Sinful housework

[KeptByTheWord]

I was cleaning my house recently, and as I was cleaning, I was bemoaning the fact that I had only cleaned it yesterday, and yet today, here I am again, back at it, cleaning the same floor, the same dish, the same rug, making the same bed, and dusting the same furniture. You would think that after the scrubbing I gave the house yesterday, that the cleaning would have lasted longer than one day. I was exhausted yesterday, but felt extremely fulfilled, believing that finally my house was clean… until I looked up at the ceiling, and realized that there was a cobweb or two I had missed, and I looked in the closet, and realized there were boxes of dust-laden junk in there that I still needed to go through, and I opened a drawer in my cabinet, and realized there was junk in there that needed organizing… just when I thought I was through!

I sighed, and just sank back down on the couch… “can’t I just have a moment of victory” I thought? Just ONE time when the entire house was completely clean, perfect, and without a spot or wrinkle anywhere?

I then began to contemplate how much like housework is my own spiritual life.

You see, housekeeping in my heart is a lot of work too. I must spend a lot of time in prayer… figuratively dusting, wiping, polishing, and throwing out things in my life every day. Every day, I must deal with the dust that has settled on my heart from yesterday… the word spoken that was hurtful, the thought that passed my mind, and I allowed it to rest there, the desire in my heart to have something that doesn’t belong to me… and on the list goes. It never seems to end!

Each day though, I go through the rooms of my heart, and try to clean, polish, eradicate, and move around the dust, dirt and grime that has settled since yesterday, and as I finish praying, I can feel confident that I’ve completely cleaned the “house of my heart”. I may feel confident that I can leave from here today, and I won’t have to come back and clean this room again.

Alas, though… for as soon as I leave my time of prayer, that thought that I thought I had banished forever, pounces back and props itself up in my mind… bringing with it then a new challenge. This challenge presents itself possibly as I meet someone in the grocery store who pushes in front of me in the line, and I feel sudden anger at this injustice, even as I had just prayed moments before, and thought I had eradicated all anger and malice from my heart!

How can this be?

Let’s look at another aspect of this for just a moment. Peter speaks in Acts 2:38 and says “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the REMISSION of your sins.”

Let’s take a look at the word “remission”, and what it means in the English language… http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/remission
re•mis•sion
noun \ri-ˈmi-shən\
: a period of time during a serious illness when the patient's health improves
: the act of reducing or canceling the amount of money that you owe
: the reduction of a prison sentence

And now, let’s look at the Greek word for remission:

Cognate: 859 áphesis (from 863 /aphíēmi, "send away, forgive" ) – properly, "something sent away"; i.e. remission ("forgiveness"), releasing someone from obligation or debt. See 863 (aphiēmi).

So the remission of sins essentially means this “sending away and releasing our obligation or debt” of sin.

Now, I’ve always thought that remission of sins essentially meant that the sin was eradicated or done away with. Apparently not so. The translations of remission essentially mean that the sin has been released from our debt, and we owe no more obligation because of that sin. It does not say that the sin would never tempt or bother us again, it just means that sin has been released from our debt. If that were the case, then the scripture would read “eradication” or “destruction” of sin.. but it doesn’t, it reads… remission.

With the understanding of the word remission, now let’s look at a practical example of remission in our lives today.

We all know of someone who has cancer that has been told that their cancer is in “remission”. This means that the cancer has been beat back, sent away, and is gone for the present time. However, does this mean that the cancer will never, ever, ever return? NO, of course not. It means simply that right now, the cancer is gone, and not currently a problem. However, the cancer patient knows that this means the cancer is dormant, and could return at any time.

In a sense though, the patient knows that cancer is never gone, and unfortunately, most of us can all relate or know of someone in whom the cancer was in remission, yet it does return, pops out of remission, for a variety of reasons, and many times after being in remission for a while, sadly claims its victim in the final battle.

This is not a pretty picture of sin at all, but I think sin needs to be understood using this illustration. There is a reason that the apostles taught that sin is in remission. It is gone, and shoved far away, beat down, and supposed to be lying dormant, as long as we allow the Spirit of Christ to REIGN in our lives. However, at any given time, should we let down our guard, and not allow the Spirit of Christ to reign in our lives, that dormant sin that had been in remission, can rise up again to torture, torment, and wreak havoc with our lives.

