TUESDAY March 7th
1 John 3:4–10
‘Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.’
For our devotion today we have a chunky section from chapter three, which I will cover in one go, for what John is saying is that if we have the hope that is in us, we will want to do all that we can to purify ourselves or to keep ourselves undefiled, clean. He makes it clear that if we desire to be as such we will make every effort that we do not sin or trespass. As John says we ensure that we do not practise sinning!
I need to apply what John is saying to my own life, but it is also my responsibility as a pastor and with the privilege of being able to prepare these devotions for the Church and the wider audience of those who read them to also challenge the reader that we seek to examine our lives to see what things there may
be that we are deliberately practising or doing that would actually be bundled up in a list of what we would see as sin or trespass.
And it isn’t automatically defined by those things that we see as abhorrent, and we know that God sees as abhorrent, but it could be what I will call subtle things, such as neglect to doing things we know we should be doing as believers or even filling our lives with things that are not purposeful or beneficial for us as believers. The Hebrew writer calls it every weight, and sin which clings so closely and runs the risk of stopping us from completing the race. It is anything that is holding us back in our Christian walk. It is the things that we know we should be dealing with or not participating in and yet wilfully continue with and in.
All too often I have noticed that when I make the decision to wash and clean my car, the next time I take it out it seems to rain, and the cleaned car is dirty again. I wonder how often we are like this as Christians, we make a decision to clean up, make a fresh start, give up or to take off the things we need to do so, yet almost immediately we fall into taking the very same things up again. We want to run, but we keep dragging ourselves down with the things that so easily beset us.
Today if you can identify in this way, or even know that you need to become more determined in your Christian journey to live for God rather than for self, ask the Holy Spirit to come and renew you again, to create new desires within you and to give you a spiritual spring in your step so you became more determined than ever to run the race, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.