Monday, January 7, 2008

Indications that we have forgotten

As the calendar speeds by, as our clothes shrink as our bank statement changes for the good or the bad, as our bones begin to pop and creak, as the seasons shift and as life turns we know that nothing remains the same.

All of those things and so many more are indication that our lives never stay the same yet are constantly in motion, sometimes moving towards the better, yet so often heading in directions that we would not desire.

It is the same in our spiritual walk, there are things that we need to guard against with diligence, and take all steps necessary to avoid the pitfall of falling headlong into apathy of our faith.

The following warnings are just a few of the signs that things are not as they should be in our walk with the Lord.

WHEN:

You grow bolder with sin, or with the temptation to sin, than you were in your more watchful state, then be sure that something is wrong.

You make a small matter of those sins and infirmities which once seemed grievous to you and almost intolerable.

You confess but do not forsake sin

You acknowledge but still neglect your duty

You settle down into a course of religion that requires but little labor, leaving out the hard and costly parts.

Your GOD and Savior grow a little strange to you, and your religion consists more in conversing with men about topics read in a book other than in THE Book, the Bible the recorded Word of God.

You grow averse to religious conversation or the company of heavenly minded Christians

You delight more in hearing and talking, than in secret prayer and the Word.

You use the means of grace more as a matter of duty, than as food in which your soul delights

You become more concerned about pleasing some man or an organization who craves authority over you than you do about being pleasing to God

You are more afraid of being judged as too strict than you are of dishonoring Christ

You willingly miss the services of the house of God without just cause

The hopes of heaven and the love of Christ do not interest you, but you are thirsting after some worldly enjoyment and grow eager for it

You spend less time alone with God in Bible reading and prayer than in pleasing yourself with worldly things

Your cheerfulness has more of the levity of the unregenerate than the holy joy of the children of God

The things of the world grow sweeter to you and death and eternity are distasteful subjects

You grow hot and eager about some disputed point, or in forwarding the interests of some party of Christians, more than about those matters which concern the greatest cause of Christ

The faults of others are more a matter of censorious conversation than of secret grief and prayer

You make light of preparing yourself for the Lords day and the Lords Table, and think more of the outward ordinances than you do of your hearts condition.

WHEN: We forget that there is an immediate cure for all of our sin both chosen and negligent.

 

What can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus

What can make me pure within?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Nothing can atone for sin

Nothing but the Blood of Jesus

Naught of good that I have done

Nothing but the blood of Jesus

Oh, precious is the flow

That makes me white as snow

No other fount I know

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

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