“You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin” Hebrews 12:4 NASB
AN ILLUSTRATION
About a year ago I brought my children into the attic of our home, showing them what was up there, and I warned them about the dangers of touching attic insulation. I warned them that insulation has all these little microscopic plastic needles, and if you touch it, it’s like getting thousands of little splinters, and will cause it to irritate your skin. A few weeks ago (a whole year later), some insulation fell out of the ceiling when I was changing a light fixture. I was going to ask the kids to clean it up for me and… none of them wanted to go anywhere near it because they were scared to touch it! They were literally frightened of it, staying a few feet away, just staring at it in the distance with horror. I saw the power of how their childlike faith in one random thing I said a whole year before affected them. They just accepted what I said, and took it so literally and seriously.
I thought, "WOW. This is how I should be when I read the Bible. This should be my attitude towards sin when I read God's warning of it in His Word!"
Faith isn’t only believing that God’s Word is true, it’s also believing that what it says is serious!
AN EXAMPLE
I once met someone who said, "Sin doesn’t need to be that much of an emphasis. When sin comes we just squash it and move on.”
Was he right?
I got a sense that he wanted to “move on” to other truths like serving God and doing God’s work. That since we are already forgiven, that sin must not be such a big deal. But what does the Bible say? How much emphasis should we really have on fighting sin?
This verse is the one that spoke so clearly to me to confirm what emphasis in my life I should have on the fight against sin:
“You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin” Hebrews 12:4 NASB
To me, this is the clearest example of God saying to me personally, "My will for you is to strive against your sin, and not be so casual towards it!"
If we realize how dangerous sin is, what it did to our Savior, what it does to us, we will not be so casual towards it. If we see how one “small” sin which is not dealt with grows, and we believe God's exhortation against sin, we will have the same attitude that my children had toward that attic insulation - "I don't want to go anywhere near it."
Judas’ downfall started with “pilfering” from the moneybag. Perhaps he started with just 1 coin! Imagine that moment, how small it looked. But see how it ended - Jesus said it would have been better for him if he was never born.
I heard of a Christian man (who seemed to be a godly man, part of a good church) who fell into adultery, and when his elder asked him what happened his reply was simple: “One thing led to another.” It was a short answer but it’s exactly what happens! One thing leads to another.
In Matthew 5:22 we see that anger is a first step toward Hell! Lately the Lord has challenged me that: anger is a first step to Hell, and frustration/irritation is the first step to anger - so don’t take my response to irritation and annoyances lightly!
I'm challenged to grow more in a childlike faith in the seriousness of God’s Word and what He exhorts us to live for, and to live against.
A CASUAL ATTITUDE
I believe a casual attitude toward sin comes when either 1. The love of the Lord is too little or 2. The belief / faith in what He says is too little.
It’s possible to read God’s Word and think we believe it when we actually don’t.
I’ve seen myself do this - skim over verses, assuming since I know the verse that I must be living it, without even considering whether God is trying to tell me, “Bobby this word is for you, you need to work on this!”
Verses like, “every idle word you speak you’ll give an account of.” If we believe this why are we not so careful with every word that comes from our mouth?
Or “if you don’t forgive others God won’t forgive you.” We’d be afraid to have any negative attitude toward even 1 person on earth! We’d cry to God for a clean heart!
If we believed “lust in the heart is adultery”, we’d be so careful to have only appropriate interactions with the opposite sex, a red flag would come up quickly whenever the conversation starts getting too friendly, or close to flirtatious. We’d weep and fight it! For those of us who are married, we will aim to fight attraction to others by increasing our love and devotion to our own spouse!
If we believe, “God resists the proud”, we will run to the Lord in desperation to keep us from pride when people flatter us and compliment us.
This is how we'll aim to live in the fear of God if we really believe God's Word.
Job had such a fear of God that he sacrificed to the Lord even at the POSSIBILITY that his sons had sinned (Job 1:5). I believe God wants us to have a fear of Him like that: such a serious attitude toward living in a fear of the Lord that even at the possibility of our falling short (and may not see it), we will not be casual toward it but seek to judge ourselves, sort of like my children were standing some distance away from that insulation and staring at it intently, examining it.
"FLICKING AWAY" GOD'S BURDEN FOR US
When people are reading something on their cell phones, sometimes a notification comes in and pops up on the top of their screen. They glance at it and most of the time it’s not important, and so they “flick it away” with a finger swipe. Like: “It was worth glancing at, but I’m done with it, I’ll push it away until later.”
Imagine if you saw your older teenage child reading something or watching some video on their phone and you felt a burden from God, some verse or truth from your heart that you really wanted to share with them. So you send them a text message at that moment, and watching them from a distance you see their eyes glance upward when your message comes in… and they “glance and flick it away.” Imagine how you would feel. How much you would long that they would at least pay a little bit of attention to that word which you sent them that’s been such a burden on your heart!
