When spending even a little time online nowadays, opens up doors to the nature of sin that so easily entices us. Everyone reading this knows what their vices are. But what does it mean when we’ve confessed Jesus as Lord with our mouths, yet sin with our hearts? Say there was a time when you were a general in the military of your country until found laying on the ground nearly dead. Imagine yourself dressed in a suit of armor. You don’t want to live, but in the process of time you find yourself on a bench in a cage, looking down at the ground. Your thinking about all that you had—land, family, and peace. You remember walking through your yellow field, the stocks of wheat grown to pass through your fingers as you passed through. But then you hear your name called and snap back into the present, that memory is your focus—all was taken from you; your land burned, family murdered, and peace… buried.

The dirt beneath your feet feels more like sand, you bend down to the ground and prepare. The dirt combined with the sweat of your hands makes for good grip. There is no fear, only confident hope. You say to yourself, “Do not die, you’ll meet them again, but not yet, not yet.” You start to hear the sound of roaring and the host welcome you to your death, fans are in the stands. The gates open to the arena of games, chained tigers foaming at the mouth to devour their prey awaiting you on the other side. After the dirt is drained from your hands you stand and advance from the cage of slavery to the hope of freedom. Sword and shield in hand, a steady heart, and a ready mind. The sound of your name begins to grow louder and louder…

_{“Maximus!”}

“Maximus!”

“Maximus!”

“ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?”

Has the movie come to mind yet? (comments below). Getting right to it… in confessing with my mouth that Jesus is Lord means, I’ve heard the truth. But in the darkness of my heart resides sin that pierces my soul with guilt and shame, it only takes a glance to see my desire on the screen and a moment to feel the seed of sin in my heart take root. My soul and flesh are in immediate conflict for right of claim to the content possessing my soul, it’s amazing what the mind can do when the heart is convinced. The online world seems much like entering an arena of entertainment that might cost you your freedom. The only difference is… this arena is dark and quiet, there is only the influence of desire and silence. No person other than you and God knows what happens between you, the screen, and the sound of silence.

“Silence like a cancer grows”. Listen to The Sound Of Silence by Disturbed. Sin is the cancer that grows to kill you without mercy. But the spiritual insight is found in what Jesus Christ did to kill that cancer of sin. Now as you’ve read so far I’ve not provided bible verses in this post and don’t plan to; but as God as my witness, rest assured, the verses are with me as I write this good news out. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He didn’t stay dead as our parents’ parents have. It was foretold that God would deliver us from our sins and He has. I’m going to tell you about salvation as though every bible in the world has been taken, burned, and buried.

As I said at the beginning of this post, everyone knows what their vices are. But the vices are nothing more than objects used to influence the sin that you are. So the vices are not the issue, you are. The problem is that we blame the vices for causing us to sin rather than recognizing the vices as the objects they are. When we blame the content from the screen, we excuse our behavior of sin and our minds become deluded. The heart becomes convinced incapable of overcoming sin and what’s worse, invites it, giving right of pass—so to speak—to relieve ourselves behind closed doors, because after all… we’re sinners. There is a verse that says to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect—and while that might sound impossible because of the obvious condition, Jesus provided us that perfection. How?

Jesus was not of this realm when He was born into this world. He was not born by the seed of man, but the “seed” of God (the Holy Spirit). And when you hopefully recognize how you, me, we, are sin. You will then understand that sin was passed on to each and every living organism through the seed of our beginning like a cancer that seems impossible to kill because there is no cure. But there is a cure! There is a way to kill the sound of silence, that sin crouching at the door to devour your soul! The souls ability to discern the nature of sin was not knowledge that came from man. That is a very important clue to understand because when it is understood, so also is the mystery of Christ. Ask yourself, how is it possible for the human being to be convicted of the knowledge of good and evil? You might shutter in utter disagreement, but the answer is sin.

Let me be very clear. I am not saying that sin rewarded us the knowledge of good and evil. I am saying that this is the realm of the knowledge of good and evil, and we are captives to this realm as sinners unless we believe from the heart that Christ our Lord, the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth came into the world in our likeness and image of sin to pay the penalty of sin by His death on the cross that we may live in the realm where He is RIGHT NOW. The knowledge of good and evil is the writing of the law of God on the hearts and minds of those written in the Lamb’s book of life. And how else is the law of God written in your heart and mind without the meaning of baptism, which is being submerged in water as dead yet raised up out of the water as alive in Jesus Christ! Examine yourself with a clear conscience by studying your behavior, if you know what is wrong and still do it then you need to be weighed in the balance.

Really think about this, when Jesus died on the cross His body was broken and His blood was drained for you. Let me put this another way, God in His Son was crucified on the cross because their was no other way for free thinking people to understand the function of a relationship unless Jesus did the will of His Father. God is Love. And unless you’ve died to the will of your life of sin, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven because you’ve made your choice to trample under foot the love of God which is Jesus Christ. See if you weigh yourself in the balance of justice, there is no amount of good you can do to attain salvation. But if you weigh Jesus Christ in the balance of Justice as your placement, you’ve accepted the salvation of God and are made perfect through faith by grace. You are forgiven, redeemed, and made alive in the Holy Spirit.

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