What we want to hide

How do we actually see sin?

As Christians, we are told that sin is bad for us and that we should avoid it. We know that God, our father hates sin “For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; no evil dwells with You” (Psalm 5:4). But how do we, as children of God see sin ourselves?

I feel like, for many of us, we see sin as just a bad friend that our parents tell us not to hang out or play with. But in our heart, we still want this friend, we want pleasure and gratification that he provides. Often, we sneak out of the house in the middle of the night to go hang out with him. And when we get caught, we tell our parents that it won’t happen again, and we hide our bad friend in the closet of our bedroom until the next time we want to play with him.

For many of us, we don’t hate sin enough. We enjoy the pleasure and gratification it provides; so, we keep sin around and close by. We think that we can master sin, we can tame it and bend it to our control. But it doesn’t work like that. We are actually slaves of sin:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin (John 8:34).

The longer we keep sin around, the bigger the grasp it has on us; “but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death” (James 1:14-15).

As Christians, we need to grow to hate sin as much as God does. We need to despise it and the tricks it plays on us. It doesn’t offer satisfaction or gratification, the only person that can truly offer that is God. Get sin out of your closet, throw him out of the house and lock the door. Don’t let it back in. He will knock and knock, but do not be tempted by his face, he is evil, and he brings death. Take refuge in the safehouse of God.

For all my brothers and sisters out there, stop trying to tame the lion.