Thoughts On Sin

Sin separates us from God. But there is always an abundance of grace to cover that sin that keeps raising its head. Young believers, realize that repeated sin isn’t just pardoned, but as long as we say we believe it’s pardoned but keep giving in to temptation, it drives us further into misery, and spiritual death. Longing for it, not taking it to Jesus, makes it more prominent each day. So much so, that we cannot imagine our lives without it even when we profess and try to practice Christianity, or discipleship.

A tendency then arises in our lives to have a very worldly view of what we’re doing that makes our indulgence seem okay. That’s when the false image of God begins being implanted into our mind, one that “understands what we’re going through inside”. So simply asking for forgiveness without true repentance becomes the norm. We’re vulnerable to having our minds seared like a hot iron. We’re Christians fashioned after the world, having the same mind as unbelievers, only our hope in Christ is really a hope that God will forgive us simply because we’re human and have human tendencies we can’t control. Far be it from a young Christian to want to admit that they cannot live in Christ in sin.

So what has to happen? Stop using your circumstances as an excuse for sin or act on your  “natural human tendencies”. Did Jesus not preach of holiness? Did He not preach of sanctification? Did He not promise that He is going to prepare a place for us that is not of this earth? He gave us reason to stop living according to the standards of the world and focus on the kingdom which is to come.

For every moment when you can remember giving in to sin or depraved thoughts and counted them as good or arousing, speak each one before Jesus in repentance, asking Him to take these sins and desires and cast them out of your mind. Hopefully at this point in your life you realize that when repeated sin has a hold, you also realize that you are only capable of committing it over and over until you learn that you must first hate sin to arrive at your love for God. You must first hate sin first to find yourself in transition to that narrow road. You must first hate sin if you desire holiness to take the place of your unholiness.

Sin will ware you down emotionally and physically. Desiring to be in communion with God but levitating towards man’s understanding or your own only leads to more sin and is sin in itself. God’s purpose for your life isn’t found in man’s reasoning, but in His own. It’s a great danger to form an image of God that accepts sin in any small form. It’s an even greater danger when we don’t realize that’s what we’ve done with His image.

Yes, God forgives our trespasses, but remember that sin is the reason we need His forgiveness in the first place. With that in mind, take each sin that can be recalled, one by one, and ask for forgiveness. Pray each one, if it be an idol or an image or a practice or a thought that is in no way holy, be removed from your hearts and minds. It is in the power of Christ to do that, is it not? If we do not believe that it is in His power to remove each one as we ask, then we intend to use Him strictly to keep a clean conscious and nothing else, and never truly become humble in His sight.

It is not enough to ask for forgiveness of sin, but to know as a disciple of Christ, that the grip of sin is not broken with our own reasoning or our own attempt to dismantle sin from our minds and hearts. Believe first that that is the very reason Jesus died and resurrected.