Good morning and welcome to Sinner To Saint Devotional,

Still gleaning from Ezekiel 16:49, we will consider the third cause of sin in the life of a believer. The bible calls it, abundance of idleness. We will consider this in the spiritual sense. Before I start, let me quickly say something.

Serving at your local church is not necessarily spiritual activity because it does not always directly build your spirit man. A worker in church can be deeply rooted in sin and very far away from God. I dare say there are even many workers in churches today who are not even born again. I am not saying God will not bless you for serving your local church. God will bless you, but it does not necessarily translate into spiritual growth. The reason is that spiritual growth is a response to hunger in your heart. If you do not hunger for God, God will not forcefully make you grow spiritually. Do not crowd your life and time with service to man. There is a place for service to humanity while you are on the earth but the thing that really builds up your spirit is direct service to God.

There are three things that directly create the necessary hunger in you that sends a signal to God that you want more of him. If you are not doing these activities, you are spiritually idle even though you may be a pastor or leader in your church. And your spiritual idleness is what is always making you fall into sin. That is why it is as if the devil has your remote control, and he can bring you down with temptation whenever he likes. These are the three things you must do to stay spiritually active:

1. Praying
2. Studying the bible
3. Preaching the gospel

Praying is a two-way communication with God. Your prayer is not complete until you have heard from God. It is only effective two-way communication with God that produces results. Many Christians neither pray long enough nor consistently enough. It is in prayer that God gives you power or grace to overcome sin when the temptation comes.

Studying the bible opens our spiritual eyes. Real studying involves meditation. Meditation is the act of dwelling on a word or phrase or sentence in the bible until you receive practicable revelation from it. Efficient studying equips you with the knowledge and wisdom of God. It tells you what to do and how to live. It transforms your mind, so you begin to think and act like Jesus Christ. It helps you walk in righteousness so that your ways are pleasing to God.

Preaching the gospel does two things. It creates in you a strong conviction about your faith. People will ask you questions about God and make statements about Christ that will make your heart skip a beat. You will need to run back home and study to be sure that this God you speak about is even real. This builds up your own faith and confidence is God enabling you to seek him even more. Preaching the gospel also empties you out so that you can run back to God in the secret place. After receiving wisdom and knowledge and grace from God, you need to share it with others via the simple message of salvation. As you give out the light, you become empty and will quickly see the need to get more from God so you can be filled again. Evangelism makes you hungry for more of God.

If you do these three activities at least once every day, tell me how you will get the time or energy to commit sin. Sin will be very far from you while God will be very close to you. God bless you.

To get the audio mp3 version of Sinner To Saint directly on your phone every morning, join here: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Fwrp6QFYGhmHD04xAgcRFn

Or watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GluVLR123y8