Sin is a faith "disorder"...

Our pastor has started the long journey on Sundays through Romans.  It has been good. We are currently on Romans 1:16-17.

He brought up some good points to think about this last week. I'm paraphrasing off of my notes... so this may not be exactly what he said but what I understood him to say.

He said that sin is a faith "disorder" -- meaning that sin is not a matter of unbelief, that is, not believing in anything, rather it's believing in the wrong thing.  Our circumstances sometimes look to us as though what God promises us will never come true, so we reject God and do our own thing (like the Israelites after they left Egypt).  So we sin because we choose to believe in the wrong thing (usually what we think is best, rather than submitting to the will of God in our situations). 

So we need to ask ourselves when we are tempted to sin: What is it that I am believing in that isn't true?

He also talked about Truth needing to be received by faith.  He said sometimes we will say that we spend time reading the word but it isn't speaking to us or enlightening us or strengthening us.  The problem isn't that the word isn't speaking to us (etc), rather that we don't see (comprehend) what it is saying.  Sometimes we must seek for Truth to be found, but once found, it does us no good if it isn't believed.

He said that we need to be diligently praying and asking ourselves: Am I praying for eyes to see until God give me sight (or am I giving up!)?

Good stuff. Yes, good stuff to ponder.