Let Go Of the Biter!
My good friend Marilyn shared a devotion with me and gave me permission to post it here on the daily-devotionals.com blog. Her devotions are always very practical for our daily Christian living. I’m sure you’ll enjoy this one as much as the others that she has shared with us.
Getting Bit Because We Refuse to Let Go of the Biter
By Dr. Marilyn S. Murphree
“…let us thrown off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”
Hebrews 12:1
Although we say, “What people need is Jesus,” we often don’t understand why people don’t seem much different as a result of coming to the Lord—still hurting, still having the same old problems, still battling self-destructive habits, still in trouble with the law, still plagued by one thing after another. On and on it goes.
We may examine our own lives and say, “I am having problems, too, that continue to cause me pain and anxiety. Why can’t I live above defeat?”
Some of our problems may be the result of sin that has never been dealt with in our lives. Do we find that we are getting bit because we refuse to let go of the biter—the sin that so easily trips us up. Hebrews 12:1 says, “…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles…”
Paul asks the Romans, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” Many people today feel that they can live any way they please because of God’s love and His grace. “God loves me, Jesus forgives, and therefore anything goes. No worry,” they say, “I’m a Christian.” Paul says, “Not so.” He says, “By no means. We died to sin and how can we live under it any longer?”
Paul used an illustration that the Romans understood. He speaks of being a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. It might be clearer to us today to ask, “Who is your boss? Is sin the boss of your life or is Jesus the boss of your life?” You might say, “I don’t want anyone telling me what to do. I am my own boss.” Paul says that if we won’t allow Jesus to be the boss of our life, then sin is going to Lord it over us.
Some of the Romans thought that if Jesus had paid the price on the cross that they were saved from sin for free and that as Christians they didn’t have to be too concerned about getting rid of sin from their lives. To continue in sin is totally inconsistent with someone who has associated themselves with Jesus. Paul is telling them, “although you might sin sometimes, you are striving to be like Jesus. You’re not going to make sin a habit in your daily life.”
If we allow sin to make its home in our life and be the boss, sooner or later it’s going to bite or trap us and cause us a lot of trouble. It’s like saying, “I follow Jesus, but I talk like the world. In fact, I do all of the sinful things that someone who doesn’t even claim to be a Christian does. I live like the devil. You would say, “No way! That doesn’t even make sense.”
Jesus thought that sin was so serious that he died on the cross for it.
If we genuinely want to follow Jesus, we’ll think it is a serious matter too. We are not free to set our own standards and to go our own way. If we do, we are going to be enslaved by sin and as a result get bit by it simply because we refuse to let go of the biter.
THINK: It’s time to let go of the biter.
