Just a Couple Pebbles
Just a Couple Pebbles
"The weight of sin and how it takes from our abundant life"
God’s Creation is a Spirit Filled Experience
(Psalm 19:1, Psalm 96:11-12, Psalm 104:24, Job 12:7-8, Romans 1:20)
I love to fish! It is one of the things that I like to do most to relax and I often am able to get into God’s presence while I do it. I love that it is peaceful, I love that it gets me out into God’s creation, not to mention I really like to cook fish and eat it as well!
Depending on where I go it is always different. If I am fishing a mountain stream I am usually in a place where it's only me, listening to the running of the stream and birds chirping, smelling things like evergreen trees and other earthy smells. If I am fishing in the surf I might be listening to the crashing waves, smelling saltwater, while feeling a breeze on my face. If I am fishing a lake, it is usually on a warm spring or summer day, feeling the sun on my skin, a slight breeze while trolling in a boat, and seeing fish rise to the surface to eat their morning meal. I almost always find myself talking to God in prayer. (1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18) because getting into God’s creation has a way of becoming a spirit filled experience, at least for me.
Pebbles = Sin
(Colossians 3:1-3, 3:4-6, and 3:7-11)
I am not just telling you that I love fishing for no reason. I had an experience fishing a this last year and God put a word into my heart that I think is a great analogy for how sin (even seemingly small) can take away from our abundant life.
I drove out to the Ocean City beach approach for some surf perch fishing. My routine for fishing for perch is I have a rod and reel combo, set up with a bait rig, and I bring waders to keep me warm and dry while I am fishing. Unbeknownst to me, I had a couple of small pebbles that had found their way into my waders because I had stored my waders outside on top of some gravel. I didn’t realize this was the case until I had already put my waders on and was heading out to the surf.
I was in a hurry to get out and start fishing because the tide was at the optimal point and I just decided that I wouldn’t take my waders off to get the rocks out because they were so small and insignificant that they would not hurt me too bad. Pretty soon after I got out into the waves I started to have success catching fish. My waders were doing their job keeping me dry and warm but those couple of little rocks kept feeling to me as if they were growing bigger and bigger. I understood that this could not be the case, rocks don’t have the ability to grow like that, but no matter how I tried to adjust my feet and kick my boots around to adjust the rocks my feet were progressively getting more and more sore. I was having success and, for all intents and purposes, I should have been feeling joy and peace. Instead all I was feeling was pain and I was too distracted to stay joyous in the moment.
It got to the point where I simply could not stand the pain anymore and I finally broke down and decided to take the short walk to my car to take them off and remove the rocks. It was hard for me to take that break because like I said I was having so much success, but it only took me about five minutes to walk to my car, take off my waders, shake out the rocks, put them back on, and walk back out to the surf. The instant relief that I felt was immense and I was finally able to enjoy what I was out doing.
Small Sins have a Huge Impact
(Galatians 5:9, Song of Solomon 2:15, James 3:5)
This experience brought me to a deeper understanding of a biblical truth. When we make the decision to follow Jesus (if it is genuine) we have blessed assurance of the salvation that Jesus offers us. This is called our positional salvation and nobody or nothing can take that away. (John 10:28-30) We are placed inside of Jesus and when God looks at us he sees Jesus. I once heard an analogy from a pastor and it has really helped me understand this. When we are without Christ we can be represented by a piece of paper and when we decide to follow Jesus our piece of paper is slid into an envelope that is Jesus. When God looks at us he doesn’t see our depravity and unworthy nature but rather he sees his Son and his perfection. (Colossians 3:3)
This, however, does not mean that if we have unresolved sin in our lives that it won’t hurt our abundant life. Anytime that we sin we are separated from God until we confess our sins and repent. (Isaiah 59:2, 20) Repenting literally means to “ turn and run the other way” so when we confess our sins we need to turn and run the opposite way of the sin that we have been living in. We all carry baggage into our relationships with Jesus. Whatever baggage we have struggled with going into our relationship with Jesus does not magically go away but the only difference is now we don’t have to carry that baggage but instead we can lay it at the foot of the cross and give it away. (Psalm 55:22) We are no longer bound to it but sometimes we still hold tight to it. Think about it like this, before we ask Christ into our hearts we are locked in a jail cell with a ball and chain attached to our arms. When we become Christians, Jesus unlocks the prison door and frees us from our chains. Often we see this as magical. We think that we won’t ever be tempted by sin again and we let our guard down. When this is the case we often walk back into that same unlocked jail cell and pick our ball and chain back up even though we are not bound at all.
