SIN AND FORGIVENESS

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PLANNING TO DO BETTER

“I realized that deep within my heart my real aim was not to sin very much” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p93).

“Many have sought to live a holy life by their own willpower” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p50).

“People who acknowledge that what they’ve done is wrong and then immediately lay out plans to do better unwittingly deny what the gospel of Jesus Christ says about them, how real change takes place, and where help can be found. What they have omitted or neglected is confession. When you confess your sins to God, you don’t just admit that you have sinned; no, you also confess that you have no power to deliver yourself from the sin you have just confessed. True confession always combines an admission of wrong with a plea for help” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Nov 17th).

“[A]ll our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away” (Isa 64:6 ESV).

“[W]hen confronted with your failure [y]ou can comfort yourself with plausible arguments for your righteousness, giving ease to your conscience. Or, in the face of your failure, you can wallow in guilt and shame, beating yourself up because you did not do better and working hard to hide your failure from God and others” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Mar 6th).

“Change is not found in defending our righteousness, but in admitting our weakness and crying for help” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, May 18th).

“Breaking sinful habits must be done in cooperation with the Holy Spirit and in dependence upon Him. The determination that ‘I’ll not do that anymore,’ based upon sheer human resolve, has never once broken the shackles of sin” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p133).

“We have all experienced the joy and motivation of forgiveness. But too many of us have lost sight of it and have slipped into a performance relationship with God. The only cure for this is to come back to the gospel and begin to preach it to ourselves every day. It is only the gospel that will keep us living by grace. And it is only grace that will give us the courage and motivation to mortify sin and to keep seeking to make the right choices even when we fail so often” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p207).

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NO LASTING CHANGE

“Our physical bodies and natural appetites were created by God and are not sinful in themselves. Nevertheless, if left uncontrolled, we will find our bodies becoming ‘instrument of wickedness’ rather than ‘instrument of righteousness’” (Rom 6:13)” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p108).

“We tend to act according to our feelings. The trouble is, we seldom ‘feel’ like doing what we should do” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p111).

“There is no point in our saying that we believe that Christ has died for us and that we believe our sins are forgiven unless we can also say that for us old things are passed away and all things are become new, that our outlook toward the world and its method of living is entirely changed. It is not that we are sinless, nor that we are perfect, but that we have finished with that way of life” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, March 28th).

“[T]hrough our union with Christ we have died to this realm of sin. We have been set free from sin (Romans 6:18), rescued from the dominion of darkness (Colossians 1:13), and turned from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18). Before our salvation we were in bondage to sin, under the reign and rule of sin. Regardless of how decent and moral we were, we lived in the kingdom of sin. But now through our union with Christ in His death to sin, we have been delivered out of the realm of sin and placed in the kingdom and realm of righteousness” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p54).

“A person who manifests a self-reliant recognition of wrong assigns to himself the power to do better and then gives himself to spiritual-looking acts of penance that make him feel good about himself and his potential ability to do better. But while he is acknowledging sin, there is no verticality to what he is doing. [T]here is no Godward confession, no recognition of his desperate need for rescue, and no repentance that is motivated by a heart filled with gratitude for and worship of God. It is an ‘I can save myself’ way of dealing with sin, and it is far more prevalent in the church of Jesus Christ than we would think. It never results in lasting change” Paul David Tripp ( ref# 190, Nov 17th).

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PURIFYING MYSELF

“Satan would try to confuse us on the issue of what God has done for us and what we must do ourselves” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p51).

“God has indeed made provision for us to live a holy life, but He also has given us definite responsibilities” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p51).

“’Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself.’ He does not submit to purification; he purifies himself. The whole emphasis is upon the activity. In other words, the New Testament teaching about holiness is not one which tells me that all I have to do is to let myself go and to surrender myself, to give up effort and striving. It is not just telling me that all I have to do is to die and get rid of myself and forget myself and then life will come in. No! It is active, and I am told to purify myself ‘even as he is pure.’” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#211, p45).

