Secret Sin

"Purer in heart O God, help me to be. - That I thy holy face, one day may see. Keep me from secret sin, reign though my soul within. Purer in heart - help me to be."

We're all familiar with the words and music of this song. We sing it often. But this should be something that we pray to God about on a regular basis. We should definitely be praying for a purer heart, but more specifically, we should be praying that God help us remove the "secret sin" from our life...

Most likely, there are things about your life that not everybody knows about... and some of those things may be weaknesses that only you and God know about. Let's face it, it's very easy to sin when nobody else is around. We think that nobody will find out about it. - That's what Satan wants us to think. Truth is, God knows about it - and that should be more embarrassing to us than any of our friends/family finding out about it.

Defeating our secret sins is something we need to be avidly trying to do. Obviously one of the most effective ways to do this is prayer. If there's something that you're struggling with in your life, pray to God about it. But don't just pray when you're lying in bed - say a prayer out-loud to God - being specific about what you're struggling with. It helps to hear yourself say it.

Another thing we need to take advantage of is our Christian brethren. We are so blessed to know so many people who will lovingly support us. We often think that we can't tell anyone about our struggles because they might look down upon us or laugh at us - that is not the case. James tells us in James 5:16 to "Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for each other - that you may be healed." We hesitate to talk to others about our personal struggles, but if we hope to get better - this is something that can definitely help.

We tend to not worry too much about our personal sins - since we're the only ones who know about them... But secret sin does just as much damage to us and is something we have to get out of our lives.

Distraction

Since it's been almost 2 months since I last posted a blog entry, I thought this to be a fitting topic for the first entry in two months.

As Christians, there are so many times when distractions begin to lead us away from our God.

Now, I've never played for a basketball team, but whenever I go to a basketball game and it comes down to the final minute, I always wonder how the players must be feeling in those last few seconds. For the player with the ball, I imagine there are tons of distractions going on - you've got other players to worry about, other teammates shouting at you, your coach yelling at you, you've got the time to look up at - not to meantion all the fans in the stands yelling and waving at you... it's probably very difficult to stay focused on the basket.

We as Christians have to stay focused on "the basket" - which of course is our main goal of Heaven. In Ephesians 6:12, Paul gives us a warning that our struggle is with the dark world. Think about the example of Samson - he had a mission - a CLEAR mission - but he let himself become distracted with a woman. It's very important to remember that we can't be focused on the will of God while being focused on ourselves.

God needs and deserves our full attention. Satan is trying to divert that attention toward him... and we give it to him when we become caught up and focused on ourselves and the cares of this world.

We have to stay focused on God and his commandments. Keep your eyes on the basket.