Excuses

Lately I have begun to notice a disturbing trend.  It usually occurs in conversations with people regarding holiness and/or sanctification (the process of becoming more like Christ) and it goes something like this.  In the middle of talking about becoming more holy, someone will throw out this little phrase or something like it, "but we are still human and are going to struggle, so you make the best of it."  I understand the sentiment behind this statement.  It is the same sentiment that Paul expounds on in Romans 7, namely that we live in a fallen world and are ourselves still sinful and that sin nature is something we will have to deal with for the rest of our lives.  But more and more that phrase is being used as an excuse or a smokescreen because the fact of the matter is, if we were honest, there is sin we like and cherish, that we treat as a pet, and even though the power to put that sin to death is available through Jesus Christ, we don't really want to.  Sure, we say the right things about hating our sin and trying to battle against it.  But in reality I think many of us hate the way our sin makes us feel, we don't hate our sin.  We wish there was a way to indulge in our sin and and feel good about ourselves doing it.  For if we hated our sin, we would run as fast and as hard as we could into Jesus Christ with the expectation of deliverance from the One who has conquered sin and death.

But all too often when faced with temptation or just the every day workings of life, when confronted with sin, rather than running to Jesus we either succumb immediately or put up a fight based on our own strength (some more vigorous than others) and then succumb.  Either we don't actually believe in Christ's ability to conquer sin, or we are actually in love with the sin, and I think more often than not it is the later. And this is not to say that there is a euphoric place we reach where sin no longer touches us.  In fact, throughout history, the closer people walked with God, the more acutely aware of their sin they became.  And yet in this is where the promises of God become alive and His grace becomes real and His glory shines the brightest.