“To confuse the potential for resisting (which God provided) with the responsibility for resisting (which is ours) is to court disaster in our pursuit of holiness” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p57).

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Col 3:5 ESV).

“’Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth’. I have to do that; these members will not agree to be mortified; I have to take them, and I have to punish my body. I am enabled to do that by the Holy Spirit who has been given to me; yes, and that is included in the fact that I am a child of God. I have been born again, I have received a new nature, and the Holy Spirit is in me. Therefore, because of that, I must do this, I must purify myself even as He is pure. I purify myself by considering Him, by looking at Him and His perfect life; that is the pattern I am to follow” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#211, p45).

“There is no point in praying for victory over temptation if we are not willing to make a commitment to say no to it” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p93).

“Remember the statement that ‘discipline without desire is drudgery.’ Where will the desire to engage in the discipline of mortification come from? It will only come from the gratitude and joy of knowing that however miserably I have failed, God’s grace is greater than my sin” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p206).

“For God to cease to love his own, God would need to cease to exist, because God does not simply have love; he is love (1 John 4:16). In the death of Christ for us sinners, God intends to put his love for us beyond question. The sun is shining. It cannot stop. Clouds, no clouds—sin, no sin—the tender heart of the Son of God is shining on me. This is an unflappable affection” Dane Ortland (ref#382, p193).

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TRUSTING IN SELF

“All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but . . .” (Prov 16:2 NIV).

“Obsession with self is a dead end. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing” (Rom 8:6-8 MSG).

“Mortification from a self-strength carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness is the soul and substance of all false religion” John Owen (ref#244, p84).

“Some people are pure in their own eyes, but . . .” (Prov 30:11-12 NLT).

“There is a way which seems right to a man and appears straight before him, But . . .” (Prov 14:12 AMP).

“You declare yourselves just and upright, but . . .” (Luke 16:15 AMP).

“We may think we are doing the right thing, but . . .” (Prov 21:2 CEV).

“The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps” (Prov 16:9 ESV).

“[D]o not follow your own heart and your own eyes” (Num 15:39 NASB).

“Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, And clever in their own sight” (Isa 5:21 NASB)!

“He who leans on, trusts in, and is confident of his own mind and heart is a [self-confident fool” (Prov 28:26 AMPC).

“Never let yourself think that you are wiser than you are” (Prov 3:7 GNT).

“You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way” (Hosea 10:13 ESV).

“There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth” (Prov 30:12 ESV).

“Where there is hatred of sin, there is grief and dissatisfaction with self” John Calvin (ref#164, Aug 22nd).

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LOOKING OVER SIN

“He who sees no sin in himself will feel no need of a Savior” William S. Plumer (ref#358, p2).

“Our problem is that we do not take some sin seriously. We have mentally categorized sins into that which is unacceptable and that which may be tolerated a bit” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p18).

“Many of us are careful to maintain an outwardly upright life, but are we just as diligent to cultivate holiness in our thoughts? Since we are unable to do that on our own, are we not in desperate need of a Savior” John Calvin (ref#164, Jan 16th)?

“Christians taking in the teaching of the Bible can be deceived about their own sins. We somehow feel that consent to the teaching of Scripture is equivalent to obedience” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p72).

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22 ESV).

“[A]s human beings, we’re all glory junkies. One bite of chocolate glory is not enough for us. The beautiful watch, the cool car, the best taco, the well-designed golf course, the perfectly appointed kitchen, and the stunning piece of music all get our attention and leave us wanting more.  But these glories were created and placed in our lives for a purpose. All of the glories of the physical created world serve this one purpose—to remind us of and point us to the glory of God. The physical world is wonderfully glorious, but it was never meant to be our stopping point any more than the sign that points to something is meant to be the end of the journey” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, May 31st).

“Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity” (1 John 2:15-17 MSG).

