Hymn 412
Scripture Reading:
Matt.5:23-25a Therefore if you are offering your gift at the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you, Leave your gift there before the altar, and first go and be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Be well disposed quickly toward your opponent at law, while you are with him on the way.
“Dealing” implies that we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit to purge away all the difficulties which hinder the growth of life.
The Object of Our Dealing with Sins––
the Record of Sin before God and the Actual Deed of Sin
The record of sin denotes the unrighteous and lawless deeds which offend the righteous law of God and result in our having a record of sin before the law of God. In the future, God will judge us according to this record. The fact of sinning is the very act which establishes the record of sin. These sinful acts always fall short of the glory of God and, in either a perceptible or an imperceptible manner, hurt others. …On one hand we need to deal with our record of sin before God, and on the other hand we need to deal with the fact of our sinning.
The Source of Sin––the Devil
The devil is the source of sin (8:44). Sin is the nature of the devil, and sin, the nature of the devil, is a lie. Sin is a lie, a falsehood. Everything that is sinful is unreal. The issue of the lie is death and darkness. Death and darkness, as falsehoods, are opposed to reality. Since the devil is the father of liars, he is the source of sin. The divine element of God, working as life and light within man, sets man free from the slavery of sin. But the evil element of the devil, working as sin by death and darkness within man, enslaves man to sin. His nature is a lie and brings in death and darkness. With darkness is falsehood, the opposite of the truth, the reality.
The Practice of Dealing with Sins––
Abolishing the Record of Sin and Dealing with the Actual Committing of Sin
The abolishing of our record of sin after we are saved, therefore, depends upon our confession. …How should we deal with the actual committing of sin? If we have offended God, we must deal with it before God and ask His forgiveness. If we have sinned against man, we should deal with it before man by asking man’s forgiveness. If our act of sinning against man involves only a moral matter, we have only to confess this and apologize before man. If it also involves a loss of money and profits, then we should pay accordingly the amount we owe. This act of apologizing and reimbursing applies not only to sins committed after we are saved; we must also deal with all those sins committed before we were saved; we must deal with them one by one before man according to the inner consciousness. …The result of our dealing with sins is peace within ourselves and peace also within others.
Our Spiritual Life Growing Daily by Dealing with Sins Daily
The purpose of our dealing with sin is that we might have a clean conscience, void of offense, and also that our will might be subdued. …There was a young believer who came to inquire of a servant of God concerning how to grow in his spiritual life. The servant of God asked him: “How many days have gone by in which you have not dealt with sins?” How true it is that if we desire our spiritual life to grow, we need to deal with sins. The day that we do not deal with sins, our spiritual life does not grow. By dealing with sins daily, our spiritual life will grow daily. This is an ironclad principle. May God have mercy upon us so that we may continue to go forward. (The Experience of Life, ch. 4)
Reference: The Experience of Life, ch.4, 5; The Pure in Heart, ch. 4; Life-Study of John, msg. 19
