March 31, 2004

Reading: Gen 4:1-7

“If you do not do well, sin lies at the door” (7).

 

One of the most popular degrees with which college students graduate is “Business Management.” This reminds me of a subject in which many Believers are engaged to one level or another—that of “sin management.” Some of us are so obsessed with managing sin in our lives that it is always on our mind to the exclusion of most other issues.

From the moment a person is born again by the Holy Spirit, he or she is given a new consciousness or awareness of what sin is. We have been told that we are sinners and that our sins were laid on Jesus when He died on the cross. Salvation is the result of being convicted by the Holy Spirit that we are sinners, that Jesus died for our sin, and that we need a Savior who forgives our sin. We learn that sin is to be avoided at all cost and that it is an offense to God. We learn what sin is and that the devil is constantly at work trying to get us to commit sin. So far, so good. We know we are in a constant battle. The bible tells us how to combat sin and calls us to not let it have dominion over us. The problem is that many believers spend the rest of their lives concentrating on being a “Christian Soldier” that they never experience the excitement of knowing who God is.

We must never ignore sin and our tendency to commit sin. We must also be aware that sin is always with us, for “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” 1 John 1:8. I can be walking along the path of the Christian life when, seemingly out of nowhere, wrong thoughts leap into my mind—“When desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin” James 1:15. First the thought, then the sin, unless checked with the right choice—Rom 6:16. Sin is always lurking at the door of our heart waiting for us to give in to a wrong thought. Thank God for the first words of Gen 4:7, “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” Making the right choice presented to me in Rom 6:16 is “doing well.” The importance of this principle of God is evident because it is laid out so early in the Word of God.

Jesus personally undertook the problem of “sin management.” He died on the cross with my sin, and rose three days later without it. Because of this I will never suffer God’s condemnation. God is not standing behind every door ready to pounce on us when we sin. When we sin He does not point His accusing finger at us, but rather points us to His solution, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” 1 John 1:9. This is our involvement in sin management. The true Christian will do everything he can not to sin because we know it displeases the One whom we love.

Obsession with sin management however, will lead to discouragement, and, if unchecked, to depression. I urge every Christian to develop a deep desire to know God—who He is—His beautiful and wonderful attributes. Seek to know Him in His marvelous glory—as much as it is possible while in this earthly body. His Word tells us, “Honor and majesty are before Him; Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary” Ps 96:6. Let us devote ourselves to know Him as such. I am learning that the greatest sin management is in knowing Him. The more I know Him in all His glory, wonder and majesty, the more I stand in awe of Him, and the less power sin has in my life. After all, Jesus conquered sin and the author of it. “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” Rom 8:37. Learn to enjoy God in all His beauty, glory and magnificence. This is the greatest deterrent of sin.