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UNDER THE DOMINION AND POWER OF SATAN

“A gruesome death like the one that Christ endured for me would only be required for one who is exceedingly sinful and unable to appease a holy God” Milton Vincent (ref#60, p33).

“[T]he awful condition of the unconverted. [They are] under the dominion and power of Satan, led captive by him at his will (2 Tim 2:26)” Octavius Winslow (ref#381, p46).

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—“ (Eph 2:1-2 ESV).

“[T]o live under the dominion of sin connotes a settled course of life” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p71).

“[I]t is a faithful portrait of you, if you are yet not born again of the Spirit. The strong man armed, who is the devil, has still the full possession of your soul and will remain in undisputed, and willing occupation until a stronger than he enters, spoils him of his goods, and casts him out. It is his aim and policy to keep your soul in carnal security, in false peace, in the stillness and insensibility of spiritual death. Mistake not rash confidence for humble faith, groundless expectation for assured hope! Satan is a great counterfeiter! He not only can quote Scripture, but he can imitate grace” Octavius Winslow (ref#381, p46).

“As long as you are in the position of trying to justify yourself, you have not repented” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Dec 29th).

“If you have quit being defensive and are now willingly and humbly approachable, you know that transforming grace has visited you. Sin makes us all shockingly self-righteous. It makes us all committed self-excusers. Because accepting blame is not natural, it takes rescuing, transforming grace to produce a humble, willing, broken, self-examining, help-seeking heart” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Apr 26th).

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SIN’S POWER

“[O]ur sin is a burden that afflicts us rather than a pleasure that delights us” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p72).

“The Devil knows that if he can keep me tormented by sin’s guilt, he can dominate me with sin’s power” Milton Vincent (ref#60, p19).

“Sin is not primarily an activity of man’s will so much as a captivity which man suffers, as an alien power grips his soul. [W]hile the presence of sin can never be abolished in this life, nor the influence of sin altered (its tendency is always the same), its dominion can, indeed, must be destroyed if a man is to be a Christian” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p71).

“[S]in will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” (Rom 6:14 ESV).

“There is a hard unyielding self, which stands up for itself and resists others, that will have to be broken, if we are to be willing for the disposition of the Lamb, and if the precious Blood is to reach us in cleansing power. We may pray long to be cleansed from some sin and for peace to be restored to our hearts, but unless we are willing to be broken on the point in question and be made a partaker of the Lamb’s humility there, nothing will happen. Every sin we ever commit is the result of the hard unbroken self taking up some attitude of pride, and we shall not find peace through the Blood until we are willing to see the source of each sin and reverse the wrong attitude that caused it by a specific repentance, which will always be humbling. This does not mean that we need to try and make ourselves feel the humility of Jesus; for we have only to walk in the light and be willing for God to reveal any sin that may be in our lives, and we shall find ourselves asked by the Lord to perform all sorts of costly acts of repentance and surrender, often over what we term small and trivial matters” Roy Hession (ref#97, p96-97).

“There is no such thing as salvation from sin’s penalty without an accompanying deliverance from sin’s dominion. This obviously does not mean we no longer sin, but that sin no longer reigns in our lives” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p70).

“How can we who died to sin still live in it” (Rom 6:2 ESV)?

“The death of Christ secured for us not only freedom from the penalty of sin, but also deliverance from the dominion of sin in our lives” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p61).

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FALLING INTO SIN

“For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me” (Rom 7:11 ESV).

“God’s commands, promise eternal life if one keeps them; and yet they lead to death, since everyone violates what God ordains. This happens when sin deceives a person and uses the law as its instrument” ESV Study Bible (ref#125, p2169).

“It is certainly wrong to feed a lust, even in the imagination. It is quite contrary to the holy rules of God’s words. ‘The thought of foolishness is sin’ (Pro 24:9)” Jonathan Edwards (ref#377, p23).

“As a man that walks in the sun is tanned before he is aware, so are the souls of men sullied and defiled by carnal company before they be aware. For the more accustomed to them, the less odious they seem; so, little by little, our spirits are shaped and fitted for such a sin” Thomas Manton (ref#375, p16).

