a deep dissatisfaction in our hearts

[thesunisout]

Because God is holy, He cannot have fellowship with us when we walk in sin:

1 John 1:6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

If we will confess and repent of all known sin, we can have fellowship with Him again:

1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

As long as there is sin we refuse to confess and repent of, we will experience a painful separation from His presence. This in turn will lead us to grow cold in our hearts and turn to more sin to try to put a pleasure band-aid over our wounded emotions. It doesn't last though, and if we walk in sin long enough, we start reaping horrible consequences, because the wages of sin is death.

Break the cycle and free yourself from the snare of the enemy. God will never cease being holy, so we have a choice; obey Him and live in His love and presence:

John 14:23 Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

or disobey and live with a deep dissatisfaction in our hearts. No amount of pleasure will ever make it go away. I encourage you, the Holy Spirit can and will set you free from any sin:

Romans 8:13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

The Holy Spirit can set us free from any sin and restore us to fellowship with God again. Ask Him for a godly sorrow over your sin which will lead to repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10). Thank you Lord Jesus for your mercy and grace!

 

[Xalith]

Amen.

Always nice to hear a good word from a brother.

There are times I'm tempted, and sadly there are days the Temptation gets the better of me and I find myself confessing, apologizing, and asking for forgiveness afterwards. I pray that I never lose this fear of God, that I never get into the position where I sin and not confess, and ask for forgiveness afterwards.

And then there are the times where I'm not sure if something is sin or not, and boy do I pray nightly asking Him to guide me to the truthful conclusion, and until He does, I'm always unsteady and afraid to do whatever the thing I'm unsure about is.

I've said many times in prayer, I don't want to sin... I want to walk in the paths He wants me to walk in, I Want to do what is good in His eyes, I want to do what is right. The Enemy constantly attacks me with worries, doubts (not in Him, doubts towards Myself, like "you're mucking all of this up, you suck at Christianity", etc).

Posts like this are always a help to people, so thanks for the good word!

 

[joshuanazar]

Because God is holy, He cannot have fellowship with us when we walk in sin:

1 John 1:6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

If we will confess and repent of all known sin, we can have fellowship with Him again:

1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

As long as there is sin we refuse to confess and repent of, we will experience a painful separation from His presence. This in turn will lead us to grow cold in our hearts and turn to more sin to try to put a pleasure band-aid over our wounded emotions. It doesn't last though, and if we walk in sin long enough, we start reaping horrible consequences, because the wages of sin is death.

Break the cycle and free yourself from the snare of the enemy. God will never cease being holy, so we have a choice; obey Him and live in His love and presence:

John 14:23 Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

or disobey and live with a deep dissatisfaction in our hearts. No amount of pleasure will ever make it go away. I encourage you, the Holy Spirit can and will set you free from any sin:

Romans 8:13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

The Holy Spirit can set us free from any sin and restore us to fellowship with God again. Ask Him for a godly sorrow over your sin which will lead to repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10). Thank you Lord Jesus for your mercy and grace!

The two phrases that I highlighted seem at variance with each other? Which is it does the Spirit set me free? Or does my obedience? And are you saying that I have to keep the commandments in order to be saved? If so, then what happened to grace? And when Jesus said it is finished, did he really mean it? I mean either we are forgiven then or he did not finish his job like he said.

You look at sin as these actions that are evil. But in reality these evil actions are just symptoms of a rebellious nature. A nature that I have been redeemed from. So any action that is opposed to God is not me but the rebellious spirits that reside in this world and corrupt our flesh. Through my baptism into the Body of Christ, I have died to sin, the law, and my flesh.

So why some christians are worrying about whether they have done anything that they have forgotten about, I will remember three things: God has not given us a spirit of fear, there is no condemnation in Christ, and I am covered by his never failing grace.

 

[Xalith]

The two phrases that I highlighted seem at variance with each other? Which is it does the Spirit set me free? Or does my obedience? And are you saying that I have to keep the commandments in order to be saved? If so, then what happened to grace? And when Jesus said it is finished, did he really mean it? I mean either we are forgiven then or he did not finish his job like he said.

You look at sin as these actions that are evil. But in reality these evil actions are just symptoms of a rebellious nature. A nature that I have been redeemed from. So any action that is opposed to God is not me but the rebellious spirits that reside in this world and corrupt our flesh. Through my baptism into the Body of Christ, I have died to sin, the law, and my flesh.

