point in your life where you begin to think that surely God must now want some repayment.

The purpose of this article is to keep you from falling into the trap of feeling like you must now perform for God. Scripture cautions against this, because it will rob you of the joy of knowing Christ.

So, let’s take a serious look at what God says about your relationship with him. Let’s look at the ground rules, what he says about relating to him.

How you became a Christian

When you became a Christian, look at the weight of responsibility God carried in that process vs. your effort:

• God chose you before the foundation of the world and called you to be his.²
• God came to earth for you.³
• God personally died for your sins.⁴
• God made sure someone explained the gospel to you.⁵
• God offered to come into your life.⁶
• God gave you the desire to know him and respond to him.⁷
• You turned to him and received him.
• God entered your life, declared you righteous and forgiven, and called you his own.⁸

You became a Christian by simply responding to God in faith. That is the same way he wants you to live the Christian life…by simply responding to God in faith. The weight of responsibility (and ability) stays with God. You may be thinking, “That seems simple enough. What’s the big deal?” The problem is that almost every Christian gets tripped up on this at one time or another. Why?

It is human nature to think that you owe God for what he has given you. It is also human nature to think that now that you know the Bible a little, now that you know a little bit about prayer, or now that you may understand a little about talking to others about God…now it’s time to take on the responsibility of being a “good Christian.” There is nothing that will more quickly zap your joy in knowing God.

And if, on your own, you don’t come to this erroneous conclusion that you must now perform for God, then other Christians, unfortunately, are very good at making you feel a measure of guilt, pressure and expectation to obey God better. This article (hopefully) will give you an understanding from Scripture about how to live the Christian life without beginning to feel a weight of false expectations to perform for God. It will show you how deeply God loves you and how he wants you to relate to him.

God has not set up your relationship with him as contingent upon you, but rather contingent upon himself. Let me illustrate from these verses:

How are we acceptable to God?

You were declared forgiven by his grace (his kindness), because of Jesus’ death for you. You received his gift of forgiveness by believing that Jesus has paid for your sin, right? You didn’t earn your forgiveness. You simply believed God when he says he has forgiven you.

“…when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy.”⁹ “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us…”¹⁰

Ok, now that you are a Christian, do the rules change? Does God now have a long list of expectations for you? No. Now you may think, “Wait a minute. The Bible is FULL of commands. You can’t read a paragraph without being told what to do.” That is true. But while God gives you commands, he also tells you that you can’t fully obey them. In fact, he tells you that the harder you concentrate on trying to obey them, the more that you will see your sin.¹¹ Also, the harder you try, the more you might feel like a failure, deserving of God’s judgment and condemnation, and thus the more distant you will feel from God.

The apostle Paul talks about this frustration that he also felt. He looked at God’s law and said, “The commandment is holy, righteous and good.” Yet as much as he tried to live according to it, he kept on sinning. He said, “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out…the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”¹² In complete frustration he says, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” His solution? “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”¹³

The feelings of failure, sin, condemnation need to be faced with Scripture. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”¹⁴ “For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!¹⁵”

So when you look at God’s commands, don’t attempt to obey them on your own effort…but instead ask God, who lives inside of you, to produce that in you. If God says to love each other, he doesn’t intend for you to march off with enthusiastic responsibility and show God how loving you can be. Instead he wants you to depend on him, “God, I ask you to live in my heart and cause me to see this person as you do, and put love in my heart for this person in the same way that you love them. I cannot love them on my own, but ask that your great love would be produced in my life for them.”

What is the difference?

It is the difference between independently trying to perform for God, verses depending on God and relying on him to live through you. We do not mature into independence from God. We mature only by remaining dependent upon him, and that’s the way he wants it. He wants you to enjoy the freedom and love of being in relationship with him, trusting him, depending upon him. He is not expecting you to perform for him.

The Bible refers to God’s commands as “the law.” Now that you are a Christian, you are no longer under the law or under God’s judgment and condemnation – instead you have forgiveness and eternal life. You have been set free from the law’s demands.

Paul said, we “know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.”¹⁶

How much does Paul focus on God’s commands and trying to fulfill them? “…I died to the law so that I might live for God…I have been crucified with Christ…Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”¹⁷

Before you received Jesus, you were distant from God, able to only know God’s commands, and you were under God’s judgment. But now you know Christ and his Spirit lives within you.

God says, “I will put my laws in their hearts and I will write them on their minds.” And in the same place he says, “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”¹⁸ So, instead of the law being outside you, hovering over you with its demands, God has placed his law within your heart, and as the Holy Spirit changes you, he gives you an increasing desire to do what pleases him. Over time, as you grow in your relationship with God, he will continue to build in you the desire and capacity to live a holy life before him.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”¹⁹

God has a plan for your life, to use your life to benefit others and for his glory. Your relationship is now with God, with his life living in you, producing good works in you.

What to do with sin?

