Month: January 2011

“As those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on [clothe yourselves with] a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience” (Col 3:12).  In both Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3, the apostle Paul tells us more than once to “put on” the new self along with its character attributes, and to “throw off” the old self with its sinful traits.  We often view lists of character traits to aspire to and those to avoid as somehow equal choices for the believer.  But based on the promises of Scripture, this is not the case.

The bad choices we face are not equals that we have to drum up the moral energy to resist.  They are simply clothes that do not fit our new identity.  They are clothes that don’t fit who we have become and should be tossed from the closet.  You know that shirt you still have from high school.  Stop wearing it!  It doesn’t fit!  Throw it out!

It is the same with sin.  Like clothes that are too baggy, too tight, too misshapen, or too small, sin does not fit your new shape as a believer.  The clothes of “immorality, impurity, evil desire, greed, idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive speech, and lying” (Col 3:5,8,9) do not fit you anymore.  In fact, Paul ends verse 9 with “since you laid aside (past tense) the old self with its evil practices.”  Clean out the closet.  Throw the old sin clothes away.  Start wearing clothes that fit; “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and love” (Col 3:12-14).

Not only do the clothes of sin not fit the believer, but they are woefully out of date.  “For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries” (I Pet 4:3).  In other words, the time for sin is past.  Sin that “fits” is long gone in the rear view mirror.

So go ahead.  Clean out the closet.  Get rid of those dated and ill-fitting threads and step into the clothes that fit.  They are not just clothes to aspire to, but at your core, are a picture of who you have become.

I grew up in a farming community in northern Indiana surrounded by the idyllic landscape of contented milk cows grazing in fields of green.  These cows looked pretty happy munching away on grasses of all kinds.  Cows eat grass.  Cows like grass.  It is in a cow’s nature to eat and enjoy grass.

But cows aren’t the only rural residents who eat grass.  Sometimes kids eat grass.  I remember lying in the grass of our front lawn on a summer afternoon thinking, “My, this grass looks tasty.”  So I did what every kid has done sometime in their life.  I grabbed a handful and began to chew it up.  The chewing was soon replaced by spitting as the taste settled on my tongue.  Soon I was spitting out everything I could to get rid of the awful taste of the grass.  Why did grass taste so bad?  Because it is not in our nature to eat and enjoy grass.  Our nature is different from the cow’s.  To us grass tastes funny.

Sin is the same way.  Prior to our conversion, sin was our natural response.  Sin was the driving force in our nature.  Sin’s taste was appealing.  However, after we embrace the message of Christ, sin is no longer our natural bent.  To a believer, sin tastes funny.  What do we do with things that taste funny?  We spit them out.  Throughout the New Testament, the theme for believers is this:  Sin tastes funny.  Spit it out!  And the beauty of the whole enterprise is that because of the power of your new identity, your new nature in Christ, you can do it.  You don’t have to swallow.

Mull this idea over (like a cow chewing its …well you know).  Does this concept sound foreign to you?  Does it make sense to you?  If you would like to study further the biblical basis for this idea that sin tastes funny to the believer and its ramifications, please click here for a pdf file, “Your Moral Resemblance to Christ,” Jay’s line-by-line commentary on I John chapter 3.

One of the amazing things that happened to you and me when we embraced the gospel message of Jesus Christ was the beginning of a new relationship with sin.  In short, sin no longer has dominion over us.  Sin is no longer our master.  We are no longer slaves to sin (Rom 6).  (For a 7-page pdf commentary by Jay on Romans chapters 5-8 explaining the biblical basis for this concept click here.)

As for this post, let me summarize our new relationship with sin with this illustration.  Prior to our conversion, sin was the Great Dane in our life that bowls us over and flattens us every time we come home.  We hear him on the other side of the door and sure enough everytime we open it, he pounces.  Soon we are pinned under his paws.  The unbeliever has no power to resist.  Why is this so?  Because our very nature is to sin.  Both the sin nature we inherited from our father, Adam, and the sinful acts we commit enslave us.  Who will set us free from the Great Dane of sin?

Thanks be to God who sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to win our freedom.  Christ’s death on the cross delivered us not only from the penalty of sin, but from its power as well.  His death secured not just a future “not guilty”, but a present day “not enslaved.”  After our conversion, God takes up residence in our lives through the indwelling Holy Spirit, our sin nature has been removed, and the sin that controlled us is relegated to small potatoes.  Our sin is now the Chihuahua that we can kick to the sidelines when it nips at our heels.  (I apologize to all you dog lovers, but this picture helps me visualize the struggle with sin and what changed at our conversion.)

Sin has not been eradicated, just robbed of its power.  The Chihuahua can still have a nasty bite.  The Chihuahua can still be a pesky character.  In fact, to take the illustration even further based on Chihauhuas I’ve known, it may even think it is still in charge.  But this is not the case.  And while the essence of sin has not changed (it is still a dog), its power has been greatly diminished.

Are you experiencing this freedom from the power of sin or is there a disconnect between the promises of God and your own experience with sin?  Are you living the victorious life God advertises under the New Covenant?  If not, is God’s advertisement false, or do we not understand the advertisement correctly, or is there something missing in our experience?

I am a stickler for truth in advertising.  Misleading advertising drives me crazy.  I have to know, “What kind of life is God advertising for those who have embraced His gospel message?  Taking the New Testament as a whole, from Matthew to Revelation, it appears to me the advertisement is a life set free from the dominion and power of sin.  Let’s not “water down” the advertisement due to our lack of experience.  Rather than looking for a way to diminish the promise of the new birth, let us by faith embrace the promises and ask God to lift our experience to who He says we are.  Will you join me?