So why some christians are worrying about whether they have done anything that they have forgotten about, I will remember three things: God has not given us a spirit of fear, there is no condemnation in Christ, and I am covered by his never failing grace.

I think the 2nd red phrase you were asking about (the obey stuff) is talking about Repentance. You're still saved, but if you commit sin and don't repent, then you're not obeying God. If you're not obeying God and you're committing sin and not repenting, then you're going to be miserable.

You'll still be saved, the OP never said otherwise. However, your Earthly life will be miserable because God will continue to chastise you and try to bring you to Repentance.

Therefore, the OP is saying to Repent of any sin that you've committed and ask for forgiveness, so that you remain in obedience to God and his command to be repentant.

Everybody will still sin, but a good believer will feel sorrow and regret over said sin, and always be repenting and asking Him to forgive us.

 

[thesunisout]

And when Jesus said it is finished, did he really mean it? I mean either we are forgiven then or he did not finish his job like he said.

This is not a salvation issue, this is a growth issue. There are many Christians who are frozen in sanctification for years, or even decades because they refuse to submit to Gods correction. Read Jesus' letter to the Laodician church in Revelation 3. He isn't talking to the unsaved, He is talking to believers.

So why some christians are worrying about whether they have done anything that they have forgotten about, I will remember three things: God has not given us a spirit of fear, there is no condemnation in Christ, and I am covered by his never failing grace.

Those things are all true, yet if sin weren't an issue then God would have no need to chasten us:

Hebrews 12:6-11

6 For whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives."
7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?
8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.
9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?
10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.
11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

The word of God makes it clear that you cannot walk both in light and in darkness at the same time. There is no condemnation for those who are *in* Christ Jesus; if you are walking in unrepented for sin you are not abiding in Christ. You cannot be *in* Christ and walking in sin, do you agree?

 

[thesunisout]

I think the 2nd red phrase you were asking about (the obey stuff) is talking about Repentance. You're still saved, but if you commit sin and don't repent, then you're not obeying God. If you're not obeying God and you're committing sin and not repenting, then you're going to be miserable.

You'll still be saved, the OP never said otherwise. However, your Earthly life will be miserable because God will continue to chastise you and try to bring you to Repentance.

Therefore, the OP is saying to Repent of any sin that you've committed and ask for forgiveness, so that you remain in obedience to God and his command to be repentant.

Everybody will still sin, but a good believer will feel sorrow and regret over said sin, and always be repenting and asking Him to forgive us.

Thank you brother, that is essentially what I am saying. I'm glad the post was edifying, it is something that the Lord is putting His finger on in my life. The main thing is fasting. I used to fast a bit, now I rarely if ever do it. I need to get back into it but I have not submitted myself to the Lord on this issue. Also, I have failed to witness as I should, and there are other things, but those are the two I am looking at. I want to learn how to walk with the Lord in total obedience, and if I am not willing to submit my body to be deprived of food for a time, that doesn't say much about my ability to endure greater trials than those. I want the Lord to use me in a greater capacity, but I have to make sure it is for His glory and not mine. I think these things are a way of making sure that is the case!

 

[joshuanazar]

I know that I have a lot to address from your comments. First let me address the Hebrews passage that you posted. There is a difference between correction and punishment. Jesus took our punishment on the cross, and God's correction has neither guilt nor fear. It is gentle like his Spirit that corrects us. Now if the punishment for sin is to be separated from God (that is what hell is all about), and if Jesus took that punishment (yelling my God, my God, why have you forsaken me!), then why would God break off our communion for something that Jesus was already punished for and we were already forgiven for? What kind of Father would leave their children because they disobeyed? Did God lie to me when he said "I would never leave you, nor forsake you"?

You see my your posts talking about committing sin, you seemed to ignore my statement that sin is a nature or attitude (same thing). And you carried on addressing the symptoms and ignoring the root. You say that we constantly need to repent after we are saved. Having begun in the spirit why would you return to the law? That is what the Law says, "you have to do this, to receive this". Was Christ's sacrifice not good enough to forgive all of your sins, that you need to keep coming back? or is it that his grace is not sufficient to cover our sins that we need to keep applying the blood?

As for walking in both light and dark you are correct. You cannot walk in Christ and sin. That is why when we are baptized into Christ we become dead to sin. Also we cannot also walk in knowledge of God and ignorance of his Grace (ignorance is most often referred to as darkness).

