Treating Sin

Happy Tuesday evening! I trust that the start of your week has been pleasant and fruitful. I’m putting the finishing touches on my new home mortgage. I’m also beginning to pack up and purchase furniture for my new home.  In fact, I worked last night to get a 36-inch-wide couch through a 30-inch- wide door. Somehow, some way (with a little help, including a door removal), the couch made it through the door! Who says God doesn’t still work miracles?

              One of the things I’m most looking forward to about home ownership is finally having a lawn to manicure. I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that I’m pretty OCD when it comes to lawn maintenance.  I plan to take pride in how my yard looks. I got it from my dad. He got it from his dad. There could be worse traits to inherit!

              Dad spends countless hours each week perfecting his grass, landscaping, and patio. I must say that everything looks immaculate – except for one nagging issue.  Due to the lack of shade in some parts of the property, the lawn is prone to being infiltrated by Bermuda grass. Bermuda is a short, thick grass that is the bane of any green-thumb’s existence. You see, Bermuda often starts as a small patch. Soon enough, however, the Bermuda takes root in the soil and spreads to other areas of the lawn. Once Bermuda has taken hold, it can become very difficult to contain and eradicate. My dad’s yard was knocking on the door of being completely covered in Bermuda.

              Just as Bermuda grass takes hold of the soil and spreads aggressively, so too does the sin in our lives. Some of us may have patches of sin in various aspects of our lives whiles others may have one big, nagging patch of sin. Bermuda is notoriously difficult to get rid of. Dad had to kill off most of his lawn using chemicals and re-seed the entire yard. Similarly, if we don’t treat our sin in a timely manner, it can take hold and eventually consume our entire lives.  So how do we “treat” the sin in our lives to ensure it doesn’t spread? I’m so glad you asked! Following the four forthcoming steps will allow you to contain sin and stop its spread:

1.       Acknowledge

2.       Analyze

3.       Ask

4.       Awaken

Acknowledge – The first step in controlling sin is to acknowledge that we are all sinful human beings. Best known as the doctrine of the “total depravity of man”, Scripture teaches us that the very essence of our human nature is that we are inherently sinful and do not seek the ways of God. Take for instance Romans 3, verses 10 and 11: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.” Furthermore, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 2:14: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” In other words, to be human is to be sinful. Only one man was able to walk without sin on this Earth – I’ll give you a hint, it isn’t you or I!

Analyze – To combat sin, we must analyze the what leads us in to sin. If you didn’t skip over the first point (caught you!), you know that as humans, we are sinful by nature. While this is an important point and should not be minimized, the Christian life requires us to avoid situations that may give rise to occasions of sin. Likely, there are certain places, people, and thoughts that appear in your life and make you more prone to sinful decisions. I know that rationalization is a thought I have that makes me much more likely to commit sin. I shared in my debut blog post that I struggle with over-consumption of alcohol. I often rationalize that I’ll only drink two or three beers and stop. A lot of times I do just that! However, there are times where two or three beers may become five or six. Before I know it, my rationalization has led me into sin. Knowing which environmental factors or thought processes push us toward sin is key in being able to prevent sinful roots from taking hold.

Ask – One of the most important (and often overlooked) steps in fighting sin is to simply ask God to deliver us from instances or occasions of sin. It sounds so simple doesn’t it? I worked through the content of this blog post on the way to work Friday morning. However, it wasn’t until Sunday morning that I realized why this step is so important. Sunday morning, I had the privilege of attending service at Yellow Creek Baptist Church in Cumberland City, Tennessee. The morning’s sermon was delivered by Pastor Mark Proctor.  The pastor noted that we take our problems to everyone around us – our spouse, our siblings, our co-workers, our pastor. But he noted that we often fail to take our problems to the only person who can work all things for good – our almighty God. Romans 8:28 tells us: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” In fact, Jesus Christ himself taught us to pray this way. In the words Jesus taught us, we are exhorted to ask God to “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”.

Awaken – So what do we do after we acknowledge our sinful nature, analyze what leads us into sin, and ask God to deliver us from sin? We simply awaken to the good news of what Jesus Christ accomplished on our behalf on Calvary. In the opening point, I hammered home the point that sinfulness is the defining human characteristic. Luckily, God made a way for wayward humans to be made right with him. Through Christ’s bloodshed on the cross, all who believe in Him can be cleansed of sin and raised to everlasting life. 1 John 1:7 tells us: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” The Spirit of God led the writer of Hebrews to write in 9:22: “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” So rejoice in this truth- that our inherent sinful nature does not reflect our status in the eyes of the omnipotent Father.  God knows our sin better than we do, and he chose to love us anyway!

              So, acknowledge, analyze, ask, and awaken. Seems easy enough, right? But I’ll add one caveat – Don’t expect your sin to vanish after "treating" it just once. My dad initially sprayed chemicals on his Bermuda and re-seeded last fall. Early this spring, his yard was looking immaculate. Nonetheless, slowly but surely small patches of Bermuda began to reappear. Dad was forced to spray the Bermuda with chemicals once again to destroy the unwanted patches. Don’t be discouraged if occasions of sin reappear in your life. Stopping the spread of sin is an ongoing process that will consume the rest of our lives. Our joy is in the knowledge that sin has no eternal power over us as Christians. Christ has won the battle for us, and His blood has purchased our salvation.

In Christ,

Kendal May