Author Archives: Dan Lemburg

About Dan Lemburg

Hi I'm Dan, I'll update this bio info soon.

What Is Sin?

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What is sin? Scripture never really bothers to define sin, except where it says that “sin is lawlessness.”(1 John 3:4) Everyone in the Bible simply seemed to understand what it meant. The word first appears in Genesis 4:7 where Cain, angry over the unacceptability of his offering, is told by God, “sin is crouching at your door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

I have often heard sin defined as missing the mark, as if one were missing a target he is aiming at. The Greek dictionary defines sin as, “missing the true end and scope of our lives, which is God—an offence in relation to God with an emphasis on guilt.”

It’s pretty obvious what God considers to be sin. Time and again in his various letters Paul makes perfectly clear what the sins of the flesh are, listing each by name—often along with a warning that those corrupted by sin have no inheritance in God’s kingdom.(Galatians 5:18-21, Ephesians 5:3-5) And other biblical writers do the same. God’s purpose in so emphatically defining the sins of the flesh is to make it impossible for us to play dumb, saying we didn’t know.

Excerpted from: Free from the Power of Sin: The Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

The Reality of Freedom

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 Do you suppose God might have known what the consequences of sin’s presence with us here on earth would be? Of course He did. God knew Adam, human as he was, would fall into sin. Standing outside of time, He sees the beginning and end of everything all at the same time. So how could He ever have imagined that things might turn out differently?

The only logical answer is that our confrontation with the power of sin is simply a part of His plan to bring His purpose for our lives to fruition. Yet this doesn’t mean that God has decided to tolerate sin. He detests sin, not only because it’s a personal affront to His goodness and holiness, but also because of its destructive power in people’s lives.

The lesson for all of us here is that tolerating sin in our own lives is simply unacceptable. Let’s forget the excuses, then, that sin is merely an inescapable part of life, and move on to the freedom God designed us for.      

God Desires Our Good

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Unquestionably, God wants good for us here, but His plan ultimately revolves around our union with Him later. So He has designed things such that His purpose can only come to fruition as we receive Christ as Lord and Savior, and then enter into a lifelong pursuit of God in spite of our human penchant to choose self in place of Him.

So our ongoing battle with the flesh, as we’re confronted daily by a world steeped in sin, boils down to one thing only: choice with teeth, decision with real meaning. And this is precisely why God had to allow sin to play such a major role in our decision-making.

But how could God (whose very essence is goodness) give evil the right to exist at all, much less allow it to have such overwhelming and destructive power over mankind? Again, choice is the answer to this age-old question. In His unfathomable wisdom, God has ordained that His children choose Him freely—and the more difficult the choice, the better He likes our yes. It makes the value we place on Him all the more meaningful.

Excerpted from: Free from the Power of Sin: The Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

Dispelling a Myth

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Let’s dispel a myth quite popular in Christian circles. It is this: the idea that our life here on earth would be so wonderful if only Adam had not sinned. Well, I suppose it would be, but all the same it stands in direct opposition to God’s purpose. Why? Because given the nature of man, Adam was doomed to sin. Strong words, I know, yet true. But why would God set the stage for that to happen—both to him and to us? Couldn’t we more wholeheartedly commit ourselves to Christ’s lordship if sin were never an issue?

What could possibly be wrong with wanting complete freedom from the influence of sin so that single-minded devotion to God might not only be easier but more pleasurable? Well, we need to think about what letting us slide through life here on earth in the comfort and security of sinlessness would ultimately achieve. It’s only possible outcome would be a good life here, with the added hope of even a better eternal life in heaven.

What’s the problem with that, you might ask? The trouble with this notion is that, while nice, it’s not God’s reality. He has a much greater purpose for our lives, because our eternal destiny with Him in heaven is indeed much more than just a wonderful place to spend eternity.

Excerpted from: Free from the Power of Sin: The Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

 

True Change Not So Easy

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A big problem that seems to sap our motivation to change is the fact that our self-willed nature craves instant change: “Please give me patience, Lord, but give it to me now!” The uncomfortable truth is that, in most instances, hasty change is simply not the way God works out His plan for our lives. While on occasion God may choose to instantly change something in us, those of us who have been around for awhile know that this is the exception rather than the rule. And when change does not come quickly, we tend to lose hope that it ever will. But God has a purpose in allowing painful circumstances.

God wants to go deep within our nature to rebuild our character—a true change of heart. Often this is a process He can accomplish in no other way but through time and suffering.

How do you feel about yourself? Are you happy with who you are? Or do you sense the need for change in your inner person? Well, whether the need be subtle or dramatic, the transformation of our character is God’s goal for each and every one of us. Why? Because God has designed us for relationship, and the reality of the weakness of the flesh must be dealt with for our life in Him to be healthy.

Can Our Heart Change?

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Regarding to our nature, a big question remains: can a leopard change its spots? Is the heart (self) capable of genuine change? This seems like kind of a silly question given all we’ve talked about regarding our nature because we’ve already spent a lot of time establishing the fact that, with God’s help, we can change. Yet I think it’s a valid question. I can see how I truly have changed, initially through my born again experience and then more slowly over the many years since. But in many ways I’m the same person I’ve always been. I know I’m still that same old me because of what sporadically surfaces in my heart when confronted with something that challenges the self-will still residing at the deepest levels of my being.