Thus, the only cure and the only remedy to keep sin in remission is the constant application of blood of Christ, and by allowing the Spirit of Christ to reign within us.

We must be aware, and cognizant of the fact that sin has not yet been destroyed… not yet. That final day of reckoning with sin is coming and will take place when we stand before the White Throne Judgment, when satan and all his imps are cast into their eternal destiny, and then sin finally will be destroyed, forever.

That day has not yet come.

Sin is in remission, it is beat back, and victory is around the corner, but we cannot relax and think that our enemy of sin won’t come back to haunt and terrorize us ever again.

Because THAT is the lie that satan wants us to believe. He wants us to forget about the dormancy of sin, and seeing our relaxation (failing to read the Word, pray, and allow the Spirit of Christ to reign in us), then sin pounces on us when our guard is down, then we are taken unawares, and captured again by the effect of sin… and if that sin is not dealt with, put into remission… we stand to lose the final battle against sin.

This is truth, pure and simple. We are waging a constant battle against sin... even those who claim to be the most spiritual of those among us… and none of us will be victors until we have gained eternity! Jesus Christ is the only perfect man, and the ONLY human to have completely attained victory over sin…. Yet. But there is coming a day when we will receive new and incorruptible bodies whereby we will be made into His image… then and only then will we have achieved complete victory over sin!

Now, with this understanding of sin, you can see why sin is so much like housework. Those of us who have the responsibility of housework in our homes, understand that while you can accomplish much in one day, and feel like the job is done, in reality we know that tomorrow, the very same job awaits us. Just as housework is never done, so the battle with sin will never be done, until we have reached eternity. The enemy would have us to think that once we beat it into submission once, that the job is done, and in believing that lie, we let down our guard, while he pounces on us in a weak moment, and destroys all that we have worked so hard for.

So, if we begin to understand that sin is something we must constantly be on guard against, fight against, and keep in remission, as much as possible, then we can and will win this battle! The Spirit of Christ living within us is well able to pinpoint, and discern sin that creeps into our lives just like tiny specks of dust and dirt creep into our homes. We can clean our house until it shines, but even in that shine, there is an imperfection waiting somewhere that we have missed.

We must strive for perfection which is living above perpetual, continuing sin, yet at the same time we must acknowledge that until the day we are changed from corruptible to incorruptible, we will wage this war with sin, our flesh, and satan.

We must be willing to die out to sin, to the natures of our flesh, to the lusts that reach out to us each day from this body of death we dwell in, and EACH DAY, every moment, every hour of the day, we must be cognizant, and aware of the battle that we are in!

So the next time you are doing housework, and you feel like you have thoroughly cleaned your house from top to bottom, it is spic and span clean in every way… can you can say that indeed you have cleaned out each and every closet, every single bare inch of floor in that house, that every single inch of wall space, and cabinet space has been cleaned, and that dust has been completely removed and eradicated from your house, never to return? I think not!

Housework is never, ever done! Because even if a dish is clean today, tomorrow it will be dirty again. A cobweb may be banished today, but the spider may come back in the middle of the night, and spin his web again. A closet may be cleaned out today, but tomorrow someone may throw a whole new pile of junk into it. The floor may be clean after you scrub it, but in a moment your son may walk through the door with muddy boots, oblivious to the fact that you just scrubbed it, and alas, it is dirty again!

Spiritually looking at this, we may wage a battle, and feel victorious because one spiritual closet sin has been cleaned, yet all the while we know there are five other closet sins in our spiritual house which haven’t been dealt with yet.

Such is the battle with sin! We are fools if we think we have completely overcome this war with sin! Yes, we may win some battles against it! Addictions may have been eradicated, sins may have been exposed and expelled from our lives… but beware, our greatest enemy within, our flesh… never stops seeking and looking for an opportunity to rise up again, out of remission, and attack us again, unaware! Yes, we may win battles, but our flesh seeks to win the war.

Our only hope is this…. allowing the Spirit of Christ moment by moment access to our deepest heart secrets, and allow Jesus and His Word to seek out, pinpoint, and deal with the sin in our heart each and every day. This is the only way we can we ever have any hope at all of winning the final war on sin!

