Snapshots
Biblical Truth
OF
Dysfunctional
BIBLE REFERENCES:
Romans 7:15-17 (LivBible) “I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can’t. I do what I don’t want to – what I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience proves that I agree with these laws I am breaking. But I can’t help myself, because I’m no longer doing it. It is sin inside me that is stronger than I am that makes me do these evil things.”
Romans 7:21-25 (LivBible): “It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love to do God’s will so far as my new nature is concerned; but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. . . Oh, what a terrible predicament I’m in! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? Thank God! It has been done by Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free.”
Romans 8:8, 9 (NIV) “Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.”
Ephesians 4:17, 18 (NIV) “So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.”
APPLICATION:
Dysfunctional; what does this term mean anyway? As used here, dysfunctional means to be out of sync with God. God wants us to go one direction and we go another. God wants us to do one thing and we choose to do something else. Sometimes we impulsively do things that we later regret.
It didn’t take long for the first humans on the planet to get out of sync with God. In the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve were created. By Chapter 3 both were booted out of the Garden. By Chapter 4 we read about the first murder where Cain, the oldest son of Adam and Eve, killed his younger brother Abel out of shear jealousy. What a family legacy!
How do we get so dysfunctional in our lives? The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 7 that the culprit is SIN. Sin is what separates us from God. Today we like to use the term “alternate life style”. It sounds so much more polished and sophisticated. But, it is still sin. Paul tells us in Romans 7:25 that the only solution to sin is the forgiveness provided by Jesus Christ. Our faith and trust in him will break that hold of sin and make us wholly functional again.
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A PRAYER:
“God, forgive me for my past sins. Give me a clean heart and a regenerated mind so that I can follow your ways. Help me to align my direction in life and my personal desires with your plan for me, only then will my life become totally functional again.”
SNAPSHOT:
DYSFUNCTIONAL
