Thought Exercise on Hiding Our Sin

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A Sin to Play Football

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 20:8-10, Mark 2:27-28, Colossians 2:16-17, Ecclesiastes 3:1-4, Romans 14:5-6

A number of years ago, when sabbath laws were still a contentious issue, a church group was picketing a stadium just before a Sunday game. When Tampa Bay Bucs coach John McKay arrived, the minister co...

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The Two Conflicting Instincts with Shame

Author

Heather Davis Nelson

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 3:7-8, Proverbs 28:13, 1 John 1:7-9, James 5:16, Galatians 6:1-2

Shame has two conflicting instincts. It needs to isolate and hide, and it needs a community in which to be transparent. Hiding, of course, usually wins. It is the easier and more natural of the two. B...

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Caught on Camera

Author

Matt Chandler

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 12:14, Genesis 39:6-12 , 2 Kings 5:19-27 , Luke 12:2-3, Psalm 139:1-4, Acts 5:1-11

Several years ago I saw a television show called Caught on Camera . It featured clips of people being secretly filmed doing all manner of horrific things, precisely because they thought they were...

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John Steinbeck Hears an Old Fashioned Hell & Brimstone Sermon

Author

John Steinbeck

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:27, Luke 12:4-5, 2 Peter 2:

While it has become unpopular in many circles, including many Christian circles, to avoid the "s" word (sin), some, including the writer John Steinbeck, see it's value. In his travelogue...

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The Message We Want to Hear in Church

Author

Richard Ganz & William Edgar

Keywords

Scripture

Revelation 2:18-29, Psalm 50:16–23, Luke 9:23–25, Matthew 23:25–28 , Micah 6:6–8, Amos 5:21–24

Churches want to hear nice, optimistic messages, free of the mention of sin or a call for repentance. Churches want nice, lean programs, directed at nice, clean families, leading to growth without sac...

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A Wretch Like Me

Author

Randy Alcorn

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 2:1, Romans 3:23, Luke 15:11-32, 1 Timothy 1:12-17, Luke 18:9-14

Before I spoke at a conference, a soloist sang one of my favorite songs, “Amazing Grace.” It was beautiful. Until she got to the tenth word. “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a soul like ...

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Why is Shame so Painful?

Author

Greg Ten Elsof

Keywords

Why is shame so painful? In this short excerpt, professor and philosopher Gregg Ten Elsof provides a helpful insight: The experience of shame always involves the sense of diminished social standin...

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Confusion and Chaos go with Evil, Goodness comes from an Ordered Reality

Author

Dallas Willard

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 14:33

The man who prosecuted the infamous Manson family for their murders later wrote a book titled Helter Skelter. This phrase was taken from a song performed by a well-known rock music group. Manson...

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Defining Shame

Author

Heather Davis Nelson

Keywords

Shame

It’s a word we do not often use in daily conversation, book groups, or church pulpits, but shame is something we all experience. It’s the feeling that we have missed the mark according to our own stan...

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Shame Takes Shape in Hiding

Author

Curt Thompson

Keywords

Another feature of shame’s presentation is that of hiding. Whether it is the involution into the silence of our own minds or the literal turning away from someone with a downcast facial expression wit...

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Covering the Bald Spots

Author

Sharon Hodde Miller

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 17:7-8, John 15:4-5, Matthew 23:27-28, Isaiah 58:11, Ezekiel 36:26-27

Every year at the end of November, my husband, Ike, and I load the kids in the car and drive to the nearest Christmas tree lot. We are committed “real tree” people—not to be confused with “fake tree” ...

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The Story of David: Seeking God in Times of Trouble

Author

Eugene H. Peterson

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 3:, Psalm 7:, Psalm 18:, Psalm 34:, Psalm 51:, Psalm 51:, Psalm 54:, Psalm 56:, Psalm 57:, Psalm 59:, Psalm 60:, Psalm 63:, Psalm 142:

Of the seventy-three psalms that are linked to David’s story, thirteen refer to specific incidents in his life. These references pull into focused clarity various parts of the story of this person who...

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Clearing the Path to Grace

Author

Richard J. Foster

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 1:18, Ezekiel 36:26 , Micah 7:18-19 , 1 John 1:9, Luke 15:20-24, Psalm 51:10

To help us in our confession we may want to picture a path littered with many rocks. Some are small pebbles, others are quite large, and still others are almost completely buried so that we cannot kno...

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Sin and Trees

Author

John Stott

Keywords

Scripture

Ezekiel 36:26, Romans 6:6, Galatians 5:16-17, Psalm 51:10, Jeremiah 17:9, John 8:34

Sin not only alienates; it enslaves. It separates us from God and it also brings us into captivity. We need now to consider the ‘inwardness’ of sin. It is more than the wrong things we do; it is a dee...

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Blotting out our Sins

Author

Jerry Bridges

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 1:18, Micah 7:18-19, Jeremiah 31:34, Hebrews 8:12, Colossians 2:13-14, Psalm 103:11-12

In Isaiah 43:25, God says, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” Here God uses two absolute terms to assure us of the complete removal...

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The Deepwater Horizon Crisis and Our Need for a Savior

Author

Ryan Bundrick

Scripture

Romans 3:21-31, 1 John 1:7, Philippians 1:6, Ephesians 2:8-9, Colossians 2:13-14

In 2010, an oil rig named “Deepwater Horizon” suffered a catastrophic failure. Due to improper installation of the cement seal, a malfunctioning blowout preventer, and cost-cutting decisions by corpor...

