After all that was done to you, it gets worst! Given that the thief is always stealing from us. He preys upon our conscience and convinces us that God cannot use us in anyway because he is horrified by the quantity and the size of our sins.
Given that the thief is always stealing from us.
He preys upon our conscience and convinces us that God cannot use us in anyway because he is horrified by the quantity and the size of our sins.
The 6th item the thief steals from us is our celebration of God…
by making us believe we are washed up, unqualified for relationship or service with God.
We have to remember the Bible itself was written by murderers.
The very patriarchs of our faith-Moses who killed in anger…
David who killed for lust…
and Paul who once killed his very own kind-committed these acts…
but then went on to serve God mightily.
The thief stills our celebration of God because we cannot seem to fathom that by the blood of Christ it has qualified us once and forever as ministers of his New Covenant.
Whether a sin is committed before or after our conversion makes no difference to God, as the work of Christ on the cross removed all record about sin even the Holy Ghost is tireless in love in his love affair with us.
The thief comes and accuses us day and night but it during the ceremonial meal is where he finds us particularly venerable.
He steals our celebration of the sacred supper by inducing guilt and spoils the celebration by twisting the words let a man examine himself. This passage is used to incite all manners of accusations of self inspection and self condemnation.
Some of our pastors and ministers assist with this as well by telling the congregation a purge is needed before they can celebrate the body & the blood of Christ. By falling for this, we fail to acknowledge the sufficiency of the work that Christ did on the cross to qualify us for immediate celebration.
The thief steals our celebration by spotlighting sin. When he obscure forgiveness from us, it insight a guilty conscience and imply that we have to manage our sin in doing so; we do our best to avoid sin as we try to attain a sin-free standard.
In other words, we set our minds on send avoidance rather than walking by the Holy Spirit. This propels us to set our mind on self improvement, self-reliance and pride.
Psalm 62:5-8 (Good News Translations), says:
I depend on God alone; I put my hope in him.
He alone protects and saves me; he is my defender, and I shall never be defeated.
My salvation and honor depend on God; he is my strong protector; he is my shelter.
Trust in God at all times, my people. Tell him all your troubles, for he is our refuge.
So the thief steals 6 things from us…
He steals our
our Influence…
Security…
Intimacy…
Clarity …
Confidence …
and Celebration of God.
But the thief is not done, after stealing from us he comes and kills. Yes, kills.
Wait til you find out what the thief kills. You think his stealing from you is bad, ooooh, but it gets worse.