The uncomfortable topic of SIN

SIN. We hate the word. We breathe a sigh of relief that it's "under the blood," and it is...however...we must not stop warring against it each and every time it rears its ugly head. Hebrews 12:4 says, "In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood," which implies we WILL struggle with our sin. Now to me, THAT'S a relief. To know that I will still struggle against the desires of my flesh (and of course, it won't lead to bloodshed :) makes sense of my struggles today. I am human; I am sinful; therefore, I MUST consistently war against my sinful nature. I am not a freak of Christianity who can't get it together; I need to sharpen my weapons and get after it!

We all know people (or we are them) that don't seem to fight their flesh. To us, their sins are painfully obvious: pride, anger, critical spirit, gluttony, self-indulgence, laziness, mismanagement of finances, sexual sin, bigotry, etc. I can place myself in most of those failings on any given day, but the bottom line is, it's SIN. We live in a Christian culture of excessive tolerance, misnamed "grace," so rarely are we forced to face our sin. If we are not praying like David, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24)," we may never really have to face our offensive ways.

We have stamped out legalism in the church, but in doing so, we have also stamped out much of conviction. We can spend all day on ourselves, wasting the precious time God has given us, indulging the sinful nature, and feeling totally fine about it. Why? Because we have released responsibility for our behavior. We are so "under the blood" that we've become soft and spoiled. I listened to a podcast from the Ramp yesterday and Damon Thompson argued that unless we spend significant time with Jesus, unless we make Him FIRST in our lives, including our TIME, we will not bear His image, we will bear the image of the world. He went on to say that a person can easily watch 4 hours of television a day, and that's normal, but to spend 4 hours in the Word and in Prayer is almost unheard of from the modern, average Christian. Now you could say Damon is "beating the sheep," but I argue that he's provoking us to return to our first love, a time when everything else paled in comparison to Jesus. Philippians 3:8-9b: "What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him..." Of course astute biblical scholars will ask me, "What about the rest of the verse 9? Which says, "...not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." Amen. Indeed.

The rest of the passage answers that question: (vv.10-21) "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained. Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."

Hallelujah! Let us NOT live as enemies of the Cross! Let our stomaches (appetites) NOT be our gods, and let us take our minds off earthly things! Take note of all the active verbs in that passage: know, attain, press, share, strain, take hold of, live up to. We can do "all things in Christ who strengthens me" (Ph. 4:13).

And finally, the words of the apostle Peter (2 Pet.1:5-11): "For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins. Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Amen?