Leaving Beyond – Grounded In Scripture

Written by: April J. Buchanan

Your heart rejoiced in the Lord your God. You enjoyed the beauty and glory of God.

What is this sickness that has poisoned the wellspring of your heart?

When your heart is sick, unless the poison and toxin are removed and purged entirely, your praise becomes only echoes from before and longings for what once was.

Let not your heart be overtaken by that which promises pleasure, for once the poison has taken effect, the beauty of God’s glory becomes terror to the heart and hinders praise. It threatens assurance.

Oh dear saint, there is no pleasure outside of Christ worth destroying your own heart, your own soul. It all comes at a price. And though you may be rid of the toxins and your praise returns to its former glory, the sin that so easily beset you and robbed you of ascribing glory to God was never worth it, and your heart knows this.

You are not a victim of your choices. God in His grace has made a way for you to escape. He has enabled you and empowered you to overcome. You can do what is right.

Let not the taste of sinful pleasure entice your heart to sin against the God you love. It is not little. It is not minor. It is poison, slow, deadly, intoxicating poison.

If you truly love God, and yet you have tasted the intoxicating poison that once enticed you, your heart is not as it once was. You cannot enjoy it. You simply cannot.

Resist it! Flee from it. If you have partook, repent and flee immediately to Christ.

You are right. You do not deserve Him. You never did. That is grace.

But grace abused is what unregenerate men presume upon as they sin freely, with hearts set on sin, using God’s grace to indulge their pleasures while seeking escape from temporal and eternal punishment. They neither love God nor hate sin; they love sin and hate its consequences wanting to be absolved of guilt and shame while continuing in their love for sin.

Not so with you. You have been born again. You have a new love for God and hatred for sin not merely the consequences. When you sin now you hate sinning against so great a love.

You love God. You cannot taste sin’s pleasures and enjoy them. You hate your sin.

Resist it! Flee from every temptation. If you have sinned and your assurance is tested, examine yourself that you are in the faith. Flee to Christ!