Yield to God.

A man comes home from work and finds his wife in tears. Quickly he asks her why she's crying. The wife responds by telling her husband that she didn't mean to, but she went to the Bingo hall and spent way too much money. The husband is noticeably upset instantly and unable to help himself he berates her, reminding her she promised she wouldn't gamble any more. After many tears and more promises, the couple made up and were content once more.  A week later the man comes home from work and once more the wife is crying, it's the same scenario as the week before except this time the husband asks why she  keeps taking his forgiveness for granted. Quietly he tells her that for her to keep on this way hurts him. Apologizing once again, she promises again not to gamble away their money. Things go on this way until it's not just once a week but two times a week the gambling continues, then three times a week. The husband is completely bewildered, he loves his wife and will forgive her endlessly but the emotional pain of her actions is taking its toll. He can't stop loving her, she is sincerely in pain each time she is overcome by her addiction, she doesn't know why she does it, she doesn't know why she can't stop when she wants to so desperately. The wife loves her husband so much but is consumed by her addiction. She promises to get help and after their house is foreclosed on, and the bill collectors are after them, she finally does. After treatment the couple are able to rebuild their lives slowly but surely.

When we read this story some may have a tendency to think the husband is a fool for putting up with his wife's addiction for so long. Others might wonder why the wife waited so long to get help. We may doubt the wife's love for her husband, surely if she really loved him she would have done things differently. Also that story had a happy ending, but not all do.

We are all sinners. Those who truly love God will hate the sins they commit, they will NOT sin willfully- but they will sin. They'll despise the sinning they do and long to be free from its awful grasp. We can NEVER choose to sin and simply take for granted we will be forgiven. That wife in the story above never wanted to hurt her husband, never. She would be consumed by the desire to gamble hating that she couldn't simply stop herself. 

Truthfully there are many similar and worse stories than the one above and we often can't comprehend the endless ability for some people to forgive others for their atrocities.

With God, He can forgive the worst of the worst when there is a heartfelt, sincere seeking of forgiveness, of repentance.

Rom 6:1  What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 

Rom 6:2  God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? 

Rom 6:3  Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 

Rom 6:4  Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 

Rom 6:5  For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 

Rom 6:6  Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 

Rom 6:7  For he that is dead is freed from sin. 

Rom 6:8  Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: 

Rom 6:9  Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. 

Rom 6:10  For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 

Rom 6:11  Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Rom 6:12  Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 

Rom 6:13  Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. 

Rom 6:14  For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. 

Grace frees us from sin. Grace.

We are told to NOT LET SIN reign in our mortal bodies- obeying it, obeying our lusts. We are told we are NOT TO YIELD our bodies as instruments of unrighteousness to sin.

We are told to YIELD TO GOD.

We have to do the yielding. Do we continue to yield to sin or to God? We will be faced with this choice endlessly as long as we live in this world prior to our Savior's return. We will live this battle daily. Grace alone will save us from ourselves. We should NEVER accept any sin in us no matter how often we yield to it.

Rom 7:22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 

Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 

Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 

Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. 

May God help us, to deliver us from our bodies of death through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior NOW and FOREVER!!!!!!!