As for the letter to Laodicia, it gets tiring constantly having to fight against years of church tradition. People see the statement "I know your works" and automatically assume that he is talking about sin. Why would God ever want somebody to be a sinner? If he is talking about sin then that is what he is saying by "I would rather you be hot or cold". If that were the says it directly contradicts what peter saying about God wanting all men to come to repentance. I will tell what they are talking about.... works. We are not justified by our works or by our repenting. We are justified by grace.

I am not advocating that we can just sin because we have grace. I am saying that instead of going through life afraid of unrepentant sin and scared that God will leave us because of it, trying your best to repent for every little action (which you will never be able to do), striving to obey in order to keep your relationship with God. I go through life knowing that I have been redeemed from the root of the problem, the sinful adamic nature. I see his grace as always sufficient and his love as never failing. I obey not because I have to in order to keep my relationship with God, but because I want nothing more than to be more like him. I have repented of the rebellion that was in my heart when I got saved, I love God and hate sin. (if sin is an attitude of rebellion against God and salvation is an attitude of love for God, then repentance is just a change in these attitude empowered by grace and God's Spirit). I do not go around constantly asking forgiveness for things that God has already forgiven and forgotten, and I am not miserable. In fact, I am able to now focus on his grace and my relationship with him just gets richer and richer.

Please for your sake and the sake of everyone that listens to you, stop glorifying sin. Sin is a defeated enemy. It has no power anymore. Stop focusing on it.

 

[thesunisout]

I know that I have a lot to address from your comments. First let me address the Hebrews passage that you posted. There is a difference between correction and punishment. Jesus took our punishment on the cross, and God's correction has neither guilt nor fear. It is gentle like his Spirit that corrects us.

Yes, you are correct, it is not punishment but correction. Whether the correction is gentle or not, it is showing us that sin is an issue which requires correction in a believers life. Therefore, we must repent of any sin which God is correcting us for.

Now if the punishment for sin is to be separated from God (that is what hell is all about), and if Jesus took that punishment (yelling my God, my God, why have you forsaken me!), then why would God break off our communion for something that Jesus was already punished for and we were already forgiven for? What kind of Father would leave their children because they disobeyed? Did God lie to me when he said "I would never leave you, nor forsake you"?

1 John 1:6 makes it clear; you can't say you have fellowship with God when you are living with sin. It would be a lie.

1 John 1:8 says if we say we have no sin we are deceiving ourselves.

1 John 1:9 says when we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

You see my your posts talking about committing sin, you seemed to ignore my statement that sin is a nature or attitude (same thing). And you carried on addressing the symptoms and ignoring the root. You say that we constantly need to repent after we are saved. Having begun in the spirit why would you return to the law? That is what the Law says, "you have to do this, to receive this". Was Christ's sacrifice not good enough to forgive all of your sins, that you need to keep coming back? or is it that his grace is not sufficient to cover our sins that we need to keep applying the blood?

I agree that the old man is dead we are a new creation, and that the blood of Christ is sufficient for all sin. You seem to be saying we don't need to confess or repent for any sin, that all sin is forgiven already, past present and future. Is that your position?

Please for your sake and the sake of everyone that listens to you, stop glorifying sin. Sin is a defeated enemy. It has no power anymore. Stop focusing on it.

The purpose of the post is to glorify God, and certainly not to have an argument.

 

[joshuanazar]

Yes, you are correct, it is not punishment but correction. Whether the correction is gentle or not, it is showing us that sin is an issue which requires correction in a believers life. Therefore, we must repent of any sin which God is correcting us for.



1 John 1:6 makes it clear; you can't say you have fellowship with God when you are living with sin. It would be a lie.

1 John 1:8 says if we say we have no sin we are deceiving ourselves.

1 John 1:9 says when we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.



I agree that the old man is dead we are a new creation, and that the blood of Christ is sufficient for all sin. You seem to be saying we don't need to confess or repent for any sin, that all sin is forgiven already, past present and future. Is that your position?



The purpose of the post is to glorify God, and certainly not to have an argument.

You said that sin separates us from God but this separation is the ultimate punishment for sin. So, you are in fact talking about punishment. You keep using 1 John 1:6 as if it is talking about sin. But 2:8-11 states that it is talking about love. Now as for verse 8. We were sinners, we did have sin, but then Jesus came and took our sins. Now we have grace.