“Temptation always talks about happiness, fulfillment, gratification, delight, comfort, pleasure, excitement, and the like. It can involve good things or foul perverse things: either way, temptation always lures the flesh to believe its promises instead of God’s Word” Jeff Pollard (ref#372).

“[T]he person who does anything with a high hand reviles the LORD, and that person shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken his commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be on him” (Num 15:30-31 ESV).

“If we would make peace with the world, the world would let us alone. If we could be content to walk in the ways of sin, Satan would give us no disturbance. But because grace has rescued us from his dominion, and the love of Jesus constrains us to live to Him alone, therefore the enemy, like a lion robbed of his prey, roars against us” John Newton (ref#376, p20).

“[T]emptation promises satisfaction. But when it leads to sin, only two responses exist: repentance and faith in Jesus Christ or damnation, no matter how ‘happy’ one is on the way to eternal hellfire” Jeff Pollard (ref#372).

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A MATTER OF THE HEART

“[T]he heart refers to the center of one’s being including the mind, emotions, and will” ESV Study Bible (ref#125, p1907).

“Sin isn’t primarily about acts of rebellion. Sin is, first of all, a condition of the heart that results in acts of rebellion. You and I commit sins because we are sinners” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Jan 30th).

“Have you known anything of real, personal, inward consciousness of the awfulness of your guilt in the presence of a holy God? Have you seen the horribleness of a heart that is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” Albert N. Martin (ref#221, p8)?

“[D]isobedience is personal. Every sin is a violation of a relationship—a sin against God. The first way we devalue sin is to think that sin is about behavior and behavior alone. Sin is always a matter of the thoughts, desires, motives, and choices of the heart. [Y]our body physically goes where your heart has already gone” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Dec 11th ).

“[T]he LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.’” (1 Sam 16:7 ESV).

“The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust” (James 1:13-15 MSG).

“[I]t is only when God is in his rightful place in my heart that I desire to live in a way that please him. Every sin denies his existence and his authority. Every sin replaces him with something else. Every sin quests for his power and his glory. Every sin is after his throne” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Dec 11th).

“You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way. [W]hat he gives in love is far better than anything else you’ll find” (James  4:4-6 MSG).

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He changes; I trust

TWO WAYS TO REACT TO SIN

“[T]he problem of man with respect to God is not only the problem of the guilt of sin. Merely to be forgiven is not enough; we have to keep the law of God that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us. [B]ut we have not kept it; we cannot do so, and we can only keep it in Him. He has kept the law for us” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#211, p54).

“You can’t try to be better than you really are. [Y]ou try to re-create yourself by becoming spiritual. Jesus said that he came for sinners, for messed-up people who keep messing up” Paul E. Miller (ref#62, p33-34).

“Our first problem is that our attitude toward sin is more self-centered than God-centered. We cannot tolerate failure in our struggle with sin chiefly because we are success-oriented, not because we know it is offensive to God” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p16-17).

Two ways to react to sin: concern to how it affects humans and concern to how it affects GOD: “In the one case, the heart is only mortified; in the other, it is truly humbled. The one is a feeling that deals only with others; the other is an emotion that has to do with God. Once the believer is solemnly conscious of acting beneath the eye of God, the gaze of other eyes barely affects him. Oh, how little do some who profess faith act as though they had only to do with God! How imperfectly do they look at sin as God looks at it! But if they lived more with the Lord always before them, how would they rise above the poor opinions of others! It would then appear a very little matter for them to be judged with man’s judgment” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Apr 16th).

This is what happens to my sin when I concentrate on JESUS: I remember that I am a new creature—a person who does not desire to sin—a person who is more interested in maintaining a relationship with JESUS than striving to be righteous. Do I want to be right, or do I want to be with JESUS? For the more I love Him the more I want to please Him. St. Augustine one said, “Love God and live as you please.”