Psa. 119:11; 2nd π 2 Cor. 4:10 π 2 Cor. 4:12 π Gal. 5:19-21 π Jas. 1:14-15
“Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” ( Psa. 119:11; top )
We have been programmed to believe that if we read the word of God we will stop sinning. This over-simplification of a world-shaking problem must be replaced with a deeper scrutiny, digging right down to the root of sin.
Sin is the complete anti-God state of a person’s soul or inner being. It is the antithesis of everything God stands for; it is totally against every fruit of God’s Spirit or the character of God. It is rebellion against God and His statutes, leading to physical and spiritual death.
Getting saved is only a part of the solution for the sin problem; reading Scripture, even daily for years, is no guarantee to eliminate sin. We, as born-again Christians, inwardly rebel against losing of our pet, overt and secret sins. This inner attribute that refuses to surrender to God so that God can deal directly and severely with our sins can be described as human pride (ego) and our self life. Until these two are dislodged and surgically removed by the fire power of God’s Holy Spirit, and burnt out by many trials, we can read the word for a lifetime and never come close to eliminating all our sins.
Searching out the original Scripture ( Psa. 119:11; top ), we find a glossed-over explanation of eliminating sin.
It says that to stop sinning we should hide the word of God in one’s heart. It means our inner soulish realm of the heart must die, burn out or be set aside; this carnal state must be replaced with God’s heart. This entails God breaking a part of our heart off and replacing it with His heart or Spirit. This is experiential, and not verbal, nor intellectual.
“So death works in us, but life in you.” ( 2 Cor. 4:12; top )
As this self-life dies, we are losing; self-pity, envy, jealousy, self-righteousness, self-centeredness, self-assertiveness, egotism and many others (as these are acts of the flesh: Gal. 5:19-21; top )
Self and pride must die, as we as Christians were meant to be ruled by our cleansed hearts. We are to love God and His commandments with all our hearts, not just a part.
Pride and the self-life are the basis of all sin. ( Jas. 1:14-15; top ) If they die in a person, can we picture what would happen as a result of this person ministering with God’s heart or Spirit, in a society reeling from a lukewarm gospel, drugs, alcohol and corruption?
Religious panaceas in our present-day ministering mostly compound our society’s problems, because it is ministering only a mixture of the real thing.
“...Bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus might also be made manifest in our body.” ( 2 Cor. 4:10; top )
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