A note from our pastor:

“Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.”

Ephesians 4:19

Good Morning Dearly Beloved,

In medical practice, it is sometimes necessary to destroy tissue using extreme heat, extreme cold, or a chemical in order to kill a tumor or stop bleeding. This process is called cauterizing. While often life saving the practice relies on destruction of the body to stop the problem at hand from continuing.

In this verse the Apostle is using the idea of cauterizing as an analogy for what happens to regenerate children of God when they continue in sin following their own desires and greediness.

The spiritual consequence for a child of God, after regeneration, when they sin is to feel remorse, a need to repent, and to feel the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. If you have experienced these feelings, it might cause you to wonder how a child of God could continue to live in sin and chase after the things of this world.

The Apostle explains this situation, saying, those who continue in sin have cauterized their conscience. They have stopped the feelings which are a spiritual consequence and replaced them only with feelings of lust and greed. This allows them to continue living the way they desire, but in order to do so they have destroyed a part of themselves.

As disciples, the warning we should take from this verse is to be cautious. If behaviors of yourself or others cause you spiritual discomfort, the answer is not to build up a tolerance of them, but rather to repent and turn back to God. There are many sins which invade lives, homes, and churches because over time tolerance causes cauterization instead of discomfort causing repentance.

Let the truth of God be our standard by which we evaluate each day.

Our Prayers are with you daily,

Brother Jeremiah