I was reading a devotion a few minutes ago in Life as a Vapor by John Piper and it made me think that I may have left out a key point in my posts about hot tub religion. So, I thought I'd do a quick follow-up on those.
One of my points earlier was how in today's culture of not wanting to offend people and feeling good about yourself, that we overlook the hard commands of Scripture. I certainly think this is true and it bothers me to see that lack of concern for holiness that people have nowadays. I was just praying today that God would really cause me to hate sin- not just the consequences of sin and not just those that are taboo, but even the "little" sins. I'm sure that if we all really saw it for what it was, we would hate sin and really desire to turn away from it. But, alas, we have that fallen nature we battle with.
Anyways, on to my point... I did not mean to imply that holiness is about following a list of do's & don'ts. That certainly isn't true- just look at how the Pharisees went about seeking holiness and what Jesus had to say to them. Rather, I think the teachings of Christ (and the rest of the NT) are clear that holiness is a heart thing. We need to be transformed daily so that our hearts are inclined to Christ and the Spirit helps us to see how we apply God's Word to our lives. Of course, the Bible is a key part of this and does outline some things that we should & shouldn't do. But, God is surely more concerned with our hearts- after all, what's in the heart manifests itself in how we speak and act. We can sin sitting still in the middle of Panera (like I did last week) without speaking a word or moving a muscle.
One of the things that has made the biggest difference in my own walk and struggle with sin is to stop focusing on fighting sin. Instead, my key is to each morning go to God through prayer and the Bible to allow Him to satisfy me and transform my mind, so that sin starts to lose its taste. After all, God provides us pleasures forevermore, satisfies us more than the richest meal, and is our exceeding joy (Psalms 16, 63, 43). When you have a Ruth's Chris steak before you, why go after a McDonald's burger that has been sitting on the floor for a week?
And, thankfully, when we do go after lesser things, God by His grace picks us up and gives us the strength to go on...
-JRO
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I'm commenting to you from Panera, and I haven't sinned since I walked in the door (I don't think).
I agree that following a list of dos and don'ts, or simply trying on our own to live up to the life that God has challenged us, would frustrate most of us to death and we would never succeed. Most of us would probably realize we sin many, many times a day, and trying to change everything at once would overwhelming if not impossible. However, by spending time with God and, like you said, allowing Him to change our hearts and minds, we get to the point where we just don't have as many of those sinful desires as we used to. I definitely agree that's the way to attack our sin problem. And I'm glad you mentioned grace in this post :)
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