APRIL 2021
Presumptuous Sins . . .
Presumptuous seems a rather serious, and not commonly used word.
It is defined as when someone takes liberties, doing things, so boldly, such that you can describe them with the adjective 'presumptuous.'
Presumptuous comes from the Latin verb, 'praesumere' which means to take for granted. It means taking for granted, your access or your power to do something.
Presumptuous sins are pre-meditated. There is the intent to sin, and a time of deliberation before the act. These presumptuous sins are wilful sins. They are ones we do knowing that they are wrong and a sin, before we commit them. Such wilful sins, depending on one's attitude, can be spiritually very dangerous.
Our hearts before the Lord should be such that we desire to avoid committing sins wilfully. We should desire to extract from our hearts these hidden sins that we commit. However when we allow our flesh to dominate us, we are unable to recognise these sins. We remain blind to many of our presumptuous sins and character flaws. We thus need Papa to reveal them to us through the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes presumptuous sins are committed by those who ought to know better, but do them anyway. "Pesha" is the Hebrew word that translates these sins as 'transgressions'. We have this in the Lord's prayer that Jesus taught His disciples. The word also implies a sense of continuous nature of revolt or rebellion towards authority. Those who are presumptuous usually disrespect authority, and are overconfident in their arrogance.
You might say that I usually am writing about love, so why do I seem to be admonishing here. I sense this is the Father's Heart of love, because one corrects a child one loves, and we know that God loves us as we are, but loves us too much to leave us how we are.
Also, when you love someone as we are supposed to love God with all our heart, souls, mind and strength, the last thing you want to do is hurt them.
The important thing is always to recognise sin in our lives. There are things we do, like keeping malice, bitterness, offence and gossiping, to mention a few, that we have gotten so used to doing, but are wrong in Father's sight. The good news is there is forgiveness, however we have to recognise and confess the sin and then ask for forgiveness. Being ignorant of the sin, does not exonerate us. When we are sensitive to the leading by the Holy Spirit, our conscience let's us know when we are wilfully entering into sin.
The Old Testament talks a lot about sin, and it's horrible nature. It also explains how hopeless we were to do anything about it, and how desperately we needed God's help and solution. Jesus was the only innocent One who could die to pay the penalty for our sins. We thus ought to live a lifestyle of bringing pleasure to God by loving Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and being obedient to God's word. In this way, we will avoid hurting our Father's Heart.
So, going forward, let's decide to do away with these presumptuous sins. Let's recognise the pain we bring to our Lord over this, as this results from a wrong heart (2 Peter 2 v 10-11). This attitude is not exemplary, but rather leads astray those who may be watching us. Father God wants us to be humble so that others can see Him as they look at us.
Prayer…
Father, I am sorry that I have been wilfully involved in things that I know are wrong and show a bad heart attitude towards You. Please forgive me. I no longer want to partner with presumptuous sin and I hand it all to You.
I receive now Your forgiveness. What do You want to say to me. Amen.
God bless us all.
Mina Bajomo
