Familiar Sins

People love familiarity. They really do, even when they are miserable with what they’re familiar with. They re-elect incumbent politicians who have proven harmful, because they are afraid of change. They stay in marriages that they are unhappy with for fear of not knowing what to do if they were on their own. They stay in jobs and careers that they don’t enjoy because it is easier than launching out and finding something that they could be more enthused about. The list goes on, but that point is sufficiently made, so I’ll move on to the real point. When God called Abraham, he told him; “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee” (Gen. 12:1). He required him to leave everything that he was familiar with, and to trust him to take him to a better place; a place chosen by God. Whoooo! I hope you just felt what I felt as I finished that sentence. Wow! That has always been the calling; to forsake your life and trust God to GIVE you life! (Lk. 17:33) That is the only way anyone has ever been truly baptized with the holy Ghost by the hand of Jesus. That is what is required to begin this journey of faith, and that is what is required to continue, and to endure till the end and be saved (I Cor. 12:13; Col. 2:6; Mat. 24:13). God alone knows the hearts of men, and therefore he alone knows when the repentance and faith of someone who is coming to Jesus, is complete and acceptable to him (Acts 15:7,8; Acts 10:44-46). Nobody has ever accepted Jesus, with the exception of his father (Heb. 10:10-12; I Cor. 15:27,28). He accepts us if and when our offering of repentance and faith is whole [as in a “whole burnt offering” - Rom. 12:1]. That is the reason for the sign of speaking in tongues which is synonymous with every new birth experience (Jn. 3:8). It is God’s witness of our offering being accepted (I Jn. 5:9; Acts 15:7,8; Acts 10:46). So the new birth experience shows that someone has indeed come out from all their familiarity to be “led by the Spirit of God” to a much better place in life, and also hereafter. And this is how one truly becomes “the seed of Abraham” (Gal. 3:26-29; I Cor. 12:13). And I’m sure you see the parallel between Abraham’s trust and faith toward God, and those who experience the real born again experience, which is clearly the baptism of the holy Ghost. And the truth is, people do NOT receive the Spirit because they simply are not willing to leave all that familiarity behind, and that means familiar sins. In other words they are more comfortable staying with familiar sins even if they realize that it is destructive to do so, than they are willing to turn over the control of their lives to God. What this means is that they just don’t trust God to lead them to a better place. It's as simple as that. A certain sister in Christ recalls the day after she received God’s Spirit, when two things stayed on her mind all day. One was the word “gulf,” meaning that a gulf had been placed between her and her life before that day. The other was a scripture: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (II Cor. 5:17). And it’s interesting that she did not even know what she had received, just that she had been seeking God with all her heart. She had not heard any preaching on the baptism of the Spirit, and was not aware of what it was until she met some people shortly thereafter who had the experience also. And once that “gulf” has been placed in our lives, we surely need to keep it in place.

But just because someone does meet God’s terms and receives the blessed holy Ghost, that is no guarantee that they will continue in the faith as they have begun. And sadly, many do not, as Jesus alluded to: “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Mat. 22:14). And this is indeed a very sobering and fear-worthy thing, as Jesus again alluded to: “The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather OUT OF his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth”(Mat. 13:41,42). So you see, someone could not be “gathered out of his kingdom” unless they were in the kingdom of God to begin with; which means they had experienced the new birth (Jn. 3:3). So the point is that we must continue to follow the conviction and leading of God’s Spirit into his holiness and his love till the end, in order to be saved (Rom. 8:14; I Jn. 2:27; Rev. 2:7; Heb. 3:6-12). Now it’s interesting to note that the scripture says of Abraham and those who left Ur of the Chaldees with him; “And truly, had they been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned” (Heb. 11:15). It is also interesting that when God called his people out of Egypt, and their faith began to fail, the scripture says; “and in their hearts [they] turned back again into Egypt” (Acts 7:39). The point is that Abraham and those with him COULD HAVE been mindful to return to where they came from, because it is all they knew TO return to. And the Israelites turned back in their hearts to Egypt because that is where they came from. They evidenced this by building the golden calf at Mt. Sinai, which calf was an Egyptian idol. And when someone begins to fail in the faith of Christ that they began in, they begin to look back to familiar things and familiar sins. There simply is nowhere else to go if one does not go forward. A failing saint who does not repent will undoubtedly go back to the things that they were familiar with before they were in Christ. In such a case, I would go back to the things that I came out of, and likewise you would go back to where you came from. I would not go back to your familiar things, and you would not go back to mine. If you get tripped up, or overwhelmed by some hardship, Satan may bring those old familiar things back to your remembrance, and suggest that there was something nice, and something comfortable about that old familiarity. But my friend, that’s as big a lie as it was when he deceived you to live in those things to begin with. That lie will also include old associates that were comfortable in those old familiar sins with you. Beware my friend when you are weak, and maybe fail God’s holiness, that old familiar things on the other side of that gulf do not begin to seem attractive. But rather heed the scripture that says: “Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed” (Heb. 12:12,13). The solution is to become so familiar with God’s love, and care, and power, that you simply can do nothing BUT trust him fully, regardless of who or what comes or goes; or what may happen. And I assure you that there is a place in faith, and in God, where that state absolutely exists (Job 13:15). May God bless.