I can’t say exactly when it happened, but bit by bit, I began to notice that the report of rape was no longer called, “Rape” in the United States. It is now mostly referred to as, “Sexual Assault”!
Let’s take a moment to look at the definitions of the two
words.
Sexual Assault…a statutory offense that provides that it is a crime to
knowingly cause another person to engage in an unwanted sexual act by force or
threat. "Most states have replaced the common law definition of rape with
statutes defining “sexual assault.”
Rape… the unlawful compelling
of a person through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse. The
act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; violation:
To me, sexual assault is a watered
down way of saying a person has been raped. It has taken something from the
true meaning and made it seem a little softer. People don’t cringe as much when they
hear, “He is accused of sexual assault,” versus “He is
accused of rape!”
This has become the way of the
world—to water down sin. But we as Believers are not guiltless in this new way
of thinking. No, we are becoming just as bad.
When I was growing up, people
basically called “Sin” exactly what it was….SIN.
If you were shacked-up with
someone who was not your husband—you were living in sin. Today, the person in
question is either your partner, fiancé (even though you’ve just had your 3rd
child) or a common law husband. It is no longer seen as sin to be pregnant and
engaged to a man who is not legally divorced yet. Nope…it is more than okay—it
is glorified by many and deemed news worthy.
As followers of Christ many of us
shake our heads when we see this type of stuff on TV, but we are not shaking
our heads so much at our own stuff. No, we are working on being like the world
and watering down God’s definition of our sin.
Just as most states have replaced
the word “sexual assault” for “rape” we have replaced “sin” with… problem, hang-up, issue, or mistake.
I just love it when public figures are caught having an affair and as they apologize, they proclaim, “I made a
mistake.” Well, how many times were you meeting up? How long was this going on?
And how many times can we keep doing the same thing over and over and still
call it a mistake? Truth is…when a Believer has an affair, we sin against God and
the marriage covenant we entered into with Him and yes our spouse too.
How often can we look
at porn, and pass it off as, “I have an issue?”
How long can we be deceitful with our
spouse in what you are really doing with credit cards and spending money, and
continue to think of it as, “I have a shopping problem?”
How many years can we look down on
others because of the color of their skin or their social status and shrug it
off as, “Well, that’s my hang-up?”
You see sisters…all of the above
is SIN! They are not mistakes, problems, issues or hang-ups.
No, it is all a lifestyle and practice of sin.
Trust me, I am not trying to pick
on anyone, because when I say, “We” I am including me too. (For ALL have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God.) But what I am trying to do is provoke us
to take a closer look at some of the sin in our lives we've gleaned over by watering it down.
Whenever we can justify wrong
doing, there is never the conviction for change. Why? Because in our
justification, we make it seem that we are right and okay. In other words, to
feel that you have a problem versus you are sinning against God and maybe
someone else can take the sting out of what you really should be feeling.
We should never be okay sinning
against God. And renaming our “sin” to a lower degree only hurts us and those
we love even more in the long run.
If you have a problem and it falls
under the category of sin (God’s decree of what is sin), then call it that! No
more excuses or watered down variations of it.
The more we call our sins, the
sins they are…the more we are going to be FREE and grow in our strength in the
Lord.
Some of us need to get violent
with the sin in our lives and take authority over it and no longer let it have
rule over us!
Sisters, life as we know it, is
about to change. The signs are everywhere and there will be no excuses accepted
if we get caught without any oil for our lamps. (see How Much Oil Do You Have?
7/14/14)
Let’s stop pointing at the world
and judging their sin and start looking at our own.
For years I've told my
youngest daughter that when a guy comes a courting and somewhere down the line,
he tries to persuade her to have sex or inappropriate sexual acts with him based on…if
she loved him, she would do these things to show her love—not only does he not
love her, he doesn't love God. Because if he had a heart sold out for Christ,
he would not want to sin against Him, let alone entice someone else he claims
to love to do so.
It’s the same for us. We should
not desire there to be any sin in our lives. It should hurt us deeply to sin
against God and others. But first, we must acknowledge there is sin and it needs to
go.
Get in your Bibles girls and on
your knees!!! Change is coming and I would be remised in my Kingdom duties if I
were not to warn you. Amen!
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