OUR MOST TROUBLESOME SIN!

OUR MOST TROUBLESOME SIN!

Heb 12:1-2

12 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

          The backdrop of these verses is the Olympic games. Paul addresses us as runners in a race and reminds us that we will do better if we do not run with binding or billowing clothing. It is said that the Greeks ran naked so that they would not be hindered in their running.

          The weight or weights (presumably practice weights) would be laid aside in order to run faster. The weights in our life may not be sinful in themselves but they are, as Paul said, “not expedient.”

1 Cor 6:12

12 All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

1 Cor 10:23

23 All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.

1 Cor 10:23

All things are legitimate, but not all things are constructive [to character] and edifying [to spiritual life].

AMPLIFIED

          If you are wearing a space suit you wouldn’t want to run a race. Even on the moon those who skipped along in lowered gravity did so clumsily. But Paul also mentioned “THE” sin that so easily besets us. That makes it very personal! It is my personal sin and it overtakes me easily. I am predisposed to it. It is my favorite sin and it stands around like a competitor to trip me and hinder my running. Adam Clarke calls it “the well circumstanced sin; that which has everything in its favor.”

          Warren Wiersbe thinks this besetting sin is the sin of unbelief because the phrase “by faith” or “through faith” is used twenty-one times in chapter eleven. Paul, in Romans chapter seven, agonizingly describes his inability to do what he knew to be right and his frustratingly frequent ventures into wrong. We feel a kinship with his anguish. His answer was a daily reckoning of death.

1 Cor 15:31

31 I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

Gal 6:14

14 But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

Be Still, My Soul

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

Dear Lord, help me to lay aside not only the weights but the sin that so easily defeats me. AMEN