Promising God things then not following through
Wed, 04/21/2010 - 22:02 | by agrl20
When I sin and ask for forgiveness, I sometimes promise him that I wont do it again. Then the next day (or couple of days later) I break that promise. I wonder if that causes God to reject you? Or turn his back on you? I feel bad for breaking those promises. Maybe promising God that you wont do a particular sin any more is a bad idea? What does it mean to ask forgiveness then "turn away from it"? I thought that was to promise him you wont do it any more. Grrrr....all the christian language/sayings confuse me so much. Like, "leave your sin at the alter" What on earth does that mean? Do I have to find an alter somewhere and then pick the sin from my body with my fingers and then place it on the alter? HUH?? See what I mean? hahaha
Comments
Dear Agrl
You ask good questions!
You've been reading Matthew chapter 5, I can tell. :) Good chapter. Very difficult to understand and obey. I will give you that.
Matt 5:33 Again, you have heard that it was said to the men of old, You shall not swear [PROMISE] falsely, but you shall perform your oaths to the Lord [as a religious duty].
Matt 5:34 But I tell you, Do NOT bind yourselves by an oath [promise] AT ALL: either by heaven, for it is the throne of God; ...
Matthew 5:23 So if when you are offering your GIFT at the altar you there remember that your brother has any [grievance] against you, 24 Leave your GIFT [not your sin -- but you were close] at the altar and go. First make peace with your brother, and then come back and present your gift.
Make sense now? Yes? No? To me either.
To the crowds as well as His disciples, Jesus only spoke in parables.
Mark 4:34 He did not tell them a-n-y-thing without a parable; but privately to His disciples (those who were peculiarly His own) He explained everything [fully].
Why did He have to explain everything to His disciples? Because they (like us) didn't understand.
And notice when and how Jesus explained the parables to the disciples: privately.
Remember, these disciples were guys who were walking and talking with Jesus for 3-1/2 years, and they didn't even understand a word He said. He had to explain everything to them.
So, hopefully you are starting to feel a little better about the fact that you don't quite understand (many are not so eager to admit that). You, my dear, are not alone!
John 16:25: I [Jesus] have told you these things in parables (veiled language, allegories, dark sayings, proverbs); the hour is now coming when I shall NO LONGER speak to you in figures of speech, but I shall tell you about the Father in PLAIN words.
John 14: 26 But the Comforter (Counselor, Helper), the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name [in My place], HE will TEACH YOU ALL things.
So, how were the disciples able to understand the things Jesus spoke about? With their own minds? No, it was only by the power of the Holy Spirit.
One last thing about making promises we can't keep:
Matthew 26:33 Peter answered and said unto Him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. [Peter was making a promise to the Lord much like we have done time and time again.]
Matt 26:34 Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.
Matt 26:35Peter said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said ALL the disciples.
Do you know what they did, agrl? They ALL denied they knew Him and ran away. And do you know what Jesus did? He forgave them, because:
Hebrews 4:15
We do not have a High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning.
Jesus even asked His Father to forgive those who were nailing Him to the cross because they didn't know what they were doing. They really didn't know what they were doing -- you can believe that because Jesus doesn't lie.
Luke 23:34 And Jesus prayed, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
I'm not suggesting for a moment that we all go out and start sinning, God forbid -- borrowing from Paul; but I just wanted to show you that Jesus is able to forgive to the uttermost.
And if you got this far, agrl, I'll put $5 in your PayPal account! :-)
Love you!
Gina
Just the fact that you are struggling with this, and desiring to move toward God, tells me that you are not taking His grace and mercy for granted in your heart. Sure... there are moments when all of us fall short... and often times we fall short in the same things, over and over again.
There are a couple verses that I find helpful as I move ever closer to Jesus...
1 John 1:9-10 is a pretty familiar verse to a lot of people... it reads like this:
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."
In the original Greek, there is an element of grammar at work in this verse called a 'present participle'... basically that is word that means: always present. When you look at verse 9 with this in mind, it actually reads closer to this:
"If we (continually) confess our sins, he is (continually) faithful and just to (continually) forgive us our sins and to (continually) cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Does that make sense... it means we should regularly be checking out the sin in our life and not always expect that a one-time-shot at the altar is going to necessarily take care of the transformation in our life.
Paul urges us to 'strain forward' towards Jesus...
"Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained." (Phil 3:12-16)
None of us here in the Pink Cross family have arrived at the ultimate goal of Christlikeness... some of us are further along in maturity than others. But agrl20... what I hope you are finding here is a place where your life in Christ... at whatever level of maturity you have attained so far... is celebrated... and for the areas of your life that still need some work, I hope you find a grace that pushes you forward.
You are awesome... keep moving towards Jesus.
Chadwick
Pink Cross Moderator
"Blessed are those who persevere under trial, because when they have stood the test, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him."
James 1:12
You've got a great heart, agrl20!
I'm reminded of Romans 7: 14-25
"We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
Turning and repentance of your sins is not about making promises to God and keeping them. It is about your sincere, humble admission to God of your sin and your "turning away from them" means that you do not chase after them. You may fall - we all do - but you set your eyes on God.
When you make a promise to God, you're relying on YOUR power - not His. Your willpower, your discipline. Instead, rely on His spirit.
You cannot save yourself, but He can save you. And from your heart, I'd wager a guess and say that He already has.
God bless,
Icky
That is one of the most encouraging verses when you feel like a failure as a christian, trying to stop sinning! I like how Watchman Nee explains it in his book, "The Normal Christian Life"...he explains how we think that once we are a christian, we are saved, we have Jesus, we have the Holy spirit, we think we will stop sinning and start pleasing God. Wrong!! That is actually just the beginning of our process of being sanctified. The biggest hurdle we must overcome as new christians (or old ones like me, pout) is to learn how to realize we still have our stinking sinful nature--the flesh. We must come to a place of realizing the flesh still reigns and God must help us to see how our flesh likes to try to be good --without God. He explains that the purpose of the Law was to help us to see that no matter how good we try to be in our sinful nature, we will always, always fail! Always! But all too often, we need to be persuaded. That is the purpose of the Law, to help us realize we can't do it. Thus the verses, "Before this faith came, we were kept under the Law, shut up until faith should be revealed (thru Jesus). So the Law was our schoolmaster (which the concordance explains to mean--"a servant whose job was to lead the children to school") to lead us to Christ, so that we might be justified by faith."
So, I think the biggest hurdle we christians need to overcome is to learn to get to that place of realizing that we still struggle to be a good christian in our own strength. We fail over and over cuz we have not understood God's process of sanctifying us is for us to struggle with sin. When we get sooo frustrated with our failures and weaknesses, He wants us to come to Him, broken, saying "I can't do it!!" Then He can say, "Exactly!! Now, will you let Jesus live His life out in you?"
"I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in this body, I live by THE FAITH OF THE SON OF GOD, who loved me and gave Himself up for me."
(Gal. 2:20)
Some translations say, "I live by faith IN the Son of God." The KJV says "I live by THE Faith OF the Son of God" His faith, not ours! Jesus has faith He can be holy, cuz He did! He's already done it all. And He lives in us! He can do it, we cannot.
Blessings
Tonya
"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine!...I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;...You are precious and honored in my eyes, and I love you...do not be afraid, for I am with you." (Is.43:4-5)