Now let me pose this question: What if you ask him to produce something in your life or to free you from a particular sin, and you still struggle? What if you still see your bad temper or you still see yourself giving into temptation, or you see yourself failing to pray or read your Bible like you think you should? Then what? Would that be the time to begin taking on the responsibility of the Christian life and give it your full effort? No. The moment you begin to try to perform for God, the more you will see your failure, the more you will distance yourself from God, and the less joy your will have in knowing him.

It is easy for a Christian to think that God rewards effort, because that is how our entire society is set up…be responsible, work hard, give it your best effort…and you will be rewarded. A Christian can look at the commands in the Bible and think, “Yes, if I try hard enough I can do this.” And they are headed for a lot of frustration, because the Bible says that focusing on the law brings only one thing…an awareness of your sin. God has not set up your relationship with him as effort & reward. He has set it up that instead, he wants you to trust him to produce in your life what pleases him.

As long as you live on this earth you are going to sin. You will never be perfect in this life. Not only do you know that, but God knows that. As you recognize sin in your life, confess it, and believe what he promises you:

“If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”²⁰

Be patient in letting God change you

Focus on getting to know God. Pursue knowing him better through prayer, reading the Bible, being in fellowship and teaching with other Christians…all of that is good. But your faith is not to rest in your effort, but instead in God’s ability to work in your life. Jesus said it’s like grapes on a vine. Jesus is the main vine and he said we are like the branches. “Remain (or abide) in me and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”²¹

Jesus went on to say, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.”²²

What about Jesus saying “obey my commands”?

The right way to live, the way that you will experience a more abundant life as Jesus talked about, and become more easily convinced of his love for you is by doing what he says. Jesus said, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”²³ He wants you to live according to what he says is right and experience his love and have joy as a Christian. But the way that you obey his commands is by relying on him as you approach those commands.

So when I see a verse in the Bible where God says, “Do this….”, I immediately say to God, “Good idea. I want my life to please you and I ask you to build that into my life through your Spirit. Give me the ability to obey you in this way. God, I am headed for disaster if I think I could obey this on my own. But I ask you to change my thinking or work in my life whatever way you need to, that my life would line up with this verse.” And then I don’t worry about it. I might write out that verse and learn it, think about it, maybe even memorize it. But my faith to do it remains in God.

He has freed you from the demands of the law, and welcomes you to rest in him, dependent upon him…where you can fully enjoy the intimacy of knowing him.

“So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.”²⁴

“We have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit…”²⁵

“Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”²⁶

“And to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness…”²⁷

1. Romans 5:1,2
2. Ephesians 1:4; 2 Timothy 1:9
3. John 3:16
4. Romans 5:8
5. Ephesians 1:13
6. Revelation 3:20; John 1:12,13
7. Revelation 3:20
8. I John 3:1; Colossians 1:13,14; Ephesians 1:4; John 1:12
9. Titus 3:3-7
10. Ephesians 1:7
11. Romans 3:20
12. Romans 7:18,19
13. Romans 7:24,25
14. Romans 8:1
15. Romans 5:8-10
16. Galatians 2:16
17. Galatians 2:19-21
18. Hebrews 10:16,17
19. Ephesians 2:8,9
20. 1 John 1:9
21. John 15:4
22. John 15:9
23. John 15:10,11
24. Romans 7:4
25. Romans 7:6
26. Romans 10:4
27. Romans 4:5

By Ney Bailey

Has anything negative happened to you in the last 24 hours, or in the last week? Well if it hasn’t, it will! Because the Lord Himself said, “In this world you will have troubles.” But He said, “Be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.”¹ And the apostle John writes, “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”² As negative circumstances enter our lives, it’s important to know that we can trust God who is faithful in the midst of our challenges.

The Lord said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Word will not pass away.”³ That means His Word is truer than anything we feel and truer than any circumstance that will ever be in our lives. What is faith? Taking God at His Word.

We especially need to know that His Word is truer than how we feel when the negative hits. How much faith does the Lord say it takes to deal with situations? What’s the smallest denomination of faith? Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed…”⁴ A mustard seed is a tiny round seed. I think it is by His grace that He says we only need a mustard seed. I’m grateful He doesn’t say we need faith the size of an orange or an apple.

If we just “feel” something and that’s all we do, we spiral downward. But if we take that mustard seed of faith and we choose with our wills to take God at His Word a little bit, even if our feelings are screaming 180 degrees in the other direction, then God has something to work with. He asks us to trust Him, “to live by faith, and not by sight.”⁵ The Scripture states in Romans 1:17 that we go “from faith to faith.” We take God at His Word a little bit, then a little bit more and a little bit more.

Many times I have had people say to me, “A good Christian shouldn’t feel this way.” Or I hear other people say, “If I were you I wouldn’t feel that way.” The fact is you do feel that way, so what are you going to do about it?

Have you ever seen this train diagram? The engine represents God’s Word, the Bible, which is truth: “Fact.” The coal car represents our faith in God’s Word. And last of all, the caboose represents our feelings. It is the engine that pulls the train, not the caboose. It’s okay to have feelings. You were created in God’s image as an emotional being and you do have feelings. But our feelings can be unreliable. We need to put our faith in God and His Word.

