LAY YOUR WEIGHT ASIDE, BELIEVER!
“Let us lay aside every weight (every hindrance to holiness), and the sin which does so easily beset us” (See Hebrews 12:1). Every sin can be laid aside by living, God-gifted faith. Living faith is not passive but dynamically active, empowering a person to overcome sin. Though accomplished by faith, there is a struggle as Satan will try to shake your faith (See 2 Thessalonians 2:1-2). Am I to believe the best testimony to be had from living faith imparted by Almighty God and infused with the power of God’s mighty Holy Spirit is that we definitely will sin and grieve our heavenly Father every day we live in thought, word and/or deed?? That’s the very best God has provided for His sons and daughters in Christ Jesus? Righteousness which is by true living faith is not a shoddy, make-believe righteousness continually interspersed with flagrant disobedience, one moment sinning and the next repenting? “By faith Abraham OBEYED!” (See Hebrews 11:8). And when we read concerning John the Baptist’s parents, “they were both righteous before God, walking in ALL the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” – they , like Abraham, achieved this walk by living faith. (See Luke 1:5-6).
“Abstain from all appearance of evil. And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He that calls you (to this walk and lifestyle), who also will do it” (I Thessalonians 5:22-24). Yes, brethren, God WILL do it. He will empower you to resist any and all temptations to sin. How could Paul be so sure of this? Because God had done it for Paul many years before. A distorted interpretation of Romans 7 has led multitudes to believe that Paul never gained the victory over sin and temptation. Those who hold that perverted belief fail to consider the 19th verse of Romans 6, where Paul says “I speak after the manner of men (defeated men at that), because of the infirmity of YOUR flesh (yes, THEIR flesh, not Paul’s weakness), for as YOU have yielded your members servants to uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity (one sin after another), even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.” It is these spiritually defeated Romans Paul speaks of in Romans 7. He uses the personal pronoun “I” again and again in that chapter as he is speaking like they speak. He is addressing their problem from their viewpoint. Paul describes his own experience in I Thessalonians 2, verse 10: “You are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe.”
Brethren, “There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not suffer (allow) you to be tempted above that (which) you are able (to bear), but will with the temptation (at that exact same moment in time) also make a way to escape (a God-made, hence perfect avenue of escape) that you may be able to bear it” (I Corinthians 10:13). God help you to believe and understand.
Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley