{"id":21332,"date":"2017-03-23T00:10:05","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T07:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lccredding.com\/lcc\/?p=10308"},"modified":"2017-03-23T00:10:05","modified_gmt":"2017-03-23T07:10:05","slug":"march-23-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2017\/03\/23\/march-23-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"March 23, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cTherefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.\u201d<\/em> James 4:17<\/span><\/p>\n

A Good Kid<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

I was a good kid. Some of you can relate. I had a good home, good friends, good grades, and good behavior. I used good language and good judgment, and made good choices. Adults never questioned my motives, and they trusted me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So when I became a Christian, in my mind I had nothing of which to repent. I could not think of a single thing to confess. I knew the Bible teaches that we are all sinners so, at the urging of the youth camp leader, I prayed the prayer of salvation. \u201cGod, forgive me of my sins, and come into my life.\u201d I felt I had just purchased fire insurance\u2014for free. It cost me nothing. (Indeed, the price of salvation was paid by Christ.)<\/span><\/p>\n

The years went by, and I continued walking with the Lord. But as I matured in the faith, I became aware of the difference between \u201csins of commission\u201d\u2014the sinful things we do\u2014and the \u201csins of omission\u201d\u2014the good and right things we fail to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is an area of growth for most of us. We think that if we are not living in active sin, we are pleasing the Lord, without considering our passive failure to do what God has already asked us to do. Pastor Stuart Briscoe says, in The Preacher\u2019s Commentary Series, \u201c[The sin of omission] is a most difficult form of sin with which to deal.\u201d The sin of omission is to simply ignore, refuse, or fail to obey what He has said in His Word.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the parable of the faithful servant and the evil servant in Luke 12:35-48, Jesus says, \u201cAnd that servant who knew his master\u2019s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.\u201d<\/em> Although we do not need to fear being beaten by our Lord, the truth stands that we are displeasing to Him when we disobey. We forfeit much. In Jesus\u2019 parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30, three men were asked to wisely use what the master gave them by investing; two did, and were rewarded, no matter how much or how little they gained, and the third did nothing, making excuses for himself. He was punished harshly for being idle. He was not faithful to do what had been asked of him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes the sins of omission take the simple form of making excuses for not going to church, or tithing, or praying. We may say, \u201cI\u2019m waiting for God\u2019s leading on such-and-such\u201d when it is something that He has already told us to do in His Word. Or we may just turn the other way when we see a need; we \u201ccross to the other side of the road\u201d to avoid reaching out to someone. Perhaps we are guilty of neglecting Him, when He has plainly said to come to Him and to seek Him. Or maybe we have procrastinated moving forward with something.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s pray for the Lord to search our hearts and reveal the good and right things we have not done, that we may repent and obey.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJesus, You died for our sins of omission, as well as our blatant sins, but we desire to please You in all our ways, so would You open our eyes to the places we are failing to do what You have plainly told us? In Jesus\u2019 Name, Amen.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cTherefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.\u201d James 4:17 […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-5y4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}