I think our best example, as always, is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. If you look at Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, right before He was to go to the cross, Jesus wasn’t saying, “The Son of God shouldn’t feel this way.” He wasn’t saying, “If I were trusting God I wouldn’t feel this way.” If you look at those passages you will see He was feeling everything there was to feel. It says, “He began to be sorrowful and troubled…‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.’”⁶ Look at the words in Scripture that describe Him during that time. He was deeply grieved, troubled, distressed, in agony—all feelings. But He was trusting the Father in the midst of His feelings, saying to the Father, “…not as I will, but as you will.”⁷

You don’t need to stuff your feelings or just gut it out. You can have deep feelings and trust God in the midst of those feelings. If you get that, it will set you free.

With this as a backdrop, how then do we bring God into the negative? Let’s look at three ways.

1. We Bring God into the Negative by Praising and Thanking Him

The first way we bring God into the negative is by praising Him and thanking Him. Ephesians 5:18-20 says, “And do not get drunk with wine for that is dissipation but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord always giving thanks in all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God even the Father.”

And I Thessalonians 5:18: “In everything, give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” I think the toughest word in this verse is “In.” The toughest time for me to give thanks is when I’m in a negative situation and I don’t feel like giving thanks.

I heard a story years ago that helped bring this home to me and make it very practical. A woman and her husband had heard a speaker talk about the fact that they needed to praise God and thank God for everything in their lives, especially for the most difficult. As they were going home, they said, “Well you know what the most difficult thing in our lives is? It’s our son.”

They had a seventeen-year-old son who had never given them anything but trouble. He had been difficult to the mother, to the father, to his brothers and sisters. They had done everything they knew to do with him and it just simply did not work. So on the way home, for the very first time, they thanked God for their son, and they praised God for their son.

Their son had been home alone that night and as they drove into the driveway of their home, every light in the house was on. They said, “Father we thank you and praise you for our son. We even praise you and thank you that the lights are on.”

Then they went into the kitchen and there was the biggest mess you’ve ever seen. Out on the counter were ice trays and Coke cans, bread and mayonnaise, mustard, lunch meat and cookies and potato chips. They stopped and said, “Lord we praise you and we thank you for our son. We even praise you and thank you for this mess.”

Then they went into the family room. The television was on and there were papers strewn all over, left over Coke cans and cookies and sandwiches. They stopped and they said, “We praise you and thank you for our son, we praise you and thank you for this mess.”

They continued to praise God and thank God for their son, all that day, the next day and the next day. Sunday afternoon, there was a knock on the bedroom door. And the son said, “Mom and Dad, can I come in and talk to you?” He continued, “Mom, Dad, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, especially lately. You know, I’ve been miserable, unhappy and frustrated as long as I can remember. You know, I can’t take it out on my friends, because I need my friends. I’ve gotta be nice to my friends. I can’t take my hostility out on my teachers because I want to make at least halfway decent grades. The thing I realize, Mom and Dad, is that I’ve been taking it out on the family. I just want to tell you, I’m not going to do that anymore.”

When we praise God for what we don’t like, we bring God into the negative and release His power to work. The alternative is that we keep the lid on and we don’t let Him into our negative situation. I believe that we become bitter to the degree we don’t give thanks. I don’t want to become a bitter person in life, so I know that I need to praise God and thank Him now.

We bring God into the negative by giving thanks and praising Him.

2. We Bring God into the Negative by Blessing and not Cursing

The second way we bring God into the negative is by blessing and not cursing. I wish I had learned this many years ago. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble.

James 3:8-10 says, “But no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father and with it we curse men who have been made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not be this way.”

The word “curse” is not referring to four-letter words. It means to speak evil of, or to not speak well of. And the word “bless” means just the opposite, to speak well of. I heard a true story that helped me understand what is meant by cursing and blessing someone.

In Portland, Oregon, a pastor and his wife had enormous trouble with a son. At the height of it, he left home and they had not heard a word from him for three or four years. This pastor went to a Christian counselor whom he knew very well and after pouring out his heart, the counselor looked at him and he said, “How long have you been cursing your son?”

Shocked by the strong words, he said, “What do you mean how long have I been cursing my son?” The counselor responded, “Well the word curse means to speak evil of, or to not speak well of. And everything you’ve just told me is some way you are not speaking well of your son. How long have you been doing that?” The pastor hung his head and said, “Well I guess I’ve been cursing him all of his life. I’ve never, never had a good thing to say about him, ever.” And the counselor said, “It hasn’t worked, has it?” He said, “No.”

The counselor said, “I want to challenge you and your wife that for the next two months, when your son comes to mind I want you to bless him. I want you to pray God’s blessings on him. When you speak of your son in your home, I want you to try to remember something good about him. I want you to speak well of him.”

The pastor said, “I guess I’ve got everything to gain and nothing to lose so I’ll take you up on it.” He went home and told his wife, who agreed, and they began. When they prayed for their son, they prayed God’s blessing on him. When they spoke of their son, they tried to remember some good things about him. They continued to do that day after day.

