{"id":3239,"date":"2011-06-07T01:00:48","date_gmt":"2011-06-07T08:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/?p=3239"},"modified":"2013-03-25T10:23:21","modified_gmt":"2013-03-25T17:23:21","slug":"gray-issues-part-3-%e2%80%93-are-you-struggling-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/2011\/06\/07\/gray-issues-part-3-%e2%80%93-are-you-struggling-great\/","title":{"rendered":"Gray Issues Part 3 \u2013 Are you struggling? Great!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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by Elder Peter Lim<\/em><\/p>\n

So last month,<\/a> I wrote about the fact that trying to define the line that separates “sin” from “not-sin” is not simply a matter of following a list of dos and don\u2019ts from the Bible. It\u2019s always a matter of the heart. I also wrote in Introduction to Gray Issues<\/a> that I was somewhat frustrated by the lack of clarity in my search of Scripture for answers to my questions regarding gray issues. I wanted to expand upon that thought a little more today.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not really a lack of clarity <\/em>in Scripture that frustrates me but rather a tendency in my own heart to simply desire to know what decisions to make practically<\/em>. I\u2019d rather not have to wrestle through every situation and examine my heart\u2019s motives. Instead, it\u2019s easier to just make a blanket policy of life to say \u201cif it\u2019s not sin, then I can do whatever I want\u201d without ever considering why I would even want to do those things in the first place. The frustration comes when the Bible doesn\u2019t make it very clear what the blood alcohol level has to be before being considered drunk, or whether PG-13 is okay but R is questionable and NC-17 is definitely not okay, or sharing a dorm floor with coeds is okay but sharing a tent is not okay, or gambling away $100 is okay for entertainment value but $500 is financial \u00a0irresponsibility. But the Bible does make certain things perfectly clear: We still have fleshly tendencies although we are not of this world. (Rom. 7:14, Phil. 3:20) So did God place these nebulous commands such as 1 Peter 2:12 (\u201cKeep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.\u201d) to frustrate us? What exactly does it mean to keep our behavior \u201cexcellent?\u201d Would it be sin if we didn\u2019t keep our behavior excellent? Yes, right? Then wouldn\u2019t it be important to define what that word means so that we would not cross it? This is what I mean when I say that it\u2019s somewhat frustrating that things are not so clearly defined.<\/p>\n

But hold on a minute. This is exactly what God intended for us to struggle with. You see, dear Christian, that God in His infinite wisdom gave these sorts of instructions to us in order to help us recognize our own sinful tendencies. He did this on purpose so that we would realize that our hearts are full of sin and then go humbly pleading on our knees to Him who paid the price for us. The struggle itself is a good thing. Remember that it\u2019s always a matter of the heart. Fine, so we realize that. So now what? Can I still do these questionable things? Listen to yourself. If it\u2019s questionable, why would you want to do them? Why wouldn\u2019t you want to stay far away from the edge of the cliff? The answer to the question is, no we must not do questionable things. We are called to be above reproach. That means that we are going to have to want to voluntarily give up activities that are not necessarily sinful because the glory of God is at stake, and being above reproach becomes more important to us than fulfilling our fleshly desires.<\/p>\n

Truth is, we\u2019re always going to be in a battle against ourselves. Our fleshly selves are going to want to sin. Our spiritually renewed minds are going to want to fight against sin. There is hope here. As we grow and mature, we will sin less. But we will also grow in our understanding of how hideous sin is to God. So we will sin less and feel worse about it. This is the kind of godly remorse which causes us to remain humble even while we grow closer to Christ. Remember that the closer you get to the light, previously unseen blemishes are revealed. That\u2019s how we know we are growing. Therefore, struggling (against sin) is a good thing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Elder Peter Lim So last month, I wrote about the fact that trying to define the line that separates “sin” from “not-sin” is not simply a matter of following a list of dos and don\u2019ts from the Bible. It\u2019s always a matter of the heart. I also wrote in Introduction to Gray Issues that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":469,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elders-corner"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/469"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3239"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3242,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3239\/revisions\/3242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}