You cannot balance-out your faith with practices that are heinous to God and expect God to change His ways for you. God does not use a balance scale. I cannot “balance-out my faith” by practicing sin.
Coming to God on your own terms is like…
- like walking up to a wild bear and telling him to be nice
- like standing on a red ant hill and asking them nicely to stay in their hole
- like speeding recklessly past a watchful CHP officer in California and really really hoping he doesn’t come after you
- like whacking a tattooed biker over the head and thinking you’ll get away with it
- like careening into court dipsy drunk to fight a DUI offense and thinking the judge will forgive you
- like going to a gun battle with a water pistol
The reality of God’s universe is — it’s not your universe. It behooves us to seek after God and get His word on things. Our thoughts are not His thoughts. My thoughts will not be consulted by God on That Day. God said,
Isaiah 55:8-9
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
How much higher? Way higher!
It’s so very very hard to admit I was wrong. How ’bout you? I want my way to be okay. Talk to any convicted felon. They wanted everything their way. And they rarely admit wrong.
We all want to be right. We want to legitimize our sins.
- The jerk is driving so slow. I had to speed around her. I couldn’t help being angry.
- They had such poor security. I had to steal it. I needed more money.
- I like the thrill of breaking into someone’s home. I didn’t hurt anyone!
- The film is legal. The actors get paid. I like the porn. What’s wrong with that?
- There’s no victim here. I can do what I want.
- I just so despise him. He’s such a creep. You hear the latest…?
- He had it coming. So I let him have it.
- If he hadn’t disrespected me, I would not have stabbed him.
- These taxes are so unfair. I just won’t report that income.
So… we puny humans do what we do… do some creative thinking, philosophize, choose a religion that suits us… hoping to create a “faith” to legitimize our sin. The problem is – we’re not in charge of the universe. The truth is:
You cannot
balance-out your faith
with practices
that are heinous to God
and expect God to
change His ways for you.
It’s like
- Not liking our socialist state, so you make yourself governor, carve-out a piece of California, and expect the USA to approve your state.
- Telling the Secret Service to butt out when you trespass on the White House lawn. 1
- You decide to live in Mexico, so you sneak across the border to live, and tell the “federales” to butt out.
We are but mud men, pieces from the Potter’s table. Befuddled and besmirched, we can’t see up from down.
God owns truth. Some of us never seem to get it: All sin is heinous to God. We will never get away with it. Only His forgiveness removes the penalty of sin in His Kingdom.
God is asking us to repent
and follow Him
so He can grant us entrance
legally into His Kingdom.
God has communicated His plan to us
through a miracle book, the Bible.
God calls His followers to reject sin (2 Corinthians 7:1), all that He calls “sin”, and press on to our upward calling (Philippians 3:12-14).
Excerpt from My Heinous Heinous Ways:
Sin is horrible. Heinous. No matter what “grade” or degradation level we try to label it:
Degrees of Sin
1I can deal with that/ 2not really all that bad/
3not so good/ 4unacceptable/
5bad/ 6really really bad/
7evil/ 8Really BAD/
9horrible/
10heinous/
In God’s universe, we will not get away with ANY DEGREE of sin. The penalty is still: Entrance not granted….
There definitely are degrees of “effect” from sin, as in: I prefer “words” of hate, slander, gossip, and such, which merely hurt my soul, rather than “sticks and stones” that hurt my body. True.
But try whining to the judge, “But, but, but – what I did was “not really all that bad!” What would the judge say?
In the book of James, God emphasizes that our practice MUST align with His standard, or else our “faith” is worthless in His sight.
James 2:20
But are you willing to recognize,
you foolish
[spiritually shallow]
person,
that faith
without [good] works
is useless?
“Good works” are God’s ways streaming from my soul. Only God’s ways are God’s ways. The rest… are vile to Jesus. Like filthy menstrual rags (Isaiah 64:6).
1 John 3:9
No one who is born of God [deliberately, knowingly, and habitually] practices sin, because God’s seed [His principle of life, the essence of His righteous character] remains [permanently] in him [who is born again—who is reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, and set apart for His purpose]; and he [who is born again] cannot habitually [live a life characterized by] sin, because he is born of God and longs to please Him.