On about the 10th day the pastor was in his study and the telephone rang. You guessed it. On the other end of the phone was the son. And the son said, “Dad, I’m not really sure why I’m calling but I’ve just had you and Mom and the family on my heart and my mind for the last week or so and I just thought I’d call and check in with you.” And the father said, “Son, I’m so glad you are calling.” He had to contain himself to not come right through the phone. They chatted for a few minutes and the father said to the son, “I don’t know if you can find it in your heart or not, but how about meeting me on Saturday for lunch?” He said, “Sure Dad, I’ll meet you.”

The day came. They met for lunch. The son came in his old ragged clothes. His hair was long and he was kind of disheveled. Whereas before the father would have been very critical and judgmental, this time he went in with an attitude of accepting his son, blessing him in his heart. He asked his son questions and he listened to his answers. He affirmed him where appropriate. At the end of that lunch the son looked across the table and he said, “Dad, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’ve kind of enjoyed being with you.” And the father said, “Well I’ve enjoyed being with you too, son.” The son said, “Well Dad, do you think maybe just for tonight I can come home and spend the night in my old bed and see Mom and the family. Just for tonight.” He said, “Sure son, we’d love to have you.”

As the father walked through the rest of that day, he was stricken in his heart to realize what a difference it had made to stop cursing his son and start blessing him. That night when the son was in his bed in his bedroom, the father went slowly in there and sat down. He said, “Son will you forgive me for all the ways I’ve treated you through the years.” And the son said, “Sure Dad, I’ll forgive you.” And he put his arms around his father’s neck. That was the beginning of the restoration of that relationship. But when was the real beginning? The real beginning was when that father and mother began to bless their son in their hearts.

I don’t understand it, but in some unique way God honors it when we bless others and when we don’t curse them. We reap what we sow. If we sow cursing we are going to reap cursing. If we sow blessing, we reap blessing. And I would rather reap blessing, wouldn’t you?

We bring God into the negative by blessing and not cursing.

3. We Bring God into the Negative by Forgiving

The last way we bring God into the negative is by forgiving. Look at Colossians 3:12,13: “And so as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other who ever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you so also should you.”

I like that because the Lord acknowledges that we have complaints against each other. But he says whoever has a complaint, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. All of us have been hurt. I think the deepest hurts that we ever have come from within our own families or come from the people who are closest to us.

One of the deepest hurts that I ever had was from my father. My father grew up without loving, attentive parents and he never learned how to express love and warmth to others. I concluded that my father probably didn’t love me. To complicate matters, my father had a drinking problem. As I grew up in that household, I grew more bitter and more resentful as the days went by. I didn’t like the way my father talked to my mother. I didn’t like the way he talked to me. On a couple of occasions he got violent, but most of the time we just pretty much ignored each other. I remember talking to my mother and she would say, “I just can’t talk to your father.” Well if she couldn’t talk to him then I sure couldn’t talk to him. Have you ever had those situations? It was tough. If you had known me in high school or college, I would not have had one nice thing to say about my father. It is safe to say that I hated him.

A couple of years out of college, I heard a speaker quote 1 John 4:8 “God is love.” And then the speaker used 1 Corinthians 13 to describe God’s love toward us. When it says, “Love is patient, love is kind…” the speaker suggested reading it as “God is patient, God is kind, etc.” What he was saying was that God’s love toward me was patient. God’s love toward me was kind. God’s love toward me would hope all things, endure all things and bear all things. I never thought of the fact that God had a 1 Corinthian 13 type of love for me.

Then I began to think about my father as I left that meeting. I thought all these years I had been waiting for my father to shape up and stop drinking and then I was going to love him. But it was as though God said to me. “Ney, you have more light, you have more grace. My love toward your father is kind. My love toward your father is patient. My love toward your father hopes all things, endures all things and bears all things. Ney, I want you to take the first step toward him.”

Tears began to stream down my face as I realized I did not have God’s love for my very own father. It seemed like the Lord had done something new in my life but I knew I wasn’t going to know until I was home again and I was with him.

A few months later I went home with an attitude of acceptance and love. As I went in the house with this new attitude towards him of acceptance, love and forgiveness, guess what? My father sensed my spirit. And as I was nice to him, he was nice in return. My father didn’t know much about how to love, but he knew how to respond a little bit to love. I thought if I had known it was going to make this much difference I might have been nice a lot sooner. While I was home on that trip, my father went over to the dress shop of one of his clients and brought home 3 dresses on approval for me to try on. He had never done that before.

When I left home that time, I began to think about how the Lord says to honor your father and mother that it may go well with you and you may live long on the earth. I said to the Lord, “You are the one who thought up this thing about honoring, now will you show me how to do that.” And the Lord began to give me ways that I could demonstrate love to them.