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The Symptoms of Moral Disease

Author

John Stott

Keywords

Sin

Scripture

Ezekiel 36:26, Romans 6:6, Galatians 5:16-17, Psalm 51:10, Jeremiah 17:9, Matthew 12:33-34, Romans 7:18-20

Sin not only alienates; it enslaves. It separates us from God and it also brings us into captivity. We need now to consider the ‘inwardness’ of sin. It is more than the wrong things we do; it is a dee...

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The Psalms Show us to How to Be Honest with our Pain

Author

Eugene Peterson

Keywords

The Psalms

It is easy to be honest before God with our hallelujahs; it is somewhat more difficult to be honest in our hurts; it is nearly impossible to be honest before God in the dark emotions of our hate. So w...

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“No Fishing Allowed”

Author

Jerry Bridges

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 7:15-20, 1 John 1:9, Hebrews 10:26, Romans 8:1, 1 John 1:9, Lamentations 3:22-23

He hurls our sins overboard. What a picture of the way God treats our sins. Corrie ten Boom, a dear saint of the last century, used to say, “And then God put up a sign saying, `No fishing allowed.”‘ W...

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What We Must Go Through

Author

Marlena Graves

Keywords

Before God can divulge our God-given identities in our desert-of-the soul wilderness experiences, there is something we need to know: he requires that we be brutally honest with ourselves and with him...

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Justifying our Sin

Author

Greg Gilbert

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 3:6–8 , Isaiah 59:2, 2 Samuel 12:7–9 , Romans 3:23, Luke 18:13–14, Psalm 51:4

I just paid a parking ticket the other day. It was easy. I read the charge against me, flipped the ticket over, checked the box that said “I plead guilty to the charge,” filled out a check for $35 to ...

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Opening Our Eyes to Deception

Author

Jared C. Wilson

Keywords

Scripture

2 Corinthians 11:13-15, 1 John 4:1, Proverbs 14:15, John 8:32, Psalm 119:105

It’s important, then, to have our eyes open to this deception. How is it that so many modern promises sound true but in the end lead to our deception, or even our destruction? A long, long time ago, t...

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Thirty-one New Testament Descriptions of Sinful Mankind

Author

L. Meredith

Keywords

Sin

Scripture

Ephesians 4:18, John 12:40, 2 Corinthians 4:4, 1 John 2:11, Romans 8:6, Matthew 7:17-18, 1 Timothy 6:5, Matthew 6:23, John 3:19, Romans 1:21, 1 John 1:6-7, John 5:24, Colossians 2:13, 1 Timothy 5:6, 1 John 3:14, Titus 3:3, Isaiah 64:6, Titus 1:15, 2 Peter 2:20, Revelation 22:11, Romans 1:18, Matthew 7:23, Ephesians 2:3, James 4:4, Matthew 6:22, John 3:20, Matthew 7:26, Ephesians 5:15, 1 Peter 2:25, Matthew 6:2, Romans 2:5, Hebrews 3:8, 2 Thessalonians 2:12, 2 Timothy 3:4, 1 John 2:15, Romans 1:30, 1 Timothy 6:4, James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5, John 3:35, 2 Timothy 4:4, Acts 7:51, John 8:44, 2 Timothy 3:2, Revelation 3:17, John 3:34, Romans 6:16-17, Romans 1:25, John 8:33, Romans 7:7, 1 Corinthians 6:9

Alienated from God (Eph. 4:18). Blind (John 12:40; 2 Cor. 4:4; 1 John 2:11). Carnally or fleshly minded (Rom. 8:6, 13). Corrupt (Matt. 7:17-18; 1 Tim. 6:5). Darkened (Matt. 6:23; John 3:19; Rom. 1...

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How Transformation Happens

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 6:11-14, Galatians 2:20, Romans 8:1-2, Colossians 3:3-4, John 8:34-36, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Ephesians 4:22-24, Romans 8:15-16

In The Good and Beautiful God , James Bryan Smith describes a new Christian he happened to know who came to him one day feeling dejected. He was so excited to be a follower of Jesus, but he just co...

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Confession Reminds Us

Author

Tish Harrison Warren

Keywords

Confession of Sin

Confession reminds us that none of us gather for worship because we are “pretty good people.” But we are new people, people marked by grace in spite of ourselves because of the work of Christ. Our com...

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The Hole In Our Holiness

Author

Kevin DeYoung

Keywords

Holiness

The hole in our holiness is that we don’t really care much about it. Passionate exhortation to pursue gospel-driven holiness is barely heard in most of our churches. It’s not that we don’t talk about ...

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A One-Dimensional View of Holiness

Author

Kevin DeYoung

Keywords

Holiness

With all the best intentions, we tend to flatten the biblical view on holiness until we squeeze out the dynamic nature of life with God. In an effort to own up to our own abiding sinfulness and highli...

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Shifting Our Focus

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 12:1-2, 2 Corinthians 3:18, Philippians 3:13-14, Psalm 25:15, Psalm 34:5

By shifting the focus away from myself and onto Christ and his love for me, I have noticed that everything comes into view. When Martin Luther was suffering under the weight of guilt, his spiritual di...

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C. S. Lewis and Despairing in Sanctification

Author

C. S. Lewis

Keywords

Scripture

1 John 1:9, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Philippians 1:6, Psalm 51:10-12, Galatians 6:9, Jude 1:24

As we try to live a life in obedience to God, the stubbornness of our sins can discourage and frighten us. If we are supposed to have a new heart, why are we still so broken? C.S. Lewis struggled with...

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You Naughty, Naughty, Naughty People

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 3:8-13, Isaiah 6:5-7, Nehemiah 9:1-3, 1 John 1:8-9, Psalm 51:1-4, Luke 18:9-14

In a talk about faith and doubt, the Irish Londoner Charlie Mackesy shares a humorous anecdote from a friend. This friend was attending a traditional Anglican worship service with his wife and their y...

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