Be aware that you will battle sin on new levels every single day! You may have won the battle yesterday, but there is a new one waiting for you today! You may have asked forgiveness for the ugly thoughts you thought while someone cut before you in line at the grocery store, but just wait… tomorrow you may find out a friend has stabbed you in the back, told lies on you, and hurt you deeply… what are you going to do then? Are you going to say, well… I’ve already dealt with ugly thoughts in my head, I’m not going to deal with them again today? Will that work?

NO! It won’t. We have got to deal with flesh/sin on an ongoing, daily, moment by moment basis, and constantly put them under the blood with the Spirit of Christ each moment of the day.

Remember, sin IS like housework. It is not going away. It will be here tomorrow, just as it is today.

The difference is your awareness of that sin, and how you deal with it.

[MawMaw]

Thank you!! I needed that!

[Michael The Disciple]

This is truth, pure and simple. We are waging a constant battle against sin... even those who claim to be the most spiritual of those among us… and none of us will be victors until we have gained eternity!

We can be victors now. Matter of fact we must be.

Paul said we were MORE THAN CONQERERS.

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. Rom. 8:35-37

Its through Jesus. We are MORE than conquerers

[MarieA27]

I hear what you're saying KeptBTW, and I agree with some of it, of course with some changes, but I have to agree with MTD. Yes, it is a constant battle, war within ourselves to fight our flesh each and every day. And each day that that battle comes about, you can overcome it.

The thing that I think is a hangup for people, is that they keep feeling that if a temptation comes their way, then they have sinned, and that is simply not so, because if that was the case, then Jesus would have been far from perfect. You see the devil tempting Him with suicide, tempting Him with arrogance and pride, tempting Him to worship the devil. There's like this misconception of Jesus. I don't know exactly what people think, but it seems that when Jesus was walking around here in the flesh, they have made Him out to be this weak, wimpy, being. Jesus was constantly rebuking people, and He showed anger, righteous anger. You're not going to be in this place of calm, peace and harmony all the time, showing an abundance of love, sprouting out rainbows everywhere you go, when nothing effects you, and this seems to be, (at least to me) what people equate being perfect and sinless is, as if never a negative human emotion will come upon you.

Of course the devil will continue to fight you, to wage war against your soul, he's going to do anything and everything within his power to take you onto hell with him, and as long as he makes you feel that there's nothing that can be done, he's already won. The devil would be never ending, because he has nothing to lose, he's going to test you, to try you, to tempt you, in every way possible that he can, he knows your weaknesses, and he would play on those things to tear you down. And he would have you think that the temptations in your flesh, is stronger than the power that you have with God, that the flesh is just too strong, and that you can't overcome it.

And no, you can't battle this alone by yourself, but if you cleave to the Holy Ghost, to the spirit, to that of God, to the side of right, it can be done. In your flesh, you'll feel heavy, worn down, burdened, loaded with something, and of course you'll feel that way when you're constantly battling, but there will be peace within your soul. And like you said, there will never, or rarely ever be an, "Aha! I'm done!" moment because this is a battle for as long as we're here, which would never be truly completed until death, or Jesus comes. But you can die out to your sins, and have it lose its luster, but you still will be tempted...

[ILG]

Originally Posted by MarieA27

The thing that I think is a hangup for people, is that they keep feeling that if a temptation comes their way, then they have sinned, and that is simply not so, because if that was the case, then Jesus would have been far from perfect.

This is true, Marie. Sometimes people feel guilty when they don't have to and castigate themselves for being human. Being human is not a sin and being tempted is not a sin. I think we need to also feel compassion for ourselves. We have been told too long that giving ourselves anything good must be wrong, or it wouldn't feel good. That somehow, feeling good about ourselves is sin. I believe that is a lie. There is, of course, a place where we can go too far with these thoughts, but, in my opinion, many more need to feel that compassion and give themselves a break.

[Antipas]

The hardest thing to do is to forgive one's self.

[KeptByTheWord]

Originally Posted by Lacey

Thank you!! I needed that!

You know, housework has taken on a whole new meaning for me now

[KeptByTheWord]

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

We can be victors now. Matter of fact we must be.

Paul said we were MORE THAN CONQERERS.

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. Rom. 8:35-37

Its through Jesus. We are MORE than conquerers

I believe that we can be conquerors, MTD. One day at a time. Do you agree that the flesh still has not been perfected? Jesus is the ONLY perfect human, both flesh and spirit. The Spirit of Christ can reign in us, but the flesh will constantly be resisting.

