Our Path of Sin -- Colossians 3: 7

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

When talking about sin, it is quite easy to put ourselves in a category that is different than the lost. We can see a list of sins in the Bible, like the one we looked at a few days ago in Colossians 3:5, and disassociate ourselves from the likes of those who are still committing such sins every day.  When we begin to process that "the wrath of God" will one day be fully displayed because of the sins and the sinners that practice such things, it is easy for us to sit on our spiritual high horses.  It seems that God knew that we might respond that way, and He used Paul to speak directly to us. lest we fall to the sin of self-elevation.  This is what our Bible verse says today:

"In these you too once walked, when you were living in them."

There it is . . . we too once walked in the kinds of sins that will eventually cause God to avenge Himself with His wrath.  We are not off the hook.  We must now have a special kind of patience and compassion upon those who are still walking that way.  The kind of patience and compassion that God had for us when we were the ones who were stumbling on the path of sin. 

This is also important for us to consider because we are to be dying to our self and the sins that we commit.  To put to death all of our sins and idols is to be able to honestly say that we once walked in  them.  If we are not putting them completely to death, then they are still apart of our journey, a part that God clearly wants us to remove.

Who I once was and what I once did can no longer be a part of my walk of obedience, for my works were all about disobedience.  I was a sinner dead in my trespasses.  If I am now raised with Christ and truly focused on Him, if I am crucifying my flesh in order to live in the Spirit, then there is no sin that I am free to live in.  They are dead to me, and I am dead to them.

What sins are you currently still trying to live in while trusting in the blood of Jesus?  These are the very sins that belong in the "I-once-walked-in-them" category, where all sin should be.  It is time for the church to get off its SIN PATH and on to the PATH OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

The Wrath of God (Do I have your attention now?)

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

God's wrath . . . it's not a topic that believers talk about much, or even want to  think about.  Depending on which theology you have on the Rapture, you might think that it is not something that you will have to deal with.  Yet our passage of Scripture today forces the idea of God's wrath in front of our eyes, and should cause us to give it some thought today.

"On account of these things the wrath of God is coming."       Colossians 3:6

On account of what things?  In order to correctly dissect this verse, we have to look back at the previous verse, which says, 

"Put to death therefore what is earthly in you:  sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness, which is idolatry."

Our fleshly and earthly sins are the "these things" spoken of in today's verse. It is because of these sin that the wrath of God is coming.  His wrath will be displayed particularly in the last three and a half years of tribulation, and ultimately after the Millennial Reign of Christ on earth. At this point, the earth as we know it will be destroyed forever, and God will usher in a new heaven and earth for those who have believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ and have experienced the necessary heart conversion.

This heart conversion takes place when the believer in Christ surrenders his whole being to the Lordship of Christ.  When we surrender in this way, Christ is then able to live out His life through us by the power of the Spirit within us.  It is only by the Holy Spirit that we will be able to put to death all that is earthly in us.  It is not something that we can simply "will ourselves" to do.  It is God's work to do within us, completing what He has begun in us.  The work is simply this, to put to death every form of idolatry in us.  Every single place in our heart that elevates something other than God to the throne of our life is an idol. If you depend on it without thinking, rather than on God, it is an idol.  It you have to have it or do it (because that's just the way you are made), its an idol.  If it is repetitive and habitual sin, it is an idol.  If it is an attitude (like self-reliance and dependence, prejudice, worry, etc.), it is a sin.  It 

The Spirit's job is to topple every form of idolatry that we practice.  It matters not if it is a physical idol (like a food addiction), a financial idol (like greed), an emotional idol (like anger), or a mental idol (like worrying and fretting).  It matters not whether the people around you can see it or not; it is an idol.  

Now, back to today's verse.  It is on account of the endless idols that are worshiped on earth, by unbelievers and believers alike, that God's wrath is coming.  How very important it is then for all believers to be about the business of truly surrendering our idols to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Why should we continue in our idolatry when we are to be dead to sin and alive in Christ.  How can we continue in our idolatry knowing that our idolatrous sins are the very same sins of unbelievers.  Will we continue to sin with the same sins that will eventually bring to the earth God's full wrath?  God is clearly calling His church to clean house!