Watch Out for the Stop Signs of Sin

All of us get "stopped" at some point while trying to find God's will for our lives. There are many detours and directions we can take and some people become permanently stalled at a stop sign.  

There are many reasons for feeling "stopped." Arthur Miller and Ralph Mattson point out in their excellent book The Truth About You that 50 to 80 percent of Americans are in the wrong jobs--far removed from what God created them to do. Here's how bad it is:
 
"Most people wish they could do something other than what they are doing...There are thousands of young people who are accused of not having direction in their lives, and most of them want direction, but don't know how to find it. There are tens of thousands of adults who want some sense of purpose in their workaday lives, but have little knowledge of how to go about getting it. There are hundreds and thousands of people who spend their lives as if they were adrift--trapped in their circumstances. There are millions of housewives, students, salesmen, bosses, waitresses, executives, ministers, and auto mechanics who do not fit the lives they lead."
 
Most people are uncertain about the rightness and usefulness of their lives. They are looking for signposts that will give them purpose and direction.
 
Why is there so much apathy, discouragement, and depression in our day and age? The Bible says that there are "stop signs" that can prevent us from finding God's will for our life.

The greatest hindrances do not come from without, but from within. Someone once said, "We have met the enemy and it is us." 
 
The Bible is clear that the number one thing that separates us from meaning and purpose is sin.
 
"It is your evil that has separated you from your God. Your sins cause him to turn away from you...Anyone who lives as they live will never have peace" (Isaiah 59:2,8).
 
When we choose to take ourselves away from obedience and relationship to God, we reap the consequences of spiritual darkness. We lose our vision. The lights go out. God is the light.
  
Let's look at three primary sins that, if allowed to go unchecked, will put a stop sign directly in our way. Each of them is graphically illustrated in the pages of the Bible.

The Stop Sign of Pride
 
As far as we know, the first sin ever committed, and one that cost its perpetrator his eternal destiny, was the sin of pride.
 
Lucifer, one of the greatest of the angels, lost his position as "the anointed cherub who covers" through pride. Ezekiel 28:17 prophetically records for us his fall: "You became too proud because of your beauty. You ruined your wisdom because of your greatness. I threw you down to the ground."
 
Isaiah 14:13-15 tells us what Lucifer, or Satan's, problem was:  The big "I." "I will go up to heaven. I will put my throne above God's stars. I will sit on the mountain...I will go up above...I will be like God."
 
Pride always place a barrier in the way to fulfilling our destiny. We must accept who we are (humility) and not try to be what we're not (pride). God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. (See I Peter 5:5.)

The Stop Sign of Unbelief
 
The tragic life of Judas Iscariot is a sobering illustration of how the sin of unbelief can destroy a person. Judas had been carefully chosen by Jesus to be one of the privileged twelve disciples. Jesus' intention was that ultimately the twelve would "sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matthew 19:28).  Notice, He says twelve, not eleven. Judas was headed for an incredible destiny.
 
But somewhere along the line, the sin of unbelief crept into his life. It festered and grew until he became a betrayer. The consequences of his unbelief were suicide and damnation.
 
The letter to the Hebrews stated regarding the children of Israel entering the Promised Land, "They were not allowed to enter and have God's rest, because they did not believe" (Hebrews 3:19).
 All of us must believe that the Lord has work for us here and a future with Him in heaven.

The Stop Sign of Disobedience
 
He came so close to greatness, and in an instant, lost it all. Saul was chosen by God to be the first king of Israel. He was apparently a godly man with many virtues, besides being head-and-shoulders taller than anyone in Israel. But as he began to fulfill God's will for his life, he crashed into the stop sign of willful disobedience. Let's read God's pathetic words to him in I Samuel 13:13,14:
 
"You acted foolishly! You haven't obeyed the command of the Lord your God. If you had obeyed him, the Lord would have made your kingdom continue in Israel always, but now your kingdom will not continue. The Lord has looked for the kind of man he wants. He has appointed him to rule his people, because you haven't obeyed his command. 
 
Saul could have had an eternal lineage of kingship. But because he disobeyed, that honor was given to David. And every year after his disobedience, Saul's life became darker and more tormented. In the blackness of night When we detour off the road of God's plan, we run into a confusing maze of stop signs. Obedience is the key to turning around. Obedience brings us back onto the road and heads us in the right direction.
 
These three sins, and the manifestations of them, are the main reasons people don't finish their race victoriously. 

Don't stay at these stop signs. Repent of your pride, unbelief, and disobedience and press your foot to the mettle in pursuing God's dreams for your life.

You have one life to live.

Don't linger at the stop signs of sin.