I believe many Christians have become soft on sin. Sins that are spoken about today freely in public, used to only be whispered about in private.
In Jerry Bridges book, Respectable Sins:Confronting the Sins we tolerate, (which I recommend that everyone read), he speaks about how our many Christians have become soft on sin.
If you recall when Kobe Bryant committed adultery a number of years ago, he stated, "I made the mistake of adultery." We now call sin simply a mistake. Premarital sex sounds much more tolerable than fornication. Pro-choice is much more tolerable than Pro-abortion.
Sin used to mean more than simply doing something wrong. Bridges writes:
"Sin is a principle or moral force in our heart, our inner being. Our sinful actions, words, and thoughts are simply expressions of the principle of sin residing within us, even in those of us whose hearts have been renewed. Even though our hearts have been renewed, even though we have been freed from the absolute dominion of sin, even though God's Holy Spirit dwells within our bodies, this principle of sin still lurks within us and wages war against our souls."
We must not fail to recognize this awful truth. In Puritan Ralph Venning's book, The Sinfulness of Sin, he makes this contrast between the holiness of God and our sin:
"God is holy, all holy, only holy, altogether holy and always holy, so sin is sinful, all sinful, only sinful altogether sinful and always sinful."
Bridges then writes:
"Whether our sin is large or small in our eyes, it is heinous in the sight of God. God forgives us our sin because of the shed blood of Christ, but he does not tolerate it. Instead, every sin that we commit, even the subtle sin that we don't even think about, was laid upon Christ as He bore the curse of God in our place. And herein lies chiefly the malignancy of sin, Christ suffered because of our sin."
When am reminded that my sin caused Christ to suffer, then I begin to hate my sin and do my best, through the power of the Holy Spirit to refrain from sin.
The Apostle Paul stated in Romans 6 that where sin abounds, grace there much more abounds. So is Paul saying if we want to experience more of God's grace then we simply should sin more? Of course not! We should be committed to sin less and be intolerant of sin in our lives.
If we continue to be soft on sin and tolerate sin in our lives we are in danger of making excuses and rationalizations for our sin and becoming grace junkies.
Living life to the full and hating my sin,
Scott
