:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

A New Series…

You know how most Christians tend to have the same problems and many of them sort of persist?

They’re the elephants in the room when we get together. Even if we don’t struggle with particular sins or Christian disciplines, we may counsel plenty of friends who have these struggles.

A few months back I decided to write up a kind of survival guide for overcoming these common threats to our Christian walks. These sins, doubts, fears, and short-comings can nibble away out our faith and keep us from intimacy with God, following Jesus daily, and completing the mission he has given us here on earth to proclaim his Kingdom.

The solutions are there. God’s power is available for us. So it’s time to challenge our doubts, short-comings, and fears. It’s time to lay hold of his power for us and to embrace the fullness of life Jesus promised us.

Let’s begin…

Part of One of “You Can’t Stop Sinning”

You know that guy at work who rarely does his job. He mocks you and the other peons who slave away while he plays games on his computer and shuffles papers, somehow convincing your boss that he’s a valuable asset. And so you get together with your colleagues while the coffee is brewing and talk about that sniveling, lazy jerk and his long, crooked nose.

Talk is too sedate a word for it. You slam him. You roast him alive like a fat pig. You make him the butt of your jokes and the target of your slander. He’s the worst kind of person and you always feel better about yourself whenever you’re done tearing into him.

And yet, you know deep down that a Christian shouldn’t mock this man’s character, lacking though it may be. And perhaps you shouldn’t make fun of the way he eats his hard-boiled eggs, the way he slurps his coffee, or the way he shoves his wispy black hair away from his forehead with a brush of his hand. No, the Christian way is to love this man rather than insulting him behind his back.

The tongue being a restless evil aside, you still think he kind of deserves it. It’s just words after all. Really, you haven’t done anything all that terrible. And as you hide behind justifications, you arrive at the real truth of the matter. You don’t want to stop slandering him. In fact, you can’t stop. It’s natural, easy, and feels good, as if you can undo his grievances against you by the power of your words.

But perhaps you haven’t struggled with words. Perhaps your struggle is with lusting after a neighbor along your block. He or she often walks past your house in the evening, and you find yourself thinking about this person in very inappropriate ways. It may be the scent of his cologne that lingers or that titillating blouse she wears that sparks your imagination and leaves you burning.

While you’re alone at home he sneaks into your thoughts with a seductive look or when you’re driving home from work your heart beats a little faster at the thought of seeing her today. This infatuation is both terrifying and wonderful, fulfilling some deep-seated desires that crave to be fulfilled even if they seem endless in their demands. You can’t help but give in to them because you’re not really hurting anyone, and worse than that, you don’t feel like you can resist them. The urges are too strong, your will too weak, and those exciting moments of surrender to lust are too exciting.

In either scenario, sin has taken hold and become a master of sorts. It isn’t that slander and lust are harmless sources of fun and fulfillment that God doesn’t want you to have. It’s that you’re actually enslaved to them, letting them control you, shape you into a different sort of person, and keeping you from the good things God has planned for you. When sin becomes an irresistible force that we cannot fight, we have a tremendous problem that must be addressed without delay.

The next post in this series will deal with sin and our information problem…