Posted in Connecting with God
Yesterday, I wrote about family worship. It is worthless, however, if it falls to a very cunning strategy of the enemy. Christianity has weathered 2,000 years of persecution, and it has not been obliterated. No amount of torture or war, famine or disease, or death and destruction has been able to drive the Christian faith from the face of the earth. It is the fulfillment of Jesus Christ's words to Peter that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church.
However, it has been my experience that it is still sometimes possible to corrupt what you cannot destroy. Governments can be corrupted much more easily than they can be overthrown. It's a sad reality that man's heart is succeptible to corruption. Even the most godly can carry the seeds of corruption. Numerous cults and apostacies have sprung out of the Christian faith. The Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Branch Davidians, and the Gnostics all sprung from a perversion of the truth. In some cases, like the Gnostics and the Mormons, the corruption arose from the claim to have special knowledge of God. Others, like the Marian movement in the Catholic church, have grown out of a change or over-emphasis of a particular doctrine.
Yet we don't even have to leave our own churches to see the seeds of corruption, if not the fruit of it. There are some that labor in our churches with the belief that if they serve God and act with moral integrity, they will earn God's favor. More often than not, it's an unspoken belief that if they could serve God more and sin less, that they would somehow achieve success as a Christian. Christianity becomes a collection of moral codes that while still spouting the words of Ephesians 2:8-9, somehow still implies that God will love you more if you do right and less if you do wrong.
This is the seed of corruption that destroys so many families. Fathers should be showing their children how to embrace their heavenly Father. Instead, they labor under the guilt that they have not consistently led their families in devotions. They feel the shame of their own sins and feel unqualified to lead. They corner their desires with rules and laws and accountability, only to have them overwhelm them in a moment of fatigue and weakness. We are not stronger than the sin disease. As Paul said in Romans 7,
The great Apostle Paul himself struggled with sin. It was right there with him in the moments when he had choices and he freely admitted that his sin got the best of him! "Woe is me!" he cries, "Who will deliver me? Only Jesus can and He will." Paul was personally visited by the Son of God. He wrote a significant portion of the New Testament epistles. He was a missionary and the "model Christian," and he still struggled every day with the temptation to sin, to lust, to lie, and considering his temper, to possibly injure or even kill those who wronged him. Yes, Paul was fully human. Yet, one thing separates Paul from those who struggle under the corruption of performance-based Christian religion: his understanding of the nature of God's love for him.
Paul didn't labor for other people's approval. While he "pressed on toward the mark," the excellence he sought was not based out of his own effort to be righteous. Paul put no confidence in his own flesh. Instead, he sought to be found in Him. Those who use Phillipians 3:12-14 to justify their works tend to forget verses 8-9. Christ has already given us what we need: the ability to have a relationship with God with no qualifiers except the name of Jesus Christ, whose sacrifice tore the veil between us and God. Yet the seed of corruption, our own religious tendency for performance, threatens to rob us of what we could so easily enjoy. Paul rebuked the Galatians for this very thing.
We will never arrive as Christians until we arrive in heaven. There is no beating this sin disease that works in our bodies and minds. So what good is our staying here on earth? What good is our faith unless we die? Is it merely to string together a series of apologies to God for our behavior? No! If you had a child that all they did was apologize for thinking or saying or doing the wrong things, what would your response be to them as their parent? What would you say? Wouldn't your love pass over those sins and seek the heart of your child to love and cherish them, regardless of what they thought they'd done? The love and fellowship you can enjoy with your children goes far beyond the "contrition and confession" that they would consider a relationship.
Your heavenly Father seeks to fill and bless you with love and relationship. He's done all the work to make it possible. All we need to do is sit on His lap and lean into his chest and talk with Him, or just simply be still and know Him. That is the source of our strength! All we are and all we do should flow out of that connection with God. While we will never be sinless, we can grow closer and closer to the Father by connecting with him. That is why we are here on earth now. We join in relationship as children with the Father of lights. Like your own heart of love to your children, God takes great joy in you. Come up and sit on His lap. It will be the best thing you ever do. The next best thing is helping your kids to do the same.
