Watch the vid below, by my main man Steve McVey, Christian Religion Lie #56 “we need to focus on overcoming our sins” and my comments follow…
For a long time in my Christian life I thought that my ONLY job was to focus on NOT sinning.
Oh what a MISERABLE existence that is!
Perhaps you’ve experienced it?
You wake up each morning and start a mental “Sins VS Good Stuff” scoresheet!
And then you start about your day, ever mindful that you’re just a “sinner saved by grace” and with each step you’re in danger of screwing up and adding another tally to the “sins” side of the scoresheet.
Then when you do screw up, you’re immediately begging God for forgiveness — hoping He will grant it to you.
Then every once in a while, you go a good part of the day without sinning, and think “I’m getting the hang of this Christian thing” — only to be hurled back into condemnation when a pastor or more “mature” Christian tells you that you could be sinning without even knowing it!
It’s a day of constant worry, always looking over your shoulder because you know the “big guy upstairs” is constantly watching your every move ready to tell you how you’re screwing up.
The last prayer of the day
Then right before bed, just to make sure, you say a quick prayer asking forgiveness for anything you might of done that was a sin and you didn’t know it… or you didn’t ask forgiveness for.
The whole time, you’ve TOTALLY ignored God.
Your focus has been on your SELF the entire day — never stopping to communicate with your loving Father, except to grovel at His feet for a few moments begging His forgiveness.
It kind of leaves you thinking “Is this all there is to being a Christian? If so, it SUCKS!”
What do you call being so preoccupied with sin all day?
It’s called “sin consciousness” and it’s ruining your great Christian life!
Does the Bible teach you to focus so much on sin? Or is it just something that you learned from more experienced Christians… and heard preached from the pulpit?
The TRUTH is: The Bible teaches you the opposite, the Bible teaches that Jesus came to put away sin (1 John 3:5)… dealt with sin once and for all on the cross… that it is finished (John 19:30)… and you’re now to focus ONLY on Christ.
The Apostle Paul said it like this in Colossians 3:1-4:
“1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
Paul says to pay no attention to the things of this world, and in the next verses gives advice not to focus on things of the “flesh” things of sin, things of “self”.
Instead, set your focus on Christ because as a Christian, He truly IS your life now and is ALL that matters!
The best part is, the more you focus on Christ, the less you’ll even be tempted to sin– you’ll be consumed by His love and want nothing to do with anything that isn’t from His hands.
So this is a lie that we need to focus on the sin in our lives, what we REALLY need to focus on is Jesus Christ and sin will cease to be an issue.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
nina 07.16.08 at 8:35 am
I so crave to be free in Christ and the culture of my past church experience continually pulls me to think about self. I am most encouraged by this blog and am inspired to rid myself of lies that keep me from being occupied by Christ and being influenced by him, I pray that heaps of people who read this will start thinking instead of unquestioningly recieve teaching that is cultural rather than true! Blessings in Our Lord Nina
calebo 07.16.08 at 7:19 pm
Hi Nina!
What a blessing it was to see your comment posted to my blog this morning.
I too…
“pray that heaps of people who read this will start thinking instead of unquestioningly recieve teaching that is cultural rather than true!”
Thanks so much for visiting!
With Love
Caleb