Moreover, there seems to be a paradox in Scripture as to whether or not the heart can change. On the one hand there are passages such as: “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?”(Jeremiah 17:9) Here the heart appears to be stubborn to the point of being incapable of fundamental change. And in fact our flesh does seem to be precisely that way—controllable maybe, but not entirely changeable. Paul seems to agree that this is so in his teaching in Romans 7.

On the other hand, The Bible implies that we have the power to change our heart by our choices—for both good and bad.(Hebrews 3:12) And not only that, but Scripture also seems to imply that our heart can actually in a sense be pure.(2 Timothy 2:22)

Can both be true? I think they can. The changed lives of millions of Christians down through the centuries are proof that the heart can indeed change. But unfortunately, there are millions more whose attitudes and behavior shed doubt on it. What’s the difference between the two? Choice. Our choices, made in response to each opportunity presented to us in life, make all the difference.

Self-Will Twisted

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The gift of self-interest has become twisted. What began in a more perfect world as a healthy motivation to support and enhance life has degenerated in this fallen world into a power struggle—man against his fellow man in an egotistical attempt to improve his standing in life.

Satan is well aware of this weakness in our nature. So he uses it to dominate man, taking him down the road to self-destruction in an endless cycle of immorality and greed.(Ephesians 4:19) The truth is that self-will can never be satisfied devoid of relationship with God, and it’s desperately sad that so many have been blinded to this reality.

Man’s first taste of the bitterness of self-will was experienced by Adam. The fall of man is a very sad beginning to human history, but is also interesting because it says so much about our nature. Many Christians view Adam as being a perfect man—someone very different from man as we know him today. The fact is he was a perfect man. He was created sinless in a sinless world, which is the reason God could inhabit his being so freely and completely.

Yet this raises a question as to what the true definition of human perfection actually is. I think Adam was human in all the ways we’ve seen man’s nature to be in the foregoing chapters. What perfected his humanity was his relationship with God, and the fact that he dwelt in fellowship with God in a sinless world.

The Gift of Self-Will

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What is self-will all about? Surprisingly, self-will, which is embedded in self-interest, is actually a gift of God. But how could something potentially so ugly be a gift of God? It’s because life here on earth demands that we either take care of ourselves or die. And God has placed in each of us the compelling drive to live. We hang on to life with all we’ve got! This can clearly be seen in the way man tries his utmost to enhance and extend his life in any way possible. Only the hopeless cause life to abruptly end, or allow it to simply waste away.

And added to this powerful need to cling to life is man’s yearning for significance. Significance is another of God’s gifts essential to our being because our need for meaning and purpose provides the underlying motivation for reaching toward God’s purpose for us. We possess an inherent need to feel important—to have a healthy sense of self-worth. This need is rooted in the fact that we truly are valuable, yet often unaware that it is so.

Self-Will

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A commonly taught principle relevant to God’s purpose for man is that he is endowed with free will. It is said that man is a free moral agent, meaning he possesses unrestricted power in making moral choices.Indeed, how could God possibly have designed man devoid of the power of choice? He had to give him the ability to choose—not merely between right and wrong, but more importantly choice in regard to the lordship of God over his life.

Yet what appears on the surface to be the ability to choose freely, is in a very real sense something more than merely free will. 

Man’s rejection of God as Lord of his life does not in any way mean that he possesses the ability of free choice in regard to everything else. Rather, in refusing to accept God’s purpose and plan for his life, he inevitably opens himself up to control by some other outside force.  And this force is ultimately Satan. But the tool the devil uses to subjugate mankind is man’s will—a will inherently rooted in self-interest. So we should instead think of this self-serving attribute of man’s nature—what we commonly call free will—as self-will.

Excerpted from: Free from the Power of Sin: The Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

Man’s Heart

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The term self doesn’t appear by itself very often in the Bible. But while the term self is not all that common in Scripture, there is another widely used term that expresses the same idea: the heart. The term heart appears some seven hundred times in the Bible (about a hundred times in the New Testament), where it is always used figuratively meaning the center and seat of human life.

We can look at the heart as being the engine that runs our being. It is who we are: our self. Our heart is the core of our being as well as the umbrella over our entire nature. It all boils down to this: our beliefs, our mind-set, our choices and our behavior are all dictated by what is truly in the heart. Jesus said, “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.”(Luke 6:45)

Now in trying to understand the state of a person’s heart, the only difference between nonbeliever and believer is the condition of his spirit—dead or alive. The heart of a nonbeliever is precisely the same as what we’ve already identified as the flesh: man’s soul interacting with his physical nature through his mind, all unaided by God because his dead spirit is incapable of sharing in His life-flow. On the other hand, the believer’s heart, while still strongly pulled by the flesh, has the advantage of the influence of God’s life coursing through it by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

Excerpted from: Free from the Power of Sin: The Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself