Lent devotional 13

The black haron circles it’s wings around it’s body and makes a canopy to imitate shelter and create shade. This way fish swim under it, thinking it is safe, when really it’s a trap.
The devil is like the black haron. He creates things, places and people that look safe, they look like a shelter, but in truth they are a trap to draw you in. The common lie the devil uses is the lie of acceptance. Christians are becoming more and more accepting; not of people, accepting people is not a new thing, Jesus has always required and encouraged that, but of accepting sin. We do the ‘I have to accept their sin to accept them’ dance, and all we end up doing is opening ourselves to cause the same sins. The people are not their sin, we are not our sin, Jesus accepts us with open arms and a heart full of love, but He does not accept our sin to come with us. He doesn’t accept the sin, He accepts us despite the sin. We do not have to accept the sin to accept the person, we do not have to act like the sin is okay to love the sinner. Saying that the sin in okay is simply a way to not be faced with the anger of a person who doesn’t want to stop sinning but does want to go to Heaven, you can’t have both. We are all sinners and people who fall short of Christ, but we repent of our sins- sometimes we repent of the same sin a thousand times a day- but we acknowledge that it is wrong, we ask for forgiveness and we try to not do it again. You can not cling to sin and claim it as okay and be a Christian, but the devil wants us to fall into being tolerant so that we let darkness slip in without realizing it. Be tolerant of the person yes, but not of the sin that binds them. If we became tolerant of the sin that binds us we would not be a new creation in Christ, our lives would not be changed, we would be the same person we were before we accepted Jesus into our lives and what point would there be in that? Now, coming to Jesus will not immidiately change you so your sin is no longer pestering you, and we may even fall back into that sin after coming to God. Sin looks like a safe place sometimes. It’s the devil trying to hold us down and keep us back from God, and he doesn’t want to give up his hold on us, so don’t be discouraged if you find yourself in a battle against your sin and don’t seem to be winning, hang in there, persistance will drive the devil away. If everytime you sin you choose to confess it to God the devil will get uncomfortable, if everytime you feel like you are about to sin and start to pray you will defeat the devil’s hold in your life. We all sin. Everyday. The differnence is when we confess our sins and start new with Jesus, each time, no matter how many times that is. We cannot be tolerant to sin and say it’s okay because that is like saying the devil is okay, but we must always be loving and accepting of the people, because those people are us too. Turn away from the sin chains that hold you down and know that Jesus loves you, He sees that you are trying, and doing your best- even when you fall back and have to try again- and He is fighting with you, and He always loves you. He doesn’t love our sin, He can’t, but He always loves us.