#freetolive

Imagine, just for a few second, how powerful the church would be if we created an offence-free society. Imagine if we dealt with things because we loved each other before we ever went down the slippery slope that leads to murder. What would it do for us? What would it do for others in our lives? What would it do for people in the community who see us as representatives of Jesus? Take some time to do some business with God and ask Him to make you aware of how much you’ve been forgiven. Then bring that person to your mind, the one that you’ve been holding contempt against in your heart, the person that said something nasty. The person who you felt treated you harshly.

Maybe it was a father, maybe a mother or maybe even someone who has been dead and gone for a very long time, but that slave driver of contempt is still invading your whole life. I want you to picture that person clearly in your head and, deep in your heart, to tell them; I cancel your debt. What you did was wrong. It hurt me badly, but from this day on you don’t owe me anymore. You don’t owe me. You’re free to live your life and I’m free to live mine.

God has a huge vision for our lives, and that vision is this; that we create a culture of people that the whole world would want to be a part of. We need to create a culture of people that doesn’t have contempt in their hearts.

The secret to getting free from the entrapment of habitual sin begins with a prayerful, rigorous, honest examination of what satanic promises we have believed — and the better promises God has made. Which promises will really produce the longest and best happiness if true? And which source of promises has the most proven credibility?

Then we must renounce the lies we have believed, repent to God for having persistently believed them, and begin to exercise faith in God’s promises through obeying him — “[bearing] fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8).

As I said, this is just the beginning. I make no promise of it being easy from there. It is often very hard, because insight into our false beliefs does not itself unseat those beliefs. Often, entrenched false beliefs have shaped our perceptions and instinctive behaviors and therefore take significant time and intentional effort to change. It is not called the “fight of faith” for nothing (1 Timothy 6:12).

But I will say this: the more convinced you become that God is the source of all superior joys for you, the more resolved you will become to fight for those joys, and the easier the fight will become over time. But unless you become convinced, in some measure, that this is true, the power of your habitual sins will keep their hold on you.