Abhor sin - Pursue holiness

At a Good Friday service a few years ago, when a huge wooden cross was being carried from the back of the venue through the crowd to the stage area, I heard in my spirit, “I abhor sin.”  I had been (softly) crying, thinking of Jesus’ sacrifice for me, what He went through (as close as I can wrap my mind around it) – but this thought caught me off guard.  “Abhor? Where did that come from?” of course, this was a rhetorical question.  Although I don’t use the term” abhor” in normal conversation, I do know of the word from the Bible.  My crying was quieted as I realized that something deeper than I knew was going on within me.

I later looked to see if I could find a verse in the Bible where the phrase “abhor sin” was used.  The closest I got was in Romans 12:9: “…Abhor what is evil…” – I figured sin was evil, so there you go, right?  In my head, what I had heard seemed reasonable and to be in agreement with Scripture.  Like Mary after Jesus’ birth, who, upon hearing the shepherds make “… widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child…pondered … in her heart” – so I “pondered” what I had heard. (I looked up “abhor” today in dictionary.com, and got this definition:  to regard with extreme repugnance or aversion; detest utterly; loathe; abominate.)

In March, I attended a class (via teleconference call) on The Power of a Sanctified Time, Place, and Person of Prayer.  Through this class and several other confirming messages from sermons, songs,  books, etc., I was made aware of how lax I had become lately with my devotional prayer times and was convicted to “do better.”  It has been much harder than I had imagined it would be to be as committed to this discipline as I should.  But the Lord has been gracious, and continually speaks to me from His Word about the need for discipline in my life:

Job 5:17 (NKJV)
“Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects; Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty.

Proverbs 3:11-12 (NKJV)
My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, Nor detest His correction; For whom the Lord loves He corrects,
Just as a father the son in whom he delights.

1 Corinthians 9:27 (NKJV)
But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

Hebrews 12:5-11 (NKJV)
[ The Discipline of God ]

⁵ And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:

“My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,
Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;
⁶ For whom the Lord loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives.”

⁷ If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? ⁸ But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. ⁹ Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? ¹⁰ For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. ¹¹ Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

During the March class mentioned above, a recommendation was given for the book The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges.  I was just reading along when I came to this paragraph at the beginning of a chapter on The Battle for Holiness:

Through our union with Christ in His death we are delivered from the dominion of sin.  But we still find sin struggling to gain mastery over us, as Paul depicted so vividly: “When I want to do good, evil is right there with me” (Romans 7:21).  We may not like the fact that we have this lifelong struggle with sin, but the more we realize and accept it, the better equipped we will be to deal with it.  The more we discover about the strength of indwelling sin, the less we feel its effects.  To the extent that we discover this law of sin within ourselves, we will abhor and fight against it.

Wow … there it is, to “abhor sin.”  I see God's providence in my reading this book such that I will have additional instruction and be more motivated to apply the principles laid forth therein – to pursue holiness.

                                    ... and my journey with Him continues ...