Personal Scripture

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My dear children, I write this letter to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone sins, we have Jesus Christ to help us. He always did what was right, so he is able to defend us before God the Father. Jesus is the way our sins are taken away. And he is the way all people can have their sins taken away too. If we obey what God has told us to do, then we are sure that we know him. If we say we know God but do not obey his commands, we are lying. The truth is not in us. But when we obey God’s teaching, his love is truly working in us. This is how we know that we are living in him. (I John 2:1-5)

A long time ago, I had a pastor who told us it was okay to substitute our own names into scripture. For example, I could read this passage as, "My dear Lauretta, I write this letter to you...", making it come alive to me personally. When I began to realize scripture was written for ME, I began to find it both comforting and a little convicting. At times, it opened up doors for my healing and peace. At others, it brought me to my knees in repentance. Either way, scripture did its work IN me because it was written FOR me. It is written for all of us - you included!

Written that I may not sin - when I see it as a personal letter to me, I begin to appreciate how much care God takes to help ME live right. It isn't just the early church that received this letter to live in such a way that they didn't sin, but it was for each of us personally. The message is clear - God wants us to stop accepting sin in our lives as 'normal' or 'expected'. He wants us to forsake the selfishness of sin and settle into the selflessness of living for and with Christ. In turn, he gives us the means by which to do exactly that!

Sin doesn't need to hold us back - it can be taken away and we can find a new purpose in life - obedience to God. We might find it a little intimidating to hear some of these passages put in the personal tense, but if we truly want to be free of our sin, we need a 'personal God' who meets us right where we are. If anyone sins - it is pretty much a 'given' that we ALL fit that bill. We have Jesus to help us with being free of that sin - not just forgiven, but free from it. Too many times we fail to equate forgiveness with freedom. Jesus replaces that sin with his righteousness. We replace the desires to sin by getting truth INTO our lives.

Jesus deals with our sin, but we learn to deal with the temptation to 'sin again' by getting God's truth into us. The scripture doesn't have to be hard for us to understand, especially when we allow it to become 'personal' to us. Just sayin!

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