PART THREE:
THE PROTOTYPES OF FINISHING STRONG
CHAPTER SEVEN
LOUSY START, STRONG FINISH
We make choices and God responds. Every action of the
common day makes or unmakes character. If you allow pleasure to dominate you,
you end in horrible disgrace.
True repentance comes from the heart. Genuine repentance
is always accompanied with great remorse.
Repentance is the vomiting of the soul – Thomas Watson
Genuine repentance always brings evidence with it. That’s
how you recognize it. Demonstrate your repentance. Genuine repentance unlocks
the floodgates of God’s amazing mercy and forgiveness.
Guilt keeps us enslaved like a shackle around an
elephant’s leg. The elephant is not chained to the stake, he is chained to the
idea that he can never get away. So, a ten pound stake holds down a two-ton
elephant.
Maybe it was sexual immorality, lying to get your job,
cruelty, neglect or a broken vow or pledge to God. Whatever it was, the enemy
keeps throwing that one sin up in your face. The enemy uses it to paralyze you,
intimidate you and neutralize you. No, Satan cannot take away your salvation
but he can rob you of your joy and all he has to do is to bring up that one
past sin. We all have skeletons in the closet. We all have things in our past
that embarrass and shame us. As a result, some of us are chained to the past
today. And it’s hard to run a race when you’re pulling that kind of chain.
You’re going to need some strong help to cut through those rusty old links.
“It is finished” can also be translated “Paid in full”. I
owed a debt I could not pay, He paid a debt He did not owe.
Source: Finishing Strong by Steve Farrar
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