Chapter Ten "Sin's Toll"

CHAPTER 10

SIN’S TOLL

What is sin’s toll?  What affect has it had on our bodies?  What affect has it had on our minds?  As we look at others and view ourselves in the mirror we see something which we seek yet many times deny; we see its affects.  We look older.  We act older, sometimes it is better, and sometimes it is worst. 

I recently took a photo, a close-up, to place on my profile in a forum on the web.  I didn’t like what I saw in comparison to what I saw in my mind.  In my mind I see this young 23 year old young man, yet the physical picture said something different.  I found myself wishing and saying to myself, “I wished I could look like what I see in me.”  Is it possible to “put-on” what I am in me and reverse what I see in the physical?

Well, I love to experiment; whether it is possible or not.  Doesn’t matter; the question is, “is it possible.”  That’s the reason for the experiment.  So later you can laugh and even myself with you on this experiment.

Now know that it could be done by an extreme make-over process of face lift, hair replacement etc.  This is not what I intend for this experiment.  If I only succeed at least stopping the age process, where I presently am of 65, June 2011, I’d be happy to get this result.  But let’s go for it; the reversal of the aging process.

The title of this article, “Sin’s Toll”, is what I will research to discover if we could stop this sin’s toll and allow a “non-sin perspective to undo what it has been done up to this point.”

We can see, when we lack proper sleep, worry, the affects it can have on our bodies and mind.  If we could get beyond just worry it would be a start.  I have had times where I would look in the mirror and see that, which I accept, my facial features.  But other times I don’t accept what I see.

Without a doubt I know most of you have seen this; those days that gives the idea that you have been out all night on a binge, yet you don’t drink.  Sin is taking its toll.  In other chapters you have read where our judging has something to do with this, as well as our ACTING INDEPENDENT from the Lord, planning our lives without involving God’s input in it all.  This is the true definition of sin.  Fix it into you mind so that every time you read in the Bible this word “sin” says, “Acting independent from God.”  It makes you want to really stop sinning…..which better said…ACTING INDEPENDENT FROM GOD in “anything we say or do.”

Do some reflected thing with me in light of what I’ve said in this chapter using I Thess. 5:23 “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit and soul, and body be preserved blameless; unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Faithful is He that calleth you, who also WILL DO IT.”    The question is, “Will you let Him do it?”  Do what?  The answer is in this text, “preserve you blameless” by starting right now to undo what sin’s toll has done to you in the years of ignorance.  This is what is meant in the word, Sanctification.   It is the work committed to the Holy Spirit in His conforming us to the very image that God has of us through what Jesus Christ has accomplished.  You see this in Romans 8:30 “Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called, and whom He called, them He also JUSTIFIED; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.  What shall we then say to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?”  Read along with this Romans 15:16 “That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, BEING SANCTIFIED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Read the following text along with this: I Cor. 6:11:  “…but you are SANCTIFIED, but you are justified in THE NAME of the Lord Jesus, and by the SPIRIT of our God.”  Hebrews 10:10 “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Hebrews 13:12 “Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.  Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.”

Note it says “YOU ARE” sanctified and justified; yet as you look around you it might not appear that way.  So, “what do we say to this matter?” if God is for you, and has done what He claims over and over again in scriptures, who could be against you?  Paul constantly was attempting to get those he ministered to, to see that what a ONCE OF ALL ACT, ONCE OF ALL had accomplished.  It was no longer dependent up human effort; God Himself, through Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit did all that was required to gain God’s favor for “all”…Jew and Gentile alike.   Know this, to obtain this; one would have to go outside of mainline thinking; religious and secular.  You will meet with reproach for making such a claim; yet its rewards can’t be compared to what He had done in comparison to what we might had thought we could do.  There will be more said on this in later chapters but for now tuck this away in your mind to gain what we are seeing in this study, “The Rights of the Unfallen Adam.