{"id":4073,"date":"2020-08-26T06:00:36","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T11:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/?p=4073"},"modified":"2020-08-25T16:34:15","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T21:34:15","slug":"studies-in-prayer-how-do-we-purge-ourselves-from-anything-that-blocks-our-relationship-from-god-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/studies-in-prayer-how-do-we-purge-ourselves-from-anything-that-blocks-our-relationship-from-god-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Studies in Prayer – How do We Purge Ourselves from Anything that Blocks our Relationship from God?"},"content":{"rendered":"
We are continuing our focus on what it means to purge ourselves of anything that blocks our relationship with God.<\/div>\n
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Yesterday we stated that we must see our sins before we can purge ourselves from our sins. The easiest way to see our sin is to look honestly at the way we relate to others, to ourselves and to God.<\/div>\n
Deep purging always involves relational sin. And the deepest purging will always center on the way we treat God. If we are not open to seeing what\u2019s wrong and if we are not motivated by a holy desire.   to love God and others, we will not be able to deal with our sins.<\/div>\n
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Crabb says that in order to do that, we must abandon ourselves to holiness.<\/div>\n
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What does it meant to abandon ourselves to holiness?<\/div>\n
1. We\u2019re abandoning ourselves to holiness when we come to God in prayer, wanting to see where we\u2019re wrong in the way we relate others more than we want someone else to admit how they\u2019re wrong in the way they relate to us.<\/div>\n
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2. Further, we\u2019re abandoning ourselves to holiness when we come to God  wanting not only to see where we\u2019re wrong, but also to claim the privilege of letting others experience how God relates to them by the way we relate to them.<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
Now let\u2019s get a biblical perspective of this: <\/div>\n
God told us to abandon ourselves to holiness. Through Peter our Papa says, \u201cBut just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;\u201d (1 Peter 1:15 (NIV)  Then Peter draws on his knowledge of the Old Testament in Leviticus 11:44, and adds, \u201cfor it is written: \u2018Be holy, because I am holy.\u2019\u201d (1 Peter 1:16)<\/div>\n
So what does this mean? If God is ordering us to work really hard at being good until we get as good as He is, we might as well quit now. Holiness is not first and foremost about doing or not doing bad deeds. It is about abandoning ourselves to be WHOLLY the Lords. Therefore sin is putting anything in the center of our life except Christ.<\/div>\n
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Let me give you a simple definition of sin: Sin is valuing something more than God. <\/div>\n
This will help us in identifying relational sin. Crabb writes, \u201cWe must come to see that our health, our family\u2019s health, our marriage, our ministry, our bank account, even whether our children are walking with God, are all second things in comparison to the first thing of knowing God, of enjoying Him and trusting Him and serving Him and becoming more like Him.<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
Relational sin is anything we do for the primary purpose of getting something for ourselves rather than trusting God to provide for our needs. <\/div>\n
e.g. preach a sermon, teach a class or lead a home group.<\/div>\n
e.g. take a job to make money to spend it all on your own greed<\/div>\n
e.g. winning a compliment<\/div>\n
e.g. building a friendship for what you can get from the friendship such as to relieve your aloneness.<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
Three verse from the Apostle Paul support this idea.<\/div>\n
1 Corinthians 10:31 (NIV)<\/div>\n
\u201cSo whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.<\/div>\n
Colossians 3:17 (NIV)<\/div>\n
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.\u201d<\/div>\n
Colossians 3:23 (NIV)<\/div>\n
\u201cWhatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,\u201d<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
So today, ponder this: have you abandoned yourself to be WHOLLY the Lords? Do you value anything more than your relationship with God?<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are continuing our focus on what it means to purge ourselves of anything that blocks our relationship with God.   Yesterday we stated that we must see our sins before we can purge ourselves from our sins. The easiest way to see our sin is to look honestly at the way we relate to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[140],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4073"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4073"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4076,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4073\/revisions\/4076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}