What Are Your Stumbling Blocks?

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC

 (Excerpt from Cheryl Gnagey's Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory, Chapter 11)



"Let's take a closer look at some very important words in [Hebrews 12: 1-4].

• Lay aside -- to put away, cast off, lay down, put off, the opposite of storing up

Can you think of any examples of 'storing up'?  I like to create word pictures.  They help me 'see' better what is meant by certain words.  That's how visual learners learn best!  Here are my word pictures:  a well-stocked pantry [as I stated in yesterday's blog], grain bins too full for even one more kernel of corn, and fat stores.  I know!!!  Don't remind you!  Things that are used to store up other things are designed with a plan and purpose for 'storing up.'  There is no other reason for it!  So, if 'laying aside' means the opposite of 'storing up,' then we need a plan and a purpose for 'laying aside' every encumbrance that we have, as well as the sin that entangles us on our Christian walk.

• Every encumbrance -- a burden, hindrance, or weight; specific to this verse it means a tumor, mass, impediment, a stumbling block

It is critical that we understand this definition because an encumbrance and a sin are defined as two different things in this verse.  The encumbrances that the writer of Hebrews is referring to are not those things that are clearly and scripturally sinful.  He covers that in the next phrase of our passage, and we will define 'sin' next.

So what is he referring to?  Encumbrances are those stumbling blocks that are often called the 'gray areas' of the Bible.  An encumbrance can be anything that impedes your walk that isn't specifically identified as sin.  Consider these:  watching too much television,  smoking, drinking, and being a workaholic.  Do you get the picture now?

The word 'encumbrance' concerns those things that weigh you down or hinder you from doing what God wants you to be doing.  Often you justify their presence in your life because the Word doesn't strictly forbid it or state they they are sins to you.  Yet they rob you of certain aspects of your relationship with God and eventually burden you.  What do you depend on or rely upon other than God  What do you do that creates a way for you to spend more time involved in it than with the things of God, causing you to sometimes exclude Him from your daily life?  These are stumbling blocks that are intentionally set in your way by our enemy."

Join me tomorrow for a specific example of a stumbling block found in the Word!