To sin, or not to sin…
I’ll admit it – I’m okay with ambiguity. Sure, some things in my world are very black and white, but when it comes to the really big questions, rarely are things that simple.
When it comes to God, I think there’s a certain pride in feeling like we’ve got Him all the way figured out… The fact is, we need to know the essentials, like the fact that our sins are totally forgiven by Christ’s work on the cross. But the rest? I, for one, have many questions that are unanswerable this side of heaven.
Were you cheesed by the fact that Neil spent a whole (long) paragraph on rhetorical questions? But how can all those things be true if we still sin?
I was glad for the heads-up, that we will be finding out over the next few days the answers to why we still sin if we’re a new creation.
For now, let’s embrace the mystery, and let ourselves be challenged as we tackle these questions…
Isaiah 55:8-9 says this:
“My thoughts are completely different from yours,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
Ok, so I'm really looking forward to how Neil will unpack this over the next couple of days. At first I was throwing the "semantics" flag on the field. While I have never heard the black dog/white dog analogy, I like it. It did bring up a huge theological question for me though, what about German Shepherd's (like our Bruin) who has both light and dark coloring? We feed him....
ReplyDeleteThis side of what Neil will present over the next few days, I want to say it's both. We are free from the bondage and curse of sin because of Jesus' redeeming work on the cross (He is the Big Dog, or as they would say on the street, Big DAWG!). However, we still have our own free will that needs to be exercised. We are new creatures that can practice old habits. This is the growth model we talked about yesterday isn't it?
Neil’s devotional is very open ended, not just info one day all wrapped up.
ReplyDeleteI think this means it is going to cause me to work hard over the next couple of days…
I have heard the analogy about the dogs before and Neil says the one we feed will grow stronger and overpowers the other. I think this side of heaven we carry both dogs with us always, one may be stronger, hopefully the white dog, but the black dog is hungry and will still want to be feed.
I have not heard of the dog analogy before. Pattie, I agree with you about how the the black dog still wants to be fed. Its easy to want to give in and say but look, he's hungry! I think we all want to sin once in a while. I just have to remember that the black dog is Satan and that makes it a whole lot easier to resist!!!
ReplyDelete"But having sin and being sin are two completely different issues. When we choose to walk by the flesh we will sin, but, as 1 John 2:1 reminds us, we don't have to:'My little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin.'"
ReplyDeleteWhile I think the two dog analogy is interesting, I think a computer analogy might be more accurate. When we are saved, our entire operating system is changed--we are "reprogrammed" to live for Jesus. Unfortunately, the new OS could not purge the sin corrupted sectors of our original program. If we are not vigilant (and if we don't continue to "scan" our new system for new sin viruses) the corrupted sectors of our original program will infect the new OS and eventually cause it to crash.
Thank you God for delivering me from the curse of sin--help me to follow you and resist the devil and flee from sin!