Free To Thrive! Day 6--- A Serious View of Sin

Sin--- just the mention of the word makes my skin crawl. I hate sin and I hate the effect sin has on my life. Unfortunately, sin has not always been on my “bad” list. There was a time when sin produced a thrill inside of me. Little did I know, the effect sin was having on my walk with the Lord. Sin was keeping me from living a free life in Jesus Christ.

The Old Testament details the effect sin had on the Nation of Israel. In short, sin led to captivity. The lack of spiritual sensitivity on the part of the prophets produced a level of comfort in God’s people when it came to sin. This comfort led the Nation of Israel to conceal sin rather than expose it.

Today, you and I can fall into the same trap. This occurs anytime you conceal sin rather than expose it in your life. The result becomes captivity to that sin. Concealing sin occurs in a number of ways. Often concealing sin occurs when a believer tries to justify sin by saying:
•“It’s not really that bad.”
•“I will just do it this one time.”
•“Everyone else is doing it.”
•“It’s how I was raised.”
•“Compared to _____, I am not that bad.”
•“I am not hurting anyone, so it does not really matter.”
If you use one or more of these excuses to justify sin in your life, you can know that you are concealing sin. Thus, spiritual freedom is not evident in you.

Freedom requires that you deal with sin every single day. Exposing sin becomes one of the key steps to gaining freedom in your spiritual life. A prayer that I often pray in regards to exposing sin states, “Lord, shine your bright light into every dark corner of my soul. Please expose the sin hidden in my life.” I pray this prayer anytime I sense unconfessed sin in my heart. I then wait and watch for God to reveal the hidden areas of sin. I can assure you. God answers this prayer. The reason is simple. God longs for you to have freedom--- freedom that comes from having a proper view of sin. Today, I want to ask you, do you have a proper view of sin in your life? If so, do you daily take on the job of exposing sin rather than concealing it?