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Archives for June 2023

Authentic Sharing Leaves People Blessed

Authentic Sharing Leaves People Blessed

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Reading time: 4 minutes

We thrive when God shares His life with us through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Sharing your life with others might be the best way to encourage someone. Paul describes his desire for mutual edification to the believers in Rome:

One of the things I always pray for is the opportunity, God willing, to come at last to see you. For I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift that will help you grow strong in the Lord. When we get together, I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours.

Romans 1:10-12 NLT

A testimony is a statement of personal experience. It can’t be refuted, but it is also hard to deny. Testimonies are usually intentional and planned, but casual sharing can be just as effective.

Sharing Your Spirit is a Blessing

Others need your perspective. It can be incredibly encouraging just to hear someone else acknowledge God’s truth as real. God gives us life to share with others. What is more precious than life? Sharing your life is like a supercharged spiritual discipline.

Because we are made in God’s image, we are spirit at our core too. God made us to have some control over what we keep hidden and what we reveal.

For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

John 4:24 NLT

If God invests in revealing who He is to us, we should also spend time revealing ourselves to each other. By sharing ourselves we are also revealing who God is because God lives within us. This kind of spiritual sharing goes beyond sharing physical resources.

God’s Spirit has shown you everything. His Spirit finds out everything, even what is deep in the mind of God.

1 Corinthians 2:10 CEV

To see and know God is eternal life (John 17:3).

Mutual Sharing is Superior

What is motivating you when you share? Interestingly enough, sharing benefits both the speaker and the listener. In most relationships, balanced sharing is more rewarding. Listening can be work but it can also be an act of receiving a blessing. Speaking can be work, for example when someone is teaching, but it can also be advantageous.

The speaker is blessed by knowing that what is shared makes a difference in someone else’s life. Sharing is also important for another more subtle reason: not sharing is unnatural. An example of this is when someone gives another the silent treatment. People become emotionally sick when they cannot share their lives with others.

Even though sharing is beneficial, this doesn’t mean it is healthy to share indiscriminately. Even God reveals Himself only to specific people.

My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

Luke 10:22 NLT

Some people have no interest or use for God’s words. They do not understand. They do not know eternal life. God says that you don’t have to waste your time with these people. But there are plenty of others who are poor in spirit. They want to hear the words of truth. They are hungry for the life you have flowing within you.

Don’t give to dogs what belongs to God. They will only turn and attack you. Don’t throw pearls down in front of pigs. They will trample all over them.

Matthew 7:6 CEV

Too often people are taught to not be selfish and to listen more than speak. But if everyone followed this advice, no one would be talking! I encourage you to intentionally seek a balance in your relationships. Both speaking and listening are powerful blessings.

When you speak, be deliberate about sharing the best parts of your spiritual life. What has God been doing in your heart? When you are listening to others, realize they are sharing the “pearls of the kingdom” with you. You are treading on holy ground. Be respectful of this blessing.

Speak and listen with all of your heart.

Learn about overcoming shame.
Learn about the limits of self-revelation.
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What Is Sin? A Foolish Rebellion Against God

What Is Sin? A Foolish Rebellion Against God

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Reading time: 4 minutes

Your understanding of sin can have a profound effect on your life. If your definition is inaccurate, you will be either too judgmental or too lenient with yourself and others. What is sin? What is the best way to understand sin? Is sinning different that sin?

Sin is Rooted in a Sinful Nature

What is a sinful nature? It is the condition of our existence that we are born into. It cannot be escaped by any effort apart from God.

A sinful nature is a core (primary) attitude in the heart: a desire to live your own life, with your own rules, apart from God. Instead of acknowledging and choosing dependence upon God, sin is rebellion against God and what He stands for. Rebellion can be open and demonstrative or silent but seething below the surface.

Those who desire to live apart from God will get what they wish for. Hell is a place absent of God’s goodness, with no hope of escape.

Sin is Different than Sinning

Sin is the disease of the heart. None of us are born ready to choose God wholeheartedly.

We are powerless to separate our sinful nature from our physical bodies. Everyone (except Jesus, Elijah, and Enoch) will die physically because of their sin. Jesus died, but not because of His sin. Elijah and Enoch were sinful like the rest of us, but God took them to heaven before they died. The point is that sin is fatal.

Sin is ongoing but sinning (committing a sin) is a distinct moment in time. Sinning is trivial compared to sin. Sin is more like an incurable disease and sinning is like a natural symptom of the disease. Ceasing sinning does not eliminate sin. But the person who is cured of the disease by faith in Jesus will eventually stop sinning.

We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.

Romans 6:6-7 NLT

Sinning is an action. Sinning is essentially involuntary for non-believers. Because Christ defeated sin and death, sinning is a choice for believers.

Believers are Saints, Not Sinners

A non-believer is a “sinner.” A believer is a “saint.” A sinner will continue sinning. A saint will sin, but not continue in the same defiant way over time. God gives saints the ability to repent.

John Piper answers the question, What is Sin? on his website. He does an excellent job explaining and supporting the idea that no one is good except God. We all fall short, therefore, none of us are capable of good works (apart from God working in us).

For as good of a job he does providing the needed support to answer the question, I am disappointed with his final, concise definition:

Sinning is any feeling or thought or speech or action that comes from a heart that does not treasure God over all other things.

John Piper

As a counselor, I see this definition as confusing at best or containing errors at worst. The definition is complicated and susceptible to misunderstanding or misinterpretation. Here are some questions it raises for me:

  • What about a heart that does treasure God? A saint will treasure God. But a saint is still capable of sinning.
  • Sinning is different than sin. How does this answer the question, what is sin?
  • Feelings and thoughts, and even speech and actions can be indicators of a sinful heart. They are like the smoke resulting from a raging fire.
  • Feelings and thoughts can be involuntary. They just happen. God judges sin and condemns it. Should a definition of sin focus on condemning feelings? When people burst into tears or express they are afraid, do they need to know first and foremost that they are sinning? Negative feelings can indicate wrong belief about God (needs correction), but they don’t necessarily mean unbelief (sinful).

A better definition will focus on the heart, the core, the root of the problem. I propose a simpler, direct definition: Sin is brokenness producing an attitude of foolish rebellion against God and what He stands for.

The saint practices learning how to stop sinning. The saint values God’s truth. The saint sees dependence upon God as the only way life can possibly work. There can be only one true Kingdom — God’s. Attempting to set up one’s own kingdom apart from God is nothing less than sinful insurrection.

Read more about Elijah and Enoch
Read more about Unbelief
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