“My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the One who is truly righteous.” (1 John 2:1 NLT)
My sense is that we tend to take sin far too lightly. As a result, we often miss opportunities to hear God’s voice or see His hand at work in significant ways. We want to settle for far less than God has for us due to our infatuation with the things of the world.
Part of the problem is we’re asking the wrong question. We ask: “What’s wrong with _____________?” The issue for a believer in Jesus isn’t necessarily what’s wrong with something, because our best choices aren’t between good and evil, but better and best. Sin, like love, isn’t a feeling, it’s a decision. That’s why sin is so heinous. It plays on our emotions and draws us away from the Lord with promises to make us feel better.
Remember, we don’t feel our way to right actions, we act our way to right feelings. You do the right thing; you’ll feel the right way about it. Sin is a decision to do, say, or think something that is displeasing to God, something that will detract from the honor, glory, or fame He deserves. It’s an act of will, not something we accidentally do.
Years ago, I saw a picture of a man walking across the desert with a caption that said: “It’s not the mounds of sand in front of me that slow me down, it’s the grain of sand in my shoe.”
Adam and Eve didn’t accidentally partake of the forbidden fruit. It was the result of planned intention. Why were they at that specific tree in the first place? My guess is they made passes by the tree on many other occasions, getting closer and closer, until one day sin’s pull was just too hard to resist. They allowed the “grain” of curiosity to take its toll.
We flirt with sin, seeing how close we can come without crossing the proverbial line, until one day the draw becomes too much to walk away. The major failures in my life didn’t come about because I spent too much time reading God’s Word, praying, or serving God. They came about because I spent too much time pondering things that were clearly wrong, but rather than shifting my thinking and walking away, I allowed the tentacles of sin to pull me in.
Did I know it was wrong? Absolutely! Did I want to disobey God? Of course not! Then why did I do what I did? My curiosity allowed me to get too close until I could no longer resist the urge to investigate the forbidden. None of us is able in our own strength to resist the devil. We must depend on the Holy Spirit to enable us to shift our eyes or close our ears to things we know will entice us to sin.
Tim Challies wrote: “Just a single sin left in your life is as dangerous as a single rattlesnake left in your bed.” Dear brother or sister, please allow the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom in making decisions that can potentially be dangerous to you. We know ourselves much better than we like to admit, and we know when an “innocent” text or call isn’t innocent at all. The Holy Spirit will alert us to evil. Are you listening?
Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians in the KJV: “Abstain from all appearance of evil.” Be careful how you dress, what you allow your eyes to see, your ears to hear, and that on which you allow your mind to dwell. The greatest battlefield for a believer is our mind. What we think about comes about. So, read what will draw you closer to the Lord; listen to what will instruct your heart for good; and never underestimate the power of even one single sin.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 