Boundaries | Love Letters - Cedar Point Church

Boundaries | Love Letters

Ryan Jahn Devotional May 24, 2018 | 0

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. Colossians 3:5-6

We don’t hear much about the “wrath of God” anymore. It’s not positive enough. It doesn’t make us feel good, so we skip over references to it in favor of cheery verse-pieces that assure us God is tickled with everything we do and just wants us to be happy no matter what. This is dangerous. The Bible doesn’t shy away from warning us about the wrath of God, and neither did Jesus (Matt. 13:41-42). The message of the Bible is that sin has consequences: not just earthly ones, spiritual ones. Eternal ones. God will not tolerate our sin and will not tolerate us tolerating it either. God’s word is clear that every sin will be punished fully; but…here we are, flawed and sinful. We all deserve the wrath of God. What can we do about that?

We can’t do anything about it, so God did. He sent Jesus to take the wrath of God that our sin deserves. For everyone who surrenders to His lordship, Jesus’ righteousness is counted as our own. Our sins were nailed to the cross with Him. Your sin. Your lying. Your sexual sin. Your bad temper. Your drunkenness. If you’ve given your life to Jesus, God’s wrath against those sins was poured out on his Son instead of on you. So those sins are not yours to indulge anymore. They are dead. Crucified. Gone. The only way we can live in victory over our earthly nature is by killing it. Our old sinful self doesn’t get a vote in our decisions. Past sins don’t get to make fools of us anymore. A high price was paid by Jesus to kill them. Don’t resurrect them.

Final Thought:

Have you died to your old earthly nature and its sinful desires?

Prayer:

Father, since I’ve trusted in you, I’ve still struggled with old sins. Maybe it’s because I’m not considering myself dead to them. As of now, I place my old self on the cross with you and die to anything that does not please you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.