Battling sin

Always be killing sin or it will be killing you ~ John Owens

Last Thursday night’s Leverage session was about battling temptation. The application was for us to identify a sin, stalk it and kill it. Starting with identifying the top 3 sins during this season of my life.

The first one came to mind almost immediately. Laziness. I’ve opted to sleep instead of reading God’s Word on the train, almost every day last week. Not good.

Then I was stuck identifying the next one. I’m sure there are plenty of ways I’m falling short of His glory (not loving God and my neighbor enough, not sharing the Gospel more, etc…), but I had trouble coming up with something “more active” that I can or want to actually work on to address my recent spiritual dullness.

So I joked with the group that, well sloth is certainly a big one coz now I’m even too lazy to come up with the second sin. I thought it was a pretty good joke but in reality, it’s not very funny.

The paradox of holiness is such that the more holy you are, the bigger the sinner you are. Screwtape’s strategy to leave me cruising is obviously working pretty well.

But God showed me the next day that He was not done with me, and is still at work in me. Praise the Lord! The “thorn in my flesh” arrived on Friday in the person of my father, and there has been so many ways that he’s holding up the mirror to my face and showing me how impatient, ungracious, judgmental self-centered and dishonoring to him I am.

I shall not go into specifics that I may end up “justifying my sin”.  But I pray and hope that this is just a transition period, and I will learn how to love my father and enjoy him in the short time that he is here. To confess, stalk and kill these sins; and put words and theories into action.

The silver lining to it all is that the Holy Spirit convicted me, and allowed me to see the sin in my ungodly response to him. All that in light of my self-righteousness on Thursday! It took less than 24 hours to take me down from my higher ground. I am truly thankful for glimpses that He will complete the work that He began in me, so that I might be with Him in eternity. God have mercy on me!