My aim is to be a healthy soul in God’s sight. And I cannot “balance-out my faith” by practicing sin, like Jack and Pete here:
Today Jack is happy as a lark, singing on his way to church with his girlfriend with whom he shares his bed.
Today (April/2019) Pete Buttigieg is gay, and he is mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Buttigieg has himself regularly mentioned how he balances Scripture with his choice of being actively gay sexually. He says he has a Christian faith. And he says that he balances-out his faith with his practice of homosexual living. -See: Misunderstanding God; and an article from the Washington Post (‘Not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized’: Franklin Graham blasts Buttigieg for being gay); By Kyle Swenson;
The Balance Scale Fraud
That type of “faith” that Jack has, that Pete has – is fake Christianity. It is a false teaching. Buttigieg has faith that our choices, even if contrary to Scripture, will balance-out in the end, with God approving our entrance into His Holy Kingdom. That’s a fraud. Totally a pipe dream.
– Mark 7:7 ‘They worship Me in vain [their worship is meaningless and worthless, a pretense], Teaching the precepts of men as doctrines [giving their traditions equal weight with the Scriptures].’
– Romans 1:21 “21 For even though [a]they knew God [as the Creator], they did not [b]honor Him as God or give thanks [for His wondrous creation]. On the contrary, they became worthless in their thinking [godless, with pointless reasonings, and silly speculations], and their foolish heart was darkened.
God does not use a balance scale. We either ask Him for forgiveness and follow Him with all we are – so that we are justified and all our sins are forgiven, or, we follow our own ways – and all our sins remain unforgiven, condemning us on Judgement Day.
We want the easy life. So many want God to bend to their own thinking. They are not willing to accept God’s clearly stated standards. In God’s reality, the follower of Christ actually follows Christ.
“The example of Christ leads to rational self evaluation. Being “in Christ” we work with Him to become more and more like Him, less and less stuck on our self, more and more looking out for the interests of others.” – From the article: Behaving Stupidly
Pick a sin, any sin. They’re all the same: “sin”. Sin is what God calls “sin”. A sin by any other name — is still a sin. The Bible shows us clearly what God disapproves of and calls “sin”. And you don’t have to be a felon to get on His list.
God’s Sin List:
- 2 Timothy 3:3 …“unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips (1 Timothy 5:13), without self-control, brutal, haters of good“
-
2 Corinthians 12:20 …”strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances
-
Romans 1:29 …”…those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; 32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.“
-
Matthew 15:19 …”For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders”
-
Proverbs 16:28 …”A perverse man spreads strife, And a slanderer separates intimate friends.”
-
Ephesians 4:31 “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice”
-
1 Peter 2:1 …”Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander”
-
2 Peter 2 …false prophets
-
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 …”9Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.“
“Such were some of you.” We’ve all been on God’s Sin List.
11 Such were some of you;
but you were washed,
but you were sanctified,
but you were
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
and in the Spirit of our God.”
I must leave my sin behind, no matter what it may be. God will not accept me into His Kingdom if I make a practice of my sin. Scary thought: to live with the label of “Christian”, go to church, worship intensely, but all the while cultivating a willful sin I practice as “not really all that bad”. How does God perceive your heart?
We are so slow to see how we are perceived. We’re all little lunkheads. So little time is invested back into our soul – to know who we are and how we’re doing.
Is your soul sick? Or are you healthy? Getting healthier? What in you is healthy? What in you needs God’s healing touch, some tender loving care and attention?
– Source: A healthy soul
To become truly born again: Name it as “sin”, repent of it, turn to Jesus sincerely and in truth, and actually follow Him, not your own inclinations. We don’t get to call the shots. Ever. We are but creations of His. The cracked pot cannot be calling the shots with His Creator.
With experience, one looks ahead and discerns what is right and what is wrong, what is desirable with Christ and what is not. Getting into the Bible – one begins to see what is the mind of Christ, and what is not.
– Taken from the article: “The Life of Keith“
Don’t stay with what is not God’s will…. Anyone of us can turn to God and repent. If we repent with sincerity and truth (“freely admit”), He promises to forgive us of all our sin:
1 John 1:9 “If we [freely] admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just [true to His own nature and promises], and will forgive our sins and cleanse us continually from all unrighteousness [our wrongdoing, everything not in conformity with His will and purpose].”
FOR MORE:
Is your light actually darkness?
Practicing Sin, Not Following Christ
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