Day 2274 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.


Ephesians 4:22 NIV

I had this thought the other day and it has seriously stuck with me. Sin is a crutch. It's this thing that we convince ourselves that we need. We think that it's holding us up, making us happy, bringing us excitement and joy. And the longer we allow ourselves to rely on it the more power it has over us. At some point we end up giving it so much power that we can't imagine how we can go on without it.

We become enslaved to sin. We become chained to darkness. The evils that bring us their momentary pleasure become crutches that we lean on. We turn to them whenever we're angry, upset, having a bad day, not feeling well, or whatever excuse we need to justify it at the time. Eventually we convince ourselves that sin is harmless because it makes us feel good for a second or gives us some thrill of giving in to our selfish desires.

But in reality, sin is doing nothing but holding us back. Like a crutch, it helps us for a little while. It gives us something to lean on when we're going through life's hard days. But at some point it's not helping us anymore but holding us back instead. If we never learn to walk without crutches then we'll never know how strong we are. We'll never know if we're tough enough to make it on our own. We will just keep relying on those crutches. We will keep telling ourselves that we need that little assistance to keep from crashing.

Sin convinces us that we need it. We get used to the thrill of it. We learn to enjoy the rush of doing whatever our wicked nature entices us to do. We forget that we don't need it. We forget that we were created to live life without it. We forget that God is and will always be more than enough for us. He will always be our joy, our hope, our happiness, our peace. But we can't see that when we're used to looking for those things in sin.

Look, sin will hang around as long as we allow it to. But the Bible teaches us that isn't good enough. Christ and the message of His gift on the cross calls us to leave our sins behind and lean on Him. We have to walk away from the comfort of the sinful lives we've always known. We have to step away from it so that we can fully see who God made us to be. If we keep leaning on sin then we'll never know what we have inside, we'll never know what we have in Jesus! Ditch the crutches and learn to walk without them!

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