“The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.”
– Proverbs 5:22
We often like to go through life trying to operate a sin management program. We convince ourselves that our favorite sin isn’t that bad and that we can manage and control it. We do our best to minimize it, so that it’s a fairly small part of our lives, but we nonetheless like to keep it hanging around in the margins of our lives, because some part of us likes it. We get that it’s bad, but we don’t think it’s really THAT bad.
That’s all a bunch of lies we tell ourselves. We can’t manage sin. If we leave it hanging around it eventually manages us. We might think we have our problem with (fill in the blank: lust, addiction, anger, greed, gossip, etc…) under control, but we don’t. It ensnares us in a web of lies and excuses. It grabs at our ankles as we try to walk away and gnaws at our minds at unexpected hours. When we think we most have our favorite sin under control, it stages a sneak attack to prove it’s still in control.
Friends, we aren’t commanded to manage our sin, because we can’t. We’re called to kill our sin, to crucify it. We’re able to do this because when Christ gave Himself up to be crucified, He broke the power of sin over the lives of His followers. If you’ve accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, then you have the power to kill the sin that lurks within.
It will not be easy. You won’t be able to do it in your own strength. Your sin will fight back! But if you commit yourself to crucify your sin every day, every time, then as you grow in your relationship with God through prayer, study, worship, and meditation, you will be able to put that sin to death.
Don’t play around with sin, because it isn’t playing around with you. Kill it. Fight it with all the power of God’s Holy Spirit within you. Fight it and be free!