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Life is a Life Long Battle
and the "war" is only won or lost right at death!

Sin .. Guilt .. Shame .. Failure .. Disappointment .. Frustration .. Aggravation .. Exasperation .. Anger .. Exhaustion. .. and a whole lot more!

These are the feelings we have as we live our life. They all come from self condemnation and condemnation from our brothers & sisters in Christ.

I think we can all agree that all of us are perpetual life long sinners … hopefully we have taken the steps to be forgiven and saved sinners.

Every single person on the face of the earth has at least one major sinful desire or attitude that they must fight their entire life. We are all fooled into believing that because we have become Christians that our major problem will fade, go away or completely cease.

IT IS NOT GOD or JESUS that makes us believe this. We all do it. The leaders of a congregation, the preacher, mothers, fathers, siblings, friends, or co-church-members.

Never has a more serious lie ever been perpetrated on the body of Christ!

Perfection is our goal but imperfection is our destiny! If we could be perfect without the blood of Christ then HE would not have had to die for us.

The only perfection that we can obtain is the perpetual attitude that we are sinners. That we are imperfect, that we will always be imperfect and as a result we will always fall. We will always make mistakes. We will always sin.

It is critical that each and every Christian knows this. Fatally critical! For this is the very essence of humility.

But even more important, for any one person or group of people to lead others into believing that perfection, in the sense of a sinless life, is in itself a sin! In my mind the worst kind of sin. This sinful holier than thou attitude "is" judging and causes judging.

Let’s clear it up right here and right now. No one and I mean no one is above sinning! Every man, woman, and child on the face of this earth sins! AND they always will.

AND it is OK … as longs as you are Christian … as long as you don’t want to sin. As long as you fight the fight …. as long as you perpetually try … it’s OK .. for this is the unending grace of GOD.

It is important that we all know and understand this completely. WHY? Well, when the weight of this sinful life gets us down, when we falter and fall on our face, when it seems as though we are the worst people on the face of the earth because we can’t be sinlessly perfect, if we don’t know this, if we don’t live this, one of these times we could fall and not get up! NOW that’s the shame. That’s failure! That is the unforgivable sin. The one that goes un-repented. The one that says "I GIVE UP!"

You absolutely, positively will stumble in life … well that’s OK!

You absolutely, positively will fall to your knees in life … well that’s OK!

You absolutely, positively will fall to your hands and knees in life … well that’s OK!

You absolutely, positively will crash all the way face down in life … well that’s OK too!

If you stay where you stumble, fall, or crash to .. well that’s NOT OK!

This stumbling, falling and crashing is the sin in our lives. When we stumble, fall, or crash , GOD and JESUS do not go into that sin with us. They are not in the pig sty. They will not enter the pig sty. They cannot and do not have anything to do with sin.

Yet we cannot get back up without their help.

They are always hovering just above you when you stumble, fall or crash. Hovering just out of the reach of the sin yet never, Never, NEVER out of your reach! Every single time you stumble, fall or crash JESUS is above you with is hands outstretched to you to pull you back to your feet and wash off the pig sty. You grab JESUS' outstretched hands, you stand, you repent, you are forgiven and it is as though you never sinned …that is GOD and JESUS look at us as if we never sinned …but we tend to be the ones with the elephants memory. Never forgetting. Not our own sins and not the sins of others. We will throw our own sins - into our own face - and we throw the sins of other into their faces.

Why? Why? WHY?! - FEAR! We are afraid of being left behind. We are afraid that we are so imperfect that JESUS’ blood can’t wash us clean. But most significantly, we are afraid that our brothers and sisters in Christ will discover how imperfect we are and the prestige of being a "good" Christian will go away.

Romans 8:1 "There for there is no condemnation in CHRIST JESUS!"

Just know this.

1. You will always sin.
2. You must always not want to sin.
3. You must accept number 1 and 2 as a perpetual truth of life.
4. When you stumble, fall, or crash …. Stand up by reaching to JESUS immediately.
5. Look to JESUS and away from the sin.
6. Repent, seriously, fervently wholeheartedly, humbly repent.
7. Then let your mind run away from that sin with the joy of CHRIST’s love and the full realization that JESUS helped you to win another battle!

That’s right another battle was won for CHRIST because you did not stay down!

The battle is not in not sinning. Think about it. When you have sinned the devil has his octopus tentacles reach up from the very bowels of the pig sty and he wraps these tentacles around you. First it is just the top of one, then the whole tentacle. Then the tip of another and then the whole second tentacle. But unlike a octopus the number of tentacles that the devil has is not limited to eight. They are in fact infinite in number.

As each tentacle makes contact, it becomes more difficult to pull away from the pig sty. Thus the real battle begins. AND thus the real battle was won when you successfully let JESUS pull you away again!

What is amazing is the more we struggle, trying to climb out by ourselves, the more the tighter the grip of the devils tentacles become.

BUT the instant we call out JESUS name and, fully focused, reach for HIM, the devils tentacles are ripped completely away!

How do you reach for JESUS?

Step 1 say aloud - "Get behind me devil in the name of JESUS CHRIST, my LORD and SAVIOR!"

Step 2 – in your minds eye "see" JESUS with both of his hands stretched out to you.

Step 3 – in your minds eye – run and embrace JESUS.

Step 4 – tell JESUS about your stumble, fall, or crash

Step 5 – ask GOD to forgive you.

Step 6 – NOW THIS is where we usually falter – REPLACE THAT SIN, that you just drove out, with thoughts of purity by focusing on scripture that you know, by focusing on GOD’s love, by fervently praying with a laser locked focus. The LORD will then fill that void with HIS spirit, HIS truth, HIS love and as a result the devil will not be able come back in. Remember, if you do not replace a driven out evil spirit with holiness, that driven our spirit will return and bring seven more evil spirits with him!

After this battle, you are tired and in many cases you feel violated, just like a woman who has been raped feels. Well the truth of the matter is that is exactly what sin is … rape.

Rape is sex that is purely and solely for the benefit and self satisfaction of the rapist. Sin has no benefit for you only for the devil. He is a rapist in the strongest sense of the word.

It is said that a woman who has been raped will typically spend hours in the shower attempting to wash away the rape … but it doesn’t work.

When you laser focus on CHRIST and ask HIM to wash away the sin (or rape) that just occurred in your life .. in other words when you give it to HIM, HE can and does wash it away!

You are clean! Know this! Accept this! Cling to this!

Be happy and joyful in Christ for you have spiritually survived another battle!

Know all of this! Repeat the repentance each and every time you have your battles and, at your earthly death, the war will have been won and you will see and be with CHRIST in Heaven!

Your sinless perfection is not attainable so your perfection will not get you to Heaven. Only you unrelenting reliance on CHRIST will get you there. And relying on CHRIST is easy .… that is it is much easier …. MUCH EASIER … that having to fight the devil by ourselves … by ourselves we will never win. With JESUS we always win! Isn’t that great!

Fight the fight!

Be grateful each and every time a battle is won!

Celebrate with JESUS when the war has been won!

Be GOD’s child!

Blessed be the NAME of the LORD!

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