One of
my favourite movie trilogies growing up as a child was Star Wars.
The
character Yoda is a teacher and spiritual advisor, who is known for
training Luke Skywalker to harness the power of ‘the force’, a supernatural
ability for the Jedi and Sith armies. Many times he speaks of the mystery
of not giving into the temptation of the dark side which Luke’s father, Darth
Vader, fell into leading to a path of evil and destruction. Some of Yoda’s wise
messages are below:
“When you
look at the dark side, careful you must be, for the dark side looks back…. Fear
is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and
hate leads to suffering… Once you start down the
dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will”.
Doesn’t
this sound familiar? It is fair to say that every person has a dark side that
comes from the flesh and our sinful nature. It is unique to them and usually a
place of great battle and shame. It could be a wound from a father or mother as
a child, a sickness, a personal fear or phobia. It could be an addiction to
substance abuse of drugs, alcohol, fornication or pornography. Or it could be
greed for money, an affair, unforgiveness, fraud, stealing, murder or many
others.
Think of
the names of Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, Milley Cyrus, Amy Winehouse, Bill
Clinton, Michael Jackson, and most recently Robin Williams. Actors, singers,
sportsman and politicians are all human and can fall from grace like you and me
today.
A dark
side is a double life we can secretly
live in private that no one knows. It could be rare, occasional or worse a
lifestyle which Christians are not immune to. Regardless, if our dark side is
not properly dealt with, it will eventually be exposed and bring untold pain
and misery into our lives and may impact those around us.
God
takes sin very seriously, so much so that He showed us by the death of His Son
by crucifixion, in our place of judgement. As 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, For
God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we
could be made right with God through Christ.
Bringing the Dark into the Light
Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but
whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.
Proverbs 10:9 NIV
What areas in your life have bondage over you?
What is your dark side that only God may know and deep down you want removed
from your life? Getting real with our sin is absolutely
essential in becoming all we were created to be as Christians. What
stays in the dark in our lives has incredible power over us.
But when
it is brought to the light and confessed before God and trusted friends through
accountability, it supernaturally loses its grip on us. If the Holy Spirit
isn’t happy inside us, you can be guaranteed you won’t be either. But once we
deal with the sin in our lives once and for all, a life of freedom, joy and
peace will always follow. For whoever walks in integrity walks securely.
Accountability with others you can trust alongside you, who know what you
battle with and still trying to overcome is everything. Ideally, they are
praying for you, checking up on you regularly and keeping an eye out when you
are getting close to making decisions that lead down a bad path.
And they are
friends who will correct you privately and tell you what you need to hear
because they love you, especially when you don’t want to hear it. Personally, I
have five Christian brothers who know me and my dark side. They have complete
liberty to ask me anytime how I am doing, to ensure my life is always on the
straight and narrow path of freedom in Christ.
See to it, brothers and
sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from
the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of
you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
Hebrews 3:12-13 NIV
If our dark side is an area we are not willing to deal with, God in His goodness and mercy will deal with us personally. Sometimes it is only when the pain of sin is greater than the need for change do people take action. Sin is by nature deceiving and over time will harden our hearts against God. All sin is bondage and a lie we first believe, that only truth will set us free from. Therefore, regular confession, repentance and submission to God through obedience will keep us on the road to freedom.
Sin smears the image of God before Him, and like a seed, if it is
not dealt with can take over our lives, ruining everything we have achieved and
progress in our faith. It will hinder our journey with God and cause us to stay
stagnate at best and backwards at worst.
Many well known Christians, throughout the history of the church,
who did not deal with their dark side sadly fell with their lives and sometimes
entire family devastated. Biblical examples abound of Korah, Samson, Uzziah,
Zedekiah and David, who at some point in their lives battled pride, ego, self-righteousness
or sexual immorality and later cost them everything.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9 NKJV
As Christians the power
of sin has been removed coming into relationship with God, but the potential to sin remains. Yes all
believers’ sin but it is a personal choice to continue living in sin with no
genuine repentance. Paul urges us to crucify the sinful nature with its passions
and desires and to keep in step with the Spirit (see Galatians 5:24-25).
And once we
deal with the sin in our lives once and for all, God will allow us to move on
and into great blessing. And when we confess our sins, He is faithful
to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