And yes I do believe that Jesus' sacrifice was sufficient to pay for past, present, and future sins. But I do not believe that gives us a free license to sin. As Paul says why should I be dominated by something that I am dead to.

You say that sin is able to separate us from the presence of God. But sin gets its strength from the Law. So if you are saying that sin still has power, then you are saying that the law has power over you. And if you are under the law you are not under grace.

I am not trying to argue but I want you to see that sin is dead. This is a discussion board so we are discussing it. And God gets all of the glory. Especially when we can see that his grace is all covering.

 

[thesunisout]

You said that sin separates us from God but this separation is the ultimate punishment for sin. So, you are in fact talking about punishment. You keep using 1 John 1:6 as if it is talking about sin. But 2:8-11 states that it is talking about love. Now as for verse 8. We were sinners, we did have sin, but then Jesus came and took our sins. Now we have grace.

It is talking about sin. I feel we are getting to an unprofitable discussion about the meaning of certain words, and I don't want to argue that with you. If you want to privately discuss this subject with me, please message me. This conversation, however, is detracting from the purpose of the thread. I don't want the post to be derailed in a debate. Thanks brother.

 

[MWood]

I know that I have a lot to address from your comments. First let me address the Hebrews passage that you posted. There is a difference between correction and punishment. Jesus took our punishment on the cross, and God's correction has neither guilt nor fear. It is gentle like his Spirit that corrects us. Now if the punishment for sin is to be separated from God (that is what hell is all about), and if Jesus took that punishment (yelling my God, my God, why have you forsaken me!), then why would God break off our communion for something that Jesus was already punished for and we were already forgiven for? What kind of Father would leave their children because they disobeyed? Did God lie to me when he said "I would never leave you, nor forsake you"?

You see my your posts talking about committing sin, you seemed to ignore my statement that sin is a nature or attitude (same thing). And you carried on addressing the symptoms and ignoring the root. You say that we constantly need to repent after we are saved. Having begun in the spirit why would you return to the law? That is what the Law says, "you have to do this, to receive this". Was Christ's sacrifice not good enough to forgive all of your sins, that you need to keep coming back? or is it that his grace is not sufficient to cover our sins that we need to keep applying the blood?

As for walking in both light and dark you are correct. You cannot walk in Christ and sin. That is why when we are baptized into Christ we become dead to sin. Also we cannot also walk in knowledge of God and ignorance of his Grace (ignorance is most often referred to as darkness).

As for the letter to Laodicia, it gets tiring constantly having to fight against years of church tradition. People see the statement "I know your works" and automatically assume that he is talking about sin. Why would God ever want somebody to be a sinner? If he is talking about sin then that is what he is saying by "I would rather you be hot or cold". If that were the says it directly contradicts what peter saying about God wanting all men to come to repentance. I will tell what they are talking about.... works. We are not justified by our works or by our repenting. We are justified by grace.

I am not advocating that we can just sin because we have grace. I am saying that instead of going through life afraid of unrepentant sin and scared that God will leave us because of it, trying your best to repent for every little action (which you will never be able to do), striving to obey in order to keep your relationship with God. I go through life knowing that I have been redeemed from the root of the problem, the sinful adamic nature. I see his grace as always sufficient and his love as never failing. I obey not because I have to in order to keep my relationship with God, but because I want nothing more than to be more like him. I have repented of the rebellion that was in my heart when I got saved, I love God and hate sin. (if sin is an attitude of rebellion against God and salvation is an attitude of love for God, then repentance is just a change in these attitude empowered by grace and God's Spirit). I do not go around constantly asking forgiveness for things that God has already forgiven and forgotten, and I am not miserable. In fact, I am able to now focus on his grace and my relationship with him just gets richer and richer.

Please for your sake and the sake of everyone that listens to you, stop glorifying sin. Sin is a defeated enemy. It has no power anymore. Stop focusing on it.

Amen Bro Ben! (Shot at the goose and killed the hen.)lol

 

[MWood]

The name of this thread is "a deep dissatisfaction in our hearts."

I don't understand this. There should be love, joy, and peace in our hearts. We should rejoice always. I say again rejoice always.