For the first time in my life, I thanked the Lord for my father and for my mother. More time passed and this is going to sound a little melodramatic, but this actually did happen. I was sitting one day and just kind of staring into space. I began to think about my father. I thought if my father were to die and I were to go to his funeral, and I would look out and see his casket, would I have any regrets? I thought, yes I would regret that I had never asked him to forgive me for some of my ugly ways in my growing up years.

So I purposed in my heart to go home and ask his forgiveness. He described himself as a bull-headed lawyer. So to think about talking to him was very scary for me. When I imagined that scenario, I could see myself lying prostrate on the floor sobbing my heart out unable to utter a word.

The next time I visited my parents, I waited until halftime during a football game on TV, and I said, “Daddy, you know I’ve been thinking about my growing up years, how ungrateful and unloving, unkind I was.” And then I said, “Will you forgive me?” There was this pause and he turned and looked at me with this twinkle in his eye and he said, “No.” He said, “I don’t remember all those things.” And then he named one. I knew it was important to get a response from him so I said, “Will you forgive me for the things you can remember?” And he said, “Yes.” Right after that he said, “Now where are you going on your next trip?” He had never asked me that before. On the way out the door he asked, “When will you be home next?” And I said, “December 21 or 22.” And he said, “I’ll see you on the 21st.”

One day my mother called me and she said, “Honey, your dad found something in a catalog and it reminded him of you and he bought it and had it wrapped and sent it UPS all by himself. He is sending you a surprise.” I could not wait for that package to come. He had never done that before. When it finally came, inside was a little Melita two-cup coffee maker in a brown travel case, because he knew I liked coffee and I was traveling a lot. As I held that in my hands I thought, “O Lord this represents a lot more than a Melita two-cup coffee maker. This represents a relationship that you have restored.”

I remembered that when I didn’t feel like it, I chose with my will to put my mustard seed of faith over on the Lord’s side and choose with my will to forgive my father. I believe when we are hurt we need to ask ourselves the question, is my God bigger than my hurt or is my hurt bigger than my God? We are the ones that get to choose.

There are so many things that are absolutely inexcusable. But there is nothing that is unforgivable. Someone has said, “To forgive is to set the prisoner free, only to discover the prisoner was you.” My dad never asked me to forgive him. But God asked that of me and it made all the difference.

Maybe you are thinking, “Well Ney, what if the person I need to forgive has already died?” I have good news for you. God is not limited by time. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. I believe you can tell the Lord what you would have said and He will honor that.

In summary, is there a negative in your life? I encourage you to praise God and thank Him.

Are you cursing someone? May God give you the grace to begin to bless them instead.

Is there a deep, deep hurt? May God give you the grace to forgive and by so doing you will bring God into the negative and release His power to work.

¹John 16:33
²1 John 5:4
³Matthew 24:35
⁴Matthew 17:20
⁵2 Corinthians 5:7
⁶Matthew 26:37,38
⁷Matthew 26:39

by Steven L. Pogue

The Bible places great importance on your mind. “You were taught,” the apostle Paul told his Christian friends, “to be made new in the attitude of your minds” (Ephesians 4:22,23). “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” he wrote another church (Romans 12:2).

You want to serve Christ. But it’s hard sometimes when your life—especially your thought life—isn’t consistent with Christianity. You can’t watch TV, drive to work tomorrow or sit through lunch with co-workers without being bombarded with messages that contradict or ridicule your faith. Your mind can be taken hostage by those thoughts.

The Bible also talks about your desires and will, referring to them as your heart. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart. Where your heart is, there your treasure is, Jesus explained. Paul wrote, “…set your hearts on things above…not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:1,2).

Yet you may find yourself echoing the words of the prophet Jeremiah: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

God has given you a means of purifying your mind and of changing your heart. He has given you the Bible. Its effect in your life is increased when you memorize it.

Jesus was tempted by Satan after fasting in the desert for forty days. Jesus rebuked Satan each time He was tempted by quoting from the book of Deuteronomy. He said, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).

Two verses I’ve memorized have been an island of spiritual refuge when I have faced temptation: “How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word…I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:9,11). I can’t qualify as a young man anymore, but I sure can identify with his desire to stay pure. Jesus prayed for His disciples: “Make them pure and holy through teaching them your words of truth” (John 17:17). By memorizing Scriptures you transform your thinking and focus on the right things in the midst of temptation.”

Bible memorization. You may envision a squinty-eyed scholar hidden in the recesses of a seminary, or a child reciting verses learned by rote. Put aside these ideas. Scripture memory is vital to your spiritual growth. But it may sound beyond reach—you’re too busy or tool old for much memorization of anything. Or are you?

Psychologist Tim LaHaye explains that our apprehension about memorization is not so much from a mental block as it is with an ambition block: “If I were to ask for your address or phone number, you would have no trouble recalling it. Anyone that can do that can memorize Bible verses. Very honestly, memorization involves hard work but it pays greater dividends to your spiritual life than any other known method of Bible study.”¹

Psalm 1 describes the person who memorizes God’s Word and then thinks about it often (meditates upon it):

“Oh, the joys of those who do not follow evil men’s advice, who do not hang around with sinners, scoffing at the things of God: But they delight in doing everything God wants them to, and day and night are always meditating on his laws and thinking about ways to follow him more closely” (Psalm 1:1,2).

