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Hitting Close to Home

I just came across this article written in 2007 by Matt Meyer, my successor as director of CCM. It speaks to yesterday's blog post.

After a number of weeks of coming for counseling, a young Chinese woman recently called on God to forgive her sins. For several of the last weeks, she was sure that God was real and good and that she was a sinner, but she was having a hard time connecting her sin with the death of Christ on the cross. When she was asked to describe what she meant by “being a sinner,” it was clear that her focus was horizontal instead of vertical. She thought she was sinning against her husband, family and herself. When she finally understood that our sin or lawlessness as John describes it is first against God, the lights came on. “I’ve broken God’s laws,” she repeated numerous times as the realization finally hit home.

Do we have the same sense that we are breaking God’s law when we avoid those passages that hit too close to home or perhaps are just a little too inconvenient for us to obey?

She had a number of good questions that followed her prayer of confession. What church should I attend? Do I now need to support the church? How do I pray? How often should I pray? I’m such a little baby, and I need to learn so much.

As we worked through the Lord’s teaching on prayer, we also turned to the 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Instead of worrying about everything in the Bible, we suggested that she start by just practice these three verses diligently.

“But this is impossible,” she responded.

We assured her that that was the point. If you start by giving thanks in every circumstance, good and bad, you will find your self praying continually – either confessing your sin of thanklessness, asking God to help you be thankful, or praising Him with thanks. Then, when thankfulness is present, rejoicing will surely follow. Like this new believer, we need to be diligent that our joy is not burdened by active disobedience or unconfessed sin.

“Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but those who keep the law plead against them” (Prov. 28:4).

In the Living translation, the second half of this verse reads, “those who obey the law fight against evil.” The verse sounds even clearer when spoken by a teenage boy to his father regarding the speed of his vehicle in relationship to the posted limit. Like much of the Bible, this verse is much more understandable and applicable than we would at first think.

Isn’t it enough to have just read or even memorized the passage? No. James commands us to “become doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

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