Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)
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Getting a Grip on Your Life
(Genesis 4:7; Romans 7:15-25; 1
Corinthians 6:12)
You may
have heard about the woman who said, “I can quit smoking anytime that I want to
quit; and I know that for a fact because I’ve quit a thousand times before.”
You’ve probably heard of the man who
prayed, “O God, give me patience and give it to me right now!”
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it
again because it’s one of life’s greatest struggles. Temptations are bad things that taste good;
which explains why we fall to ‘em more than we’d like.
Whether it’s eating too much or not
eating enough, substance abuse, sexual misconduct, gossip, and all of the other
bad behaviors that hurt others, ourselves, and Him – “As you do it to them,”
Jesus said, “you do it to Me!” – everybody, except for the deluded and
self-righteous who think they’re God’s other son, feels like Paul on too many
personally disappointing occasions: “I don’t understand what I do. For what I want to do, I don’t do…Sin is
living in me…I have a sinful nature…I am constantly sinning even when I don’t
want to…I do bad things when I want to do good things…I keep on doing it…I
can’t seem to get a grip on my life.”
It’s always been that way.
It started in the garden when God told
the Adamsons to stay away from just one tree and they couldn’t resist the
temptation to take a big bite from the dark side.
Their first boy Cain was jealous and
angry with his baby brother Abel, couldn’t control himself, and murdered
him. You can read the whole story in
Genesis 4.
Notice how God told Cain to get a grip
on his life before he succumbed to the temptation to murder his brother: “Sin
is crouching at your door. It desires to
have you; but you must master it.”
After writing about the sin always
ready to pounce and seduce and plunge us into bad behaviors that hurt others,
ourselves, and God, Paul made this pledge: “I will not be mastered by anything
but God.”
No one is immune to the problem that
has plagued humanity since the garden.
We do bad things.
It’s in our nature.
It’s part of being human.
The good news is we can get better; or
as Don Skarr likes to say, “We’ll never be sinless; but we can sin less.”
Here’s the answer.
Jesus!
The closer we get to Jesus, the
farther away that we’ll move from behaviors that hurt others, ourselves, and
Him.
Or as Jesus said, “We can be born anothen.”
We can get so close to Jesus, more and
more filling our hearts with
Him so that there’s less and less room for those negative
instincts, that we feel like we’re new and fresh and, please excuse the grammar
here, more better than more worse.
It’s what Paul called the
fruit/proof/evidence of being tight and tighter and tighter with God.
When we’re close to God we experience
more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness,
humility, and self-control.
In short, we get a grip on our lives
by getting closer to God.
We do that by replacing who and what
want to master us with the Master!
Conversely, when we see someone, maybe
even the reflection in the mirror, who is not very loving or miserable more
often than not or impatient and contentious and not very good or kind or
faithful or gentle or humble or self-controlled, it means that person cannot be
that close to God; because, again, when people are close to God and getting
closer to God, they get more better than more worse and become more loving,
joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, humble, and
self-controlled.
So that’s the truth according to Jesus
by the book.
If we want to get away from bad
behaviors, we’ll get closer to God.
If we want to get a grip on our lives,
we’ll get tight with the Master and we’ll master all of the rest.
Another
quick truth – the most important of all.
After Paul admitted he could get
better by getting close to God, meaning we can get better by getting closer to
God, he also admitted that he and us would never be pure and perfect in every
way; which prompted him to exclaim, “Thanks be to God who gives us the victory
through Jesus! Thanks be to God who
bridges the gap by grace through faith in Jesus! Thanks be to God who forgives what we could
not master if we turn to Him as Master, invite Him into our hearts as Lord and
Savior, and pray and try to get closer and closer and closer to Him and more
better than more worse as gratitude and praise.
Speaking of truth, I read some books
while convalescing back in October from my hip toss.
One that really caught my attention
was Treason by Newt Gingrich. Back then, I never thought he would be
anything more than an author who, unlike me, actually writes books that people
read and be an occasional commentator for CNN and Fox. Anyway as someone who has been to the Middle
East about 8 times and studied Islam by their book and founder rather than the
made up PC version being hawked by ignorant members of the media, government,
and education, I was encouraged by these truthful excerpts about the Islam by
the book and its founder: “Muslims can’t claim Islam is a peace-loving religion
when the Quran openly calls for violence against nonbelievers…Western
intelligence services claim radicals make
up fifteen to twenty-five percent of all Muslims…that’s
180 million to 300 million radical jihadists who want to murder nonbelievers…
Consider that a bonus message.
Another book that I read was A Life
in Parts by Bryan Cranston.
He starred as Walter White in the
mega-award-winning series Breaking Bad.
The story
is complicated; but, basically, it’s about a man who engages in bad behaviors
because he wants more money to take care of his family and, well, his personal
greedy appetite.
Cranston sums up Walter White’s motive
in the book: “He wants to leave something behind. We all do.”
Here’s the final truth of this
message.
Unless we’re totally egocentric and
narcissistic and other bad things that prove we’ve never broken the genetic
chains to the Adamsons and their bad boy Cain and been born anothen by
grace through faith in Jesus, we want to leave something good behind.
We can.
All we have to do is turn to the
Master and no one or no thing will ever master us again…completely…and forever.
Jesus is the answer to every question.
He is how we can get a grip on our
lives.
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Blessings and Love!
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Shatter the sound of silence!
Wake up! Look up! Stand up! Speak up! Act up for Jesus!
Salt! Shine! Leavenate!
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