Embrace the fact that you are a sinner......I am a sinner

I have a saying that I like.  It is the title of this blog and people that know me will call it the horse that I ride on.  The saying lead like a sinner, by my definition is, leading in a manner that people know that I know that I am a sinner.

I have another saying that goes along with this, which is Jesus makes me free to be guilty.  Now many people who listen to what I say, will often push back when they hear my message for the first time.  They will say things like, don't you think this message will just cause you to justify your sin and do it more.  I need to have someone tell me things I need to do, otherwise I won't have the motivation to do it.  My experience has been completely different from these protests.  In fact, I have found as I embraced the fact that I was a sinner and embraced the truths of God's gospel, the opposite has happened for me.  I have slowly overcome sins that had been troublesome to me all of my life.  I have become more excited about my relationship with God that ever before, and I have found myself doing more stuff that I ever imagined.  So in the next few paragraphs I will share some of what I shared at our men's breakfast.

The definition of imagination is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through sight.  And in Hebrews 11 faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Now it is amazing to me how close these two definitions are for imagination from Wikipedia and faith from the bible.  In fact, I believe that faith is accessible through our imagination.

More on that later.

Colossians 2:21 And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast not shifting from the hope of the gospel.

Romans 8:1  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!!!

Two scriptures that are true by our faith alone.  Or imagination?

Now my story includes two events separated by two years where my business almost went bankrupt and then my wife got cancer.  In both events, some super spiritual person had a word from the Lord that these things were happening because of sin in the camp or some hidden sin.

Now in both events I knew I was a sinner and that I probably had not confessed all of my sins.  But the scriptures that came to my mind, were 1John 1 where it says if you say you have no sin you deceive yourself and the truth is not in you.  The other scripture I could not get away from was the parable of the pharisee and tax collector.  The pharisee was grateful for God helping him to be better than others, and the tax collector just said Lord have mercy on me a sinner.  Jesus then asks the question, who went away justified and of course it was the man who knew he was a sinner.

Which brought me in my story to a place where I began to not shy away from the fact that I was a sinner and simply pray to God asking for his forgiveness and blessing.  As I embraced my sin, or at least exerted courage to admit I am a sinner, I found some benefits to the effort.

1.  You no longer have to defend yourself.  Being free from having to have a defense is amazing.  I simply screwed up.  That's it, no defense, just me.
2.  You no longer have to deceive yourself, rather than face the fear of actually being a sinner when you are trying not to sin.
3.  As you accept and embrace the fact that you are a sinner you will begin to see in yourself even more sin.  Sin that you were blind to or that you were afraid to face.  You will find that it is hard to do anything at all without mixed motives.
4.  When you accept responsibility for your sin is when God will begin to help you with it.
5.  You can only experience community with others to the extent that others know you.  When you have walls up to hide the parts of yourself that you feel shame over, you also shut out love and acceptance from others.  As they give it, a little voice inside of you says, if they really knew me they would not say that.  This cuts us off from love that we need to be able to give grace and acceptance to others.
6.  The good news of the Gospel gets bigger and more grand as you accept that you are a sinner and so does the fruit in your life.  He who is forgiven little, loves little.  But he who is forgiven much, loves much.


I will conclude later.