This is called our practical salvation. Like I said we cannot lose our positional salvation but our practical salvation is affected by the choices we make and has a direct impact on our abundant life. I want to be very clear that when I say “abundant” life I do not mean a life without hardship. God does not promise us an easy road, he actually promises us just the opposite. (John 15:18-21) He also promises that blessing is not only things that feel good but blessing also comes in heart ache and hardship. (Matthew 5:3-4, 10-12) A life lived with God can still be thankful, joyous, peaceful, and fulfilled even in those times that the world would think we should be miserable in. (1 Thessalonians 5:18) If our life is too easy it should actually be an indicator for us to be introspective of whether or not we are truly living a set apart life. (Leviticus 20:26)
Freedom to Choose Spirit or Flesh
(Galatians 5:1, 13, 19-24, Romans 8:5-8)
God wants us to love him but forced love is not love. He did not create robots. It is always our choice each day whether we will choose to put to death our flesh and choose the spirit or if we will choose the flesh and break relationship with God until we ask for forgiveness and choose to repent to be brought back into a right relationship with him. (1 John 1:9)
Satan is rightly described as the deceiver and if he is not able to deceive us before we give our lives to christ he will do all he can to get you to fall into sin and become an ineffective christian. (2 Corinthians 11:3, Revelation 12:9) Like I described in my illustration, he will set a couple of sins in our life that seem small and innocuous at the time, like small pebbles. He doesn’t usually set egregious sins in front of us to start, because those we could see as actual detriments to our life but just like the small pebbles seemed to grow in size so will the sin over time. He might even set something in front of us that has a good portion of God's truth in it and twist it just a little bit and if we aren’t careful we will duped. (1 Corinthians 5:6) Eventually we will be addicted and trapped in sins and won't even realize how we got there. (James 1:14-15)
Choosing to follow the Holy Spirit gets easier the more that we do it. This is because the more we follow the spirits guiding the more we can see that God comes through. I like to think about the Holy Spirit as a muscle. When muscles are worked out they grow and become more effective at what we are training them to do and if we don’t use our muscles then they will atrophy and become weak. In the same way the more we choose to walk with the Holy Spirit the stronger he becomes in us and the less we walk with the spirit the weaker his effect in our lives is. (Colossians 2:6-7)
Gods Grace is Sufficient
(2 Corinthians 12:9, Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 5:20, James 4:6)
In a world that is ready to cancel you at your first mistake and trust me they will, God is ready to give his grace and mercy to those who are humble and ask for it sincerely. (Hebrews 4:16) Even in our christian walk we will have many times when we need to approach the throne of grace and ask for forgiveness and God is faithful to restore us and bring us back into a right relationship. He allows us to come back to the car, take off our waders, and he will remove those rocks that have been taking our peace and joy away and we will once again be able to be an effective part of the body of Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:27)
Let us keep running back to Christ constantly, no sin is too big and he will always be ready to receive us back into his arms.
His love is from everlasting to everlasting!
"The weight of sin and how it takes from our abundant life"
God’s Creation is a Spirit Filled Experience
(Psalm 19:1, Psalm 96:11-12, Psalm 104:24, Job 12:7-8, Romans 1:20)
I love to fish! It is one of the things that I like to do most to relax and I often am able to get into God’s presence while I do it. I love that it is peaceful, I love that it gets me out into God’s creation, not to mention I really like to cook fish and eat it as well!
Depending on where I go it is always different. If I am fishing a mountain stream I am usually in a place where it's only me, listening to the running of the stream and birds chirping, smelling things like evergreen trees and other earthy smells. If I am fishing in the surf I might be listening to the crashing waves, smelling saltwater, while feeling a breeze on my face. If I am fishing a lake, it is usually on a warm spring or summer day, feeling the sun on my skin, a slight breeze while trolling in a boat, and seeing fish rise to the surface to eat their morning meal. I almost always find myself talking to God in prayer. (1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18) because getting into God’s creation has a way of becoming a spirit filled experience, at least for me.
Pebbles = Sin
(Colossians 3:1-3, 3:4-6, and 3:7-11)
I am not just telling you that I love fishing for no reason. I had an experience fishing a this last year and God put a word into my heart that I think is a great analogy for how sin (even seemingly small) can take away from our abundant life.
I drove out to the Ocean City beach approach for some surf perch fishing. My routine for fishing for perch is I have a rod and reel combo, set up with a bait rig, and I bring waders to keep me warm and dry while I am fishing. Unbeknownst to me, I had a couple of small pebbles that had found their way into my waders because I had stored my waders outside on top of some gravel. I didn’t realize this was the case until I had already put my waders on and was heading out to the surf.
I was in a hurry to get out and start fishing because the tide was at the optimal point and I just decided that I wouldn’t take my waders off to get the rocks out because they were so small and insignificant that they would not hurt me too bad. Pretty soon after I got out into the waves I started to have success catching fish. My waders were doing their job keeping me dry and warm but those couple of little rocks kept feeling to me as if they were growing bigger and bigger. I understood that this could not be the case, rocks don’t have the ability to grow like that, but no matter how I tried to adjust my feet and kick my boots around to adjust the rocks my feet were progressively getting more and more sore. I was having success and, for all intents and purposes, I should have been feeling joy and peace. Instead all I was feeling was pain and I was too distracted to stay joyous in the moment.
