Mack Major #fundie mackmajorbooks.com

Everyone has a soundtrack of sin. It's certain songs you listened to in your past that when you hear them today, they remind you of your former sinful lifestyle.

Notice how in most urban cities or communities, gospel music is often played on the exact same station as the old school R&B music? The devil is clever! He knows that if he can get you to mix your former lifestyle of sin with your current attempt to follow Jesus, he can stunt you in your spiritual growth and render you totally ineffective against the kingdom of darkness in your lifetime.

If you're still listening to old school R&B and hip-hop oldies: what is it about your past you're not willing to break with?

What arrangements with the past are you still holding onto that is obfuscating your future?

What agreements with your former sinful life are you still holding onto and standing in agreement with that's preventing you from fully embracing the new life in Christ Jesus that awaits you up the road?

When we hold onto those songs from our past that use to speak to our sinful living, we are stopping short of walking fully, confidently and completely into God's kingdom.

Those old-school songs have hooks in them. They are constant reminders of your old sinful lifestyle. It doesn't matter if you try to change the lyrics to apply your new walk with Christ. Just hearing the beat alone will pull you back to a time, a place and a feeling you had back when you were estranged from God. And just to prove that it has hooks in you: Why can't you just turn the radio dial and let the secular music go?

If the music you listen to stirs up memories of sin, why do you as a born-again believer who's claiming to be living the resurrected life still hold onto those sinful memories? Was the sin of your past more sweeter to you than the joy of your future life with Jesus Christ?

"Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you." [1 John 2:15]

How can you embrace both sinful living and holiness? How can they both occupy space in your mind and heart simultaneously?

You cannot walk into the future while still holding onto the past. That's like trying to cross the lake while leaving your boat tied to the shore. You have to let go of one shore line in order to walk the other.

It's a choice. A simple yet powerfully profound choice. Either we're going to give God our all, or might as well give Him nothing of us at all. Who wants half a heart anyway?

Think about it: would you want to be with someone today who was constantly revisiting their former relationships of the past with nostalgia and joy? Would your heart not be stirred to jealousy?

How can we expect God then to be satisfied with our lukewarm hearts when we keep looking back towards Egypt and the bondage we experienced under sin - the same bondage Jesus had to rescue us from in the first place?

Are we like the proverbial dog that keeps returning to feast on its own vomit that made it sick in the first place - or like the pig that's just been washed clean who finds its old mosh pit to wallow back in its own filthy mess?

"And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. They prove the truth of this proverb: 'A dog returns to its vomit.' And another says, 'A washed pig returns to the mud.'" [2 Peter 2:20-22 NLT]

It's time to give up - the world and all its pleasant sinful memories. It's time to pull the plug on the soundtrack of sin that so easily lures us back into sinful thinking and actions.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us." [Hebrews 12:1 NLT]

This is your crossroads moment: that place where you make a clear and definitive choice to fully reject the world and your former lifestyle of sin, so you can move forward in the fullness and power of God for your present. The choice you make right now will determine everything concerning your future.

Older saints used to call this sanctification. It's when you make the decision to give Jesus ALL of you: past, present and future. It's when you give up all former sinful activity: even the pleasant memories of it from your past and the hooks of sin that keep you tethered to your former walk, in order to walk with God in truth and power today and tomorrow.

"And such were some of you: but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." [1 Corinthians 6:11 AKJV]

"And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." Hebrews 10:10

You've played around in the Christian kiddie sandbox long enough. God is now seeking your maturity. And it's your choice whether you progress or not into the future God wants to give you.

"So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don't need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God." [Hebrews 6:1 NLT]

Remaining where you are could be very detrimental to your salvation.

"Not everyone who calls out to me 'Lord! Lord!' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter." [Matthew 7:21 NLT]

[...]

I pray you make the right choice today.

Right now, if you are feeling a strong aversion to this article, and you wish that you never read it, that's the power of the soundtrack to sin in your life. Its hooks are still in you!

And you have to get those hooks out in order to give Jesus the type of living sacrifice that He demands of your life. Don't be like those people who only hung around Jesus when He was handing out free fish sandwiches, but forsook Him when he demanded something from them in return. Give Him your all today.

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