For we have total forgiveness of sin. For ever more. No more worrying about the sins we commit. The Blood of Jesus removed that worry from us. Our sins are covered. So then, why do we keep preaching that we have to continually pray for God to forgive us of our sins? Wasn't the Blood enough? We know that there is no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood. Is Jesus suppose to shed His Blood every time you sin? Why don't we understand this. This is so simple that even a child understands it. It is very elementary.

Repentance. That means never doing that again. If we do it again, did we truly repent? If we know what we did was a sin, then we knew that it was a sin before we did it. So why did we do it? When God says repent, He means change your life, live a godly life. Change your thinking, think godly thoughts. He wants us to give up all of our evil and sinful ways. To keep Him in the forefront of our minds, always, all day, every day. If we are in Christ, and Christ is in us, then we will have Him in the forefront of our minds. And then the circle is complete.

All that I have said goes directly back to the name of this Post. If we will except this as truth from the Bible, we will have love, joy, and peace in our hearts. We will rejoice always. Then our hearts will be very satisfied.

 

[thesunisout]

For we have total forgiveness of sin. For ever more. No more worrying about the sins we commit. The Blood of Jesus removed that worry from us. Our sins are covered. So then, why do we keep preaching that we have to continually pray for God to forgive us of our sins?

I think I remember you two now. One or both of you were debating for the belief in sinless perfectionism, awhile back. I'm not going to debate this with you here. if you want to debate sinless perfectionism, open up a thread and make that the topic. Please don't debate your belief in this thread anymore. thank you

 

[Xalith]

@MWood:

When I look up "Repent" or "Repentance" in the dictionary, I get "to feel sorrow, conscience-stricken, regret for past wrong actions"

We are obviously supposed to avoid sin in our lives, and we are never to make a plan to do sinful actions, but He knows that we are still living in our fleshly bodies, and that we WILL sin in our lives. There will be times when you fail the test of temptation, even if it is just minor things, and some will do horrible things. We're still saved, however.

Those in Christ will hate these sins, they will feel regret and sorrow, and they will come to the LORD for comfort and His mercy. Asking for forgiveness after we've already accepted Christ isn't really "please don't send me to Hell for this..." as we all know He won't. It is more like "I'm sorry I did this... please comfort me in my grief and sorrow over what I did".

When we ask for forgiveness for our sin, it isn't that we are doubting our salvation, or that we're afraid he's going to throw us in Hell because of some stupid thing we've done. It is more we are saying to Him, "I know what I did is wrong, I feel grief and regret over it, and I need comfort." and sometimes we say it, in hopes that any chastening that will happen as a result of this won't be as bad, if we recognize that we did wrong (obviously, if we're not right in heart, He will chasten us anyways, especially if we keep doing the thing we're not supposed to be doing).

Asking for forgiveness for sin after we've accepted Christ is like a kid asking his parent not to chasten him as badly. The kid knows the parent loves him/her, and the kid knows the parent isn't going to kill him/her or throw him/her out, so there's no need for the kid to worry about those things.

Just my 2 cents on that post, anyways.

 

[joshuanazar]

I think I remember you two now. One or both of you were debating for the belief in sinless perfectionism, awhile back. I'm not going to debate this with you here. if you want to debate sinless perfectionism, open up a thread and make that the topic. Please don't debate your belief in this thread anymore. thank you

I am sorry. I do not want you to feel like I am attacking you. After all of the threads currently talking about church hierarchy, discussing repentance is a welcomed relief. I might have gotten a little carried away. I do not know what "sinless perfectionism" is. To be honest I don't know much about these theological phrases, the only thing that I really study is the bible. I would love to continue discussing the subject of repentance with you, but I do not want to force it on you. So if you would like to continue this discussion with me please send me a message. You created this thread so I will respect your wish.

 

[joshuanazar]

Amen Bro Ben! (Shot at the goose and killed the hen.)lol

I have no idea what that phrase means. And who is Bro Ben?

 

[MWood]

I have no idea what that phrase means. And who is Bro Ben?

It is a statement of agreement that I heard as a child. I thought it was funny back then.

 

[MWood]

I think I remember you two now. One or both of you were debating for the belief in sinless perfectionism, awhile back. I'm not going to debate this with you here. if you want to debate sinless perfectionism, open up a thread and make that the topic. Please don't debate your belief in this thread anymore. thank you

Not me! I don't believe in sinless perfectionism.

 

[Norah63]

Growing pains, if we dont feel them maybe we're not growing spiritually.
I hear the thread title and understand.