IBS: Thieving

Ephesians 4:28—

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

A thief who no longer steels is a man who has repented. He has laid down his old life so that he could find new life in Jesus Christ. Pastor Richard Cimino once said, “Don’t let these pagan values and passions bend you. Prepare your hearts. Get your hearts perpendicular. Get your hearts established, rendered sure and firm. And there’s only one place where the heart can be established…only one place where the heart is rendered sure and solid. And that’s why Samuel said, ‘Return to the Lord with all that you are, then comes the preparations of the heart.’ When you turn to the Lord, He does what you cant. He straightens what sin had bent. He makes sure what had been corrupted and weakened…victory in the Christian life begins with our heart. In the book of Proverbs it says keep your heart with all diligence for from it proceed the issues of life. And as we come to the Lord we say ‘Lord what are the things that need to change in my heart…And if you’re looking at your life and there’s a bunch of defeat in it maybe you need to go to the Lord and say, ‘Lord, I think I’ve just been playin’ but I want to be real.’”

Don’t be bent by your flesh, or your old self, which you have put off. Take your worldly passions and turn them toward the Lord. Give everything that is not pleasing to Jesus and use them to labor for Him. In doing this, in laying down our sin at the foot of the cross and offering ourselves to be used by the Lord we will be able to share our joy and our Jesus with anyone in need.

I need to realize the things that I hold onto, and the worldly passions that have their claws buried in my flesh. I need to strip them from myself and through them away. I need to begin each day at the foot of the cross so that Jesus can give me strength to make it through my day without these habits and desires.