When you care enough about knowing God’s Word to memorize it, it becomes a part of your thoughts. You find yourself suddenly remembering it throughout the day. If you awaken at night full of anger or fear, you can choose to mentally review verses in God’s Word that deal with those emotions.

The psalmist explains the result in a person’s life because of such meditation: “They are like trees along a river bank bearing luscious fruit each season without fail. Their leaves shall never wither, and all they do shall prosper” (Psalm 1:3). Those who meditate upon God’s Word keep going when the going gets tough. They don’t wilt under pressure. They are consistent.

Jesus exemplified that consistency in His life. We can’t claim to live exactly as the sinless, incarnate God did, but we can value what He valued. Pick up any of the Gospels and begin reading about Jesus. He is often quoting Scripture—from memory! Nearly 10 percent of the words of Jesus in the Gospels are quotations from the Old Testament. By having Scripture memorized, Jesus could use the right Scripture for the need of the moment, like a craftsman who instinctively reaches for the right tool. The same can occur in your life.

Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Memorizing Scripture and then consciously thinking about it gives you a grid with which to evaluate all the messages you receive from advertising, friends at work, your family…everything you are exposed to. Instead of remaining conformed to the world, you are transformed as God’s Word renews your mind.

Let’s get started. Look at your watch (or your computer clock) and note the time. What follows will require some effort, but you will be surprised by how little time it actually takes to memorize a verse or two letter perfect. (Even those who have memorized thousands of verses began by memorizing one verse at a time.) Let’s try Philippians 4:6,7:

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Memorization begins first with familiarization. Read the verses aloud several times. This involves your mind in three ways: seeing, speaking and hearing. Next, copy the verses down on a 3×5 card or a large self-stick note. By writing the verses on a note card you will have a handy reminder to place on the refrigerator or the bathroom mirror.

Now try quoting the verses from memory. Don’t feel bad if you have to stop and look at your card for help. Just keep going phrase by phrase. Once you feel like you have the verses memorized, write the verses out from memory.

Finished? Look at the clock again. You are thirty-nine words—two verses—closer to being a consistent memorizer.

Here is a suggested list of verses to help you get started with your Scripture memorization:
1 Corinthians 10:13
1 John 1:9
1 John 5:11-13
Romans 3:23
John 1:12
Romans 5:8
Ephesians 2:8,9
Galatians 2:20
Philippians 4:13
Romans 12:1,2
Romans 8:28
John 16:33
Ephesians 6:10,11
1 Peter 5:7
Acts 1:8

¹Tim LaHaye, How to Study the Bible for Yourself (Irvine, CA: Harvest House, 1976), p. 128.

What do you do with sin??

By Steven L. Pogue

The IRS received an anonymous letter:

Gentlemen:
Enclosed you will find a cashier’s check for $150. I cheated on my tax return last year and have not been able to sleep ever since. If I still have trouble sleeping I will send you the rest.¹

Each of us wants to feel forgiven for the wrong things we have done. The question is, where does this forgiveness come from?

As a Christian, all of your sins are forgiven. You probably believe that from the Bible. But how do you respond to it? A friend who counsels many believers commented: “Some Christians don’t really believe they have sinned; others don’t believe they are forgiven.”

I would like to help you appreciate both the reality of your sin and the reality of Christ’s forgiveness.

What Sin Is

Ernest Hemingway once said that if something is moral, you feel good afterwards; if immoral, you feel bad afterwards. That’s a popular view of sin – many have lived by it. But it’s not a biblical view. Biblically, sin is an attitude of wanting your way instead of God’s way.

How much does sin matter to God? He cannot tolerate it. “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.” (Habakkuk 1:13a) “God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5a)

That may seem unimportant. Hasn’t Jesus paid for all your sins? Why be concerned about sin when God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life? Perhaps you should view sins as mistakes, mere miscues in life.

God never views sin as such. Because of one sin, Adam and Eve were exiled from paradise. Because of sin God brought a flood upon the earth’s inhabitants in the days of Noah. He brought fire upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of their blatant immorality. Sin kept the original children of Israel in the wilderness for forty years.

God hates sin. Yet to us, sin feels good, and we do it. Like Adam and Eve, we think we can know evil and yet not be overcome by it. But we do not become like God. God knows of the existence of evil, yet God is not evil nor does He give in to evil. We, on the other hand, are attracted to it, and we give in to it.

The Guilty Party

Whenever you sin, God’s Spirit inside you is grieved. Sometimes He’ll cause you to feel guilty. In sinning, you are choosing at that instant to live independently of the Lord’s will for you. That doesn’t cause God to hate you. He still loves you. But it saddens Him: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” (Ephesians 4:30) To understand how sin does affect you, let’s look at the difference between your relationship with God and your fellowship with God.

