Prone to Wander

November 16, 2015

Prone to Wander

The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me.

John 16:8

David C. Needham, in his wonderful book on our new life in Christ, includes a fresh definition of sin: “The expression of man’s struggle with the meaning of his existence while missing life from God. It is all the varieties of ways man deals with and expresses his rebellion against his Creator as he encounters the inescapable issue of meaning.” (BIRTHRIGHT- Christian Do You Know Who You Are?) Take a minute and process this definition alongside Henry Blackaby’s teaching that when we face a crisis, what we do next reveals what we believe about Jesus. When I put these two understandings together, I have two take-a-ways.

First, I believe we can give too much attention to lists of lifestyle sins. It has been my experience that when a person is drawn to the magnificent work that Christ accomplished on the cross to ordain eternal life for his followers, the Holy Spirit, working in the life of a disciple, will deal with the sins issue. The most important issue is the sin issue: the idea that we can have life apart from God.

Secondly, my personal awareness of the saving work of Jesus for me is stronger now than ever before in my life. So also is my awareness, through the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, of the areas in my life where I still trying to life it out on my own, while missing life from God. So also, is my awareness of how going it alone increases my susceptibility to the temptations of sins in a life apart from God;  which is why I never grow weary of singing Come, Thou Fount:

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love.

Here's my heart. O take and seal it; Seal it for thy courts above.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.