[1 John Series 4] The Heavenly CourtroomSample

Up and in the right direction

Have you ever wondered when are we going to stop sinning? The bad news are we are all going to sin. There is no question about it. But what we don’t want to do is what the apostle John calls “to practice sin,” which means we should stay clear from continual or habitual sin.

We may never get rid of sin in our lives, but we don’t want to end up over and over again in the same spot every day. We may use our condition to be able to relate with one another and understand we need a Savior, but we must also be able to make some progress and let good teaching result in good living so that we can journey on together.

Think about your finances. What do you want your finances to be? You want your finances to go up and to the right, don’t you? You invest a little bit here, and you want to see some growth or an increased rate of return over time. The same thing is to happen in our faith. Our faith pulls our obedience forward as it increases, and our obedience pulls our faith forward. We want our faith and our obedience to be growing at the same time.

Some folks would say they have a lot of obedience, but they don’t have a lot of faith. These are called Pharisees. They are self-righteous and legalistic. Some other folks have all the faith, but they think their faith is personal and so they don’t do much with it. The Bible says that faith without works is dead. 

You don’t want to be a Pharisee or somebody with a dead faith. We want to be people whose faith pulls our obedience forward, and whose obedience pulls our faith forward. I begin to walk with God when, with every step of obedience, I take a step of faith. If you don’t know if you can obey, just take another step of faith and your obedience will follow. If you don’t know if you can have enough faith, just take a step of obedience and your faith will follow. They go hand in hand, and they pull one another onward.

Now, here’s the truth: Nobody is perfect. We go up and down every day. Hopefully, we are going more up than down—and in the right direction!