When you look at a Baby taking first steps, it stumbles a lot before it tries to walk, the more it stumbles the more it tries again and learns to walk quickly. But as we grow older our eyes, our legs become weak and sometime we stumble as we walk and fall down. When we fall down we feel very awkward and sometime we get hurt as well, whereas when you were a child the stumbling did not hurt you that much..
What is Stumbling to do with Christian Life ? Stumbling is to move away from the Godly life and fall into the trap of Sin and living a life which is not Godly.
My post of Stumbling came thru when I was doing my devotional on 1 Corinthians 10 two times Paul writes about stumbling
Why Do We Stumble ?
Serving Two masters
'You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. ' 1 Corinthians 10:21
We see many of us live in both ways, old sinful life and new spiritual life. We choose this according to our own convenience/ situation. Satan uses this and slowly drift us to take back to our old sinful life without us realizing.
Our Actions make others Stumble
'Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— ' 1 Corinthians 10:32
As Christians many of our actions may lead other person (Christian or non-Christians) to stumble on Sin. Because we humans are good at imitating others, we always follow someone and because of that, without realizing we stumble against God’s will.
Spiritual Numbness
I don’t know if you have had any experience of Doctor administering local Anaesthesia, this is done to make your body part numb and not realize the pain, so that doctor can perform the surgery. I had this experience when they took out molar tooth some years back, When the Doctor gave the local Anaesthesia, I was able to know what the Doctor was doing in my mouth, I was awake but couldn’t feel any pain. but once the Anaesthesia medicine got worn out I had severe pain. Same is true in our Christian life, when we stumble and fall to Sin, we are blinded by Satan to become spiritually numb. if we give way to Satan in our first fall , it leads to many other sins to grow in us and it takes lot more harder to come close to God.
Paul talks on this spiritual numbness as one cause for us to stumble.
'So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. 'Ephesians 4:17-19
We get spiritually numb due to three things
Remember when we are Spiritual in God, Three things - Mind Heart Soul are aligned to God, we are led by Holy Spirit.
Corrupting of Mind - As our Thinking is Futile, we think and act like people who do not know Christ. If our thinking is futile it corrupts the mind.
Corrupting of Heart - Our heart is hardened as the thinking (“Mind is Corrupt”) so we are darkened in our hearts, there is no room for God’s light there, so we are fed with wrong things. Satan deceives us and builds further, corrupting the heart.
Soul is Corrupt -Once we lose the Mind / Heart the soul is lost as well, We lose the sensitivity to Sin, we are in the state of Anaesthesia, we know what we are doing but our soul does not condemn for the sins we commit, slowly drifting away from God’s ways.
How do we prevent ourselves from stumbling and live a true Christian life so that we are quick to realize when we stumble, we don’t backslide and live old - sinful life
Christian Life
What is the Christian Life that God called us to live ? We read on this Ephesians 4 : 22-32, Paul explains these 6 things
Renew your Mind with Christ
'and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; ' Ephesians 4:22-24
The word starts as “'You were taught, with regard to your former way of life”, the world we live in we get constantly bombarded with things that’s always to turn to old ways and Sinful desires. It becomes very easy to fall back.
The only way out is to get to consciously renew our mind and look to the word of God and read that daily.
We are blessed people where we have the Bible, early Christians did not have Bible, they had to gather in a place to listen to the scripture. Whereas today we are having bible in our many languages, we have many means(Printed copy / Cell phone / Websites etc..) to read Bible. Pls. take time to read Bible daily. the more you read it the more you love it. Study it, memorize it and meditate on it. Don’t make it a ritual to read the word of God, read it in a way it teaches you what to do, it’s the instruction manual for your life.
Turn away from Hypocritic life
'Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbour, for we are all members of one body. ' Ephesians 4:25
Many of us have many sides of our life’s. One in private within our house , One that we when we go out in public and one that’s in when no one sees around. Remember God can see all different avatars of you and he knows what’s in your heart , what’s in your mind and what’s in your actions, nothing can be hidden from God.
The different avatars in us is Hypocrisy, God hates a hypocritic life
Always live a life that’s pleasing to God, don’t live different avatars based on your situation. Ask yourself if your actions/thoughts will please God or not, it shouldn’t matter if its public or private when no one is looking around. Don’t worry about if your actions pleases other human being or not. Your sole objective is to please God.
Ask God wholeheartedly to show you the hypocritic characters of your life that God wants you to change, he will show you as he wants all of us to be holy and righteous.
Do not Sin in Anger
'“In your anger do not sin” : Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. ' Ephesians 4:26-27
We Christians are tricked and deceived to believe that Anger is a sin. Anger is a emotion. Actions from our Anger causes us to Sin. Think of time when you are angry, if you control that emotions you can turn away from Sin that very moment. If someone makes you angry with the words, you can calm down and not react. This may turn the other person anger go away and not make you Sin. But when we react with a action to speak up with hurtful word that’s leads to Sin. The word of God says “do not give the devil a foothold.” Let’s not give devil a foothold by giving room for our emotions to Sin.
Pray to God to control your anger, God will transform you and make this emotion calm down when you are in that situation. Always remember, when you are angry, calm down, take a time out, you are more like Christ when you remain silent under attack. Remember Jesus too remained silent before his accusers. it’s hard. Practice it more and more and you will master that soon. Start small, I have tried it and it works.
Do not Steal
'Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need. ' Ephesians 4:28
Many of you may wonder, I am a Christian I don’t steal or rob any one like a “pickpockets or “mobile phone snatcher” and it does not apply to me. Many of us work with people in office or business environment. Many times we take credit of Other people’s work and claim to be ours. This type of false claims is also a way of Stealing others work. So don’t always think stealing as robbing or snatching other people’s effort, fame and name.
Look at your life and see what areas you have taken credit from other people’s work , surrender to God and ask God to help direct how you should move away from that practice.
Do not let unwholesome talk
'Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. ' Ephesians 4:29
Gossiping about a brother or sister when they are not around is a sin. This gossip happens in personal life, business and office life as well. We as Christians should move away from Gossiping, the world we live we are bombarded with Tele-serials / movies / YouTube videos which makes stories about other people’s lives and make us practice in our life’s as well.
When someone tries to talk about someone who is not around there, don’t entertain that type of discussion cut them off even if they are hurt, God will help you and make you get away once you start practicing that.
Ask God to show areas where you Gossip about someone and ask you to get rid of them. Remember Gossip is a Sin.
Don’t let the Holy Spirit Grieve
'And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ' Ephesians 4:30
As I outlined earlier, if we call ourselves as Christians, Our Mind / Heart and Soul will be aligned to God and the Spirit of God will dwell within us to guide us and direct us to move away from Sin.
The Holy spirit will Grieve when we Sin or be un-holy in front of God.
Prayer is the only means thru which God can reveal the Sinful ways that’s hurting God. He will reveal the things to you and make you repent and wash you and make you holy. Ask God to show this to you the actions that’s making Holy Spirit Grieve.
Summary
Why do we stumble in Christian Life?
o We stumble because we serve two masters.
o We stumble because of our actions where others can emulate us on our wrong
sinful motives
o We stumble when we are spiritually numb
How can we prevent ourselves Stumbling and not go back to old life
o Renew your Mind with Christ
o Turn away from Hypocritic life
o Do not Sin in Anger
o Do not Steal
o Do not let unwholesome talk
o Don’t let the Holy Spirit Grieve
We are all not immune to sin. We might all stumble in some point in life but through the help of holy spirit and thru constant willingness to get up, we can overcome.