"SIN NO MORE"

I hope you are beginning to see the story behind this man with his bed; because what this illustrates is one of the main problems with our inability to stop sinning against God. Here we see a man, sick from an infirmity for 38 years, with a cure for his sickness available to him, and yet he continues to be stricken, because he fails to make a plan. How hard would it have been for this man, if he really wanted to be whole, to move to an area where he could just flop into the water once it was 'troubled'? If you really think about it, sometimes we put more of an effort into sinning than we do not to sin in the first place. In other words, we will spend more energy on making sin happen, then we would to have avoided the sin in the first place. You have to know that God has given us every tool that we need to have power over sin; and, when we are in a tough spot, He will also always provide a way of escape. The problem that most of us have, is that we will not use those tools He has provided, nor will we take His route of escape; instead we will challenge the sin we are faced with, and we do so in our flesh. For example: say that your weakness is alcohol, and you are tempted to get yourself a bottle on you way home from work. So in an attempt to try and give yourself permission to partake, you tell yourself, that if there is a parking spot in front of that store on this road home, then I will stop and get a bottle. So you get to the store, and there is no parking spot; now what do you do? You drive around the block 20 times until there is a spot available! This is called 'making sin happen', and to could easily be avoided. What this word 'sin' that Jesus used really means, is to stop doing whatever it is that causes you to fail, and start doing what you need to do not to fail and to be successful in your attempt to remain whole. In the illustration above, and the store on the way home; the best thing to have done in that situation would have been to go down another road all together. In other words, if you know that you are not going to make it into the water 'first' from where you are at, then you should probably move your bed! If you know that you have a problem in a certain area, then you need to avoid those areas, and any road that will lead you there! You have to decide what you are going to do, and you need to plan your way home in a way that will avoid being tempted. That is what it means to regulate our relationship with God; as a vessel of honour that must be kept clear of any contamination, and is diligent in steering the other way... "Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the 'Knowledge of God': I speak this to your 'shame'." (1 Corinthians 15:34)