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Sin, Self and the Love of God

By Nancy Missler

Sin and Self

Gods ultimate plan is to set His people apart (or sanctified) from the flesh, the world

and the devil, and fashion us into human conduitsfreely overflowing with His Love. AsChristians, we must learn to escape the prison of sin and self and enter a love union withChrist so that His Life can flow through us to others. As 1 Timothy 1:5 says, The end [goal,purpose, mission] of the commandment is Agape[Gods Love] out of a pure heart...

Sanctification is simply the process by which Christs Love is formed in us and we learnto walk by the leading of the Spirit and not the flesh.

In order to accomplish this, however, there are two things that God must do: 1) By Hisblood, He must cleanse our souls and bodies (the flesh) of all sinful acts;and, 2) By HisSpirit and His Word working together, He must purify our soulish and self-centered ways.Sin and self are the two things that stop Gods Life from being formed in us.

Let me define these two things, because they are different and we will be addressing themthroughout this book. Sin is all of the unrighteous and unholy actsthat we dosexual immoral-ity, impure thoughts, lustful pleasure, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, anger, envy, drunkenness,etc.77 Sin is anything that we do that is contrary to what the Word of God commands. As wesaid before, sin is what separates us from God. Whereas, self is all of our self-centered waysourself-protective attitudes, our self-oriented motivations, our belief systems, our habits and ourown natural strengths (our natural, human nature). Self is not necessarily sinful, but if leftalone and not crucified, it will eventually lead us back to sin.

Therefore, in the sanctification process, God wants us to surrender, relinquish and giveover to Him not only everythingthat is sin, but also everythingthat originates from self.Liberation from sin is only the first step! Self must also be highlighted, exposed and cruci-

fied. Self-centeredness is the essence or the foundation of all sin and thus, the directopposite of Gods Love.

Because of Jesus death on the cross, our sin has already been dealt with,78 but ourself-centered soulish ways are still very much present. Just because the problem of twonatureshas been answered by the cross does not mean the problem of two lives(Godssupernatural Life or our own natural self-life)79 has! God wants us not only cleansed fromsin, but also from self. Part of the sanctification process is that God wants us to surren-der to Him everything that is natural as well as everything that is sinful.

Now, positionally,as we said, we have already become sanctified because of whatChrist has done for us on the cross and the holiness that He has already imputed and ascribedto us.80 But, experientiallythis is not the case at all. Until we are, moment by moment, purified

body, soul and spirit, we will not be able to enter or enjoy the presence of God.So, the whole purpose of sanctification is not only to reflect Him in all we do (in our

souls and bodies), but also to have intimacy with Him in our spirit.[Please, bear in mind that Jesus was the only One who was able to do this perfectly.

We can never become perfectly sanctified as long as we are in our human bodies. Therewill always be more sin and self to be dealt with. But, as we daily allow God to show uswhat He wants us to surrender to Him, we will be ablein an ever-increasing waytoexperience His presence.]

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Thus, our responsibility is to offer ourselvespresent our bodies as living sacrificessothat God can show us the sin and the self still remaining in us. Although we beginthissanctification procedure when we first become believers, we only finishit when we arespiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically consecrated to God. 81

As 2 Thessalonians 2:13 says, ...God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvationthrough sanctificationof the Spirit and belief of the truth. (emphasis added)

God Loves Us

The first point I want to really hammer home throughout this book is that God loves us.He loves us with an eternal and an unconditional Love.82 He loves us so much that He diedfor us. There is absolutely no greater Love than that. God made us and He wants the verybest for each of us. But, only Heknows what exactly that is and what it will take to imple-ment that in our liveswhat exactly will fulfill us and what exactly will make us complete.Therefore, we need to understand that everythingHe allows in our lives comes only asaresult of His Love. All the circumstances of our life, every event, every single thing thatoccurs comes to us only by permission of a loving Father.

When thou passest through the waters [trouble], I will be with thee; and through

the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shaltnot be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God...

[You are] precious in My sight and ...I have loved thee. (Isaiah 43:2-4)

Gods Love, however, can come in different forms. In the Old Testament Gods Love iscalled chesedin the Hebrew and it means, not only Gods loving and compassionate Love,but also His strict and discipline Love. Both aspects are His Love. Just like we sometimesneed to love our children with toughlove, God often must do the same with us. It doesntmean that He loves us any less. In fact, it often means He loves us more.

Fenelon says, The more God loves [us], the less He spares [us]!83

Hebrews 12:5-8 also validates this, My son, despise not thou the chastening of theLord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him: For whom the Lord loveth He chaseneth, and

scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you aswith sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chas-tisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.84

The imperfections in our lives are the reason for Gods refining process. Once theseimpurities are gone, then Gods Love can be experienced in a new and magnificent wayand our joy will return. As 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 puts it, For our light affliction, which is butfor a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

Even though at first Gods ways might seem harsh to our human mind, its only becausewe cannot comprehend the glory that God wants to weave into our lives, once the hardshell of our soul has been shattered. Only then will we know the healing, the strengthening,the empowering, the rest, the peace and joy that comes from Gods presence.

God is continually and lovingly chiselling away at the marble slab of our soul, like theold sculptor who was asked by his apprentice, How do you carve a horse? The old manlooked at the boy matter-of-factly and answered, Thats easy. I just chip away anythingthat doesnt look like a horse. That pretty well describes what the Lord is doing in each ofour liveschipping away anything that doesnt look like Jesus.

[God] does not afflict willingly nor grieve [His] children, Lamentations 3:33 tells us, butonly as is needed, to accomplish His perfect will in usour sanctification.

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Notes:

77. Galatians 5:19; 1 John 5:1778. Romans 6:1479. Gods supernatural Life is His AgapeLove, His Thoughts and His Power; ournatural self-life is our love, our thoughts and our strength and power.80. Hebrews 10:1081. 1 Thessalonians 5:23; Colossians 1:21-2382. 1 Corinthians 13:1-8; Jeremiah 31:3; Romans 8:35, 38-3983. The Seeking Heart, Francois Fenelon, page 73.84. Psalm 94:12-13; Revelation 3:19; 2 Chronicles 32:31

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