Lightening Our Loads

Proverbs 13:15: Good understanding giveth favour: but the way of transgressors is hard.

Matthew 11:28-30: Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Unbelievers have to carry themselves AND their sin. Believers are carried by God whenever they need Him to and their sins are gone. To our flesh it sometimes appears that unbelievers have lighter loads. Our flesh gets it backward. Sin is what is heavy and the sin of rejecting Jesus is heavy enough to drag unbelievers down into Hell. Therefore sin must be the heaviest thing there is. The only way for unbelievers to lighten their load is to receive Jesus.

When a Christian*s burdens seem too heavy to bear he can be encouraged if he remembers that he is no longer carrying around the heaviest thing, his sin. Even if believers sometimes seem to carry heavier loads than unbelievers they are stronger than unbelievers. God strengthens them and He carries the things that they cannot.

Ephesians 3:16: That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

Believers can add some awfully heavy weights to themselves by sinning even though those weights will not be heavy enough to drag them down to Hell. They can also continue to carry the weights by not confessing and forsaking their sin.

1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we confess a sin but plan to repeat it or continue in it we will wear ourselves out picking it up and confessing it again. If we do that we will sometimes have a lighter load and sometimes a heavier load. We will have an inconsistent Christian life.

Proverbs 28:13: He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

Hebrews 12:1b-2a: . . . 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; . . .

When Christians continue to add weights to themselves or continue to carry them, they won*t be able to run as far or as fast for the Lord. They might only be able to walk or crawl. They might not even be able to do those things. If we want to serve the Lord the first thing and the most important thing is to get rid of our sin. Sin will slow down our prayers or block them altogether. Sin will prevent us from understanding the Bible as fully as we might. Sin will stunt our spiritual growth. If we stagger under the weight of sin, serving the Lord will not be very fruitful.

Care to discuss Lightening Our Loads with Ron?

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