So, to understand this, the Spirit of Christ seeks to perfect us, but the flesh is constantly resisting. Paul compared our spiritual walk to a battle, and it is. Paul told us to fight the good fight of faith. It is a fight every day to allow the spirit of Christ to reign in our lives.

But, the mind of Christ can reign, we don't have to allow sin to reign, but we must be aware that it is a constant battle we will fight until the day we die, or we are transformed into the incorruptible body Paul speaks of.

[KeptByTheWord]

Originally Posted by MarieA27

I hear what you're saying KeptBTW, and I agree with some of it, of course with some changes, but I have to agree with MTD. Yes, it is a constant battle, war within ourselves to fight our flesh each and every day. And each day that that battle comes about, you can overcome it.

Originally Posted by MarieA27

The thing that I think is a hangup for people, is that they keep feeling that if a temptation comes their way, then they have sinned, and that is simply not so, because if that was the case, then Jesus would have been far from perfect. You see the devil tempting Him with suicide, tempting Him with arrogance and pride, tempting Him to worship the devil. There's like this misconception of Jesus. I don't know exactly what people think, but it seems that when Jesus was walking around here in the flesh, they have made Him out to be this weak, wimpy, being. Jesus was constantly rebuking people, and He showed anger, righteous anger. You're not going to be in this place of calm, peace and harmony all the time, showing an abundance of love, sprouting out rainbows everywhere you go, when nothing effects you, and this seems to be, (at least to me) what people equate being perfect and sinless is, as if never a negative human emotion will come upon you.

Of course the devil will continue to fight you, to wage war against your soul, he's going to do anything and everything within his power to take you onto hell with him, and as long as he makes you feel that there's nothing that can be done, he's already won. The devil would be never ending, because he has nothing to lose, he's going to test you, to try you, to tempt you, in every way possible that he can, he knows your weaknesses, and he would play on those things to tear you down. And he would have you think that the temptations in your flesh, is stronger than the power that you have with God, that the flesh is just too strong, and that you can't overcome it.

And no, you can't battle this alone by yourself, but if you cleave to the Holy Ghost, to the spirit, to that of God, to the side of right, it can be done. In your flesh, you'll feel heavy, worn down, burdened, loaded with something, and of course you'll feel that way when you're constantly battling, but there will be peace within your soul. And like you said, there will never, or rarely ever be an, "Aha! I'm done!" moment because this is a battle for as long as we're here, which would never be truly completed until death, or Jesus comes. But you can die out to your sins, and have it lose its luster, but you still will be tempted...

So true Marie. The spirit and mind of Christ should reign in us, and can. It works to continually perfect us. But our flesh will always resist, and that is the catch. We are still in the flesh, we have not received our glorified bodies yet, and we are still in the war. It is a battle, but we can continue to overcome, and be conquerors on a daily basis.

I would like to address the temptations that you brought up. I have heard the saying "You can't help that a bird flies over your head, but you can keep him from building a nest on your head." So yes, we cannot control the thoughts, desires, and things that the flesh will use to fight against the spirit. Just because we experience a temptation, does not mean we have sinned. The difference is when we begin to entertain and give place to the thoughts that come, to the temptations that show up.

HOW we deal with thoughts/temptations/desires, determines whether it becomes sin or not.

We can resist and fight back against the temptations/thoughts/desires of our flesh with the Word of God and the Spirit of the Lord.... or we can entertain those things, allow them to take up residence, and become eventually a sin in our lives. There is a big difference, and very important to understand, so that we don't beat ourselves up for things we shouldn't.

[KeptByTheWord]

Originally Posted by ILG

This is true, Marie. Sometimes people feel guilty when they don't have to and castigate themselves for being human. Being human is not a sin and being tempted is not a sin. I think we need to also feel compassion for ourselves. We have been told too long that giving ourselves anything good must be wrong, or it wouldn't feel good. That somehow, feeling good about ourselves is sin. I believe that is a lie. There is, of course, a place where we can go too far with these thoughts, but, in my opinion, many more need to feel that compassion and give themselves a break.

Amen. Our thoughts and desires are not sin, unless we entertain them in our minds, until they turn into actions that are determined to be sin by the word of God. And there is such a thing as righteous anger, as one verse says "Be ye angry and sin not". So, yes there is a balance here, that can slip too far one way or the other.

Thank you for making this point!