I wonder if God looks down on us like that, trying to speak so many burdens to us that we need to hear; some life changing word that He really wants us to see that we need, and we glance at it, and “flick it away”, saying “Ok I got it, now let me get back to what I was doing.”
We can treat God’s word like that.
What is it that stops us from being more intent? It’s a lack of need. We glanced at it and think, “I already know this… flick... move on.”
There’s a man who knows all the words about “do not lust”, but he has a casual attitude towards his eyes. And God is trying to yell at him a warning, “Your casual eyes are going to ruin you! They’re going to ruin your family! I’m looking 10-15 years down the road and you’re headed for ruin if you don’t turn around now!” But he flicks the word away. Because he - in his mind, he already knows the danger of it. But he doesn’t, really. He thinks he does.
There’s a big difference between knowing and believing.
KNOWING BUT NOT REALLY BELIEVING
It’s very easy to feel we must be “fine” because we know the verses. But this is (I believe) one of the devil’s greatest deceptions. And that attitude will ultimately produce such a casual attitude toward sin, and from there, God can’t work in us like that, and backsliding will come.
God‘s Word is truth and anything it says I should take to the full extent of it. It’s not only true, but it’s true to the most highest extent of what should be valued and believed. Because this is what God Himself has said is true.
The Pharisees lived for the law of Moses, studied it, preached it. But Jesus told them "You don't believe what Moses says" (John 5:46-47). What does that tell us? It tells us: it's possible for a person to be passionate for a truth without actually believing it! I believe this exact thing is also the testimony of the lives of many who believe they are Christians - dedicating themselves to God's Word (study Scripture, doing external works) but not really believing it, taking it seriously in their own personal life as disciples. This is why James says, "faith without works is dead" (James 2:26).
I think of my children who wouldn’t come anywhere near the ceiling insulation because of one word I gave them a year ago, they remembered it and lived desperately by it toward what they saw was bad. If we have a childlike faith, do you see how our whole attitude will change if we really have true faith like that?
THE LAST DAY
The Bible says there will be many shocked people that stand before Jesus on the last day (Matthew 7:21-23). And so, here, I believe is one of the most important things we can do in our whole life before we die and come to that day:
2 Corinthians 13:5 "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!"
Why in the world did Paul tell that to a Christian church? Didn't they already choose to follow the Lord?
It's because of this very thing: that it's too easy for a person to assume they believe (since he or she knows the Scriptures and serves the Lord), when they actually don't. To assume that they know God, when they don't.
The test of real faith is: obedience - taking God's Word seriously in our own personal life.
1 John 2:3 "By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments."
Most people think they are keeping God's commands just fine. But we have to see: does God's Word make us have a resistance to our sin, like my word to my kids gave them a zeal to not go near ceiling insulation? If we truly know God's Word and act on it like that, that is the solid rock (Matthew 7:24).
And then from there, God does not leave us at "Test yourself." His will is not for us to run around fearful and frantic about our salvation, if we really are walking with Him. He wants us to have a joy and security in Christ. And it doesn’t mean that if I stumble that I’m not saved. The question is: what is my attitude toward my sin when I am made aware of it?
“The fact that you sin is not as serious as the fact that you don’t weep over your sin” - Brother Zac
He warns us to take things seriously, but then moves on to show us that there's an eternal security all of us can have if we really are in Christ:
1 John 5:13 "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life."
Praise the Lord!
CONCLUSION
Our fight to overcome sin is also the fight to overcome a casual attitude toward sin.
I used to examine how my walk with God was going by looking at how disciplined I've been (have I been diligent to pray and read the Bible, and other outward works). Now, I've learned to judge it by: what has been my attitude toward my sin and un-Christlikeness?
I was gripped early on by the word: "Seek the Lord with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13). But now I've learned that seeking the Lord is not mainly external good works, but fighting of my sin. Striving against sin for the sake of Christ, and seeking the Lord with all my heart are one and the same, because God cannot be found where sin is. Sin is the dividing wall which keeps me from God's presence (Isa 59:2).
Hating the dividing wall (sin/unclean conscience) for the sake of Christ is just like how a drunkard sees the harm he's doing to his wife and his marriage, and decides to strive against his alcoholism because he loves his wife and values his marriage above all.
May the Lord give us an endurance to daily carry our cross and fight against our sin which hurts Him, and ruins our fellowship. "Catch the foxes that are ruining your vineyard [your intimate love life with the Lord]!" (Song of Sol 2:15)
“Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ...” (2 Corinthians 5:9-10)