{"id":1155,"date":"2019-10-21T04:00:41","date_gmt":"2019-10-21T09:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shop.honestreflections.net\/?p=1155"},"modified":"2019-10-07T13:40:39","modified_gmt":"2019-10-07T18:40:39","slug":"1155","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/2019\/10\/21\/1155\/","title":{"rendered":"YOU NEED NO LONGER FEAR HARM"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cThe Lord removed your punishment; He has turned back your enemy.\u00a0 The King of Israel, the Lord is among you; and you need no longer fear harm.\u201d Zephaniah 3:15 CSB<\/a>
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In a recent Sunday morning sermon, the pastor defined sanctification as the daily choice to follow Jesus, consistently, day after day. He focused on  song lyrics from \u201cCome Thou Fount (I Will Sing)\u201d by Chris Tomlin<\/a>:
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Prone to wander, Lord I feel it<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prone to leave the God I love<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s my heart Lord, take and seal it<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seal it for Thy courts above<\/em>
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During the sermon<\/a>, the pastor made this point, \u201cWe need to have an appropriate fear of our own ability to sin.\u201d His words reminded me of the straight and narrow path we are to walk (Mat. 7:14 NIV)<\/a>  I remembered my days of riding my bike to work.  I lived five miles from my job, at the time. When I worked during the day I would ride my bike along a two lane road which was narrow.  On each side of the road there was a narrow gap between the edge of the road and the white line marking the side of the road. This small little pathway is where I would try to keep my bike tire.  Every now and then I would swerve out of it for a passing car or debris, etc. As quickly as I could, I would get back in my little lane. Every time I swerved out of it, I would think about the straight and narrow path.  I came to understand I\u2019m incapable of staying on the narrow path all the time. The key isn\u2019t to expect perfection, the key is to expect imperfection. When those imperfect moments happen, when the potholes of life hit you, don\u2019t give up.  Instead get back on the path as quickly as possible. Jesus knows we are all going to continue to sin, even after we have started a relationship with Him. Jesus doesn\u2019t expect us to be perfect, He just expects us to keep finding our way back to Him.
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We find our way back to Him by confessing our sins.  Complete honesty can be difficult. I\u2019m a WW<\/a> member.  After my recent vacation I was on the verge of quitting.  I have 2 WW buddies who are my support system. I knew I had to tell them I wanted to quit,  I really thought they\u2019d be on board. They were not. In fact, we all confessed that none of us had truly been following the program.  We hadn\u2019t tracked everything we ate, none of us had. Tracking is a form of confession, it\u2019s confessing the bag of M&M\u2019s I ate, the glass of wine I drank, or the piece (or two) of birthday cake I enjoyed.  I love food, and I hate to have to track everything. Inevitably, what happens when I honestly track, I don\u2019t eat as much. I\u2019m conscious of my actions. I begin to realize how much I can consume if I\u2019m not accountable.  Sin in our lives works the same way. Until we truly confess it, we can\u2019t overcome it. We can\u2019t see the effect sin is having in our lives, how it\u2019s stopping us from living life to the fullest, until we become honest. Just like I have more energy the less weight I\u2019m carrying on my bones, confessing sin lightens the load of our soul and draws us closer to God. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Lord removed your punishment; He has turned back your enemy.\u00a0 The King of Israel, the Lord is among you; and you need no longer fear harm.\u201d Zephaniah 3:15 CSB In a recent Sunday morning sermon, the pastor defined sanctification as the daily choice to follow Jesus, consistently, day after day. He focused on  song… Continue reading YOU NEED NO LONGER FEAR HARM<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","without-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1155"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1160,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155\/revisions\/1160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}