It got to the point where I simply could not stand the pain anymore and I finally broke down and decided to take the short walk to my car to take them off and remove the rocks. It was hard for me to take that break because like I said I was having so much success, but it only took me about five minutes to walk to my car, take off my waders, shake out the rocks, put them back on, and walk back out to the surf. The instant relief that I felt was immense and I was finally able to enjoy what I was out doing.
Small Sins have a Huge Impact
(Galatians 5:9, Song of Solomon 2:15, James 3:5)
This experience brought me to a deeper understanding of a biblical truth. When we make the decision to follow Jesus (if it is genuine) we have blessed assurance of the salvation that Jesus offers us. This is called our positional salvation and nobody or nothing can take that away. (John 10:28-30) We are placed inside of Jesus and when God looks at us he sees Jesus. I once heard an analogy from a pastor and it has really helped me understand this. When we are without Christ we can be represented by a piece of paper and when we decide to follow Jesus our piece of paper is slid into an envelope that is Jesus. When God looks at us he doesn’t see our depravity and unworthy nature but rather he sees his Son and his perfection. (Colossians 3:3)
This, however, does not mean that if we have unresolved sin in our lives that it won’t hurt our abundant life. Anytime that we sin we are separated from God until we confess our sins and repent. (Isaiah 59:2, 20) Repenting literally means to “ turn and run the other way” so when we confess our sins we need to turn and run the opposite way of the sin that we have been living in. We all carry baggage into our relationships with Jesus. Whatever baggage we have struggled with going into our relationship with Jesus does not magically go away but the only difference is now we don’t have to carry that baggage but instead we can lay it at the foot of the cross and give it away. (Psalm 55:22) We are no longer bound to it but sometimes we still hold tight to it. Think about it like this, before we ask Christ into our hearts we are locked in a jail cell with a ball and chain attached to our arms. When we become Christians, Jesus unlocks the prison door and frees us from our chains. Often we see this as magical. We think that we won’t ever be tempted by sin again and we let our guard down. When this is the case we often walk back into that same unlocked jail cell and pick our ball and chain back up even though we are not bound at all.
This is called our practical salvation. Like I said we cannot lose our positional salvation but our practical salvation is affected by the choices we make and has a direct impact on our abundant life. I want to be very clear that when I say “abundant” life I do not mean a life without hardship. God does not promise us an easy road, he actually promises us just the opposite. (John 15:18-21) He also promises that blessing is not only things that feel good but blessing also comes in heart ache and hardship. (Matthew 5:3-4, 10-12) A life lived with God can still be thankful, joyous, peaceful, and fulfilled even in those times that the world would think we should be miserable in. (1 Thessalonians 5:18) If our life is too easy it should actually be an indicator for us to be introspective of whether or not we are truly living a set apart life. (Leviticus 20:26)
Freedom to Choose Spirit or Flesh
(Galatians 5:1, 13, 19-24, Romans 8:5-8)
God wants us to love him but forced love is not love. He did not create robots. It is always our choice each day whether we will choose to put to death our flesh and choose the spirit or if we will choose the flesh and break relationship with God until we ask for forgiveness and choose to repent to be brought back into a right relationship with him. (1 John 1:9)
Satan is rightly described as the deceiver and if he is not able to deceive us before we give our lives to christ he will do all he can to get you to fall into sin and become an ineffective christian. (2 Corinthians 11:3, Revelation 12:9) Like I described in my illustration, he will set a couple of sins in our life that seem small and innocuous at the time, like small pebbles. He doesn’t usually set egregious sins in front of us to start, because those we could see as actual detriments to our life but just like the small pebbles seemed to grow in size so will the sin over time. He might even set something in front of us that has a good portion of God's truth in it and twist it just a little bit and if we aren’t careful we will duped. (1 Corinthians 5:6) Eventually we will be addicted and trapped in sins and won't even realize how we got there. (James 1:14-15)
Choosing to follow the Holy Spirit gets easier the more that we do it. This is because the more we follow the spirits guiding the more we can see that God comes through. I like to think about the Holy Spirit as a muscle. When muscles are worked out they grow and become more effective at what we are training them to do and if we don’t use our muscles then they will atrophy and become weak. In the same way the more we choose to walk with the Holy Spirit the stronger he becomes in us and the less we walk with the spirit the weaker his effect in our lives is. (Colossians 2:6-7)
Gods Grace is Sufficient
(2 Corinthians 12:9, Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 5:20, James 4:6)
In a world that is ready to cancel you at your first mistake and trust me they will, God is ready to give his grace and mercy to those who are humble and ask for it sincerely. (Hebrews 4:16) Even in our christian walk we will have many times when we need to approach the throne of grace and ask for forgiveness and God is faithful to restore us and bring us back into a right relationship. He allows us to come back to the car, take off our waders, and he will remove those rocks that have been taking our peace and joy away and we will once again be able to be an effective part of the body of Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:27)
Let us keep running back to Christ constantly, no sin is too big and he will always be ready to receive us back into his arms.
His love is from everlasting to everlasting!
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