Today, as I did a search for a “dad” devotional on Bible.com, the next devotional that was on my list, was Killing Sin. It’s interesting as the order changed from what I had looked at yesterday when I was finishing our last devotion on the 10 Challenges Every Dad Must Conquer. It’s a shorter devotional in that it is only 4 days long. This devotional was provided by Moody Publishers which has a great number of reading resources. Checking out the description of the devotional it shares the following: “If you feel like you’re on the losing end of sin, and shame has you hiding out in the basement of life, God has a plan for you to win and the power to pull it off. It’s time to put to death those sins that have been killing you. In this four-day study, you’ll learn about God’s strategy for dealing with sin and living in freedom.” Are you ready to jump in and grab hold of this freedom? Are you ready to jump in and hear God’s strategy to help us be the dads God created and purposed for us to be? Are you ready to journey with me through these 4 days? Let’s get started!
Today’s devotional gets us digging into the following scriptures:
‘Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. ‘
Colossians 3:5
‘In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ‘
Romans 6:11-12
‘Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ‘
Romans 12:9
Today’s verses from God’s Word are very powerful and grab at us to step up and stand out and become the dads God created and purposed for us to be. We see it getting started with resisting and turning from our earthly or fleshly ways. It gets us started by pointing out the things, the eartly desires, that we need to put to death, to mortify, and to treat as dead. So let’s be the dads who turn from, resist, and put to death those earthly desires which are called out as sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. We shouldn’t be putting anything in God’s place. We need to be the dads who aren’t looking for a temporary fix when we have God with us who is able to make all things possible and work even what the devil planned for evil and turn it around and use it for good! God works for our good and His glory and so we don’t need to be idolizing things and acting out as people have done in the past. These aren’t new and yet the devil will keep trying to use them against us to try and draw us away from God. So let’s cling to Jesus! Let’s be the dads who count ourselves dead to sin and alive in Jesus! Let’s be the dads who live our lives in pursuit of Jesus, His will and His way, letting go of the old, the useless, the evil that is sin and pressing towards the goal Jesus has given us! Let’s be the dads who resist and reject the sin that is tempting and trying to own our body and get us to obey its evil desires! Let’s decide that we are going to live in the freedom that Jesus has freely offered to us! Let’s be the dads whom the Son set free because then we are free indeed! Let’s be the dads who immitate our Heavenly Father! God is love and so we must be love and love sincerely too. Let’s be the dads who reflect on the definition of love and pursue being able to replace love in the verses with our name like God is able to do.
First Corinthians gives us these words:
‘Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ‘
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Since God is love, we can say:
‘God is patient, God is kind. God does not envy, God does not boast, God is not proud. God does not dishonor others, God is not self-seeking, God is not easily angered, God keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. God never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ‘
Replacing Love with God in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
So let’s be the dads who choose to live our lives loving sincerely in hopes of one day being able to insert our names into this scripture and knowing it is true.
‘[your name] is patient, [your name] is kind. [your name] does not envy, [your name] does not boast, [your name] is not proud. [your name] does not dishonor others, [your name] is not self-seeking, [your name] is not easily angered, [your name] keeps no record of wrongs. [your name] does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. [your name] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. [your name] never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ‘
Replacing Love with [your name] in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Let’s be the dads who hate evil and cling to what is good! Let’s be the dads who are looking out for our wives and kids by leading with love and mirroring how God is and how God wants us to be.
Today’s devotional has been provided by Moody Publishers (more details can be found https://www.moodypublishers.com/)
Reading through today’s devotional, here are some takeaways for me:
(check out the devotional on your own too to see if you pick up other nuggets, and please share your findings in the comments)
For more information, please visit Moody Publishers: https://www.moodypublishers.com/.
Permission to Hate!
- Ever considered what it would take for you to break free from sin?
- Ever considered what it would be like to beat sin and be free from it forever?
- Ever considered what it would feel like if you were able “to win over that one area of your life that keeps holding every part of you down?“
- Let’s be the dads who make a choice today that sin will not define us and will not consume us!
- Let’s be the dads who have energy because we have chosen to not allow sin to exhaust us by trying cause us to have secrets!
- Let’s be the dads who have energy for life because we can see a way to win over sin!
- Let’s be the dads who have nailed that sin to the cross rather than needing to try and hide it, deny it, or delay playing with it for another day.
- Let’s be the dads who choose to kill sin once and for all, nailing it to the cross and leaving it there!
- Let’s turn to God who invented the idea of dealing with sin by putting it to death!
- Today’s Word from the Bible indicates that dealing with sin is a bloody battle and that something has to die (Col. 3:5; Rom. 6:11-12).
- Let’s be the dads who hate sin!
- Let’s be the dads who hate sin in order to deal a blow to corruption in our own lives!
- Let’s grab hold of Romans 12:9 and hate what is evil and sin is evil, so we need to hate sin!
- Let’s be the dads who hate sin so that we can “cling to what is good”!
- Let’s be the dads who hate sin and evil so that we enlarge our ability to love!
- Let’s be the dads who love sincerely which will require that we hate some things deeply.
- Today’s devotional shares some important information about hating:
- Let’s be the dads who call on God and ask God to help us in this.
- Let’s be the dads who invite Jesus into our lives and tell us what to focus on.
- Today’s devotional calls it out this way:
- Let’s be the dads who hate sin rather than just “winking at sin, ignoring it, or dumbing it down.”
- Let’s be the dads who throw away and nail the sin to the cross rather than holding onto it! Let’s hate sin so much that we get rid of it!
- Today’s devotional has a plan for the next 3 days. It shares the information this way:
- Today’s devotional closes with the strategy for battle:
