As Christians, indeed, as followers of Jesus Christ, we have a few choices as we face ANY sin in our life: We can bury our sin, hide it and become self-righteous, or we can give in to the sin and simply accept it in our life. We give up on the battle and we basically create a chasm between us and God which leads to spiritual destruction…..
OR, we have another choice: We can face our sin and the struggle, put up barriers, continue to turn to God and Jesus for help, for refuge (spiritual poverty), mourn the sin and work through the temptation and struggle.
In doing this we are living out the Beatitudes. I want to look again at the Beatitudes (those attitudes that Jesus tells us will bring to us a blessed life). I can’t impress enough how these attitudes affect our day-to-day decisions…….which directly impact our tomorrow.
The Beatitudes of course can be found in Matthew 5:3-11. Let’s look at the healthy way of dealing with sin in our lives through the lens of the Beatitudes:
- We are seeking God’s help (spiritual poverty) instead of rationalizing that all is okay and we will see the kingdom of heaven because God is king in our lives.
- We are mourning our sin and the sin of others……. and indeed we will be comforted.
- We are humbly facing our temptations and struggles through the meekness of our heart before God and others……and we will inherit the earth. We will find fulfillment in this world.
- We are now hungering and thirsting for righteousness………. and we will be filled. We will be proud of our strength through Jesus.
- We will show mercy to others that have the same temptation and struggles by helping them through their trials……… and we will be shown mercy.
- As we turn away from these sins in our lives and surgically deal with them, we will see a transformation of purity in our hearts and we will be able to start to see God clearly in our lives.
- We will come to a place where we can actually be at peace with ourselves. We come to a place where we can help others heal and be at peace with themselves and with God. And, we can feel like children of God in a real sense.
- And yes–for all those that don’t even think that our temptations are wrong or valid–we can, through strength of character and through the peace and fulfillment that we have seen in Jesus Christ, endure criticism and persecution for doing what is right and we will see the kingdom of heaven b
ecause God has given us the key to hope, fulfillment and happiness.
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May you apply the Beatitudes to the sin in your life and may you find the victory of a blessed life through our Savior, Jesus Christ. That is the right choice!