Sin does not affect God’s eternal relationship with you – that was established when you trusted in Christ’s payment for your sins. Christ died for all your sins – past, present, and future. At that time, your entire life was in the future. Because of your faith in Jesus, you are totally forgiven. Your relationship with God is secure.

However, sin affects your fellowship with God. (Fellowship means your earthly, moment-by-moment association.) Sin affects your communication with Him and your usefulness in doing His will. Sin dulls you to the things Christ wants you to be thinking about and to be doing.

Psalm 32:3-5 says: “There was a time when I wouldn’t admit what a sinner I was. But my dishonesty made me miserable and filled my days with frustration. All day and all night your hand was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water on a sunny day until I finally admitted all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide them. I said to myself, ‘I will confess them to the Lord.’ And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.”

This is the correct response to sin. He didn’t deny sin. He didn’t become preoccupied with it. He confessed it.

Confessing Sin and Repenting

What does it mean to confess sins and repent? First, confession means to agree with God. He already knows you’ve sinned, so you might as well be honest! “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) Confession means freely admitting our sin and accepting God’s attitude about our sin.

Confession does not mean begging God for forgiveness. Christ already paid the penalty for all of our sins, and God’s forgiveness is available automatically when we confess. The reason God can make this forgiveness available to you instantly is Christ’s death on the cross, not the strength or humility with which you confess your sin.

Repentance means to change your actions concerning your sin. It involves agreeing with God that you were wrong and that you do not want to continue to commit that sin.

But I Still Feel Guilty!

There will be times when you still feel guilty even after you’ve confessed your sin. It somehow seems spiritual to berate ourselves for committing such an awful sin, and we think that if we can lower ourselves in our own eyes, God will be pleased with our humility.

But that’s not the way God sees us. Part of confession is thanking God that all of our sins have been paid for by Christ. On that basis God says, “I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” (Hebrews 9:12) Thanksgiving involves faith because you are responding to what God’s Word says is true about you instead of how you feel. To berate yourself focuses on your sin rather than on Christ and His forgiveness.

Sometimes we mistake temptation for sin. But keep in mind that everyone is tempted. Even Jesus was tempted…but He didn’t give in to His temptations – He didn’t sin. If you are being tempted, don’t chastise yourself. You can choose not to dwell on tempting thoughts and you can ask God for the strength to avoid the sin. Don’t feel guilty about being tempted. A great verse to learn, to bring to mind when you battle temptation, is 1 Corinthians 10:13.

God has completely forgiven you of all the things you have done. “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1) He doesn’t look back now on your sins or your failures with condemnation, and neither should you. Again God says, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” (Hebrews 10:17) The cloud of guilt is gone! Accept God’s complete forgiveness.

“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” (Romans 8:2) The Christian life is a life of freedom: freedom from guilt and freedom to live as God intends, which is ultimately the most satisfying life. It is a process of growth, of becoming like Christ and reflecting Christ. And it takes time to grow!

1. Charles Swindoll, Come Before Winter (Portland, OR: Multnomah Press, 1985), p.89.

By Ney Bailey

It was early January. I had just returned home from speaking at several conferences. I awakened that day depressed and discouraged. I was having thoughts like: “My life is over. You’ve already lived the best years of your life. My ministry is over. It doesn’t feel like God loves me.” Why would I have those thoughts? Where did they come from? And how could I make them go away? By the end of the day I was fine. My spirits were lifted and I had hope. But what did I know and what did I do that brought about the change? That’s what I want to share with you, so that you too can have victory whenever fear or discouragement or some other spiritual battle descends upon you.

In my years of ministry I have learned that we have an enemy of our souls. You don’t see him but he’s there. 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be on the alert, your adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.” Thus, we resist him by being firm and taking God at His Word.

Who is Satan?

Who exactly is Satan? He is the one in Scripture who is called the “evil one.” He is not the opposite of God, as if he had equal standing with God, because God has no counterpart. God has no equal. Satan is merely an angel under God’s judgment. Satan attempts to have power over Christians, but we are told, “Greater is He who is in you, than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)

Yet Satan tries to discourage Christians. He tempts us to sin and tries to keep us from believing God. He is our opponent. We don’t see him, but he is there. Jesus himself prayed for us that the Father would keep us from the evil one. (John 17:15)

Satan is referred to in Scripture as the accuser, the slanderer, the father of lies, the murderer, the deceiver, the adversary. Paul says in Ephesians, “our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12) We are up against something. In 2 Corinthians 2:11, Paul said that he was not ignorant of Satan’s schemes. We cannot afford to be ignorant either.

We also have no need to be afraid. I would never encourage you to focus on the darkness, though it certainly exists. Instead, I want you to know the victory that we have in Christ…the truth and security that is ours.

How exactly does Satan work? What does he do? Primarily, Satan is in the business of trying to deceive us—trying to make something look like the truth but it’s a lie; it’s a deception. Dr. Neil Anderson of Freedom in Christ Ministries made a very helpful observation.

The Bible describes Satan in three ways:

• the tempter (Matt 4:3)
• the accuser of the brethren (Rev 12:10)
• the father of lies (John 8:44)

Dr. Anderson observed, “If I were to tempt you, you would know it. If I were to accuse you, you would know it. But if I were to deceive you, you wouldn’t know it. The power of Satan is in the lie. If you remove the lie you remove the power.”

Confronting Satan

How do we confront Satan’s lies? We look at what God says. So, when you may be feeling like a rotten Christian, for example, because you haven’t spent time in prayer or the Word, or you feel like you’ve let God down in some way and you start thinking, “God must be so disappointed in me, He’s likely to just give up on me.” Well, what does God’s Word say? “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6) And, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

Or you may be thinking, “God doesn’t really love me. If God loved me, I wouldn’t be having all of these problems.” That may feel like the truth, but what does God’s Word say? Jesus said, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” (John 15:9) ”This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us…” (1 John 4:10) “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are.” (1 John 3:1)

Or, let’s say that you are discouraged about some sin and Satan is accusing you, telling you that God will never forgive you. That’s a lie. How do we know? What does God’s Word say? “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

Here is one more example. Let’s say you become attracted to someone, and this person is saying to you, “Our becoming sexually involved would not be a problem with God, since we love each other so much.” But what does God’s Word say? “Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled…” (Hebrews 13:4) “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God…” (1Thessalonians 4:3-5)

We don’t let our feelings or thoughts or Satan’s lies dictate what is true. God’s word is truer than anything we feel, think or see. Satan tries to cloud our thinking, tries to make us think that God is depriving us from something. But it is God who created us and loves us enough to die for us. In dealing with Satan’s lies, you have to know the truth.

You have to know His Word before it will set you free. We are told to resist the devil, “firm in your faith…” (1 Peter 5:9) Faith is not a feeling. It is a choice that we must make to take God at His Word. To gain freedom in spiritual battle, we take those thoughts, feelings and temptations, and ask, “What does God’s Word say about this?” In John 17, right after Jesus prayed to the Father, “that you protect them from the evil one,” do you know what He said right after that? He said, “Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth.”(John 17:17) And Jesus also said, ”You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” (John 8:32)

I’ve discovered that it’s important to know who we are in Christ. In Ephesians, Paul writes, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know…what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe,” toward us who take Him at His Word. (Ephesians 1:18,19) God lives in us and empowers us.

So when we find ourselves having negative thoughts about ourselves or about God or about others, what do we do with those? Ephesians 6:16 says, “…taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” It says we will be able to extinguish ALL the flaming arrows of the evil one. These are the thoughts that seem to come out of nowhere—like flaming arrows. What do we do with those? Notice it says “taking up the shield of faith.” That is something we have to do. We cannot afford to be passive in the spiritual battle. James 4:7 says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” We have to actively take God at His Word. If you are attacked by a flaming arrow, it’s aimed at your mind.

Have you ever thought you HAD to give into a temptation, as if Satan were trying to convince you that this one is too much to resist? Here’s a great verse to memorize, so you can bring it to mind in these times: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Taking Thoughts Captive

Satan cannot read our minds, but he can plant thoughts in our minds. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says “…we are taking every thought captive according to the obedience of Christ.” Okay, what kind of thoughts are we to take captive? Thoughts that come to your mind that are contrary to what God says about you. Thoughts that come to your mind that are contrary to what God says about Himself or about other people.

Thoughts can become actions; actions can become habits. And it all starts with a thought. God wants us to trust His Word more than we trust our feelings, more than we trust how things appear. God’s Word is truer than anything I may think. It is truer than anything I feel. It is truer than how things appear. The Bible says that, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.” (Isaiah 40:8) David in the Psalms said, “Your Word…is a light to my path.” (Psalms 119:105)

Jesus gave this parable to talk about the importance of hearing and acting on what He says… “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.” (Matthew 7:24,25) Jesus goes on to say, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love; just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” (John 15:10,11)

We can stand up to any situation, any thought or feeling and turn to our Rock (Psalms 18:46), the One who loves us and guides us into all truth. (John 16:13) Satan may try to tempt you, discourage you, defeat you. But he is a liar, and we need to confront his lies with the truth of God’s Word. When we actively take up our shield of faith in God’s Word, we stand victorious in Christ.

“Praise be to the Lord, my Rock, who trains my
hands for war, my fingers for battle.
He is my loving God and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield, in whom I take refuge…”
Psalms 144:1,2

“I will bless the Lord at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
O magnify the Lord with me,
and let us exalt His name together.
I sought the Lord, and He answered me,
And delivered me from all my fears.
O taste and see that the Lord is good;
How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
But the Lord delivers him out of them all.”
Psalms 34: 1,3,4,8,19

“It is good to give thanks to the Lord
And to sing praise to Your name, O Most High.
To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning,
And Your faithfulness by night.”
Psalms 92:1,2

Additional Reading:

The Bondage Breaker by Dr. Neil T. Anderson, Harvest House Publishers
Victory Over Darkness by Dr. Neil T. Anderson, Regal Books