However, it has been my experience that it is still sometimes possible to corrupt what you cannot destroy. Governments can be corrupted much more easily than they can be overthrown. It's a sad reality that man's heart is succeptible to corruption. Even the most godly can carry the seeds of corruption. Numerous cults and apostacies have sprung out of the Christian faith. The Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Branch Davidians, and the Gnostics all sprung from a perversion of the truth. In some cases, like the Gnostics and the Mormons, the corruption arose from the claim to have special knowledge of God. Others, like the Marian movement in the Catholic church, have grown out of a change or over-emphasis of a particular doctrine.
Yet we don't even have to leave our own churches to see the seeds of corruption, if not the fruit of it. There are some that labor in our churches with the belief that if they serve God and act with moral integrity, they will earn God's favor. More often than not, it's an unspoken belief that if they could serve God more and sin less, that they would somehow achieve success as a Christian. Christianity becomes a collection of moral codes that while still spouting the words of Ephesians 2:8-9, somehow still implies that God will love you more if you do right and less if you do wrong.
This is the seed of corruption that destroys so many families. Fathers should be showing their children how to embrace their heavenly Father. Instead, they labor under the guilt that they have not consistently led their families in devotions. They feel the shame of their own sins and feel unqualified to lead. They corner their desires with rules and laws and accountability, only to have them overwhelm them in a moment of fatigue and weakness. We are not stronger than the sin disease. As Paul said in Romans 7,
It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God's law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. (NLT)
The great Apostle Paul himself struggled with sin. It was right there with him in the moments when he had choices and he freely admitted that his sin got the best of him! "Woe is me!" he cries, "Who will deliver me? Only Jesus can and He will." Paul was personally visited by the Son of God. He wrote a significant portion of the New Testament epistles. He was a missionary and the "model Christian," and he still struggled every day with the temptation to sin, to lust, to lie, and considering his temper, to possibly injure or even kill those who wronged him. Yes, Paul was fully human. Yet, one thing separates Paul from those who struggle under the corruption of performance-based Christian religion: his understanding of the nature of God's love for him.
Paul didn't labor for other people's approval. While he "pressed on toward the mark," the excellence he sought was not based out of his own effort to be righteous. Paul put no confidence in his own flesh. Instead, he sought to be found in Him. Those who use Phillipians 3:12-14 to justify their works tend to forget verses 8-9. Christ has already given us what we need: the ability to have a relationship with God with no qualifiers except the name of Jesus Christ, whose sacrifice tore the veil between us and God. Yet the seed of corruption, our own religious tendency for performance, threatens to rob us of what we could so easily enjoy. Paul rebuked the Galatians for this very thing.
We will never arrive as Christians until we arrive in heaven. There is no beating this sin disease that works in our bodies and minds. So what good is our staying here on earth? What good is our faith unless we die? Is it merely to string together a series of apologies to God for our behavior? No! If you had a child that all they did was apologize for thinking or saying or doing the wrong things, what would your response be to them as their parent? What would you say? Wouldn't your love pass over those sins and seek the heart of your child to love and cherish them, regardless of what they thought they'd done? The love and fellowship you can enjoy with your children goes far beyond the "contrition and confession" that they would consider a relationship.
Your heavenly Father seeks to fill and bless you with love and relationship. He's done all the work to make it possible. All we need to do is sit on His lap and lean into his chest and talk with Him, or just simply be still and know Him. That is the source of our strength! All we are and all we do should flow out of that connection with God. While we will never be sinless, we can grow closer and closer to the Father by connecting with him. That is why we are here on earth now. We join in relationship as children with the Father of lights. Like your own heart of love to your children, God takes great joy in you. Come up and sit on His lap. It will be the best thing you ever do. The next best thing is helping your kids to do the same.
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