“Lest thou shouldst ponder the path of life, her ways are movable, that thou canst not know them.” Proverbs 5:6
Once you see sin in its true, naked form, you gain a knowledge of it that leads to a firm belief in its destructive nature. This is part of what motivates you to cast off the work of darkness, to repent, and to be renewed in praise and thanksgiving for forgiveness and grace.
And then it moves.
Sin seems to move into a new light, giving us a new perspective that needs to be learned afresh. It seems to have a new face on, with new tricks that allure us. This is because sin’s ultimate object is not simply to lure you to commit a wrong action. No, ultimately sin want you to focus on itself to the exclusion of everything else.
Sin’s object is not to tempt you to do wrong, but to keep your eyes off of Life in Jesus.
Sin constantly finds new ways to be attractive, to justify lust, to deceive us about its consequences; these are new ways it must be resisted, ignored, and reckoned powerless. Sin does not want you to ponder the path of life (faith in the finished work of God in Christ) but rather ponder how YOU must defeat it along your path. The truth is, though, that if we’re on a path of fighting guilt and condemnation for our weakness and failure, we’re not on the path of life. We’ve strayed onto sin’s path, where it controls our beliefs about who we are, and where we forget who God is. We’ve actually made the mistake of worshiping sin.
What?!
That’s a fantastical thing to say, I know. But what would you describe a person as doing if you saw them being controlled physically, emotionally and mentally by something outside of themselves? What if they were doing what this thing wanted, feeling good or bad about their attachment to or detachment from it, and thinking in a way that was more like the thing than their own individuality? Another proverb puts it this way: “He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.” (Proverbs 14:29) If the circumstances dictate our response, rather than the Spirit within us, we’ve literally “exalted” that temptation to sin. Lust conceived sin in that moment and we worshiped at the altar of sin.
Jesus has freed us from sin’s power, from the eternal consequences of its destruction, and from our desire to seek satisfaction in it. That work is all done – it is finished. We no longer need to have anything to do with it. When sin asks you to look at and focus on it, remember that we have Someone far better and more glorious to behold who has defeated sin in all its ugliness, and has given YOU the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. We don’t have to defeat the sin in our path, or in our flesh. In Jesus we rise above it.
The Church at Pittsfield 