{"id":6718,"date":"2020-09-13T13:01:20","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T03:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=6718"},"modified":"2020-09-13T15:04:05","modified_gmt":"2020-09-13T05:04:05","slug":"the-silent-spiritual-killer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/the-silent-spiritual-killer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Silent Spiritual Killer"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The Silent Spiritual Killer<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adapted from a sermon by Dr Adel Magdy<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Passage\nLuke 7:28-35<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our lives, there are some sins that are very obvious. You fall into sin, and the manifestation is there immediately; murder, adultery, theft – the consequences are visible and immediate. We know instantly that we have sinned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are\nother sins in our lives that aren\u2019t as obvious. They subtly creep into our\nlives, and eventually destroy us. These are the sins that are particularly\ndangerous because there are no warning signs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the field of medicine, there are some diseases that are known as, \u201csilent killers,\u201d for this very reason. They do not display symptoms until it is too late and the disease has completely ravaged the body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same applies to silent spiritual killers. They creep in slowly until its too late, because there are no pre-symptoms. The silent spiritual killer that we will focus on is the sin of judging others negatively and finding faults of others. This eventually consumes all our thoughts and feelings until we are drowning in sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lord\nhighlights an upsetting passage and describes the Pharisees as such. They\nconstantly degrade and judge those around them. Christ says, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We played the flute for you, And you did not dance; We mourned to you, And you did not weep. For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, \u2018He has a demon.\u2019 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, \u2018Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!\u2019 <\/p>Luke 7:32-34<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

No matter the circumstance, the Pharisees found a way to be judgemental. In the happy times, they were not happy. In sad times, they were not sad. When they saw someone fasting, praying, living a righteous life, instead of thinking thoughts of praise, they criticised and accused John the Baptist of being demon-possessed. When the Lord wanted to show them that He was One of us, immediately they criticised Him for being a Friend of drunkards and sinners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a\nproblem in all our lives, to some degree. Having a negative attitude, even\nsilently in our hearts, can lead to our destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\ntypically tell when it is time for me to confess when I find myself critical\ntoward others, or I look toward a situation and judge. Instantly, this is a\nreminder to confess and start fresh. The Lord lifts the scales from my eyes and\nI am renewed to an attitude that can make excuses for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\nconsider someone in your life that is always negative and critical, it is\nexhausting to be around them. You can never please them. On a nice sunny day,\nthey will complain of the heat. The next day is cold, and they complain that it\u2019s\ntoo cold to even go outside. In the process of being critical, they destroy\nthemselves spiritually. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lord is calling us to start fresh, and to look to others in a new light. To stop being critical and start trying to look through the eyes of the Lord. Today we can all promise the Lord to give the benefit of the doubt to those around us. When someone does something that I perceive as wrong, I make excuses for them. I stop judging them in my heart. Instead of being like the critical Pharisees, today I\u2019ll start fresh. I\u2019ll stop judging them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we look through the eyes of the Lord and we take away the hardness of our heart, we can no longer be critical of others.<\/a> When we see people in the gentleness of the Lord, we grow in compassion for those around us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How many times in the gospel did the Lord see a sinner? How many times did He condemn a sinner? Almost never. How many times did the Lord see the sinner and make an excuse, and not only that, but praise the goodness within them? He would take the one good thing and make them feel like they were the most special person on earth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the message that we can take. That it is not our place to be critical of others, to be critical of the hierarchy, to be critical of my brothers and sisters. It is my place to be like Christ. To look at people with the same gentle and compassionate eyes of the Lord. To remember that when the Lord looks at my sins He doesn\u2019t criticise me, so when I look at others I shouldn\u2019t criticise them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Luke 5 we\nread the miracles of the leper who fell on his face before the Lord and\nimplored Him saying, \u201cLord, if You are\nwilling, You can make me clean.\u201d<\/em> This is a beautiful expression, that shows\na multitude of virtues in the leper. He comes to the Lord and complete humility\nand acknowledgement of His power. There is something more subtle that we see,\nand that is, the Lord makes a point of touching the leper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are so many instances that the Lord heals with His words alone. There was no reason why the Lord needed to touch to heal. To understand the significance of the touch, we need to understand what it meant to be a leper. Leprosy, in those times, meant death. As the leprosy rotted the body, the smell became tremendous and meant that their social network was taken away. A leper was deemed unclean and could no associate with their own family. They had to live your life away from people, they had to wear a bell so people knew they were coming and could move out of their way. More still, they had to yell, \u201cunclean\u201d so people would run in the opposite direction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the\nmidst of this, he cries out to the Lord, if\nYou are willing, You can make me clean. <\/em>The Lord would be expected to run\naway from the leprous man. For the very first, someone has taken a step toward\nhim, instead of away from him. Instead of people throwing things in his\ndirection, someone has drawn near to touch him, despite his leprosy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a touch of, \u201cI do not judge you, I do not criticise you, I love you<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of looking at people and seeing them as bad people, people that you\u2019d rather run in the opposite direction of, I can make excuses from them. For the one that gives me a hard time, I promise that I will pray for them, instead of attempting revenge. I will show them love when I see them, even if it hurts. And I do this, for the sake of the Lord, because it is what I know He would do. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Silent Spiritual Killer Adapted from a sermon by Dr Adel Magdy Passage Luke 7:28-35 In our lives, there are some sins that are very obvious. You fall into sin, and the manifestation is there immediately; murder, adultery, theft – the consequences are visible and immediate. We know instantly that we have sinned. There are … Continue reading “The Silent Spiritual Killer”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6738,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[287,449,448,6,60,162],"class_list":["post-6718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-compassion","tag-excuse","tag-judgement","tag-love","tag-service","tag-virtue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6721,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6718\/revisions\/6721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}